There are many ways to market a law firm, and the best approach combines more than one. Whatever channels you use, it is imperative that you track the leads coming in through each.

Lead tracking is the science of determining how your potential clients find you — and how many people each advertising method is sending your way.

Furthermore, attribution is then assigning credit to marketing touchpoints that a customer was exposed to prior to their purchase or conversion.

Need help understanding other marketing definitions? Download our digital marketing glossary here.

By comparing leads from television to, say, leads from your website, you can begin to get a sense of what’s working and what’s not. But caution! Things aren’t always what they seem.

The tricky thing about lead tracking and attribution for law firms is that your clients don’t always travel a straight path to your front door. Personal injury clients, for instance, are likely to hop around from one source to the next before landing in a case file on your desk. We call that path The Client Journey, and it’s typically a circuitous one.

But with all that hopping around, how are you supposed to measure your success in advertising? Where are your calls and cases really coming from?

Extreme Vetting: The Attorney-Prospective Client Relationship

We encourage all of our clients to assign a unique track line to every advertising asset. When an injured person views your TV ad, for instance, they should see a different phone number than the one they find on your website.

That way, whenever a particular phone line rings, you know exactly how the person got that number — in theory.

There’s just one problem with that theory, though: the modern customer journey is not linear. Everything leads to the internet.

Customers tend to vet service providers extensively before making first contact — especially when it comes to legal service providers (and personal injury lawyers in particular).

Your prospective clients simply have so many options available to them that it wouldn’t make sense to contact you without doing their due diligence first. After all, they can access tremendous amounts of information about local attorneys in a mere moment on Google, and they’re well aware of that power.

Accordingly, even if a client first learns about you from a highway billboard or a local broadcast commercial, they’ll likely visit your website as a next step. Then, when they finally contact you, they’ll either use the online form or the phone number on your website.

We often hear from law firms who are dismayed that their TV track lines are showing relatively few contacts. But the truth is that many of your online track lines actually belong to television or other advertising assets, because that’s where they first discovered you.

The Big Picture Is Made Up of More Than One Kind of Screen

Since many of your leads are coming to you as a result of multiple advertising assets, it’s critical that they all complement each other, working together as a cohesive whole — a complete user experience.

Everything needs to be stable, ready, and working well for the ease of the users (who in this case are usually accident victims or the family members of accident victims).

For example, if a car accident victim – or one of their relatives – sees your commercial on TV while in the hospital room and then visits your website on their mobile phone while still in the hospital bed; your site must be mobile-responsive, fast-loading, and informative.

They’re coming to you for help, so your website should be ready to educate, inform, and lead them to the next step on their journey: making contact.

Law Firm Synergy and The Client Journey

Think of your prospective clients as digitally empowered people. Thirty years ago, they would have picked up a landline phone with a long, curly cord and dialed a 1-800 number they found in one of two places: the phone book or on the commercial they caught (in real time).

Today, there’s no counting all the ways they might have found you, nor all the information they might have gathered about you along the way.

Take a look at this video which aptly demonstrates just how unpredictable and nonlinear the modern Client Journey can be.

https://digourideas.wistia.com/medias/ngl9u2n94x?embedType=async&videoFoam=true&videoWidth=640

In a world where accidents can happen at any moment, and the victims might look literally anywhere for an attorney to help them, your law firm’s challenge is to be anywhere and everywhere.

So just as a multimedia company like Disney or Universal might look to promote itself across film and television and theme parks and the internet all at once, you should adopt a similarly synergetic view of your legal marketing initiatives.

Be sure that wherever a client’s journey starts, you’re part of the path.

Talk to Network Affiliates About Lead Tracking and Call Tracking for Law Firms

Raw data is less important than how you read that data and what you decide to do with it. Don’t make faulty assumptions about your legal marketing assets because you’re misconstruing your call tracking or lead tracking metrics.

Reach out to our team at Network Affiliates and learn how your law firm can take full advantage of the modern Client Journey.

Call us at 877.709.0633 or simply use our easy online contact form today.

What’s the goal of a legal advertising campaign?

“To reach a lot of people,” you might answer… or maybe “to get more business!” But those goals aren’t the same, and it’s all too easy to confuse the two — especially where television and online marketing are concerned.

Advertising is playing an increasingly important role in the legal services market, with surveys showing that law firms across the country are buying larger shares of media (and spending more on marketing in general) than ever before – more than $1 Billion in 2016 alone.

In fact, in terms of dollars spent on television advertising each year, the legal services sector has grown faster than any other industry.

“Dollars spent” doesn’t always translate to “dollars returned,” though. Too many law firms are expending large amounts of money on attorney TV ads that don’t deliver sufficient ROI.

There are two key reasons for that. The first and biggest problem is that the messaging in these ads frequently fails to resonate with viewers. We’ve recently written about how to connect with personal injury clients, for example. The right approach can make a world of difference in terms of results.

The other major problem is more internal in nature: when individuals actually do respond to the ad, law firms don’t always take the right steps to convert them into clients.

This latter dilemma is a real challenge for busy people who are pros when it comes to complex legal questions but who might struggle to make their marketing work. Below, we look at practical ways to bridge the disconnect between running attorney TV ads and actually generating new cases.

The Difference Between Leads and Intake

The first step is to understand the distinction between leads and intake.

“Leads” refer to the people who take some action in response to your marketing efforts. They see your ad on television and then call your office, for instance. Or maybe they find your website on Google and then ask a question in the chat box.

Leads are great. They are an early goal of any marketing campaign. The more of them you attract, the better. But they aren’t clients — yet.

“Intake,” meanwhile, refers to the process of converting these inbound leads to clients.

We find that law firms are often very excited about their marketing efforts at first, and with the right strategy in place, they successfully attract new leads. But what’s lacking is the conversion from lead to client.

Too many law firms fail to convert leads to intake. And without skilled and dedicated intake, these leads ultimately don’t do you much good. ROI is measured in terms of successful intake procedures.

How to Track Your Intake

So how do you improve your intake? The first step is to track it.

To the fullest extent possible, your office should keep a clear record of every single lead.

On the telephone end of the spectrum, when the phone rings, ask your support staff to collect names and contact information, as well as the date and time of each call. This way, you can monitor who has (and just as importantly, who hasn’t) converted into a case.

Online, you and your web marketing team can use analytics tools to monitor how many people are taking action through your website and how many of those people return and/or become clients.

Learn more about using lead tracking to monitor your marketing effectiveness.

7 Simple Ways to Improve Your Intake Game

The more you put into lead conversion, the more you get out of it.

There’s a lot you and your office can to do to get serious about capitalizing on each and every person with a worthwhile case who cares enough to visit or contact your firm.

The following tips are practical, actionable ideas that you can begin implementing today to make a difference:

• As we mentioned earlier, immediately get contact information for everyone who contacts your office. This should be the first thing you do because people calling on cell phones often lose service unexpectedly. If the call is disconnected, you can call them back.

• Commit to never keeping a caller on hold for more than one minute without someone personally re-acknowledging the call. (The less, the better.)

• Be sure that you’re identifying your law firm by name at each point of contact — every email form, every phone call, every ad. Your prospective clients almost always talk to more than one firm before making a decision. Make sure they remember who you are.

• If the client comes to you by phone, make sure they also know about your website. Likewise, if they come to you online, make sure your phone number can be easily located. Surveys show that many clients use both forms of contact before making a decision.

• Listen in on your support staff’s handling of calls. Monitoring your call intake is an important part of client conversion and retention.

• Good old-fashioned politeness goes a long way. We have found that law firms often give off a “we’re too busy” vibe, and that’s enough to send people running to your competitor. Remember: clients don’t see their cases as cases; they see them as emotional needs. At every point of contact, send the right emotional message: you care.

• Always follow up. So many leads are left unconverted because the firm never takes the time to reinitiate contact. Don’t leave leads cold. If you don’t go after them, your competitors will.

Click here to for the full version of this intake infographic.

Ask Our Experts About How to Generate More Cases for Your Law Firm

Network Affiliates is a team of legal marketing professionals who emphasize creative approaches to legal advertising, always with an eye toward measurable growth.

Attracting leads and converting them to clients can feel like an overwhelming, full-time job all its own. But it doesn’t have to be. That’s what we’re here for.

Reach out and learn more about how we can help. Call 877.709.0633 or simply use our easy online contact form today.

Give your law firm’s digital ads new life with dynamic phone number insertion

Lawyers, if you didn’t get the memo: The internet is the new Yellow Pages. Law firm marketing is officially a digital play.

Rather than tracking phone calls from clients thumbing through the phone book, today it’s all about tracking leads and conversions through the internet.

Call tracking used to be simple: Put a tracking number on your TV ad, a tracking number in your Yellow Pages ad, and monitor inbound-call numbers.

When a person used the phone book they would scan for the heading of attorneys; look at the largest ads; find the ones that mentioned the service they needed; and call three to five ads to “interview” lawyers. In the past, law firms used a simple internal system to track the phone calls that converted to cases, and thus prove the profitability of marketing efforts.

Unfortunately, Yellow Page ads are not as effective as they were. It’s now all about generating traffic to your website.

Your website is a conversion tool. You must display all of your law firm’s information in a format that is easy to read and navigate.

On the internet, people type what they’re looking for into a search box. They are shown websites that best pertain to their search or “answer” their problem. Users will then scan presented websites, and, based on what they see, may or may not call you. Like before, people make up to five calls to interview law firms and make a decision about who to go with.

Today, the internet is an undoubtedly more powerful channel than the phone book, but it’s also more complicated. There are so many more digital channels to keep track—and take advantage—of.

Digital marketing strategies for lawyers require more precision and demand that law firms know the answers to all kinds of questions, including:

• Is our website generating phone calls?
• What’s the most profitable ROI channel: TV, SEO, PPC, social?
• Are our SEO and PPC efforts working? Are they producing calls and cases?

To answer these questions, lawyers should be using something known as dynamic phone number insertion (DNI). DNI is a tech tool that measures the impact of digital efforts on inbound phone calls.

If you’re not using a company that has this tracking capability, you should start looking for one that does. As smart lawyers build marketing plans for the future and learn how to systematically advertise their law firm online, DNI is an absolute must for tracking the success of digital marketing campaigns and legitimate return on investment.

How does DNI integrate with Search Engine Optimization (SEO)? 

When a consumer clicks though to your website from an organic listing, DNI technology generates and displays a number unique to that specific user. Essentially, each user will see a different number appear on your website. When they call that exclusive number (all linked to your office system), we are able to monitor the inbound calls, knowing that each came from your organic SEO efforts.

How does DNI integrate with Pay per Click (PPC)?

Much the same way it does with SEO. When users land on your website by clicking on your paid Google ad, each person will see a different phone number based on the keyword search they initiated. This gives you remarkable control over targeting keywords more efficiently and managing your PPC budget. You can strategically shift money toward keywords that are producing strong phone calls and away from keywords that are ending in clicks alone. That’s dynamic!

Wait. Aren’t there already unique numbers in PPC ads?

Yes, most Google ads are tied to a distinct number. Do a search for “injury lawyers”. You will notice the top ads (denoted by the yellow “Ad” icon) have a tracking number different from other numbers listed on the attorney’s website. If a user doesn’t click the ad but calls the number listed, this is a “free” inbound call, which provides valuable ROI. Our current numbers show attorneys are getting approximately half of their phone calls from Google ads.

Bottom Line

With today’s available technology, it’s hard to deny that lawyers should be spending money on targeted search engine marketing.

Ready to see how profitable your online marketing can be? The experts at Network Affiliates use DNI to enhance our clients’ digital marketing strategies and produce results people can measure. We’ve got all kinds of marketing tips for law firms. Contact us today to learn more (888) 461-1016!

Specific split testing can boost attorney marketing for the greater good

A/B testing on webpages is an increasingly popular way to enhance the performance of digital assets and conversion rates in attorney marketing. Online A/B testing compares two “versions” (variant A and B) of a webpage, using alternate URLs or testing scripts, to see which one performs better among similar visitors at the same time.

The goal of A/B testing, also called split or bucket testing, is to test what your audiences need to convert from visitors into to a secured clients or legal cases. For example, even if your website gets a high number of hits, has a low bounce rate and boasts a fully integrated a social campaign, it’s still possible that you’re missing out on actual conversions. In A/B testing, the page that converts more visitors—or turns into greater realized revenue—wins out and should be used as a baseline going forward.

Law firms can leverage A/B testing to maximize existing traffic to a website section or landing page for a specific mass tort or area of law, for example. The methodology can pay off significantly because conversions are considered cheap when compared to acquiring paid traffic through web ads or competitive keywords. A/B testing dangles some very tempting return on investment, because even minor changes can generate a big spike in leads and “sales.”

There are plenty of examples of where making a minor tweak to copy, a call to action or the visual organization of a page can lead to a significant jump in conversions. In one example a Microsoft technology partner tried a simple A/B test at its website’s biggest conversion point: the verbiage on the button people needed to click on to get a quote. Veeam Software changed the phrase “Request a quote” to “Request pricing” and saw its conversion rate jump by over 160%.

On a legal website that “conversion point” could be related to online chat, a request-more-information form or a CTA on a landing page. If people aren’t taking the next step to talk to your attorneys, a basic A/B testing could be an effective way to trigger new business—without a massive investment.

 

Why aren’t more law firms A/B testing?

If you’re new to the concept of A/B testing, you’re not alone. While huge social platforms such as Pinterest or brands like Apple do A/B testing regularly to see what’s going to engage people more online, most lawyers aren’t aware of the advantages of A/B testing. In fact, they’re happy if their websites are up to date.

The reason more lawyers haven’t used A/B testing is because it can seem overwhelming to institute and measure online experiments, especially with confusing factors such as seasonal spikes or unrelated site changes that lie outside of A/B controls. Split testing can also get complicated because of regular updates in search-ranking algorithms, including Google’s increasing dependence on artificial intelligence outcomes.

Likewise, the content management systems on which most legal websites are built can also be a barrier to A/B testing. Standard CMS often doesn’t include obvious capabilities to make test arbitrary groups of pages easily. It can also be challenging to gather the right information and understand how to analyze metrics that will lead to effective future digital strategies—without jumping to conclusions. Testing content and design changes to a page can require special codes or tools that most attorneys don’t have the in-house capability to install, manage or monitor.

The key to smart A/B testing that will yield true ROI is starting with good data and an isolated goal; employing an expert marketing crew and sustainable implementation strategies; and knowing how to identify real results and subsequent best practices to follow going forward. The easiest way we can cover these topics is by addressing some the most common questions our attorney marketing clients have when it comes to A/B testing.

 

What should I A/B test for?

Sometimes the answer to this is quite obvious. For example, your landing page about talcum powder lawsuits or a webpage where it should be easy to start an online chat about a car accident case isn’t yielding the results you’d expect. Other times, it’s not clear what’s not working, but you know your phone isn’t ringing and people aren’t engaging with your firm online or sharing your content.

What’s neat about A/B testing is it’s really wide open. You can test hunches that your content is off or the visual layout of a page is too cluttered for people to digest. This can include split testing on all kinds of elements, including headlines or sub headlines; body or paragraph text on a page; testimonials; a specific call to action; button text; live links; images; content at different places on the page; social triggers; media; and more. Advanced tests can compare different promotions, free trials, navigation orientation and other tweaks to the user experience on your law firm’s website.

 

Where do I start with my first A/B test?

The best way to institute your first A/B test sample is to start with your most pressing attorney marketing question. Why is our website’s bounce rate so much higher than the competition? Why are only a fraction of visitors chatting with our lawyers online? Why aren’t people sharing the informative content we write? Where’s the ROI on the landing page we launched? After you’ve pinpointed the question you want to answer, follow these steps:

1. Use Google Analytics or other website metrics tools to understand the full picture of your current visitor behavior before you start an A/B test.
2. Lean on your attorney marketing gurus to help you pinpoint a hypothesis that you can test easily, such as adding additional links to copy on certain pages or adding video to a landing page.
3. Create a site-wide A/B test in which the variant page includes the changes in your hypothesis designed to achieve a specific goal.
4. Analyze data via website tracking statistics. Are your specific identified issues (i.e., bounce rate, time on page, link clicks, shares, etc.) changing or improving?
5. Act on your conclusions. When you’ve agreed that you’ve given an A/B test enough time to play out, have your marketing team draw conclusions and update your pages as needed. Then move on to the next test.

 

How long should we conduct an A/B test?

Every A/B test is different, so the timing will vary accordingly. For example, how quickly you see the effects of a change depends on the size of your website, how many pages you’re testing at once, the existing traffic on those pages and the scale of the shift you’re deploying. You could argue that an A/B test should last until you start to see any clear improvement against your control indicator.

If you’re willing to wait a bit to ensure that you’re not acting on premature data, especially for large-scale alterations, let the test settle a bit and dig into the data deeper so you can make an informed decision and prioritize types of A/B tests for the future.

 

Is it true that you can “cheat” on A/B testing?

Not so much anymore. Search engines like Google have cracked down on cheating your site and its content to get better rankings. People used to “stuff” their website content with hot keywords. Google now de-ranks sites for that. Likewise Google dings websites for “cloaking,” or showing a set of content to humans and a secret set to the Googlebot, even in A/B testing. Legal websites that try to get away with this practice will actually get demoted, which will only work against improving conversion rates.

 

What are some best practices when it comes to A/B testing?

A digital attorney-marketing agency can walk you through the smartest ways to accomplish your specific A/B testing goal, but in general there are some rules to follow to ensure that you get good results and make the process less intimidating. We’ve covered some of these above, but the most effective place to start is with concrete data, both qualitative and quantitative, about your audiences and their online behaviors. Keep design, branding, and tests as simple as possible; research has shown that typically the most simple “variants” win out. Look at both text and visual elements when considering what to test. You can streamline content that may be turning visitors off, and you can play with the color, shape and size of everything from buttons to pictures.

But perhaps the most important practice to keep in mind when A/B testing is to focus on optimizing around ROI. Remember, more website traffic is great, but more conversions is what will ultimately lead to a swifter revenue stream.

At Network Affiliates, our goal is to help lawyers craft every word, every placement and every decision in the digital world with highly targeted, laser-like focus. Let our experts walk you through an A/B test that could boost business starting today. Call toll free: (888) 461-1016.

 

Should your law firm be open round-the-clock?

After hours call intake is an affordable insurance policy to ensure you’re converting leads you’ve already purchased.

Ask yourself: are you missing calls that could become cases?

It doesn’t matter if you are a firm that spends thousands of dollars or hundreds of thousands dollars per year on marketing, you are paying to generate leads that need to be spoken to and evaluated.

If your after-hours calls are being sent to a voice mail system where prospective clients may not leave a message, think of how much money you could be leaving on the table. Stop wasting money and give yourself the opportunity to sign more cases off the leads you are already paying for.

Whether you’re a busy law firm that’s understaffed or a small practice with a light case load and hopes of converting more after-hours calls to cases, your call-intake strategy absolutely needs to be a marketing priority.

Seriously, do not spend another dime on marketing/advertising until you’ve shored up your intake coverage. You’ll be throwing money away. 

There are many benefits to call services. Among them:

• It ensures your firm puts customer service first
• Phones are always covered, so you don’t have to stress about business you might be missing out
• Eliminate “dropped calls”. Dropped calls are legitimate leads that call your firm only to be greeted by a voice mail system… then hang-up. Your firm doesn’t even know a lead was generated in this particular case. Eliminating dropped calls can improve your bottom line by thousands of dollars immediately.
• After-hours assistance can help with effective appointment scheduling, weekly planning and follow-up

Since you can’t predict when accidents are going to happen, when a dispute will take place or when a lingering legal matter will become a pressing one, being there all the time sends a valuable message about the quality of your legal services, before, during and after a prospect becomes a client.

Just like the inevitable broken bone that snaps at the most inopportune times—after-hours when every medical office is closed or on the weekend when an emergency room visit is in order—legal demands are equally unpredictable. But we all expect to have our needs met, whether we’re sent home with a Band-Aid or a cast.

The same level of service is expected from law firms. If you don’t have some call-answering service in place for those vital after-hours or weekend needs, you could be losing out on cases. Prospective clients either may be turned off by lack of access or response and simply call the next law firm on the list. There is no doubt that losing cases to other attorneys that have 24-hour intake arrangements for their lawyers could be costing your firm.

There are a variety of intake service levels, depending on the size and budget of your firm. Obviously larger, high-volume firms may be able to employ a 24/7 live answering team that specializes in legal intake, complete with sophisticated call tracking. A medium-size caseload might call for a mix of a dedicated intake professional taking calls during the day and an automated after-hours system at night and on the weekends, with a systematic follow-up procedure.

A small law practice might be able to get by with a trained receptionist handling intake from 9 to 5, a recorded message for after-hours that details the expectations for follow-up from an attorney, plus some email check-ins over the weekend for online inquires. The setup is certainly flexible, but all-hours intake is an important consideration for any attorney.

The cons & pros of after-hours intake

If you are still trying to evaluate why and how to implement a call system or upgrade your existing intake process, there are a number of benefits and a few drawbacks that you should be aware of. Let’s start with a couple cons of 24/7 intake for lawyers.

The most obvious is outsourcing your calls when you’re not around means you can’t actually leveraging your own legal expertise by talking to prospective clients. That takes some of the control out of your hands, but there’s no reason that phone-bank pros or online-chat staff can’t be trained in your business. You can employ scripts as a guide or at least some structured reassurance to callers that if their questions can’t be answered specifically enough at this time, someone will be in touch within 24 hours, for example. Answering enough to keep clients interested is better than, well, “crickets.”

Another con is related to follow-up protocol, which can be a tricky area for many lawyers. If you do it one way during office hours and a different way or it takes longer during evening or weekend calls, that’s not positioning your practice as a reliable resource. For large operations, a high number of intake staffers could lead to greater inconsistencies. Will it be clear to whom the client spoke last night? Did you get all the details you need to suss out the client? Is everything recorded in some universally accessible way? How do you ensure no one slipped through the cracks?

Overall these are relatively minor issues when considering the implications of having no after-hours intake at all. It’s a matter of degree, but generally the benefits of employing some system, whether it’s a massive live-caller operation staffed with legal intake experts or an automated voice-mail message that delivers vital information, the pros far out weight the cons in intake for lawyers.

By far the most critical element of intake is conversion. Just like digital marketing strategy for lawyers is all about “being wherever they are,” whether prospective clients access your attorneys via email, social platforms or online chat, for example, your legal brand must be ubiquitous—everywhere on every platform—whenever and wherever people are ready to convert. The same goes for the phone, which remains a lifeline in the legal industry. You must be available—at least in some format—when a crisis occurs or people are ready to take action and reach out for advice.

Here are some other benefits of round-the-clock intake that can’t be overlooked:

We live in a society of instant communication and gratification. Consumers today want results/action immediately.  By having 24/7 coverage, you basically insure that human interaction to engage prospective clients and get them into the sales funnel.  Without this, you have a big hole in your bucket.

Money saver. Especially for smaller firms looking to save money, a 24/7 answering service can reduce the overhead of employing an inbound call expert. This approach almost always costs less than a full-time receptionist. While it’s certainly not the same as having a live person on the phone, an answering service could provide needed consistency while also covering those “lost” after-hours communications that keep you up at night.

Lifestyle enhancer. Even a lawyer, one professional who is still known for pulling off the occasional all-nighter, having regular time off and not always being on call can provide the kind of lifestyle balance that could make you a better parent, spouse, human, not to mention a better lawyer who understands priorities and boundaries. Nobody wants to lose business, but nobody wants to work every day, all day. An intake system is always on—even over holidays. Having it take over when you close the door could do wonders for your physical and mental wellbeing.

Consistency catalyst. Receptionists go on break. Other front-desk staff members that handle intake, even if they are great at their job, are often tasked with other duties around the office. All of these little things can add up to inconsistent intake that may send the wrong message to a caller—and could cost you a case when a prospective client dials the firm across town. An answering service picks up every call exactly how you want it to in a professional manner each and every time. Likewise, with a trained live-intake staff for after-hours, you can set the protocol for uniform tone, tracking and troubleshooting.

There should be no doubt that having a 24/7 intake strategy is paramount. Previously we’ve covered some of the best next steps in regards to anticipating callers needs; picking the right answering service; recording calls; knowing your dropped-call rate; and “secret shopping” your intake service.

We’ve helped many law firms improve their bottom line significantly by consulting them on the merits of after-hours intake and improving their during hours intake procedures. Call us today and speak to a legal marketing expert about your practice (888) 461-1016!

 

Intake is low-hanging fruit for lawyers. However, far too many attorneys focus efforts and marketing dollars on generating more leads, rather than finding the people and implementing the processes that can truly convert those leads to cases. Law firms that master an intake process garner more cases and more ROI in the long term.

It’s not necessarily that lawyers are ignoring intake altogether. There’s typically some process in place to handle calls that come in from referrals, advertising or other marketing campaigns. But often these procedures are out of date, tracked poorly, and don’t receive a lot of buy-in from busy attorneys. Often a single office manager is tasked with trying to handle too much, and intake consistency and quality get overlooked.

If you are second-guessing your intake program it’s probably worth acting on your hunch. Lacking an established protocol could be one reason your firm is lacking revenue—and possibly a stronger caseload. One recent example shows just how many firms are making major intake mistakes. Stephen Fairley, CEO of The Rainmaker Institute, asked his staff to “secret shop” 126 National Trial Law firms who were registered for an upcoming NTL summit, all high-caliber personal injury, workers compensation, medical malpractice, mass tort or criminal defense attorneys who are invested in the legal industry.

Fairley’s callers pretended to be a car accident client who was referred to the firm by a doctor treating the caller’s back pain. Some of the discoveries are jaw dropping:

• 70% of intake people did not ask the caller for any contact information before completing the call
• 52% of the firms never called back, even after properly collecting contact information and promising to follow up
• 31% of the firms never even identified the law practice by name
• 71% of law firms put the caller on hold for more than two minutes
• 33% of law offices misspelled their own website URL when asked to provide it, including one so botched it led the caller to a competitor’s site

These are some obvious intake mistakes—not collecting information, following up or considering callers’ needs—that can be fixed by lawyers who start to realize how much they may leaving on the table. Let’s address a few more common intake mistakes that you can start to improve on today.

MISTAKE: Not dedicating an intake professional to handle calls.

The secret shopper test also revealed too many people answering calls with a distinctly annoyed tone that left a bad impression, such as “you’re taking me away from something more important” or “your call is not valuable to us.”

FIX: Empower an intake person or team with the right tools, technology and direction to begin seeing (and valuing) leads as potential cases. Which existing specialists are converting the most calls to cases? Do you need to consider hiring, firing or re-training?

 

MISTAKE: Sounding like you’re too busy to care.

Following up on the previous mistake, tone of voice is a huge barrier during intake for lawyers. Being short, rude or too quick to turn “unqualified” cases away is extremely off-putting and could quickly cost your firm a lucrative client.

FIX: Work toward finding a consistent tone of voice that conveys compassion and caring. (Or at least fake it ‘till you make it.) In fact, studies show that the simple act of smiling can improve a person’s mood, something that could certainly impact verbal delivery over the phone. Writing and employing some simple scripts that put the caller first—for example, asking if the prospective caller is OK first—can go a long way.

 

MISTAKE: Not collecting any (or appropriate) information from callers.

Remember that astounding 70% figure from above? How could any law firm build a viable database or convert a lead without ever being able to contact or market to the callers who are referred to them or find them through advertising?

FIX: First things first, asking immediately for a caller’s name and number will ensure you can reconnect in the event that you are cut off. This also creates a more personal interaction since you can address the caller by his or her first name. After that, it’s every law firm’s call about how much information to collect—what’s appropriate enough for follow-up but doesn’t overstep in such a way that a prospective client feels like a statistic rather than a person. In addition to a phone number, it’s common practice to ask for an email address and preferences for receiving communication via text or email.

 

MISTAKE: Not listening in on intake calls.

Being unwilling to take a hard look at intake to see which people and processes are working is the definition of doing the same thing and expecting different results. That scenario never works. The only way to know for sure whether or not your intake system is functioning at a high level is to truly listen in on the messages your firm is communicating each time the phone rings.

FIX: Start recording your firm’s incoming calls. There are some very simple yet sophisticated call-recording programs available today that can help you begin to review, monitor and learn from your intake calls. These systems can help you not only uncover flaws in how they are communicating but track statistics about call volume, time of day, length of calls and other key metrics that will hone how you market over the phone.

 

MISTAKE: Not paying attention to the small details.

 A lot of little intake mistakes can add up very quickly to an undesirable impression of what your lawyers might be like to work with. Don’t give an anonymous caller the chance to rule out your law firm before you’ve even had a chance to meet in person.

FIX: Create an action plan for intake specialists that lists things to avoid during that critical first-impression session on phone. For example, institute a one-minute rule: If a caller is left on hold past one minute, a live person must at least re-acknowledge the waiting caller’s existence or ask for a number to return the call. Similarly, have a cheat sheet readably available with your firm’s accurate website URL and other key details. Also consider quicker ways to disseminate information correctly, such as asking for an email address and including all relevant firm details in an email that goes out immediately following the call.

 

MISTAKE: Not following up fast enough—or at all.

Statistics have shown that anywhere from 30% to 50% of sales go to the vendor that responds first. And, depending on your average case fee, a 2% increase in conversion could lead to $500,000 in revenue! There is simply no reason for not following up with a caller that leaves a message.

FIX: Again, put a system in place for exactly how these intake follow-up procedures should work, especially for after-hours calls. If you can commit to returning a call within 24 hours of someone leaving a message at the office, say so in your voice mail message. Better yet, consider a two-prong approach by sending a recognition email or text (if you have the caller’s information) to acknowledge that you have received the message and the appropriate attorney will be in touch soon.

When in doubt about, we can’t stress enough the importance of simply writing and following a script—at least until your intake folks get the tone of communication down pat. Having a clear, consistent way to talk to your prospective clients can carry you farther than you might think.

These are the things that keep us up at night! When you join the Network Affiliates family you get a team of highly skilled creative thinkers, all under one roof, who spend their days helping attorneys with every aspect of legal marketing, from creative and production to intake and online efforts. We work together to provide every client a customized marketing strategy that just works. Call us today at (888) 461-1016 to learn more.

Boosting referrals has always been a significant part of attorney marketing strategies. It remains so today. In fact, last year professional services organizations cited this initiative among their top marketing priorities.

Humans have a primal need to earn the praise and respect of others—and so do companies. But how we’ve gone about securing those good words, we’re learning, may have been too limiting. Referral marketing is bigger than combing the database and asking for recommendations. Referrals now play into a wholly integrated media strategy, including the ever-changing role of attorney television advertising.

Referrals three ways

First let’s clarify what constitutes a referral in today’s digitally centered environment. The answer may be surprising. New research from Hinge Marketing, dissected in a recent report called Referral Marketing for Professional Services Firms, shows that over 81% of 532 firms interviewed, including legal services, have received a referral from someone who wasn’t even a client.

This telling statistic immediately counters the idea that attorneys can only garner positive feedback, reviews and references from clients they’ve represented, won a significant case for or even know personally, for example. In fact, there are now three commonly accepted referral categories based on very different parameters:

Experience: The most traditional form, experience-based referrals are the ones that you are mostly likely already chasing—clients who can adequately recommend your firm based on an experience of working directly with your lawyers in the past.

Expertise: This is a recommendation based on a firm’s implied ability to handle a specific case type or area of expertise. So a person that might know of you as the “car crash attorneys,” even without direct or extensive knowledge of your results or reputation, may still refer your lawyers based on this general brand knowledge.

Reputation: This referral form is more common in law than many realize. An organization that has never worked directly with your law firm can still speak highly of your attorneys’ capabilities, based on your reputation in the marketplace alone.

What this insight tells us is that many professional service organizations may be selling themselves short by not taking a wider view of referrals—both seeking them out and advertising around them. In fact, focusing too tightly on tracking down clients for comment could be limiting the potential of your referral marketing campaign.

Instead, consider extended associations and “non-clients” as untapped resources, and start to uncover and leverage what all kinds of people and other organizations have to say about the important work you do as lawyers.

Ramping up your online reputation

Before you can run with your new referral-marketing program, however, it’s important to make sure you’ve put in place all the tools possible to ensure potential referrers don’t rule you out before they even have the chance to refer your law firm. The golden ticket? Making sure people get to and “past” your website.

The Referral Marketing for Professional Services Firms research found that 51.9% of respondents “ruled out referrals before speaking with the firm in question.” And the issues most mentioned were directly related to a company’s lackluster online presence. Almost 30% cited an unimpressive website for turning the other cheek. About 23% were turned off by poor-quality content, and another nearly 16% stopped cold when they couldn’t even find the firm in an initial search.

None of this information is surprising since previous research has shown that some 80% of buyers head directly to a corporate website to evaluate an organization first. If your law firm’s web presence is apathetic at best, earning those extra-credit reputation-based referrals is out of the question. Ramp up your referral marketing efforts by getting your website—everything from design upgrades to intuitive usability to compelling content—in order first.

A dynamic duo: Referrals and TV advertising

Attorney television advertising remains a crucial part of the marketing mix for professional practices around the country. This far-reaching visual advertising combined with a strong web presence and database or referral marketing plan will keep your firm squarely in front of past contacts—and potential cases.

Once you start to look with a wider perspective at what may be deemed a referral in the first place, as well as how to ensure you continue to get acclaim going forward, what you need to do from a media and marketing standpoint may start to crystalize before your eyes.

Look the part: If you’re indeed getting referrals without a referrer even talking to a lawyer at your firm, let alone trusting you with a legal case, where are these people coming from and what’s making them believe in you? The Hinge Marketing report showed the top type—expertise-based referrals—came from channels that might not even be on your radar:

• Speaking engagements (30%)
• Articles or blog posts (20%)
• Social media interactions (17%)

What do these results convey? While TV remains a prime resource for spreading the brand gossip far and wide, interpersonal communications, social-media engagement and thought-leadership-style content must support the bigger message you’re putting out there.

Lawyers have to look the part—on both first and second screens—not to mention in-person at reputation-building sessions such as keynotes, round tables and conventions. Referral marketing has become a sophisticated engine: all the parts must look the part to create a cohesive, believable, trustworthy brand.

Leverage your luck: Now comes the fun part. What do you do with all these new referrals from new referral avenues? Smart attorneys are leveraging recommendations in cutting-edge TV advertising. You’ve probably heard of the customer journey and the customer experience. Now pair that with first-hand client feedback, or a person’s overall impression of your firm based on a specific area of expertise or reputation in the industry. Why not leverage these realizations in your advertising campaign?

Just as you are now thinking out of the box about referrals, your attorney television advertising campaign should project the same perspective. Instead of recycling conventional “talking-head” client commercials, delivering canned-sounding recommendations, be creative. (Or at least let your legal marketing and advertising agency have some fun.) You’ve been given new tools—three types of referrals. Now let the legal marketing experts develop a campaign that conveys that client experience (or potential experience) in a fresh and memorable way.

Want to take advantage of more referral opportunities and leverage the people who already support you? We can help. Call us today! (888) 461-1016

How to get the modern client’s attention and hold your team accountable

We know that the journey of today’s client—your prospective legal client—is anything but a straight path. Technology allows consumers to engage with legal brands at many touchpoints across diverse devices and platforms. In this increasingly variable environment you never know when your law firm could get a new lead or sign a new case. Occasionally the traditional case-acquisition model works: A viewer sees your TV commercial, for example, checks out the reputation of your firm and attorneys on the Web and calls your phone number to learn more or seek legal advice.

However that previously linear path is increasingly unpredictable, and consumers are in charge of when, where and how they interact with brands and make decisions. Today’s legal client might see a Facebook comment about your law firm, call a friend for a referral and start the engagement process through your intake center—with very little prior knowledge of what type of law your firm focuses on or what cases your attorneys actually handle. Modern legal advertising strategies require that lawyers are prepared to address consumers’ needs at every possible touchpoint.

One of the biggest mistakes in law firm marketing is focusing a majority of spend too far upfront in the process while neglecting the backend of the sales stream. Firms get very motivated around a new creative advertising campaign, for example, but lose focus around what happens when calls or Internet leads actually begin to come in from their advertising efforts. If you’ve done your job properly by setting up a multifaceted advertising strategy to hit customers at each touchpoint along their self-directed journey, the most significant oversight may be forgetting to have an effective intake program in place to seal the deal.

You’ve spent the time and money to build a legal advertising campaign, and you’ve made every effort to “touch” prospective clients on every screen and platform they typically engage with during a day. Do not overlook the critical importance of intake to convert a lead into a paying case. In fact, there’s a great opportunity in intake, because most firms are not currently focusing energy here. If your office prioritizes strengthening intake strategy you will quickly surpass the competition, without spending more money on more advertising!

For example, if an average net attorney fee is $10,000, converting just 10 new cases a year equals $100,000; 100 new cases could bring in a million dollars. Yes, one million net dollars – without spending more on your advertising. Treat intake like other aspects of your advertising campaign: By simply fine-tuning a methodology that most firms don’t you could be winning more cases. The ROI on tweaking your intake process to convert cases is extraordinary when compared to investing those dollars in additional upfront advertising avenues.

So where do you begin?

 

Creating an intake agenda for 2016

Law firms cannot begin to build an effective action plan without having some numbers to act on. It’s helpful to conduct an internal audit of your current intake process to develop a baseline for change. Start by asking your attorneys and intake specialists a few directive questions:

 

• What is your firm’s conversion percentage? You MUST know and understand this. Go back three years, month by month. How have things shifted? Are there times of year that are more productive than others?

• Record ALL intake calls. What are you communicating? Have your attorneys listened to the intake professionals representing their firm? Are your intake specialists listening to their own calls to see what they can do better? Perhaps you have the wrong person on the phone who conveys the wrong message simply by the tone of his or her voice. Maybe the talking points you’ve created for your intake professionals are not truly representative of your brand. When was the last time you reviewed your script?

• What software are you currently using? Do you have tracking tools in place? Do you have adequate technology and practices to track things like cost per lead and average time to signing?

• What is your intake culture? Do you empower your professionals with an open-door policy, standards and call protocol, and regular meetings and monitoring? It’s possible that your attorneys are not involved enough in the process—or are perhaps intervening in ways that actually devalue your intake people.

 

Often the reasons law firms are not signing more cases is actually buried in some of their intake processes rather than in mistakes in their global advertising strategy. Remember, increasing your bottom line could be a matter of tweaking these procedures or better tracking and acting on data you’ve collected through the intake process.

 

Here are a few ways to begin to take action to elevate intake:

 

Record all of your intake calls and listen to them. Also make sure you listen to your afterhours message. Walk through the entire intake process, starting with the first phone call through follow-up communication. Try calling several different times over a month to gauge the consistency. Then, ask yourself these questions:

• What tone are your intake representatives communicating?
• How fast does an intake representative get back to you?
• Were you put on gold? If so, for how long?
• How would you rate your customer service?

Consider your experience objectively and then start fixing what you deem to be biggest issues.

 

Monitor your performance.

You cannot improve your intake performance unless you have tools in place to track calls, web leads and statistics around how you’re responding to prospective clients. What tools do you need to properly monitor your customer-service performance and improve response time (for both claimants and referrers)? Are your intake specialists spending time on long calls with claimants that your firm ultimately does not want to sign? Are you assigning too many cases to your intake specialists? Once you have tracking tools in place you can work on making your people and processes more effective, with the intent to covert more calls to cases.

 

Create a culture.

If people answering your phones and Internet inquires could be the link that converts a lead to a case, shouldn’t you treat them like a personal investment? It’s important to begin to think of intake more like a culture of customer service. Empowering your intake professionals will give them confidence, something you can hear in the tone of their delivery, as well as make them feel part of a bigger team dedicated to case acquisition. Show your intake staff that your attorneys appreciate them by creating a thoughtful and rewarding environment. Include intake staff members in frequent review meetings and maintain an open-door policy so people feel they can make suggestions for improvement. You can also support a healthy intake culture by developing consistent intake procedures and encouraging all communication specialists to follow that protocol.

 

Take it further.

Make sure the intake process isn’t the part of case acquisition that “drops the ball” along the sales channel. Intake is not just one phone call. It’s part of a larger communication process. In fact, several statistics that demonstrate exactly this: Only 10% of sales people make more than three contacts; 80% of sales are made on the fifth to twelfth contact. Likewise, web leads followed up on within five minutes are nine times more likely to convert. To ensure that your law firm is beating the competition to the case, you must be faster, more thorough and more persistent. Elevate the entire intake system by setting in place rules for follow-up, along with leveraging leads for future cases.

If your law firm’s multipronged advertising is working, chances are your phone is already ringing. But, remember, that’s not where case acquisition ends—that’s where it starts. Begin to hone your intake strategy to make sure that your legal advertising pays off in more signed cases in 2016. Customers are on an increasingly complex decision-making path. It’s critical that when you have they’re attention, you keep it. Law firms can make or break a case by how they deliver on intake.

Want to convert more cases in 2016? Need more insight on how to improve your law firm’s intake procedures? Network Affiliates has been helping lawyers evolve their advertising, marketing and advertising strategies since 1981. Call (888) 461-1016 today!

Want to know an easy way to boost your case conversion? Get better than the competition at handling afterhours calls. Intake after hours is one of the most significant growth areas for improving your law firm’s bottom line—without spending more money.

While this sounds like a simple fix, there’s strategy involved in truly dialing in your attorney answering service. But this critical form of intake can also very quickly separate you from other law firms—if you do it well.

Here’s how:

Change your expectations. Advances in technology and consumer expectations means people anticipate more from an attorney answering service. If potential clients’ needs aren’t met immediately in an intelligent and pleasant manner, there’s a strong chance they’ll just hang up. Think about your own frustrations with waiting on hold or not getting useful answers when calling about a product or service. Lawyers should expect that people increasingly expect more than an answering service can provide.

Pick the right answering service. Before hiring any answering service, ask a lot of questions. Visit the call center or office. Invest time in finding out how this service will report to you. Most importantly, talk to your legal advertising agency about best practices and how your marketing partner plans to incorporate call tracking and leverage analytics to better target your advertising efforts.

Record your calls. These days, this practice really goes without saying: You can’t act on data you don’t have. So be sure  your firm’s calls are clearly recorded and tracked. You’ll be impressed by what you can learn about your prospective clients just from the messages they leave with your answering service.

Know your drop call rate. Not sure what this is? Get up to speed today. Dropped calls are calls that are put on hold that eventually lead to a prospect hanging up. Uncover your true drop call rate—hang-ups that are never accounted for. It’s possible that a simple change in initial messaging, hold music, or tone could help keep people (legal cases!) on the line longer.

“Secret shop” your service. Have you ever tested or secret shopped your current answering service? Calling your own firm’s answering service at least once a month can lead to rich insight about what’s working best. Better yet, have a friend outside the legal industry call your firm after hours. Prepare a questionnaire for your secret shopper regarding voice tone, ring length, messaging, hold times, and other key qualitative and quantitative feedback that could help your law firm improve performance.

Remember, what happens when your law office closes shouldn’t stay behind closed doors. Keeping the lines of communication open around your answering service practices is a helpful way to enhance your intake—and convert more callers to cases.

Need more insight on how to improve your afterhours intake procedures? Network Affiliates has been helping lawyers tap the smartest ROI-propelled advertising and marketing strategies since 1981. Call (888) 461-1016 today!

Legal marketing and advertising strategies are increasingly pinned to return on investment.

Why? Because advertising consultants now have better metrics to track marketing for law firms, from specialized call-tracking methods to actionable Google Analytics on Web-based advertising campaigns.

Seeing a return on your investment in advertising depends on several things, such as: your new campaign creative, the mix of marketing tactics being used and how integrated your legal advertising strategy is, among other considerations.

Creating true cash-flow momentum takes planning—and patience.

Typically, an attorney or law firm can expect to start seeing significant ROI in between 6 and 18 months. This equates to the length of time it takes for a typical auto accident case to settle, for example. If the case goes to trial, you can expect to see a return in more like 18 to 36 months.

However, in an area like workers’ compensation, temporary disability payments can start in as little as one month. However, permanent disability payments take much longer and typically require the assistance of a lawyer or law firm to negotiate with the employer and workers’ compensation insurance provider. Obtaining a resolution in a social security disability case usually take between 12 to 24 months.

You get the point. Marketing leads in legal advertising are ultimately tied to cases, and getting more in the pipeline will work to create a steady stream of clients—and ROI.

Most lawyers like to see how this might play out for each aspect of a marketing initiative, and a qualified advertising consultant can show you how each effort can tie back to ROI. Additionally, an agency with deep history and interest in the legal profession will understand the case life cycle and plan a smart marketing strategy around that cyclical process.

Likewise, the ability to shift strategies, especially with flexible Web-based “test” campaigns, helps your law firm try a specialized social campaign, for example, or a PPC-driven effort to adapt and adjust for variations such as seasonal fluctuations, expansions in the firm’s legal capabilities or mass tort campaigns.

Interested in running the numbers on the effectiveness of your current marketing mix? Call Network Affiliates’ expert legal advertising consultants to understand the potential of your advertising ROI — (888) 461-1016!