Putting together a law firm marketing plan doesn't have to take months. In fact, you can do it in just a few hours by following these 6 simple steps.
1) Choose your niche practice area - All lawyer marketing starts by knowing who you want to target and what their key concerns, frustrations and problems are. Marketing is primarily about psychology. To create effective marketing messages, you must get inside your prospects' head and understand what he or she is worrying about.
2) Create your marketing message - All marketing messages must be specific to your target market to be effective. If you have multiple target markets, you need a different marketing message for each. A good marketing message identifies a key problem or frustration your prospect is having, provides evidence that problem exists and will only get worse if your prospect doesn't take action, offers several solutions to the problem, and demonstrates why your services are a good way to solve that problem.
3) Get in front of the right people - Once you know your niche and your marketing message, it's time to distribute your message to the people most likely to hire you. Think about who your target market is - where can you reach them? What do they read? Where do they go? What do they do? Which events do they attend? What websites do they visit? Which keywords do they search for on Google? You have to put your message where they will see it.
4) Use education-based marketing - Your marketing should seek to educate prospects about their problems and frustrations rather than talking about you, your experience and your services. People are only concerned with "what's in it for me?" You have to focus on them and how they would benefit if they hired you. Don't assume they know - they don't have the time or attention span to figure it out if you don't tell them.
5) Follow up - Marketing is rarely a one-step process where someone sees your ad, calls for a consultation and hires you on the spot. Usually, they have to think it over, collect information, do research, talk to others, decide if they want to move forward, and finally, take the necessary steps to work with you. Assume that is the norm and plan accordingly. How can you help people make better decisions? How can you demonstrate the benefits of your services? How can you get them to believe you?
6) Closing the deal - Eventually, you have to ask for the business. When you've discussed your prospect's case, his options, and any objections he might have, the next step is asking for a signed working agreement and a check. Realize this is usually a big step for your prospect. Your services probably aren't cheap and he has no idea you can deliver on what you promise, but he has decided to take a leap of faith. Help him out by custom-tailoring your services to his problem, starting with small projects, and clearly defining your fees ahead of time.
To successfully create a law firm marketing plan, you have to take each of these six steps into account. Each builds from the previous one, so if there is a break in the chain, the system will fail - or will run very inefficiently.
1) Choose your niche practice area - All lawyer marketing starts by knowing who you want to target and what their key concerns, frustrations and problems are. Marketing is primarily about psychology. To create effective marketing messages, you must get inside your prospects' head and understand what he or she is worrying about.
2) Create your marketing message - All marketing messages must be specific to your target market to be effective. If you have multiple target markets, you need a different marketing message for each. A good marketing message identifies a key problem or frustration your prospect is having, provides evidence that problem exists and will only get worse if your prospect doesn't take action, offers several solutions to the problem, and demonstrates why your services are a good way to solve that problem.
3) Get in front of the right people - Once you know your niche and your marketing message, it's time to distribute your message to the people most likely to hire you. Think about who your target market is - where can you reach them? What do they read? Where do they go? What do they do? Which events do they attend? What websites do they visit? Which keywords do they search for on Google? You have to put your message where they will see it.
4) Use education-based marketing - Your marketing should seek to educate prospects about their problems and frustrations rather than talking about you, your experience and your services. People are only concerned with "what's in it for me?" You have to focus on them and how they would benefit if they hired you. Don't assume they know - they don't have the time or attention span to figure it out if you don't tell them.
5) Follow up - Marketing is rarely a one-step process where someone sees your ad, calls for a consultation and hires you on the spot. Usually, they have to think it over, collect information, do research, talk to others, decide if they want to move forward, and finally, take the necessary steps to work with you. Assume that is the norm and plan accordingly. How can you help people make better decisions? How can you demonstrate the benefits of your services? How can you get them to believe you?
6) Closing the deal - Eventually, you have to ask for the business. When you've discussed your prospect's case, his options, and any objections he might have, the next step is asking for a signed working agreement and a check. Realize this is usually a big step for your prospect. Your services probably aren't cheap and he has no idea you can deliver on what you promise, but he has decided to take a leap of faith. Help him out by custom-tailoring your services to his problem, starting with small projects, and clearly defining your fees ahead of time.
To successfully create a law firm marketing plan, you have to take each of these six steps into account. Each builds from the previous one, so if there is a break in the chain, the system will fail - or will run very inefficiently.
Free Law Firm Marketing Plan Guide
