Referral Marketing for Lawyers: A How-to Guide

Word-of-mouth has always been the best way for a Lawyer or a Law Firm to get clients. It is a good sign when people refer clients to you. It means that you have done an excellent job and your hard work is paying off. However, just doing good work is not enough for getting referrals.

So, are you milking every strategy and tactic available to you? Do you want to know what these tactics are?

Keep reading to learn more!

Getting Referrals from Clients

If you are a Lawyer or a Law Firm, you have to establish a system through which satisfied clients are willing to refer cases. Let us see how this is done.

• Excellent service as your first priority

This is the first step. If you can’t get this right, then everything else is futile. You must be knowledgeable about the law and, ideally, have domain expertise. Make sure you have invested adequately in yourself before advising clients.

From the first point of contact with the client till the very last day, you must act professionally. Provide them top-quality service as well as minute details such as offering them tea or coffee. Such efforts will pay you in the long run.

It would be best if you kept your clients updated with the status of their case. A good tool for this is Cases Status. Alternatively, you may go old school and use an app such as WhatsApp and text your clients about the progress of their case.

• Client testimonials

Client testimonials are a great tactic to build credibility for you or your firm. Past clients who are happy with your services can help you in building your reputation. The following are a few good ways to approach this:?

• Put up video testimonials of clients on your firm’s website. Furthermore, you should get quotes from actual clients for putting them on the landing page of your website.
• Asking your clients to give you a 5-star rating on Google Reviews is highly recommended. You will be surprised how many people search for attorneys on Google.
• Similarly, ask for clients to write a recommendation for you on your LinkedIn profile. Potential clients who want to hire lawyers use LinkedIn frequently.
• Be Honest when asking for referrals

If you have been sincere and diligent with your work, please don’t shy away from asking for referrals directly. Be straightforward and explain how their referral would add value to your existing client base.

Getting Referrals from other Lawyers and Professionals

It is vitally important for a practising lawyer to be acknowledged by other lawyers or professionals in allied areas. This further strengthens your credibility. Essentially, it boils down to classical networking. So, let’s understand some specific ways in which this is done.

• Put yourself out there

You should attend as many symposiums, bar council meetings, and workshops related to law. Many lawyers attend such gatherings, and as such, it is an ideal place to build connections. Never shy away when called upon to host or speak at such an event.

?Try and help other lawyers in their endeavours. You should ask them out for lunch and take a genuine interest in their practice areas. Once they understand more about the kind of work you do, they will be in a better position to refer you.

?If you are a young lawyer, senior attorneys are more than kind enough to refer their smaller matters to you. All you need to do is show up and be warm to them. Discuss legal principles and burning issues with them. Create a perception that you are a curious learner, and you would soon find several cases coming your way!

• Make use of podcasting and webinars

Let us understand this point with an example. You start a YouTube channel for your firm or yourself, where you frequently organize webinars (or podcasts). You use your network and influence to invite people from a plethora of legal fields and interview them.

?“What will this accomplish?” one may ask. What you’ve essentially done is a network with your guest speaker (a fellow lawyer), displayed your legal prowess, and increase your visibility on the internet.?

So, you have built a connection with a fellow attorney and increased the chances of getting referrals from them. This is how one provides value.

But, don’t just stop here. Invite people from a variety of areas on your podcast (or webinars). If you’re a criminal lawyer, invite a psychologist who has worked with criminals. If you’re a tax attorney, invite an accountant. If you’re a technology lawyer, invite a cybersecurity expert. And so on. These professionals could, in turn, refer a client to you.

Marketing Tactics

When it comes to referrals, some techniques should be a part of your marketing arsenal. Let’s discuss some of these.

• Keep track of your referrals

Firstly, you should be keeping track of where your clients are coming from. You should maintain records of the clients and who referred them to you. Once you understand where your clients are coming from primarily, focus your marketing activities excessively on those areas.

These days there are tools like ‘Clio Grow’ which streamline this process. Alternatively, you can maintain an excel sheet for this purpose and update it frequently to keep track of referrals.

• Express gratitude for being referred

This is a crucial step of the process. Be thankful and express gratitude for every referral coming your way. Unless you show that you appreciate such acts of kindness, you will no longer be sent referrals.

For example, every time you win a case that was a referral, you can go to social media and write something like:

“Firstly, I would like to thank Mr X for referring me to this case. Although, I’m pretty sure that he was more than competent to handle it on his own.”

Give credit where it is due and appreciate their help.?

If you have past clients who have referred clients to you frequently, you should at least have the decency to send them gifts on festivities and holidays.

Small favours like sending them flowers, gifting them a book, etc., will yield bigger favours in the future. Make efforts that will make them feel included.

• Referral Marketing: Creating a process

The method described above is a benign idea that should get you referrals in an ideal world. But, in reality, even a satisfied past client will hesitate to refer clients to you unless they benefit somehow. This is a bitter truth that you must accept.?

So, you can put a system in place for this purpose, not just for clients but for everyone. In this way, anyone who refers a client to you gets rewarded in some way. For example, you can give away a fixed sum of money for each referral or a free legal consultation per referral.

Conclusion

A referral strategy is essential if you want to succeed as an independent lawyer or law firm. There is no harm in requesting referrals. The wider your network, the better your client base!

Need help with Marketing?

I can help you with your marketing initiatives to generate more leads to get you more clients,??contact now?to discuss your marketing strategy.