Very many lawyers invest little time into marketing. Their schedules are mostly filled with case-related tasks, and the little free time they get is divided up between family and personal matters.
A prominent criminal lawyer in Chicago, Gus Kostopoulos, once said that running a law firm is difficult. You need to focus on your cases and focus on growing your business. It’s really a 24/7 job.
When you have little time to invest in your firm’s growth, getting creative about how you make new business for your firm is very crucial. You could choose to grow your firm by increasing your audience reach and acquiring new customers, but that isn’t always the answer.
Given that 80% of your future revenue may come from just 20% of your existing customers, you should put more effort into maintaining your current customers than into customer acquisition.
Here are five brand marketing strategies that will skyrocket your customer retention results, boost your firm’s growth, and increase your revenues.
1. Have a user-friendly website that promotes your brand image
Having a website is a necessity when you want to interact with your customers effectively. However, unless you’re willing to invest resources into crafting a customer-centric website, you may not get the results that you’re looking for.
A few years ago, very few lawyers had websites. However, internet use has increased exponentially around the globe, and most of your customers are turning to the internet to interact with businesses. Your customers come to your website to know more about your, learn how your services how can help them, and to learn from you.
Given the importance of a website to a firm’s growth, you have to ensure that you have a well-designed site that loads responsively on all devices. In addition, the content on your website needs to be updated regularly with fresh content.
When you have a website that doesn’t load well on mobile devices, loads slowly and seems outdated, you can be assured that once your customers turn to your website in a bid to communicate or interact with you, they will be frustrated and browse away to another firm’s website.
2. Use content marketing to showcase your expertise
Even when you’re offering the best legal services in the market, some customers will still have reservations or doubts about your competence. Your prospects and customers may sometimes wonder whether you are the right person for the job.
The best way to show your expertise and boost your credibility is through content marketing. This is the art of creating and sharing online media (such as blogs, videos and case studies) with the aim of getting readers/viewers interested in your services.
By creating white papers and videos that explain the complexities involved in legal work, you’re proving that you’re well versed in the field and also educating your readers in the process.
In addition, content such as case studies of your best success successes can show your customers that you’ve helped many people successfully, and convince them that you can help them too.
3. Use social media to increase your audience reach and engage with your customers
Social media is an essential part of every attorney’s marketing campaign since most of their customers spend a lot of time on social media. Research indicates that the average person spends close to two hours on social media every day.
By using social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook, you can interact with customers while they’re online, and also make your firm more visible to the public and prospecting customers.
To optimize your social media engagement, you’ll need a load of great social media posts that will give your customers a chance to learn from you and maintain close connections with your firm.
Developing a clear brand voice that connects with your followers’ needs increases brand loyalty and engagement, and this engagement keeps you at the top of their minds when they’re in need of legal help.
To start connecting and engaging with your customers on social media, share useful updates, videos, photos and specials (e.g., discounts,) on your social media pages and you’ll be able to make your customers keep coming back to you for help time and time again.
4. Use an answering service to enhance communication with your customers
Ever noticed how some of your customers will call you after hours with new business opportunities?
How you handle your customers’ phone calls is very important to the results you get with your customer retention efforts.
When customers call your office, they want to talk to a human being, not a machine. So, when a customer has to listen to your voicemail message when they call, that’s a red flag that you’re impersonal, and it could turn off most clients.
Customers want an understanding voice that assures them that some action will be taken. Instead of turning customers away by forcing them to leave messages, why not use an answering service?
Answering services ensure that your customers always talk to a human being regardless of what time they call. The individual who answers will take the appropriate action depending on the each customer’s situation. They could guarantee them that a lawyer will contact them at a later time, forward the call to you if it’s very urgent, or take down essential details when it’s appropriate.
5. Use email marketing to track and follow up with your customers
Email is at the core of digital marketing.
According to Email Monday, email marketing has an ROI of 3800%. Of all the customer retention marketing techniques in use today, email marketing has the highest returns, and it’s also very easy to implement.
Email marketing is the use of email to create and grow relationships with your customers.
For most businesses, email marketing may mean sending customers newsletters with updates to their blogs plus a few sales emails. However, when you want to connect with your customers, you have to use your email to add value to your customers’ lives.
Start by giving them free insights and updates about their cases using email. Then send follow up emails with details about your progress with their cases. Frequent communication from you removes the element of uncertainty which may rob of your customers.
To top it all, you can send your customers content updates with case studies, white papers, blog updates or any other content that is relevant to them depending on their cases and their history with your business.
Done right, personalized email marketing allows you to engage with your customers, helping you build and maintain strong relationships that motivate your customers to keep coming back to you for legal aid.
Conclusion
Strategic customer retention is the best form of marketing. It costs a lot less compared to converting new leads and also creates positive, personal relationships with customers.
These relationships are the main reason why the probability of selling to an existing customer is above 60%, while the likelihood of selling to a new prospect is lower than 15%.
Take time to know your customers, then use the insights you gain to interact with them through multiple channels so that they can remember you the next time they need legal aid.
