Although nearly half of UK law firms plan to increase their marketing budget more than 10% within the next two years, they are currently losing 90-95% of potential leads. Why invest budget into generating leads if you aren’t nurturing them properly?
Picture this. Your firm has a new website, reached top positions in Google and set up some social media accounts, great. However, nailing your marketing is only half the problem. How do you convert enquiries into paying leads?
Here are four tips that’ll help law firms transform their lead management and measurement into strategies to win more business.
The no ’one size fits all’ approach
Consumers now favour the omnichannel approach, they expect to receive the same level of service whether they’re using live chat or the phone. There is no ’one size fits all’ approach, so you need to know which channels are driving phone call leads.
However, 26% of law firms aren’t tracking their leads’ journey at all so how can they pinpoint which channels are driving the most leads?
Call to action tracking from Mediahawk joins the gaps between customer journey and marketing channels. It tracks all interactions from any channel, whether online contact forms, live chat boxes, email clicks or phone calls.
Imagine you sent an email to a lead with a downloadable eBook covering your practice’s legal fees, but they decided to use your website’s live chat service before picking up the phone to convert.
With call to action tracking, you can analyse this entire lead’s experience. Using this information, you can cater for your leads regardless of how they are engaging with your firm.
Attributing leads that convert into appointments
Given the seriousness around finding a lawyer, clients are far likelier to convert over the phone. They’ll want an immediate response – something that cannot be provided via email.
However, it’s likely they’re still engaging with online avenues, so knowing which channels are driving these calls is key for placing marketing budget.
Visitor level call tracking assigns unique numbers to your marketing campaigns and identifies which online channels are generating over-the-phone leads. This shows the exact return on investment (ROI) from each channel, joining the dots between digital spend and offline sales.
For example, imagine your firm is investing in pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. It’s no secret that law sector PPC ads are expensive. If your firm is bidding on these keyword categories, you’ll need to know how many users have clicked on these ads and then decided to phone and book an appointment.
Integrating call tracking into AdWords allocates unique, tracked telephone numbers to anyone who visits your website via a PPC ad. You can use this data to attribute which keywords are driving over-the-phone bookings to make data-backed decisions on future campaigns.
Know the cost per client per source
Do you actually know how much converting each lead actually costs you? Yes, earning clients might be your goal, but keeping your cost per client down should also be a priority. Otherwise you could be spending far more than you’re generating in return.
Worryingly, 94% of UK law firms don’t know what it costs to earn a new client.
Once you know your cost per client, you can identify if any channels are costing too much and producing little return. Then you can work out the best optimisation strategy.
For example, as we said above, legal keywords are some of the most expensive out there, so reducing your cost per client from paid search could make all the difference.
One solution to reduce PPC campaign cost is exact match keywords instead of broad match.
Although broad match keywords have a higher search volume, they do not generate the best click through rates and conversions. Exact match might have lesser search volume, but if you target a specific niche with an optimised campaign, think of the clients you could be generating!
For example, if your firm specialises in corporate law, you wouldn’t want your ad to appear under searches for property law.
Following up promptly with background knowledge is key
Consumers want immediate answers and technology influenced this. However, 42% of lawyers take an average of 3+ days to respond to a potential client.
With timeliness so crucial to closing a lead, following up with knowledge of a lead’s previous interactions could make all the difference between earning a client or losing them to a competitor.
Remember, lawyers are likelier to receive more phone enquiries. What can you do to meet those levels of immediacy?
Use call tracking to receive real-time insights about each caller. This includes whether they have called before, the webpage they landed on, keywords they used to find your website and more. This data can help tailor conversations to encourage a lead to move onto the next step – whether that’s arranging an appointment or signing up to your firm’s email newsletter for more information.
You can use the call whispering feature to add a short message or phrase which prompts the customer service agent about a call’s nature. This way, customers will be transferred to the correct person so you can orchestrate the most appropriate follow up.
Law firms might be intent on expanding their marketing budget, but this doesn’t guarantee leads will convert. Without efficient lead management, law firms risk failing to generate an ROI from their efforts. But once they start to understand exactly what’s making potential clients click or phone, those firms will begin to thrive.
Leave a Comment