How Do You Work To Show Your Attorney Clients The Results Of Your Marketing?

Interviewer: How often do you show your clients the results of your marketing? How often do you sit down with them and say, “This is where you’re most effective. This is what we need to improve.”

Richard: When I work with someone, the first thing I do is herd all the marketing cattle into the gate and put tracking on everything. This takes a while because things are usually a mess. They may not even know who hosts their website; or if they own it, where this number goes or where that email goes.

The first thing is putting tracking on everything, and finding the pulse and the heartbeat of what’s going on. Then we start to work on stuff. At least on a monthly basis, I’ll call them.

I say, “Are you retaining? Are you getting phone calls? Here’s what I see. I saw you got 19 phone calls this month. Here’s the caller ID of all the numbers. How many of them turned into clients? Are they at that stage?” The response may be, “I don’t know, Susan answers the phone. I’ll have her call you and figure out which I retained and which I didn’t.”

I show them this stuff at least monthly. Still, I have to harp on them to close the loop and really get feedback about what’s going on. It can be a big challenge, but it is very important. Again, how do you know I am doing my job? I try to show you, and not hide it from you. You have to close the loop and track stuff.

Interviewer: How long is the process from the time somebody contacts you for help to them actually seeing marketing results?

Richard: It depends on what they do. The meeting is going to be immediate. Two weeks or less is going to be direct mail, pay-per-click or buying leads. Long-term, which is four to six months, is SEO, newsletter to past clients and things like that. So, it depends on what they want to do.

If it’s a mix or if it’s just one thing, my clients will see improvement in all things over time. However, it’s not going to be a situation where their phone is dead and now it’s ringing every single day. That takes time no matter what you do.

You are going to do it. You have to test it, tweak it and make it better. It is really a month or two before you really know your baseline; what’s being improved and where you’re at.

Interviewer: Once you begin to work with an attorney, how long are clients committed? Do you require a long-term, contractual relationship?

Richard: No, maybe it’s a failing of mine, but everything I do is month to month. I don’t want to keep anyone that’s unhappy with me. So, again, everything I do is month to month. I’ve had some clients for two years. I have some that are brand new. People do fall out. They get impatient. Something happens. They get lured away by another company sometimes. Things happen, but that’s how I choose to do it.

If you have to lock someone into a year or two, or three year contract, then you don’t have the backing to really say you do a good job. If you do a good job, then you shouldn’t have to worry about doing that stuff.

Again, if I have an attorney who is unhappy I don’t want to keep him in a contract. What’s the point? I’m going to get a few thousand dollars more, but they may sue me. They may hate me or tell other people it was a bad experience. Why would I want that? If they’re not happy, I would rather they say, “No problem, take care. Thanks for working with me. Bye.”

Interviewer: There is plenty of competition for you. How do you compare to the competition?

Richard: I try to break through, through education. One thing I’ve realized too is even after I get a client, they’re still getting calls every day from other people trying to seduce them away. I always have to bring value. I have to communicate a lot with them. I also make sure the experience is very personal.

I call my client attorney’s at least every two weeks. I try and do it every week if possible, but I definitely want to do an interview with them every two weeks to get more content. Every month I want to talk to them about the results. I want to go over strategy.

What are we doing that’s working? What’s not working? What should we be doing? So communicating and always trying to bring value are the best things I do. Then I keep as many clients as I can because I’m trying my best.