Guide To Email Marketing

Although choosing marketing strategies for your small law firm or business can be overwhelming, one of the most potent and budget-friendly choices is email marketing. If you think of email as old fashioned, think again:? 75% of small businesses count on email as their main source of gaining clients, BECAUSE IT WORKS!? Done correctly, email marketing for law firms can be an ideal component of an overall marketing plan. Here is a guide to help you examine the potential of email marketing for your small law firm, along with several things to consider as you get started.

Email Marketing: What is it?

Email marketing is essentially contacting clients and potential clients through email. The content may vary from a regular newsletter to a short piece of useful legal information, or any issues that matter to your contacts. Emails can be sent with varying frequency and in a variety of ways including drip campaigns, newsletters, webinars, and special offers.?

Reasons for Email Marketing

Email messages reach their target 90% of the time with minimal effort. Compared to other law firm marketing strategies, email marketing is cost-effective and the metrics are easy to track. Email marketing can be used to build your brand, share pertinent updates about your law firm, and promote your services. Email marketing works on many levels, such as:

Developing Your Business

Email marketing helps you reach out to potential leads and nurture established relationships. Emails remind your clients, colleagues and contacts that you exist, so they can utilize your services or refer others to your law firm.?

Connecting With Clients

Thank you emails and meeting reminders are fitting ways to interact with your clients. The number one complaint clients have with their lawyers is poor communication. Sending a message to touch base, offer helpful information or say “thank you” are excellent ways to stay connected.?

Updating and Educating Clients

A regular email newsletter or article can inform your clients, give updates about your law firm, or alert them to changes in local laws and other relevant information. You know that recent blog article you wrote? Include a link to it every single week, and you have already completed email content!

Go with a Goal in Mind

If you decide to use email marketing, it is crucial to begin with a plan, because sporadic, random emails will probably not trigger positive results. Perhaps you just want to stay in touch with past clients, gain referrals from other professionals, or give a reason for potential clients to contact you. Whatever your goal, keep it in mind as you construct your email marketing plan. To achieve several goals, you may need to launch different campaigns: one for prospective clients, one for past clients, and one for professional relationships and colleagues.?

Find Your Target Audience?

Once you have a goal in mind, combine it with your ideal target audience. If you do not match the right email to your ideal audience, whoever receives your messages may simply unsubscribe or file them under spam. However, when you have a goal in mind and match it with a strategic pool, you can get results. Targeted emails can turn up 18 times more profitable responses than general emails sent to a general audience, so start compiling a list of email recipients, including recent clients, website visitors, business associates and social media contacts.?

Choose Your Email Provider

Choosing an email marketing provider will streamline the process, so pick one with a stellar reputation. Companies like ConvertKit can send out messages to thousands of contacts.? Other top companies for law firm email marketing include:

• ?ConvertKit <—my preference!
• MailChimp
• MailGet
• GetVero
• Campayn
• MPZmail
• Pure360
• Groupmail
• TargetHero
• Sendloop
• Vision6
• Emailit

Successful Email Marketing for Law Firms

Consider these tips to optimize your email marketing plan:?

Stay Concise

Since most people spend under one minute browsing an email newsletter, skip any preliminary chatter and get right to the point. Be kind to your readers and keep their attention by creating short blocks of text, alternated with occasional images. Use short sentences and steer clear of legal jargon. If you have more to say, leave a link to a longer article located on your law firm website.?

Focus Your Message

Since you are directing marketing emails to your target audience, focus on their needs directly. If you are sending to colleagues, focus on your request for referrals, or announce an update in your law firm. If directing messages to prospective clients, you can illustrate legal how-tos or discuss regional issues.?

Be Mobile-Friendly

Since 25-75% of your audience will be reading your emails on their mobile phones, confirm that your text and images are optimized for mobile use. Use a responsive template which is legible on any kind of device.

Provide Value

We all get more emails that we can read thoroughly, so make yours count. Try to create valuable content that will answer common questions, give helpful advice, or discuss current events. Simplifying legal concepts for people will help individuals understand their own legal issues better, and you will establish your firm as a helpful and credible source in the process.?

Maintain Best Practices

As in everything else, your law firm must uphold best practices in email marketing. Always allow your recipients to opt-out of emails and place your law firm address on every email you send. Avoid words and phrases that may trigger spam filters, such as free, eliminate debt, discount, “why pay more?”, or cards accepted.

Include a Call to Action

The overall point of email marketing is to connect personally, so make sure every email contains a specific call to action and direct them to the next step. Your call to action could be a link to visiting your law firm’s website or calling your office.

Check Your Results

After launching your email marketing plan, be sure to check your results and adjust your strategy accordingly. Some marketing systems, such as ConvertKit, gives you basic analytics. Numbers matter, because they tell you if you are reaching your goals, or if you need to tweak your strategy. Two important metrics to measure are the open rate (the number of recipients who actually opened the email) and the click-through rate (the percentage of those individuals who opened the email and also clicked a link within the message).

Consider Integrating

Because both can be powerful tools, consider integrating email and social media in your marketing plan. They both have strengths, and they can be united to drive awareness, build your brand, and expand your reach. You can combine these two powerful forces by encouraging followers to subscribe to emails and including social media excerpts in your emails.

How Law Quill Can Help You With Your Email Marketing?

Email marketing for law firms is a robust way to communicate with clients and promote your business goals. Founded by an attorney of 20 years, Law Quill can help! If you are interested in having?Law Quill create your content?for your law firm’s website, and then help you understand how to promote it on an email list, we can help!!???Consider reaching out to?schedule an appointment today, listen to the?Legal Marketing Lounge podcast, or check out the bestselling book?Click Magnet: The Ultimate Digital Marketing Guide For Law Firms from Amazon today!

Annette Choti, Esq. has over twenty years of combined legal and digital marketing experience. She founded Law Quill, a full-service digital marketing agency for law firms and businesses in the United States and Canada. Annette is a sought-after CLE and keynote speaker for Bar Associations and legal events throughout North America. She creates and hosts the?Legal Marketing Lounge?podcast, and is the author of the bestselling book, Click Magnet: The Ultimate Digital Marketing Guide For Law Firms. Annette used to do theatre and professional comedy, which is not so far from the law, if we are all being honest.??