5 Lead Nurturing Steps Every Law Firm Needs to Master

Firms poised for growth know the value of nurturing leads—from getting noticed to signing an attorney-client agreement, to the day your clients know that meeting you was one of the most fortunate things that could have happened to them.

Marketers and sales experts call it the sales funnel. At the funnel's wide-open top, many possible clients notice your firm. The narrower spout represents the contacts that become contractual relationships.

Interest in generating leads is vital, but only in the context of finding potential customers—and, ultimately, creating mutually satisfying attorney-client relationships. This is the difference between lead generation and lead nurturing.

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Across Florida's Legal Landscape….

Numerous lawyers compete for potential clients' attention. The power of lead nurturing is the Florida firm's competitive edge.

To generate a lead, in the legal context, begins with attracting a potential client's attention. It starts with a person-to-person connection. Nurture that connection, and there's a meaningfully higher chance that you're creating a relationship. That's the spout of the funnel, and there are proven ways to enlarge it. To be not only noticed by many but also chosen by many—that's the power of lead nurturing.

Creating the Right Content at the Right Time

Success is positioning your business as the clear choice for your contacts. As marketers will tell you, the typical client notices your firm ten times before selecting it. This isn't to say your firm should just email potential customers ten times. The optimal lead nurturing strategy involves multiple content modes, including video clips, blog posts, guides and articles, and social media.

So, which lead nurturing campaigns fit your firm's style and its business goals? Each content mode can deliver a certain kind of communication, aligned with a potential client's current perspective.

Within that customized context, we've found that the winning marketing strategy has five specific steps.

Step 1: Build Buyer Personas

A picture of your target audience is the start of a great content campaign. Fortunately, a firm's website brings us the necessary insight, identifying quick visits, and deeper engagements. This helps focus the message, creating more points where prospects are "ready to buy"—willing to forge an attorney-client relationship.

This brings us to the buyer persona—that is, your potential client's profile.

The associates and staff in your firm know a lot about your firm's existing clientele. And the right software can examine your contacts to get a detailed picture of how they seek your content. Do they read blog posts? Open your emails? Engage with your LinkedIn page? Asking contacts for feedback is essential, too. It's a simple thing to do.

Step 2: Produce Valuable Content—Regularly

Content is one thing, but what matters is relevant content. At the risk of sounding simplistic, effective content marketing depends on exact value—for your leads and existing clientele. For example, emails are directed to real names and tailored to its recipient's keen interests. They invite interaction. This entails:

Gathering insights into your audience's key challenges and how your firm helps them prevail over those challenges.
Producing actionable information that holds their interest.

Supply new content where it's needed, inspiring confidence and familiarity. It's all about a regular, diverse, and valuable content plan so that clients can look to your firm as a go-to source of expertise.

Step 3: Segment Your Leads Into Groups

Craft your communications optimally, in both substance and style. Fine-tune this by categorizing the contacts who come as:

Visitors. They're the top of the funnel folks who land on your site and have a look around.
Repeat visitors. They like what they see.
Leads. They download your eBook or white paper.
Marketing qualified leads. They're repeat visitors and also leads. Maybe they've even shared your blog content to get some feedback on it from family, friends, or colleagues.
Sales qualified leads. They have all of the four groups' characteristics above and have also explored your case studies, your "About Us" page, and, if available, pricing information. They might have clicked through your emails and downloaded more of your website content.
Sales accepted leads. They are ready to enter into an attorney-client agreement with you.

You'll apply the above lead scoring system to organize the contacts in your client relationship management software.

Step 4: Keep the Conversation Going

Once any lead shows interest in your firm, how do you stay on their radar without spending inordinate amounts of your staff's time? The answer is automated email nurturing. Automated email sequences offer regular opportunities for contact.

Your team can test your content elements—intriguing headlines, impactful images, personalization styles—to learn what resonates with each contact group. Yes, you can (and should) trigger emails for categories. It's an effective method to reach a projected number of contacts who'll become your clientele.

Step 5: Show Your Wins

Granted, you're here to win for your clients—not to crow about your firm. For your general audience, you're a source of unique and useful insights. For qualified leads? Your expertise can help them achieve their legal objectives. And as for existing clients, you're right there with them as they navigate business and life, with the valuable insights of a trusted firm.

And yet, especially at the beginning, your firm's value is evidenced by your experience in creating it. So it's essential to highlight testimonials, cases won, and delighted clients.

Your wins, then, make up an essential element of content creation, to inform everyday conversations between your firm and its leads.

Transform Your Online Presence

Turn your firm's website from a digital business card into a publicity powerhouse. Effective lead nurturing, in bottom-line terms, helps your firm meet and exceed its revenue goals.

Where can you start? At Rizen, we have the experience and resources to grasp your goals, personalize your content, and guide your strategy.

Our happy clients include law firms from a wide array of specialty areas. Just look at the results we've achieved for the attorneys at Trust Counsel and Loigica.

Start with our FREE Law Firm Marketing guide. Then, meet the team at Rizen—the smart partner for the future-focused law firm.