How to Craft Email Content that Supercharges Conversions
" 95% of marketers felt that email marketing efforts were effective in meeting business goals.” Hubspot State of Marketing Trends Report 2022
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By the year 2025, email users are expected to reach 4.6 billion. If you're looking for email marketing tips to help your law firm deliver better results, you've come to the right place.
Email Marketing Can Be a Great Way to Connect with Potential and Current Clients
Email marketing has long been an effective advertising method for b2b and b2c businesses, including law firms. However, an email marketing campaign's success depends on much more than just blasting out a blanket message to as many people as you possibly can. The success of any marketing endeavor depends on the content and the target audience. The right content targeted at the right audience can significantly boost email conversion rates.?
Knowing where to start is not always easy. We'll level up your marketing with this quick, practical guide with eleven lawyer-friendly tips. These tips will help you create email campaigns that deliver results.?
1. Segment Your Email List
People expect emails to be relevant to their needs and interests. An email marketing campaign can be improved dramatically through segmentation. By creating separate emails for each segment of your subscriber list, your clients receive content that is most relevant to them. Such email personalization has been reported to increase open rates by 55%. This practice drives more engagement with your emails. Moreover, you can segment your subscribers any way you see fit - based on content topic, practice area, geography, industry, prior services, etc.
2. Locate Audience Pain Points
Before you can create written content or integrate other media that captures your audience's attention and inspires them to act, you need to understand what they're looking for and why. Once you know your clients’ problems, you can position yourself or your firm as the solution.
If you can't feel out these pain points on your own, here are a few quick tips for gaining a better understanding of them:
?Have your receptionist keep a log of questions they receive when callers reach out to your office.
?Brainstorm with the other attorneys at your office to come up with questions to address or touch on in your email.
?Jot down questions that more than one client has recently asked you.
?Pull questions posted in Zoom meeting chat boxes.
3. Solve Your Audience's Problems
Helpful and actionable content is the best, especially when highlighting legal services. To create content on this level, you'll need to steer content toward topics that help you address your readers' needs. Once you've got a handle on your audience's problems, you can start working on alleviating their stress concerning these issues.
?If legislation is coming down the pike or a new law has been passed that may impact your clients' lives or businesses, create a list of questions you are likely to be asked during a consultation and address one or two per email newsletter.
Following is the perfect example of what I mean by solving your audience's problems and alleviating stress – ALTHOUGH it is not legal marketing-related by any stretch of the imagination --
Still, it’s a great example. Pinterest. I don't visit Pinterest all that much or access the profile I set up there, nor do I really go there for anything else, EXCEPT when their emails land in my email box. Why? First of all, their email subject line - "We think you might like these Pins" gets my attention every time. But, the real kicker is, in one fell swoop - ONE EMAIL - contains a recipe for low-fat cheesecake, Victoria Beckham's latest outerwear, a trending marketing book or copywriting infographic, and a proven fitness program I can do right in my bedroom when I roll out of bed. What!?!? Really? Pinterest routinely nails ALL my pain points! Now that's how you solve your audience's problem in an email!
Enough said.
4. Use a Conversational Tone
To increase your email conversion rate, write copy your readers can identify with. Nobody wants to feel like they're being talked at or marketed to when reading anything. Keeping your tone light and conversational will help you avoid the pitfall of sounding like a traveling salesperson.
It's important to note that while your content should be conversational and friendly, you shouldn't sacrifice sounding knowledgeable. Striking a balance between coming off as casual and somebody who is an authority on a subject is a skill that, when mastered, is invaluable.
My subscription to Harvard's email list reminds me that if stuffy ole Harvard adheres to the "tone it down" concept, then the need to maintain a conversational tone is really real.
5. Avoid Jargon and Other Confusing Lingo
In addition to using a conversational tone, ensure your audience understands what you're trying to say. Sprinkling jargon and muddy terminology that's natural to professionals in your field but foreign to others could turn off your readers. Have someone you know who is outside your industry check your content for confusing terms and phrases because alienating or intimidating readers can cost you a potential client.
Lawyers, doctors, financial advisors, and IT geeks are notorious for this. They constantly forget that clients, patients, and non-techies need translations. Remember, your email subscribers are not your co-workers or colleagues. And just because you've been professionally involved (for a long time) in their lives, it still does not mean that they understand emails that include your field's everyday lingo.?
They know Intellectual. They know Property.
They know Equitable. They know Distribution.
But intellectual property and equitable distribution are Greek to the non-lawyer.
6. Craft and Offer Unique Content
If you want to boost your email conversion rate, you need to be willing to put in the time to create unique, engaging content. Potential clients have a world of lawyers and alternative legal services providers at their fingertips. If you want to keep conversion rates high, it'll take creativity and dedication.
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Everybody reading your content has access to the Internet. They've probably read the same generic advice and content a thousand times on different attorneys’ websites before landing on your email list. To hold their attention, you need to add value to their search for what they're looking for. Subscribe to your competitor's email list so you can see the content they are emailing to your target audience. Look for a hole they're leaving and fill it. Don’t be afraid to break the mold and do something unconventional. For example, get someone to interview you on a relevant topic and post the interview in the newsletter instead of an article. Or video a lively roundtable discussion with your entire legal team and post it in your email newsletter. Let them see you laugh, sip water, or lean back in your chair as you focus on the speaker discussing an issue relevant to the reader, etc. People like and relate to human lawyers.
7. Find Beautiful and Engaging Images that Inspire Readers
Don’t be boring. Many websites offer free content, tools, and images you can download to spruce up copy and catch readers' eyes. It's critical that you set yourself apart from the competition. Improving the appearance of your newsletter may be an ideal way to achieve that. Find descriptive graphs and charts and beautiful images to help clarify or highlight the wisdom you’re sharing.
Here are a few free image sources to help you enhance your emails:
Or Use Adobe Express tools to create a slew of graphics/projects for Free, forever.
8. Capture Readers' Attention with Exceptional Copy
Email marketing is a form of relationship marketing. The most effective way to create meaningful, personalized experiences is through copy that connects with and engages your readers. Creating first-rate copy can exponentially increase your email conversion rates. Your reader should think, "This lawyer gets me.”
?Begin with the end in mind and ask yourself what you want your reader to do when she lands on your email. Is it to schedule a consultation, download a white paper, or attend a Q&A webinar you’re hosting? What is the primary goal of the email, and how can you frame the content to emphasize that goal? What are your readers' most common objections, and how can you address them through your email copy?
9. Stick to Your Promises
Promises are great-- but only when kept.
If you promise to address an issue, make?sure you do before you conclude the email. Don't make calling your office a requirement to get the answer. One misrepresentation can make the difference between being seen as a trustworthy thought leader and a fraud.
Never make a promise you can't keep. Maintaining a reputation as a respected professional is worth much more than empty words just to make your phone ring.
10. Avoid Lengthy or Blocky Text
Marketing professionals have caught on to the benefits of leaving some white space in their content. Using short paragraphs and things like bullet-point lists can help drastically reduce instances of blocky text.
Tips to make your emails easier on the eyes:
11. Remain Consistent
Consistency adds a needed layer of order and sanity to our lives. This is just as true when it comes to email marketing. Yes, change happens. I am a rebranding copywriter, so I get that. But flip-flopping between the look and feel of your emails can be unsettling because you've already established an expectation from your subscribers. Keep a reasonably steady schedule for emailing your content unless you send the occasional e-blast about a special event or breaking news. Of course, to keep things from getting boring for your readers, you can switch up the formatting (not the branding) and send text emails, video emails, etc.
My favorite daily news email – The Skimm - arrives every morning like clockwork, Monday through Friday, and is in my email box before I get out of bed. I count on that. I like that. It's part of my daily routine. And, even when they change things graphically, it still maintains that recognizable Skimm appearance.
Keep your quality consistent as well; that's important for your brand. Readers pick up on drops in email quality. If you don't think you have enough content to maintain a particular frequency and quality in your email marketing, it's time to start looking for other ideas.
If you have any other ideas about improving email content, let us know in the comments below.?
Despite What Some Might Think, Email Is Very Much Alive
Businesses around the world continue to see significant ROI from email marketing.
When measuring the success of your email marketing efforts, connecting with clients where they already are—in their inboxes—can be a huge factor.
?Happy Writing!
Stacey