There are many ways to turn your law firm website visitors into paying clients. Just because you have website traffic, doesn’t mean your visitors will fill out your contact form or call for a consultation. To transition your website visitors into leads, you must motivate them enough to give up their contact information. You must begin nurturing a relationship quickly with your visitors and build trust. Then the only next “natural” step would be for them to hand their contact information over.
But, conversions won’t always be in the form of phone calls or consultations. Often, website visitors aren’t ready to speak with a lawyer directly. They might still be in their comparison or research phase. It’s at this point you’ll want to:
- Cater to their specific needs
- Offer them something of value in exchange for their personal information
- Begin the relationship nurturing process
Then you can start funneling them toward becoming paying clients.
A good way to do this is by using lead magnets.
Lead magnets have been around for many years. They continue playing an integral role in lead generation for businesses, marketers, and even law firms. With a lead magnet, you’re offering something of value for free in exchange for your prospect’s name, phone, and email.
Lead Magnet Tips for Targeting your Ideal Client
To make the most of lead magnets in your legal marketing strategy, you’ll want to follow the tips below.
1. Be Specific with your Lead Magnets
Don’t be vague with your lead magnets. They need to provide a highly specific solution to a highly specific target audience. An unclear or ambiguous solution won’t intrigue potential clients.
When creating your lead magnet, ensure it’s not:
- Complex
- Lengthy
- Time-intensive
Long and complicated lead magnets generally convert poorly.
You’re basically looking to solve a specific issue that a distinct segment of your market is dealing with.
2. Make your Lead Magnet Quick and Easy to Consume
Your lead magnet should ideally take no more than five minutes for your ideal clients to consume. If it’s long and complex, it’s not likely it’s specific enough to solve their problems. This will defeat the purpose. You want to create a lead magnet that provides incredible value within the first five minutes of your prospects opting in. If it’s too difficult to consume (i.e. a 30-day email course or a 300-page ebook) your conversion rates could suffer.
Create lead magnets that:
- Provide value
- Provide immediate gratification
- Offer speed and ease
Your market is looking for solutions to their problems now; not 30 days from now.
3. Be Proactive with the Promotion of your Lead Magnets
Once you’ve created the perfect lead magnet to attract your ideal clients, you must now promote it. There are many ways to promote your lead magnets, including:
- Send out emails to your clients
- Create social media posts
- Share with strategic partners and promote your lead magnet to their audience
- Use paid ads through LinkedIn, Facebook, Google, or other online ad-options
- Create a LinkedIn article and/or blog post
You can also target different audiences with different lead magnets. Your target market has different problems they need solutions to.
Types of Lead Magnets to Incorporate into your Legal Marketing
Not all lead magnets are created equal and serve the same function. You can experience a 20% opt-in rate with an effective, highly-targeted lead magnet. A general, across-the-board lead magnet, however, will likely only reap you a measly 2% opt-in rate. There are different types of lead magnets for different purposes. Some include:
1. Resource Lists
A resource list allows you to put a bunch of disorganized information all in one place. This makes resource lists quite popular. You can turn your law firm into a single point of reference with a well-done resource list. The next time your ideal clients are looking for something that relates to your services, they can turn to your resource list instead of searching on Google.
2. Checklists
These are also popular with all types of readers since they’re simple to read and digest. You can condense a lot of information into easy-to-read, quick lists that offer your readers value. For instance, you could offer guidance on:
- Preparing for a tax audit
- Getting ready for a court date
- Preparing for a tenant filing in housing court
Ultimately, any type of guidance you can provide to your readers that will help them solve a problem will do great.
3. Free Consultations
This type of lead magnet invites potential clients to connect with you personally through a free consultation. It establishes credibility and allows them to get to know you and your services better, before they retain you. By providing them with a free consultation, it helps boost their confidence in you and your services, helping to transition them into paying clients.
Free consultations allow you to build one-on-one rapport with ideal clients. It helps you learn about their problems and pain points.
To make your free consultation most effective, you need to set expectations. Let your leads know:
- What the consultation will cover
- How long it will last
- What they can expect to take away
Warm your clients up. During this free consultation, provide your clients with a brief introduction of the services you provide and answer any questions.
4. Case Studies or Data
One perfect lead magnet idea your law firm can offer is case studies or data. This provides your prospects with a deeper insight into a certain area of law. It’s a great way to show them how you solved a similar issue before that they have and brings them into a story. It can reassure them, particularly since many law cases are often overwhelming and seem complicated to most individuals.
5. Legal How-to-Guide
Creating a legal how-to-guide will allow you to offer your ideal clients a guide based on your own knowledge and professional experience on any given issue or area with legal implications.
Legal how-to-guides build credibility and trust. They carry a lot of weight since they’re written by qualified attorneys.
If you were to ask any law firm what they most struggle with, there’s a good chance they’ll tell you it’s finding new leads for their law firm business. To tackle this common issue, oftentimes law firms will simply spend thousands of dollars on ads (both online ads and local media). But, there’s a more economical and easier way of generating leads into your law firm — lead magnets.
