3-Step Email Marketing Strategy to Turn Leads into Clients

Opting into your email newsletter. Responding to a social media contest. Once a prospect connects with you in some way and provides their contact information, they’ve transformed from a cold lead into a warm lead. That’s a huge milestone, but how do you nudge them into taking the final step and becoming a client?

The following 3-step attorney email marketing strategy can help you go for the close and convert warm leads into paying clients.

Step 1: Segment your warm leads list

In order to know how to best nurture your warm leads, you’ll first need to understand the differences between cold, warm, and qualified leads.

  • Cold lead: a stranger with potentially no knowledge about, or interest in, your law firm
  • Warm lead: a prospect who has shown an interest in your legal services and provided their contact information
  • Qualified lead: the best type of warm lead or a hot lead, a qualified lead is one that is primed and ready to invest in your services. Qualified leads fulfill all elements of the BANT system—they have the Budget to afford you, the Authority to sign the contract with your firm, the Need for your services, and a Time period in mind for moving forward.

Notice that there’s a distinction between warm leads and qualified leads. This doesn’t mean that some of your average warm leads are not qualified leads—they may be, which means it’s your job to gather more information and qualify them if possible. If you discover that a warm lead isn’t qualified at the moment, that’s alright. Continue nurturing it in the event that it becomes qualified in the future.

The key takeaway here for your law firm marketing: segmenting your warm leads list into “need more information to qualify” warm leads, leads to maintain in case they’re qualified in the future, and qualified leads ensures that you prioritize the best leads and appeal to each type of warm lead in the most appropriate ways.

Step 2: Set up a relevant email campaign for each type of warm lead

Qualified Leads
This is the most promising sector of your warm leads list and should be the #1 priority. Set up an lawyer marketing campaign that nudges recipients to make that final decision.

Let’s say that they filled out the contact form on your website with their name, contact information, and a brief comment that they are considering a few DUI defense attorneys and would simply like more information about your firm. In that case, you might send an email campaign that includes:

  1. Thank You and Introduction email: thanks the recipient for showing interest in your firm, provides basic information about your DUI defense services, features a powerful testimonial from a former client to show social proof, and offers your contact information to encourage the recipient to reach out and make further contact.
  2. Scarcity email: establishes a sense of urgency in order to prompt the recipient to contact you quickly. Consider including a small promotion or incentive. For example, the recipient will receive a free e-book about “10 Most Commonly Asked DUI Questions” if they contact you now.
  3. Liking email: explains your differentiators—what makes you different and better than your competition—and your firm’s values to establish rapport. Try including a brief video from your attorney team to make this more powerful.
  4. Social Proof email: features a touching story about a client that you helped and also links to your testimonials page and Yelp page (assuming you have positive reviews on Yelp).
  5. Authority email: highlight your firm’s and attorneys’ accomplishments to establish your practice as an industry leader.

After they become a client, ask them if they’d like to receive free blog articles and e-newsletters and then switch them to your typical email list.   

Download our free guide and learn about the importance of key performance indicators (KPIs)

Leads That Require Further Information
Warm prospects that give you their email address but no additional information usually do so in order to receive a free piece of content, like a white paper, e-book, or reference guide. An email campaign can help you learn more information about the prospect and qualify them, or urge them to contact your firm.
After delivering an email containing the content requested, send a follow-up email with your contact information and offer to answer any questions they may have. If you don’t receive a response, continue with a campaign that includes:

  • An email highlighting other free resources that they can download after providing a bit more information
  • Links to relevant blog articles
  • A survey that asks them about their needs
  • Prospect/client FAQs

Warm Leads to Maintain for the Future
Warm leads that aren’t qualified at the moment should still be maintained. Shunt them to your blog and newsletter list and urge them to connect with you on social media so they can take advantage of any future contests or promotions.

Step 3: Assess results

Keep tabs on how well each email and campaign performs. You’ll notice trends like which emails convert the most and least, the average number of touchpoints needed to convert a warm lead into a client, and how to boost your attorney email marketing conversion rate.

If you’re not sending referral emails, you’re missing out on new business and letting good contacts go stale! Check out our email marketing services and keep in touch with your contacts.

5 Surefire Ways To Turn Off Your Email Subscribers

Email campaigns, or eblasts, are great for client retention and lead generation—when they’re done correctly.

If your eblasts aren’t generating the results they once were, or never have, and you’re not quite sure why, these 5 tips will shed light on possible problems, and help turn the interest back on among your subscribers.

1. Do Your Emails Only Discuss Your Firm’s Services?

If so, how boring is that? Think of the last email you received that was 99% salesy in nature. Even if you love the company it was sent from, were you really interested in hearing nothing but company promotion? Of course not, and this is no different from your subscribers.

You can promote your firm, but do so lightly. Make sure your emails contain valuable, interesting content such as legal tips, instructional videos, photographs, infographics, trivia questions or games, etc., that a subscriber will be happy to receive, not regretful.

2. Are Your Emails Repetitive or Drawn-Out?

It’s been said that our attention span is getting shorter by the minute, thanks in part to the lightning speed of social media, YouTube videos, texting, and more. In fact, if you’re reading this article, it’s likely that you’ve been skimming it, rather than reading it word for word. Hmmm?

With this in mind, keep your emails short and to the point. Overbearing text, too many graphics, or long-winded articles will repel your subscribers. Ask yourself, would you thoroughly read your emails if they were sent to you, or would you hit delete within a few glances?

3. Is Your Email Delivery Consistent?

Even the best content in the world won’t save your campaign if your emails are only sent once a month—attention spans apply to remembering people, too. If your content is smashing, you can try to send an eblast once a week, but once every two weeks is ideal. This keeps you fresh on the minds of your subscribers, and gives you time to produce content that’s current and engaging.

4. Do Your Emails Have a Clear Call-To-Action?

If your eblasts end with a “See You Next Time” kind of vibe, you’re not making it clear that a prospective client should contact you. Make sure that your content encourages someone to contact your firm to learn more, and provide examples of how you can help. And, make sure your firm’s contact information; social media handles, direct numbers, etc., are clearly visible.

5. Are You Testing Your Emails?

Using your website, blog, and social media pages to test the content of your emails is a great idea. Not only will you see where the interest lies, if a specific topic is generating enough buzz, you can create an entire eblast around that topic. This shows your subscribers that you’re interested in what they’re interested in, and it’s your pleasure to provide them with ample information on the subject.
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