Using email in your estate law practice is a tricky thing.
Many estate lawyers are content to only send those generic “legal tips” that come as part of those commoditized “brochure-style” websites — that, for some reason, many estate lawyers still cling to, despite the fact that they don’t really do much at all to build a prospect database, or help to “sell” your business to visitors.
But I’m not here to harp on websites.
Because, after all, websites are best seen (in our industry, at least) as the portal and foundation for true follow-up and “nurture” marketing — through email.
Because nurturing your list is about THREE main things…
1) Coming across as a real person.
Obviously, broadcasting out genericized legal tips doesn’t help in this way. Yes, you can add a conversational intro to those “newsletters” but when people see an email with a big banner at the top, or with a laundry-list of articles in the body it screams: I’m being marketed to.
You understand? Your list, by now, “gets” that businesses send emails to keep in touch with their database because they somehow learned that this is the best practice.
Yes, cynicism is real — so that’s why you should dispense with the headers, write like a real person, and don’t overwhelm them with too much content.
2) CONSISTENCY. This is huge with email.
When you only send something monthly, both our internal testing with law firms, as well as industry standards, stipulate that unless you are in front of your list on a regular basis (weekly is perfect for us), then the open rates go down, the complaints increase, and generally there is the sense in the eyes of the recipient of: Hey, who the heck is this emailing me? UNSUBSCRIBE.
3) Harvesting. What I mean by this is that within your emails, on an occasional basis (i.e. NOT in every email!), you give your list a chance to respond.
This can take the form of having a call for specific questions to be emailed to you, having the recipient take an action (whether through social media, calling your office, or some sort), or (and this one is big), giving a special offer to your list from time to time.
Whether it’s additional estate planning, a document review, or an invitation to try out additional services from your firm, give your list a REASON TO RESPOND.
Keep it simple, and don’t be overly-aggressive, but DO NOT MISS THIS STEP with your list!
Fortunately, all of these elements can be completely done for you.
Check out: estatepromarketer.com/services, if you haven’t already — and feel free to email me any specific questions about either the content of this particular post, or about what this service can look like for your law firm.
Until next time…
