The Covid 19 virus is here, if not to stay, then for at least into the foreseeable future. What has been the effect on your law firm, on your legal marketing?
Some marketing tools have been severely affected. Relationship marketing, the development of personal relationships with prospective clients or referral sources, is a very powerful marketing tool. However, it has been especially hard hit. Networking at meetings? Nope. Too risky plus attendance will surely be down. One-on-one lunches or meeting for drinks? Nope, same issue; risk. Plus there is less likelihood that anyone will want to meet at a bar or restaurant. So what do you do? Here are three tips:
1. Stay connected with your network.
While you may not be able to meet in person, you can still connect with your contacts, business prospects, and referral prospects. You should have a Marketing Master Contact List that has information on everyone you know who is likely to be a client or a referral source. That list should include contact information, last time contacted, what was discussed, and the next contact date. Use the list to keep in regular contact through whatever method works best for you and the prospect; telephone, email, Zoom, etc. The same applies to clients and past clients: stay in touch.
2. Use social media.
Older attorneys may not like it but it’s what’s happening. The main sites are Linked In and Facebook. You can create a powerful profile on Linked In and develop contacts with many potential referral sources. There is an art to writing your profile, so spend a bit of time learning how or hire someone who knows the tricks. With Facebook, you can have a company (law firm) page. This allows you to be more conversational and post news, upcoming events, anything of interest to prospective clients. You can hire someone to create the page (not expensive at all) or do it yourself. The one thing about social media is you need to have fresh content. If you don’t have time to spend on this, and it can be time-intensive, you can hire content creation out. There are social media firms that will do this for you.
3. Video.
YouTube has made video ubiquitous. We use it every day for entertainment, information, how-tos, etc. You should be there, it is the number two search engine after Google! Post informational videos about a practice area that a prospect would like to learn about. A video that answers questions they may have. The main benefit of video is that people like to see an attorney they might hire to represent them. A picture is OK but a video, where they can see you “walk and talk” is much more powerful. You can easily start a YouTube channel and upload any number of videos. You can also insert a widget on your website that links to your videos on YouTube. You will want the videos to be professional enough, but our collective standards have been lowered. It is possible to make videos yourself with simple inexpensive equipment that will be effective for marketing your law firm.
I hope these three tips help. What ideas can you come up with that will work in this Covid Era? You can check out the marketing page of my website for more marketing tips and ideas.
Have a Great Practice!