Legal Marketing | Attorney Marketing | Marketing For Lawyers

There are lots of search engine optimization gurus out there who would have you pay a small fortune to get your website on to the first page of Google. And while this is terrific, if you can afford it, there are also three other ways to get some great leads from the Internet, for free.

Here are the three ways to be found in an online search:

Google Places

This used to be called Google Local. These are the listings that come up on the map when you search for something on Google. One of the great things that Google is doing is pulling in all of the reviews and evaluations from other services - like AVVO and Yelp. So if you have a testimonial posted about you on any of those services, it will show up here as well. In addition, it appears that testimonials will help you rank highly in Google Places.

The best way to leverage this service for your law firm is to make sure you profile is completely set up and filled out. Then add some photos and videos. I would also do a sponsored link on your profile (this is a little yellow tag highlighting something your law firm offers. Finally, ask all your clients to write a review about your service and post it directly onto your Google Places profile.

Yelp

This is an online review website that is dedicated mostly to consumer-based businesses. However that should not stop you from setting up a profile for your law firm and encouraging people to write reviews for you.

Yelp search results will often rank high in Google so having a well optimized profile is something that is important.

LinkedIn

Most attorneys are familiar with LinkedIn. The majority of them feel that it is an online resume. But that is only part of the power of this platform. You can also link to other attorneys and pass referrals between cities. LinkedIn makes you a global referral partner.

LinkedIn also includes a testimonial feature. It is definitely a good idea to have people who know you, like you and trust you fill out these testimonials.

All of these services are absolutely free of charge and they can work wonders for your online presence. Make sure you take advantage of them.

Note: Please check with your local regulatory body before undertaking any specific testimonial building campaign. In some states it may be illegal for lawyers to request testimonials.

One of the parts of law firm marketing many attorneys struggle with is closing the deal. This means first, getting the client, who is sitting right in front of you, to sign on the dotted line. But there is more to it than that. They must not only sign on the dotted line but they must also pay and follow your guidance.

We consider this all part of closing the deal and all part of law firm marketing.

Here is the process of closing the deal and on-boarding the new client.

This process starts with a phone call inquiry. The phone call should be fielded by an administrative assistant or paralegal. The administrative assistant should have a script that he/she follows in order to qualify the potential client. This script must include questions about financial means and about the particular problem the prospective client is facing.

As long as the client is qualified, an appointment with an attorney should be scheduled. During that appointment, the attorney is essentially interviewing the prospective client to make sure the client is a good fit for the lawyer and the law firm. This is done through a consultative conversation loaded with open ended questions.

Once the attorney agrees to proceed, the subject of money is discussed. If the client has any financial issues, they must be worked out before any work is done. No work begins with the financial arrangements unsettled.

The next step involves covering the ground rules. These ground rules include contact times and contact frequency as well as what the client is expected to contribute to the resolution of his matter. Again, there must be complete agreement on all of these items before you proceed. If there is any hesitation, do not start work.

Using this process, you can see how a potential client can not only become a good client but a great client. The key to kicking this process off is incorporating it into your law firm marketing plan.

This is one of the attorney marketing questions I hear most frequently. People want to know how often they should write something on their blog. Naturally, I respond with a question:

How often do you speak with your best friend?

The idea behind a blog is relationship development. You are writing not only to educate but also to develop a rapport with your reader. When people like you, they want to hear from you more often.

Side note: That's another reason video works well. People like the passive nature of video and they get their "relationship fix" without having to do the work of reading.

Yes. I know. You want a direct answer.

Here it is:

If you really want your blog to be a relationship development tool, you need to write an article and post it at least once a week.

If you want a better relationship, post something three times a week.

If you want a great relationship, post something every day.

Get the point?

Ultimately, all relationships come down to communication and trust. If you want a good relationship with your readers, you will communicate more often.

Imagine what would happen if you only communicated with your spouse once a week?

Want to know how to pick the right clients?

Start with the right relationships.

Referral sources are critical to the success of any law firm. Marketing to these sources of repeat business is essential. If you are in a consumer-driven law practice area (criminal law, probate law, family law) you need to concentrate your marketing efforts on people who influence others in large numbers. These are the relationships that will deliver excellent results for you.

If you are a transactional attorney and you target corporate clients, you should focus on companies with numerous issues you can work on. Look for companies with many different problems you can solve.

Below is an outline of how you can go about targeting some high value clients and referral sources. Ultimately, the choice of clients is yours. But you need to create enough demand in order to be selective.

How to Target High Value Clients

Look at the Total Potential of the Relationship

Many lawyers have the attitude that any business should be retained at any cost. This is wrong. You should only take clients that fit your ideal criteria.

Each attorney must set the criteria for himself as all clients are not created equal. If you practice law in a field where each individual client has the potential to provide you with several matters, then you can move to a direct client marketing plan.

If you practice law in a field where the clients only have one or two matters in a lifetime, then you should focus your marketing resources on referral sources. These are long term relationships that will have tremendous value to you and your law firm.

Think About the Second (or Third) Matter Up Front

The first matter sent to you by any referral source (or with any long term client) should not be viewed as an opportunity to get rich. This is simply an opportunity to establish a relationship that could last for a long time. Do not cut corners. Do not charge a higher fee than is normal. Use this first matter as an opportunity to establish a relationship.
Keep your mind on the future business this resource will provide.

Target the Big Fish and the Small Ones will Wander Into the Net

The clients with one-off matters will still find their way to you even though you are targeting the bigger clients. Your referral sources will generate enough interest so that your waiting room will be full. If a matter is right for you and your law firm, you should take it. But keep your marketing focus on referral sources and large clients with multiple matters.

You can improve your email newsletter performance easily and quickly by fixing your email subject line. This is something that most attorneys never give any thought to. In fact, most attorneys are not even sending out an email newsletter at all. But if you are reading this, there is a good chance that you are either sending out an email newsletter or thinking about sending out an email newsletter.

The way to get your email newsletter opened is to make sure your email subject line does one of four things:

• Attracts Attention
• Sounds Outrageous
• Is Self-Deprecating
• Causes Confusion

As long as the subject line has one of the four qualities listed above, your email will be opened.

Here is a brief description of each quality and why they are successful.

Attracting Attention

This is pretty obvious. If your subject line attracts attention your email will get opened. The problem these days is that most of the words that attract attention will force your email right into the spam filter. I am talking about words like FREE or NAKED.

The best way to attract attention these days is to use a word or phrase that is in the news. You can even use the name of a celebrity. Many people have had success with subject lines like:

"What would Oprah do?" or "Tiger Woods would not have gotten caught if..."

Sounding Outrageous

It is not really too hard to sound outrageous. Simply go to the supermarket and look at the headlines on the checkout stand tabloids. Those headlines work. But obviously an attorney will need to be more conservative (yet still outrageous for an attorney). Some examples:

"How a bonehead attorney won a $14 million verdict" or "Man flunks out of law school and gets elected as a judge"

Self-deprecating

These subject lines are my favorite because they always work and nobody is ever offended by them. You simply use the subject line to put yourself down. People always open those emails because delighting in the misery of others is human nature. Here are some examples:

"How I Got So Fat" and "I was Wrong"

Causing Confusion

The clinical term for it is cognitive dissonance. The technical definition is: Holding two conflicting ideas at the same time. My definition: Confusing the crap out of someone.

When the mind sees two conflicting ideas together it has a psychological need to reconcile them. We see this in the phenomenon known as buyers' remorse. If a buyer is not instantly reassured that his purchase was valuable he will feel badly about making it. This feeling is the cognitive dissonance between spending money and obtaining a new product.

The way to solve this is to provide the purchaser the opportunity to return his purchase immediately. This will endear it to him and he will immediately find ways to justify it.

The way to leverage this in an email is through email is by placing the opposing beliefs in the subject line. Some examples:

"Why Smart Lawyers Fail" or "The fastest runner lost the race" or "Lost boy found at home"

People will resolve this conflict by opening your email.

There are some other techniques used for developing good subject lines but these are some of the most common.

If you want your attorney marketing to take off, begin using these subject lines in your email. You will be amazed at the results.

Sometimes attorney marketing is about managing client expectations. This is particularly true when you have to manage a difficult client. But more often than not, the reason a client is difficult is because you have allowed them to become difficult.

Think of it this way:

If you managed client expectations correctly, most difficult clients will be pussycats.

Speak with Clients by Appointment Only

If you take calls/meetings as ideas come into your clients' heads, you will never have any momentum and your productivity will be disastrous. In addition, this is poor positioning.

How busy can you be if you pick up the phone every time your demanding client calls?

Outline the Fee Structure with Payment Deadlines Up Front

You must have a conversation about money at the outset of your engagement with the client. You must let him know what your expectation is and you must clearly spell out the consequences for nonpayment. If you do this up front and in writing, you will avoid any conflict later on down the road.

Clearly Spell Out the Boundaries of Your Work

Make sure the client knows what is included in your engagement agreement and what is not included in the engagement agreement. Having a discussion reinforces what is already in writing and it gets everything out in the open.

Make Sure the Client Knows Your Assistant is an Extension of You

You client must be able to articulate to your assistant why he is calling and the reason he must speak with you. This allows your assistant to allocate the appropriate amount of time for the meeting.

If this business model sounds familiar to you it should. It is the business model most doctors use when they deal with their patients. A doctor never answers his own phone. It is not expected that he would. A doctor never sees anyone without an appointment. It is not expected that he would. A doctor gets paid when service is rendered.

The way to handle a difficult client is to set appropriate expectations before he becomes a client. That is the responsibility of your attorney marketing.

We all want EVERYTHING to happen right now. I do. You do. But there are some things we cannot control. Before we get to that, let's talk about the things we can control.

There are three big ones:

When We Start

This is a big deal. There are many people out there who complain about the things that do not happen. There are many folks who feel they are entitled to something or other.

In truth, you are not entitled to anything. Neither am I. We control our destiny based upon our own effort.

This effort must begin at some point. The expression "A project well begun is half done" is particularly apropos to marketing for lawyers.

If you want something to happen, you must get started. Now.

How Hard We Work

This is another virtue that people despise. There is no four hour work week and there is no free lunch. You must work for everything and you must work hard.

The easiest way to determine if you have done enough to make a particular project a reality is to think about the most work you have ever put into anything and then double it on your current project.

Most people think things get easier with experience. In truth, the more experience you have the harder you work. This happens because you know where the pitfalls are. You know when the issues will arise and you work hard to avoid them.

Who We Involve

There are experts who can help you do just about anything. If you involve them, things will happen more quickly. If you choose not to involve the experts, you are opening yourself up to unexpected problems. The choice is yours.

Now let me address the things we cannot control:

Forget About Them

You read that correctly. If you cannot control it, you should not worry about it. It just doesn't make any sense.

All you can do is set yourself up for success and then have enough patience and faith that things will work out. I know this does not come easy but it will make your life better.

Many people ask me about networking and the role it plays in marketing for lawyers. It can be a significant part of your law firm marketing plan or you can do without it entirely. The choice is yours. I encourage everyone to at least look at the networking groups in your local community and see if there is something that interests you.

There are three different types of networking groups you should be aware of. Each has its own benefits and drawbacks. Let's look at each of them and you can determine which are a good fit for you.

Structured Networking Groups

These are groups like BNI or LeTip. These groups usually only permit one member per profession, per group so if you are a Trusts and Estates Attorney, you will be the only Trusts and Estates Attorney in the group.

There are two specific benefits to a group like this. The first benefit is the rigorous nature of the group. You are pretty much taught to develop relationships with the folks in the group by the outline the meetings follow. In addition, there is a requirement for the group members to get together outside of the meetings and interact. This helps establish trust.

The next benefit of belonging to a structured networking group is the frequency of the interaction of the members. These groups generally meet each week and this is important. Frequency of interaction also builds trust.

I highly recommend my clients join one of these structured groups.

Charitable Organizations

Charitable groups are an important part of the community. They provide the glue that keeps the community together. Join a charitable group and make it a part of your law firm marketing plan if it makes sense.

The key to success within a charitable organization is to take on a leadership role. If you are passionate and dedicated to the cause, taking on a leadership role in the organization will work to your advantage.

Civic Groups or Associations and Chambers of Commerce

These are groups developed with a mission to improve business for everyone in the community. These groups typically offer several different opportunities for members to get involved. They work if you work them. Meaning: You need to attend as many meetings as possible in order to benefit from the membership.

If you are a hardcore networker, you will benefit from membership in a Chamber of Commerce or civic organization.

The bottom line with these groups is that you get out of them what you put into them. I encourage you to seek out opportunities to network in your local community and use that as a developmental tool.

Many people have asked me about shooting videos and getting them on line. The questions I receive fall into two categories:

Process - How do you do it?

Content - What do you say?

Let's briefly talk about each of those areas.

Process

People regularly ask me about the process of making and publishing video as a part of their law firm marketing plan. If they want equipment and process oriented specifics, I tell them to call Gerry Oginski at Lawyers Video Studio. He will help you get started quickly.

But if you want to try video out to see if it is right for you, simply go to your local electronics store and get a Flip Camera. You can push the red button and get going in about five minutes.

In my case, I use a Flip for my daily videos and I use a Kodak Zi8 for the DVDs I record for my clients. The difference is that the Zi8 allows me to plug in a microphone. I also have a small backdrop I use for my YouTube videos. This helps keep my firm name and website in front of my viewers.

Keep in mind that I am focused on delivering great content and not so much on the appearance of the video. I am simply using video as a different media to get my message through to my clients and prospective clients.

Content Development

There is an acronym I like to use when describing how to create great content for any educational program in your law firm marketing plan. The acronym is P.O.K.E. It stands for Personality, Opinion, Knowledge and Entertainment. This acronym is particularly relevant to video in law firm marketing.

Let's take a look at each element of the P.O.K.E. acronym and see how it applies to our objectives with video.

Personality

You must be yourself in your law firm marketing videos. If you try to be overly stuffy or if you try to imitate a celebrity you may have seen on television, you will look foolish. Just act natural and do not come off as over-acting.

Opinion

Your clients and future clients want your opinion. They want to hear what you have to say and they want to know where you stand on controversial issues. They will respect your opinion but first they have to know what it is. Do not be shy about sharing your thoughts with them.

Knowledge

Demonstrate your knowledge to your audience. Do not do this in a showy way. Simply discuss the issues using the facts and you will come off as smart and knowledgeable on the subject matter.

Entertainment

People must want to watch your video. You should be at least mildly entertaining. If being entertaining is not in your personality, try your best not to annoy or talk down to the audience.

Law firm video should be just like having a conversation with a client. That is one of the main reasons I do not use post production editing in my videos. I think that a fancy opening or overly-produced music will wind up taking away from the experience. Just imagine a client walked into your office and asked you a question. Now push the camera button and answer it.

I have a favorite word when it comes to marketing for lawyers. Actually this word applies to practice management and business strategy as well as law firm marketing.

The word is: NO

The reason I love this word is because it is empowering. It helps you realize that you control your own destiny.

Here are the three times you should definitely use the word "NO" in your law firm.

Unacceptable Fees

If you meet with someone and they want to negotiate the fee down, then you should say "NO". If a clients tries to negotiate your fee downward you should always say no to that business. People who negotiate fees do not have a full appreciation for the value you provide. This is probably not going to change.

Always refuse any work where you are required to simply reduce the fee without reducing the value.

Interruptions

I hate interruptions. They break your momentum and they prohibit you from getting work done. If you have a goal and you are working to achieve your goal, interruptions will absolutely kill you.

Always say "NO" when someone asks you if you have got a minute. The famous expression: "Got a minute?" is an absolute killer and you should always respond "NO" to that question.

Lack of Measurement

Always refuse to engage in any marketing where measurement is not possible. This is true of everything from billboards to brochures. You should never, ever use a marketing strategy or tactic that cannot be measured.

Ultimately, the word "NO" must become your best friend. If you can use it liberally you will not only be more productive, you will be much happier.

In case you have not noticed, video is a very big deal on line. Youtube is the second most popular search engine on the planet and video results are regularly appearing on the first page of Google universal search.

If you have not found a way to leverage video as part of your law firm marketing plan, you better get with it. There is still time to use on line video as a competitive advantage for your law firm but you need to hurry.

In case you still have doubt about what video can do for your law firm marketing, take a look at these five benefits:

Video Creates a Natural Relationship Between You and Your Prospective Client

Video (particularly on-line video) gives the viewer the sense they are having a one-on-one conversation with you. This intimate experience builds trust and it can help people get a good feeling about you.

Television personalities talk about this all the time. Millions of people think they are friends with Oprah and Jay Leno because they watch them on television and they feel as though the celebrities are speaking directly to them. This effect is magnified on the Internet because of the "on demand" nature of the communication. You can have a conversation with your client every time he pushes the play button.

Video is a Passive Visual Media

People are lazy. Reading is a visual media but it is an active media. The reader has to actually do something in order to receive your message. With video, the viewer only needs to click the play button and they can receive you message immediately. They do not have to expend any energy. It requires little effort.

Demonstrations are Easy

If you want to demonstrate a concept or encourage people to take notes or present a graphic, video is the way to go. It can help you involve your audience in a way that other forms of media cannot.

You can easily engage three senses of each viewer. They can see you on video, they can hear your audio and they can take notes (if you encourage them to do so by using slides and graphics).

You Can Be More Persuasive

When you do a video presentation people can feel your passion. They can see the expression on your face and they can hear your voice inflection. This is the next best thing to actually being in front of them live. You can be at your persuasive best in a video and you can do it over again if you are not happy with the way you present your case.

As you can tell, I am a big proponent of the use of video as a tool in a law firm marketing plan. I use it myself. If you need help with law firm marketing give me a call. But if you want a turnkey way get into video, visit Gerry Oginski at Lawyers Video Studio. He offers a great service that will get you started with online video without lifting a finger.

One of the things I constantly hear from lawyers is that they do not have any time to write, edit and mail a monthly print newsletter. They tell me how busy they are and they lament about the amount of time they spend working on client matters and, in the same breath, complain that they do not have enough work. That is when I know something is fishy.

Both Cannot Be True

If you do not have time to write two brief articles each month, how can you possibly need more client work? The two things should be mutually exclusive, unless....

If you are as puzzled as I was when I heard this, I will make things clear:

If you take on lots of clients at low fees, you will feel like you don't have enough work. In reality you have too much work. It is just work at a really low rate. This is a different kind of marketing problem. It is not a problem of quantity but a problem of quality.

The solution to the quality problem is to get your clients from better sources. As far as I know referrals are the absolute best sources of new clients. This is where your newsletter can be a very helpful tool. Your newsletter is designed to keep you "top of mind" with your clients and referral sources. That means it helps you generate awareness among these groups so that when someone has a need for your services, they immediately think of you. That is the value of a newsletter. It is a referral tool.

Can Your Law Firm Benefit from a Monthly Newsletter?

Here is a good way to tell if you law firm can benefit from a monthly newsletter:
Ask yourself if you receive one referral per month per 500 people you know. This means if you have 1,000 people in your contact database, you should get two referrals per month. If the answer to that question is "NO" then you will definitely benefit from a law firm newsletter.

Addressing the Time Issue

For the sake of argument, let's say your time is worth $500 per hour. And let's say it takes you two hours to write each article for your newsletter. That means you are spending about four hours per month on your newsletter. It costs you $2,000 in "time" to put your newsletter together. If the printing and mailing cost of that newsletter is $1 each (that is a very high estimate) and you send it to 1,000 people, your total cost, including your time, is $3,000.

If you do this consistently, you will get at least two leads per month from your newsletter. If you stink at converting leads you will only convert half of them. So your newsletter will be responsible for only one client each month. But if your average client fee is $6,000 or more you have received a 100% return on your investment.

Bottom Line

The bottom line on the use of newsletters for lawyers is they work. This is indisputable. They are probably one of the most cost effective tools you have in your marketing arsenal.

I highly encourage you to add a monthly print newsletter to your law firm marketing plan.

One of the things most lawyers miss when they look to engage a new client is the thing that should be most obvious. Although it is one of the key tenants in marketing for lawyers, most attorneys do not do an adequate job creating urgency.

The client needs to feel urgency to hire a lawyer, preferably the lawyer in front of him. There is only one way to do this: Sell the pain.

The client must fully comprehend how bad things can get. The client must realize that the worst case scenario is not only possible; it is probable if they do not act quickly. The client must FEEL the danger of not making a decision.

Read that statement carefully because it is different than what most lawyers think. You are selling against indecision and not against another lawyer.

Here is the process for selling the pain to the client:

First: The client must feel that they need help. They really have to be moved, on an emotional level, to take action. This means they need to visualize the worst case scenario and believe it can happen to them.

One of the ways a skilled lawyer can do this is by asking some seemingly harmless questions. These questions should be designed to have the client visualize the potentially negative consequences of the case.

Next: The client must admit they need help. Knowing and admitting are two distinctly different things. The way to help the client admit they need help is to give him permission. You must nurture the client until he feels comfortable with you and then you give him permission to confess his need for assistance.

Finally: The client must feel compelled to act now. This always seems to be the component of the process lawyers get hung up on. The best way to help your client gain a sense of urgency is by showing them examples of past cases where the client failed to act quickly. Nothing sells like the truth. You should always be prepared with examples and case studies that support making an immediate decision.

Keep in mind that you can never force this process on a client. You must do your best to draw it out of them. You need to use your strategy of asking powerful questions to lead the client exactly where you want him to go. If this is your idea, it means nothing but if hiring you is the client's idea, it means everything.

One of the topics that comes up most frequently among my clients is securing speaking engagements. Many attorneys want them but few know how to secure them. Here is a sure-fire process you can use to secure as many speaking engagements as you can handle.

Step one: View This As a Marketing Process

Securing a speaking engagement is not easy. You have to put forth significant effort in order to make certain you are on the top of the list to be selected. As part of a marketing plan, you must have a message targeted at the right market delivered via the right media. The steps that follow will help you do that.

Step Two: Make a Video of Your Speech

You should video tape yourself giving your speech to an audience and then put that speech up on Youtube. This will allow you to send out links to this video when you start to market yourself.

You should also post this video on your website on your Facebook profile and on any other social media sites you are a member of.

Step Three: Break your Speech into Weekly Emails

Each week you should send out some of your content in a weekly email with a link to the Youtube video as your call to action. This will get the meeting or event planner interested in what you have to say.

Step Four: Use Regular Mail To Send Out a Postcard Every Week

Every week you should send out a postcard via regular mail. This postcard should contain a quote or some other tidbit of interesting information and it should also include a link to your video site. This is a valuable follow-up step that must be included.

Step Five: Follow Up with a Phone Call

The final step is to place a monthly phone call to the meeting or event planner. This phone call will help you secure your impression in their mind and it will also help them understand how serious you are about speaking to their group.

It is very important that you do not get discouraged at any point in this process. Just because people do not respond to you immediately does not mean they are not receiving your information. Your persistence will be part of the brand you establish in their mind.

Remember that securing a speaking engagement is a marketing process in and of itself. Give it the effort it deserves. Have your message, market and media ready to go and work hard at it. The payoff from this process will be well worth the effort.

I went to lunch with a group of smart lawyers today. One of the topics of conversation was advertising and how lawyers get business. This group of lawyers was particularly sensitive to law firm advertising rules (they are in Florida and this state is one of the most restrictive in the country for attorney advertising).

The topic of attorney advertising came up because of a story told by one of the members of the group. This particular lawyer was lamenting about how several of his friends/colleagues/former clients didn't know that he worked on a specific area of law. He told the group that he was frustrated by his inability to better communicate this information.

The lawyer then proposed a solution: He said he was going to take out an ad in one of the local publications that focused on his target market. Not a bad idea. Just a bit premature.

This video explains.

The first step in any law firm marketing campaign, to be done before attorney advertising, is to engage your current client database, your database of past clients and your database of referral sources. In addition you should engage the members of your natural network (friends, relatives etc). The best way to do this is with a monthly newsletter.

I know that I have written about this before (on several occasions).

Engaging your database is the fastest way to get the word out about anything. In six months, you will have referral cases streaming into your office. And this will happen at a fraction of the cost of advertising.

Think about it. You are engaging people who know you, like you and trust you before you advertise to engage total strangers. It really does make sense.

There is one big lie that a handful of people perpetuate about law firm marketing. This is the mentality that if you are a good lawyer law firm marketing is not necessary. I hear this all the time. People say: "Just be a good lawyer and word will get out." That is simply not true. There are thousands of good lawyers in the United States today who are broke.

Whether you like it or not, the law is a business. If you do not have a marketing effort your business will fail. That is a fact. It is certain.

The law is also a profession. This means you cannot market your business in the same way other businesses market. You have a responsibility to protect the integrity of the profession while you aggressively look to grow you business.

Law firm marketing is about developing and deepening relationships. If you view marketing in that light, you will never go afoul of any attorney marketing rules. Simply use good commonsense and good business sense and develop relationships through marketing.

There are two important elements in relationship development (law firm marketing). The first is trust. You need to establish an environment of trust with your prospective clients and with people who may refer business to you. Without trust there is no law firm.

The second element is respect. If your clients do not respect you, they will not hire you. If your referral sources do not respect you they will not send business your way.
These two elements are essential to your success. You cannot have your face on the side of a bus and be respected. You will look like a clown. You cannot go on television and make a fool of yourself and be taken seriously.

When these two elements are missing everyone has issues with law firm marketing. But this doesn't mean that law firm marketing as a whole is bad or wrong.

Keep this in mind the next time you hear someone say, "Just be a good lawyer and the clients will come." This is a big lie. They will not unless you develop a relationship with them.

Targeting a specific niche is one of the most valuable marketing strategies a law firm can employ. Contrary to popular belief this is not about restricting your law firm to practicing only in one area of the law. This is however about targeting your marketing to one specific group at a time.

In other words, you are going to be tailoring your marketing message to the specific groups of people who are the intended recipients. But this should go well beyond a simple message to market match. This is about tailoring everything you do to meet the needs and desires of that market. All of your marketing must speak to their pain.

There are a few different ways to select a niche market for your law firm.

The first way is to select a niche by industry. This means you focus on helping people in a specific industry with specific challenges. There are attorneys who focus on the advertising industry or on the telecommunications industry for example. My all-time favorite is the guy here in Florida who is an expert in helping people who have insurance claims stemming from termite infestation.

Another way to select a niche market is by specific matter. I have a client who markets himself as an expert in Manager Service Agreements. I have another client who focuses exclusively on DUI cases; I work with a third person who only handles cases with goods seized by United States Customs officials.

A third way to select a niche is by focusing on a hobby or subculture. The idea here is to find people with some form of commonality and leverage that in your marketing. For example: You could market your law firm directly to bikers or directly to people from a certain country.

Selecting a niche market is a great way to establish marketing dominance.

Most attorneys have an obsession over hours. They are concerned about the hours they bill. They are concerned about their hourly rate. They are concerned about the number of hours they spend in the office each day. With this obsession over hours, you would think it would naturally carry through to their marketing.

Think about it. You attend a networking event with no objective and no expectation of results. You spend hours working on getting the color of your brochures correct. You spend hours and hours working on your biography.

You have spent all of this time on marketing and you have no direct results to show for your efforts. This video will help emphasize the point.

Everything you do and every hour you spend, from a marketing standpoint, should produce a return on investment.

If you spend three hours working on a magazine article you should get reprints made and send them to your best clients. That mailing should include a call to action. You should be able to measure the business that comes from that mailing.

If you attend a networking event, you should have a desired outcome in mind. You should have at least three targeted people you would like to meet. After you leave you should have a follow up plan for how you will keep in touch with those people.

The bottom line in attorney marketing is: If you can't measure it, don't do it.

There is one thing that separates successful lawyers from those who are not successful. That one thing is action.

One of the things I have noticed about attorneys who have built lifestyle law firms, that means they have built law firms that deliver high quality clients with matters that allow them to do their best work, is that they take some form of action each and every single day to improve their law firm.

That's every day. They do something, even if it is just one thing. They make it a habit.
Here are a few examples of ways you can take daily action to build a lifestyle law firm:

Make a Phone Call

One phone call every day can make a big difference in your client attraction ability. You can call a former client and ask for an introduction to someone he knows. You can call a colleague and remind him what you do. You can call an event planner and ask about upcoming speaking engagements.

Making one phone call each day means you have made 30 of these calls each month. Do you think, after making 30 calls, you could find a couple of people who would hire you? I do.

Write a Handwritten Note

Each day you should write one note to someone thanking them for something. Even on the worst day, you can find someone to thank. The recipient can be a waiter in a restaurant, the receptionist in the dentist office, your friend's brother who sent you a case.

This process does two things: First: If forces you to approach life from a mindset of gratitude. This is a positive emotion and it makes you more attractive. Second: It helps keep you connected to at least one additional person. This means you will have an opportunity to get at least one more referral.

Include your business card in the thank you note, just in case.

Send an Email

These days most people communicate by email. If you want to reach reporters, politicians, people who travel or people in different time zones, I encourage you to send them an email. Reaching out to a different person each day using this media is helpful because it will get an immediate response (if they choose to respond).

Keep in mind that email should be no different in structure than regular mail. The topic, tone and timing should all be focused on the world of the recipient.

Go to Lunch

Every day you must eat lunch. Do not eat alone. Invite someone who can help you build your law firm to have lunch with you. One day this can be a referral source. Another day this can be a reporter. Another day this can be a person involved in a charitable organization that you have an interest in joining. Lunchtime should be marketing time.

These are four everyday actions you can take to grow your law firm and develop good law firm marketing habits. These are the basics. There are more advanced strategies that are available to help you grow your law firm more quickly. For those strategies visit: http://www.LegalMarketingFastStart.com