Produce newsletters for your clients
Most marketing experts agree that it’s easier to sell services to existing clients than it is to find new clients.
It’s surprising therefore how little effort many firms make to get repeat business.
I’ve experienced this first hand. I updated my will six years ago with a large midlands firm. They were courteous and efficient but our relationship ended with that one piece of business because I never heard from them again.
When I needed a lawyer on another matter recently I had to think for several minutes to remember the name of the firm who had drawn up my will. When I did remember, I realised I felt no affinity with that firm and no loyalty that would make me want to go back there. Why should I? They had ignored me for six years.
In the end, I went elsewhere.
Many firms don’t even promote themselves to their clients while handling their cases. How many lawyers have discovered that a client they’re acting for in one area of law has chosen to go to another firm for some other legal service? When asked why they didn’t choose the original firm, they reply: But I didn’t know you did that.
The irony is that it isn’t hard to keep in touch with clients. All you need is a bright, easy to read newsletter that you can send out highlighting developments in the areas of law your firm covers.
If done properly, this can be a useful service that clients will appreciate and eventually reward you for by returning to your firm with more business.
But it has to be a genuine newsletter. Don’t fall into the trap of merely rewriting your brochure. That will quickly run out of steam. The letter should, of course, contain your logo, contact details and a brief rundown of what you do but the main thrust should be genuine news stories that affect the readers.
That is how you will attract their attention.
The trick is to keep each story very short and simple. This not only makes it more likely that people will read them, it will also enable you to revisit the same legal development in several newsletters highlighting a different angle each time.
This will ensure you never run out material, which is obviously a major concern if you want to produce a regular bulletin.
Let’s take Home Information Packs as an example of how this might work. If you had been producing a newsletter over the last year you could have referred to this story several times, drip feeding information every few months by focussing on different aspects of what HIPs will entail.
By now your clients would have already had a lot of information on the subject so you need a reason to refer to it again.
This month your new line might be to remind readers that HIPs become compulsory in June. You could then give a few sentences recapping what HIPs are and finish by saying that anyone thinking of selling their home over the next year needs to consider how they are going to provide a home information pack.
You could be more overtly commercial and say what a fine service you will provide on HIPs, but there is probably no need. Just raising the issue on the same page as your firm’s name and contact details is probably enough.
Anyone thinking of selling their house soon will have alarm bells ringing and the likelihood is that they will turn to your firm to find out more.
You might then want to leave HIPs alone for a month or two and return to it again when another landmark in the story emerges. Perhaps the government will offer more details, or perhaps you could announce that you have produced a free information pack on HIPs and invite people to apply for one.
The same approach could be used for all sorts of subjects for both commercial and private clients. For example, over the last year civil partnerships provided law firm newsletters with a rich variety of material as they dissected all the implications and turned them into bite size chunks for their readers.
Several issues were raised such as employment rights, prenuptial agreements, capital gains tax if one partner sells his house, the fact that partners will need to make new wills once they marry.
In doing so firms were able to point out that these issues apply equally to all married couples whether same sex or not. In this way, a story about civil partnerships may alert a husband and wife that they haven’t altered their will since they married and ought to do so.
Looking to the future, you could get similar mileage out of the Work and Families Act or proposals to give new legal rights to co-habiting couples.
Producing a newsletter needn’t cost much. You could email it to clients provided that you have their permission. You could send a printed version with letters already going out to your current clients. That way there’s no extra postage.
Most people would prefer to deal with a firm they know so your clients are already pre-disposed to return to you. A well written newsletter just reminds them you’re still there and gives them a gentle nudge in the right direction.
Some solicitors may feel uncomfortable producing brief articles but remember we’re not trying to cover all the legal aspects. That would be impossible.
The idea is to provide just enough information to entice people into contacting you for more details. Something simple that they read is better than something complicated that’s thrown in the bin because their eyes start to glaze over.
These are potential clients, not fellow lawyers so keep legal language to a minimum.
After all, you’re trying to woo them not sue them.
back to Solicitors Journal articles
This article first appeared in the Solicitors Journal.
Nick Kehoe is a former News Editor with ITV. He now runs Media Coverage, a company offering CPD accredited media courses and providing press releases and newsletters for law firms.
Contact Media Coverage, Suites 1-13, Imex Business Park, Shobnall Road, Burton on Trent, DE 14 2AZ.
www.media-coverage.co.uk Email: nk@media-coverage.co.uk.
Phone 01283 566270.
Media Coverage Ltd
Media Coverage Ltd is a leading provider of editorial and design services for law firms.
We produce high quality print newsletters, email newsletters, press releases and website articles for law firms across England and Wales.
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