Marketing is the first phase in your law firm’s lead generation and client conversion goal. The next phase, which is often overlooked, is known as the intake process. Having an influx of clients knocking on your door is a clear sign of a cutting-edge marketing strategy. But no matter how much you have invested to have leads come your way, they will not convert to sales if your law firm does not have an optimized intake process.
The last thing you need is for your marketing strategy to drive in potential clients, but your intake process sends them to the next attorney down the street. If your intake process is trashing your marketing efforts, below are some ways you can change that:
Perform a legal marketing SWOT analysis
A well-defined intake procedure can assist with your law firm SWOT analysis, which should be done at least once a year.
A SWOT analysis is an amazing tool to help create a winning legal marketing plan and show you the health of your law firm. Here is what the acronym stands for:
Strengths
Includes your law firm’s advantage over others. Strengths could include the things your law firm does better than anyone else.
This may be your staff, your firm’s successes or results, and your firm’s reputation in the legal industry.
Weaknesses
Includes your law firm’s disadvantages. Weaknesses include areas that may have caused your firm to lose business.
This could be that you take days to return phone calls and ignore emails, or you need to gain more knowledge on an accompanying area of law. It may also include things that keep your firm from increasing its visibility, such as lack of law firm SEO.
Opportunities
Includes elements of marketing that could benefit your firm. Opportunities may be events you need to attend to drive brand awareness, legal trends, or even technological advances that could increase profits, or make things work more efficiently.
Threats
Includes outside elements that pose problems for your firm. Threats are those hurdles your firm needs to cross. These may be cash-flow problems or scoping out the competition to see what they do to make their law firm operate better.
Take the guesswork out of legal marketing tactics by tracking intake
When you track your legal intake information, you take the guesswork out of data collection for marketing purposes. Besides getting the typical information such as the potential client’s contact information and category of their legal issue, the statistics from your intake should tell you so much more, like how they found out about your firm.
Tracking your intake and analyzing the data is like the legal discovery process in your cases because it opens the door to key information such as:
- Where your leads are coming from
- What digital platforms your leads are using
- What methods of contact are your leads using to get in touch with your firm?
For example, knowing where your leads are coming from allows you to invest in the best marketing outlets for your firm. Google Analytics is a great resource for showing which marketing channels are bringing in traffic and which ones are not pulling their weight.
Based on the data you have gathered, you can answer the questions, “Should we invest in legal video marketing because our clients hang out on YouTube?” “Is our audience on Pinterest since men have become a fast-growing demographic on the platform?”
You may incorporate surveys and reviews to determine client satisfaction. You may even collect testimonials. Once you have this information, you can use it to your firm’s marketing advantage.
Keep legal marketing fresh with digital intake technologies
To keep your marketing programs fresh, use up-to-date digital intake technologies. Old techniques that you used three years ago can stall your overall marketing strategy today.
For instance, maybe you are using an Excel spreadsheet to track your potential client’s information such as phone number, address, preferred method of contact, etc.
Imagine how quickly you can collect data and get on the phone with the person who needs your help if you use an intake software or a CRM that automatically tracks the information for you, then turns around and sends the prospect an email campaign to help keep your firm relevant?
Stay in the loop by researching different intake options to keep your marketing efforts from going stale.
Make legal marketing adjustments based on your intake process
Your intake process speaks volumes when it comes to marketing. It allows your law firm to pivot and possibly save money by getting rid of processes that no longer serve your firm. For your fruitful marketing efforts, you can rinse and repeat. But you will need to switch up your game plan to fix ineffective marketing techniques.
If you are running a social media campaign and a particular site is bringing in little to no traffic, you might want to experiment with another strategy. This could mean working harder to establish internet presence, posting more frequently, or increasing interaction with more content.
The specific adjustments will vary based on the needs of your firm and will take a considerable level of experimentation. If the results of a particular marketing technique do not justify your time, you should move on to something that does.
Why does the intake process matter in legal marketing?
Your intake process does three things to enhance your marketing efforts:
- Gives you a big picture view of your potential clients
- Establishes a relationship with your clients
- Offers a consistent satisfactory experience
According to the Clio Legal Trends Report, in 2019, firms who had a client intake process saw $15,124 per revenue, per lawyer. In 2020, revenue increased by 26%.
Your law firm’s intake process rounds out your marketing strategies, profit wise and engagement wise.
Combined with marketing, your intake process plays a role in how your law firm presents itself whether virtually or in-person. The impression your firm makes is based on your brand messaging and their personal interaction with your firm.
Increase your legal marketing return on investment (ROI)
With an effective intake process, you will gain loyal clients, see more referrals, and develop an increase in brand recognition, contributing to the overall life cycle of your marketing efforts. You will notice, the amount you spent on those marketing campaigns to get those results is minimal compared to the return.
When you have questions about how your intake procedure impacts your law firm marketing solutions, call The Legal Marketing Company for a free consultation.
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