Direct Response Marketing For Attorneys: Components and Strategies

by Robert Wilson | Last updated Dec-13-18

Direct Response Marketing For Attorneys: Components and Strategies

Attorneys are trained in the law.

They generally are not schooled in direct response marketing and lead generation.

Nonetheless, by no means am I saying lawyers care not persuasive.

They certainly can be. After all, law school requires attending legal research and writing courses that provide structure aimed at convincing courts that an attorney’s perspective is right, proper and just.

Yet, therein lies the disconnect many attorneys fail to see.

You see, just because a person is highly trained in persuasive rhetoric that has resulted in successful verdicts in the millions does not mean those same techniques will be successful with a  consumer or litigant.

In fact, I have found they often fail.  Simply because the target market is massively different.

Quite simply, a claimant is not a judge.  A claimant usually does not think like a judge, does not have a law degree, and does not know case law. And they certainly do not write like a judge.

Significantly, claimants often think with emotion first and logic second, which in many ways is opposite that of a judge and the teachings of law school.

This article delves into direct response marketing components and strategies for attorneys when advertising online. These will allow attorneys to retain more claimants from their digital marketing efforts.

Significantly, an appreciation for the target market will allow a better understanding and application of the direct response strategies mentioned here.

For context, one of the sites we will be reviewing is https://www.4injuryattorneys.com/auto-accident/ .  This will help provide an initial basis for this article.

1. What Is Direct Response Marketing?
   

   Direct response marketing is a form of advertising that elicits an immediate response from the consumer. In two words: “lead generation.” The main component is the call to action. According many marketing agencies, the following three elements are essential to a direct response marketing advertisement. An offer or value proposition Relevant information A clear call to action Let’s explain each of these components in detail. The Offer or Value Proposition Per smartyads.com, the offer is the initial statement that introduces the product or service.  This includes general aspects that appeal to a consumer’s emotions, such as what the product or service does for the consumer.Take a look the example below. Here, you see the offer begins in the form of the question, “Have you suffered an injury or accident?” Notably, some may consider the offer solely as the second sentence, which is “Get the compensation you deserve.” However, both statements here complete the offer, which is to use an attorney’s services to get the compensation an accident injury victim desires following a personal injury. As you will see, the offer provides the first step in the sales cycle. This offer is geared towards grabbing the prospective claimant’s attention and leading them to the next step.  This could be anything from making a phone call, sending an email, submitting their information (which is the goal for the example website), or requesting a demo. Ultimately, the offer focuses on prospects’ greed, fear, desires, and other emotions. Relevant information Generally, you must capture a claimant or consumer’s attention within 7 seconds.  Otherwise, they may bounce from your direct response advertisement. So, your attorney website must be quick and concise with information.  This will enable a consumer or claimant to make an informed decision and act. Here are some tips to consider: The less well-known the product or service is, the more likely more information will be required. The message must be persuasive and compelling. The message must solve the consumer’s problem, or create a need or desire. The message must play to consumer’s emotions when solving a problem or creating a need. Too much information could render a consumer confused, which results in no decision. Too little information could render a consumer lacking motivation to continue. There are many aspects to consider here.  After evaluating them, you may consider whether a long-form landing page is best. The more complicated the decision, the more likely it is that a long-form will convert better. Notably, according to an article by Instapage, price is directly proportional to the length of your landing page.  Specifically, a higher sales price equates to more content. Law firms that specialize in personal injury law may consider imparting information like that shown below when making a general statement about their benefits. To see more examples, many that are long form, check out Impact’s top landing pages for lead generation. Call to Action The call to action may be one of the most important aspects of direct response marketing.A call to action is the prompt that drives the prospective claimant to take the next step. An unclear action request may confuse the visitor; that could effectuate them bouncing from the page and leading to a failed conversion. Check out the two examples below. One of the most common examples is the “click here” button, as shown above. Other examples include the following: Subscribe today Sign-up now Download now Share on social media Buy now Get assistance today Speak to a representative Add to cart Add to wishlist As you may notice, these often include the words “now” and “today.”  These are used to emphasize that the benefit may be obtained in the near term. Time-bound calls to action are often considered integral to this component.  After all, the objective of direct response marketing is to generate an immediate response. There are many strategies to consider when employing an effective call to action.  Check out the ones below. Location, location, location. Most online marketers recommend the call to action be within the top fold.  It should be among the most prominent and eye-catching elements of the page. Design and color. In the example above, you can see the attractive button in the color red, which is hard to miss.  Typically, you would want to have a color that has some degree of contrast with the rest of the page. Part of the design should include the negative space surrounding the design, which also is critical. Negative space, also referred to as “white space” helps add more prominence and effectuates higher conversions to the next step. Options. Take another look at the examples above to see the different types of actions you can request. Remember, some people may want to submit their information online, while others prefer to speak to someone immediately.  Moreover, some products and services require a demo or subscription. Short length. Because the call to action is a command, it needs to be direct and to the point. Typically, there are no more than three words.  They may also state a clear benefit to be gained following the action. Urgency.  Direct response marketing distinguishes itself from other forms of marketing because it is based upon eliciting a response in the short-term.  Recall the words “now” and “today’ in the calls to action. The likelihood that a consumer or claimant will convert to a lead drastically decreases with time.  Hence, time-bound offers and calls to action can succeed when based upon fear of a missed opportunity. Every audience responds to different offers, information, and calls to action.  Most marketers recommend A/B testing to determine what evokes the best conversion rate. Pursuing different ways to present the main components helps eliminate poor responding components and more retained clients.

    

2. Direct Response Strategies
   

   There are multiple strategies and platforms attorneys can use when launching a direct response marketing campaign. Some of the most popular include: Online marketing Email Over the years, businesses in most industries have flourished through digital marketing and email.  The advent of the internet has allowed small businesses, such as boutique law firms, to break through the competitive barriers that exist with traditional television and radio. Pay per click (through search, and display) and search engine optimization are well-known in the legal field.  These two strategies are also known to be either expensive or time-consuming. Yet, online marketing for law firms has risen over the years, which has leveled the playing field. This may be offset by high retention rates and faster turn-arounds. Online marketing One of the most popular forms of online marketing includes pay per click, which can be done through search engines like Google. It may also be accomplished through social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram. Let’s consider Google Adwords, a platform that can provide highly targeted messages.  Below are demographic targets attorneys offered that may not be available through other means. Geographic targeting. With Adwords, you can obtain users’ IP addresses, which are based upon geographic location.  This can be as wide as a country and as narrow as cities and zip codes; you can even target within a mile-radius. Overall, there are a number of recommended geotarget optimizing strategies attorneys can pursue. Look at the image below to see an example of the area you might see if you were to advertise for auto accident injury claimants in the state of New York. Audience targeting. This strategy allows digital marketers to have more control regarding which users are seeing their ads.  This is especially effective when “remarketing” to users who have visited a law firm’s landing page. Lawyers may consider age, gender, and mobile versus desktop. A helpful tip is to consider who you are not marketing to so that funds are not wasted on those who don’t need legal assistance. Notably, pay per click can be expensive too.  Check out WordStream’s List of Most Expensive Keywords in Google Adwords. Significantly, the keywords relating to “attorney” and “lawyer are ranked #4 and #6 respectively.  The first considers keywords like “personal injury attorney” and the second includes “personal injury lawyer.” When pursuing Google Adwords, think of the following components: Quality Score. This benchmark factors page speed and relevance. The more targeted your keywords, the more accurate you can pursue your target market. Negative keywords. Remove terms that have less relevance to target more accurately. Optimized landing pages. Improve your results with proper content, images and relevant content. Search engine optimization is also a highly coveted form of attorney lead generation and has been especially common among personal injury lawyers. Generally, there are two types of SEO markets when considering search engines, especially for Google. Your can pursue nationwide or local optimization strategies. Most personal injury attorneys have specific geographic targets they prefer that are city or county-based.  Google My Business likely is the most popular form.  The nice part is that it is free to jump into this strategy. The downside is that it takes time to pursue this lead generation strategy. Yet, the response can bet terrific. GMB has great benefits, including: Display relevant information Interact with customers Locate the law firm Track traffic and audience Gain customer insight Next, we will look at email marketing for lawyers.   Email Direct Response Marketing Email marketing is widely considered among the most effective digital marketing methods. It can be very cost effective and targeted, while providing the opportunity to capture repeat business and referrals.And it has evolved light years from its inception.Many relate this marketing tactic to the mass email broadcasting that gained prevalence in the 1990’s and 2000’s.  Usually, this involved obtaining people’s email address via databases that were collected and resold. In fact, the first email blast was delivered in 1978 and generated sales amounting to an astounding $13 million worth of computer equipment.  It was sent by Gary Theurk who was a marketing manager at Digital Equipment Corp., and ever since he been called the father of spam. Compared to direct mail, emailing can be a more promising means of generating referrals since it allows the chance to stay relevant and at the forefront of clients’ minds. To be successful in today’s digital world, you will need to understand three important elements of a successful email campaign. Catchy Subject Line Subject lines are the most important component to email marketing.  This is the key to getting your target audience to open the email. Check out these statistics: Coschedule and HubSpot show that subject lines generate open rates between 33% to 35% of the time. Recipients determine an email is spam 69% of the time based upon the subject line. The length of the subject line plays a role too. Using 3 words generates the highest open rate (21.2%) compared to 7 words (15.8%), which is the most frequent amount used. The worst performing words in subject lines include “Subscription,” “Report,” and “Journal” (which is the worst). One of the strongest recommendations is to use emotions when writing subject lines. The two most important emotions are fear and greed. To play on fear, consider mentioning there is a limited time claimants can act before their claim expires due to statute of limitations.  Further, there are things claimants can do to ruin their claims. Regarding greed, think about the amount of compensation a person can get from a claim.  Also, time can be a factor, and settling fast may be key to evoking a person’s response. Consider subject lines like the following: Don’t Ruin Your Claim You Have A Limited Time to File and Settle Watch Out For These 5 Common Mistakes Don’t Settle For Less Let Us Get The Most From Your Claim We Can Help The bottom line is that if you’re a accident attorney, or anyone pursuing email marketing as a lead generation strategy, put the most emphasis on your subject line.   Personalization The most common way to personalize an email is to include the person’s name. You may also personalize based upon location, product or service used, landing page where information was submitted, and company that is responding to the user or claimant (such as when the landing page originates from a third-party company). Check out the following statistics: 96% of organizations believe that personalizing an email increases performance. 52% of customers say they’ll find somewhere else to go when an email is not personalized. Open rates for a personalized message is 18.8%, as compared to 13.1% without personalization. As you can see, personalizing an email can have an impact.  If your firm is not including ways to include the name and other aspects of a prospect, you need to start. And this might be a great place to mention that adding personalization in the subject line is also helpful, and a tactic we include for our clients who benefit from our proprietary lead distribution and marketing platform.   Layout and Design There are three important points to remember when considering the layout and design of your emails: Be short, sweet, and to the point. Use a visual that tells a story, requests and action, and provides a benefit Try to evoke an emotion Page layout includes using white space or negative space. Additionally, if you’re too stuffy and lengthy then your message may not be read. The short message is among the most helpful when eliciting a response, which is important for pursuing claimants of negligence. Many injury claimants are not under serious time constraints, or at least they believe.  This is unlike those seeking assistance for tax issues who are facing wage garnishment.   Call to Action The objective with direct response marketing and lead generation is to get a response. As mentioned above that comes from the call to action. So, it would be redundant to get into too much detail about this point.  But, it needs to be mentioned because of the critical role it plays. Take a look at some data points, since this element cannot be overlooked. Emails that included one call to action improved clicks 371% and sales 1617%. (Wordstream) Using first-person in calls to action increase click through rates by 90%. (ContentVerve) Calls to action that are red generate a 21% higher conversion, while orange was 32.5%. (QuickSprout)   Overall Structure When putting this all together, here are some points to consider. Emails should be from a person. People can speak to a person and relate to a person. They do not speak to unnatural people, like corporations and limited liability or limited liability professional corporations.  Make the from line originate from staff. Subject line should be personalized. When a person clicks the submit button on a landing page, they want a confirmation their information was received.  Consider saying something like, “Hi Robert – We’ll Be Calling Momentarily.” Preview. The text a person reads after the subject line should tell them more about the reason for the email. Use this space as an opportunity to further entice them to open, including an incomplete sentence that starts with advice that attaches to the respondents emotions. The top fold. This should include an attention-grabbing image, preferably that has a logo and hopefully an attorney’s face. Body. There should be only a few sentences, one or two per paragraph.  This is especially the case on the first email response to a submission from a landing page. Like mentioned earlier, be short and sweet. Otherwise, your message could go unread. Call to action. There should be a statement that prompts the recipient to call or reply at least once within the content. But the last sentence, even the last image, should display another prompt requesting an action.

The Bottom Line: Making The Most From Attorney Lead Generation

The ultimate goal when pursuing a direct response strategy for attorney lead generation is to elicit a response from the prospect.

There are many strategies and platforms to consider, but when applying the information here you could see great success in growing your business.

Always consider A/B testing to uncover the most successful methods. If you don’t take the time to test, you may be missing more opportunities.

If you’re an attorney interested in direct response marketing and increasing your intake through personal injury lead generation companies, consider the aspects mentioned above.

We would love to hear your thoughts and experiences with target marketing and online lead generation!