Web Marketing Strategies - 7 Mistakes IP Lawyers Must Avoid Making To Attract More Clients

If you are an IP legal services professionals who wonders why all the web marketing efforts you have made did not get you the clients you wanted, I want you to think back and reflect on the mistakes you may have made and what you can do to rectify them.

Many IP lawyers are extremely enthusiastic and passionate about delivering great legal services, but marketing is something else as they do not know how to do it effectively. Part of this problem comes from viewing marketing, and web marketing in particular, as a specific activity that has to be added on to the core IP legal services work, or squeezed in when time allows. This is far away from the ideal scenario in which IP lawyers would view themselves as marketers of legal services first, and then as legal specialists who deal with specific issues for clients.

Given this, there are 7 key mistakes many IP legal services professionals make that seriously undermine any web marketing campaigns undertaken. How many of these have you made?

No marketing metrics set in place BEFORE doing any marketing campaigns. You can not measure the effectiveness of any marketing you do it you don't have any marketing key performance indicators or benchmarks in place to start off with. How else can you measure success? Inadequate customer and competitor research Making assumptions about the value you provide customers is a key mistake many IP lawyers make. You need a proper feedback system in place to continually improve your services and address any niggling issues that may arise. Competitor research is just as important, and not simply to copy what everybody else is doing. Remember, the IP lawyer that communicates the most value relevant to a target market will attract more prospects. You need a system and templates in place to compare leaders in the field with what you do, and make sure you then deploy marketing assets (please see 6 below) that get your prospects' attention despite your competition. There are various online tools and strategies available to find out the major search terms IP legal services prospects and clients are using to get information. Make sure you learn these as there is nothing worse than trying to create a message on a topic that nobody is interested in. Target market or niche not properly defined You need to be realistic about how far your marketing spend will reach. Identify your target market or niche. Make sure it is one that has lots of potential clients that not only have the money to pay for your IP legal services, but also has people that are actively looking for information and resources to help them solve problems. IP legal services not packaged properly Unlike products that people can touch and feel, IP legal services are intangible. This make them harder to value and means IP lawyers have to convince prospects about the value they actually provide. Simply saying you provide IP legal services and naming a price does not work. I suggest packaging your IP legal services so that clients are clear about what they will get in specific terms, what it will cost, and the benefits they realise. You should think about how you explain the uniqueness of the service you provide (see UPB in 6 below), build your service around the UPB and present that as a step-by-step roadmap that clients can then take with them. Lack of awareness regarding customer lifecycles and how this affects purchasing patterns Customer lifecycle refers to the experience prospects have with you from the time they first found out about you to the purchase of your high-priced legal services over many years. Within that, there are many steps that customers may take. You need to map these out so that you can proactively manage each step and know how far down the line prospects are in the life cycle. A very basic map for prospects would be to create a blog to generate interest, have free reports that are valuable which people will want to download, organise a seminar which prospects will pay to attend, and finally provide upsell opportunities to a range of IP legal services or information products (e.g. reports, books, webinars) which can be purchased repeatedly. It is all about building stronger relationships with prospects before they buy from you. No or poor deployment of marketing assets in media pieces, sales letters, etc. Marketing assets are the various elements that make up the message you send out in all your collateral and advertising. These can only be developed effectively if steps 2 and 3 have been done well. Marketing assets include: Unique Perceived Benefit - this is a statement that differentiates your IP legal services practice from your competition, and will make a huge difference to your success. Benefits - nobody ever purchased your IP legal service for what it does, but because of the benefits that result from the service on offer. Irresistible offers - what will prospects get if they respond to your media piece, and what do they have to do to get it. Your prospects and clients are VERY busy, and the irresistible offers you provide should differentiate your media pieces from your competitors, and stop the readers in their tracks so that they can learn more about what you have offered. Headlines - These are vital if you want to separate your adverts and sales collateral from most of your competitors. Simply listing your (firm) name at the top is not enough - you have to give readers a compelling reason to read what you have sent them, and the headline is key for success. Guarantees/Risk reversal - This lowers the risk that would-be customers have if they buy your services. If you are really good at what you do, you should provide a guarantee for the service on offer and state the penalty YOU are willing to pay if your services do not match up to expectations. If you have educated your clients on the various steps you will take and what their obligations are right at the start, then you will have less to worry about in terms of unnecessary client complaints. You will actually attract more clients because your prospects will value your business a lot more, especially as there are very few IP legal lawyers out there willing to provide service guarantees. Testimonials and case studies - you need these to make it easier for prospects to buy your services, and these will make them feel more comfortable about your ability to solve their IP legal services problems. Call to action - you want every media piece you send out to have an immediate, hopefully positive, response. Limiting the time readers have to respond to take advantage of certain offers stops procrastination and compels the reader to respond quicker to your media pieces. Poor selection of the media to use to reach out to your target market. You need to make sure you select the media your prospects and clients use to get information and make decisions, and the channels via which they get the information. While the Internet is increasingly becoming key for this, don't forget offline channels ones such as direct mail which are very effective.

While the list above may seem quite daunting for some IP legal services professionals, it certainly is not unreasonable and should act as a basic preparation template BEFORE any web marketing is planned. Given the fiercely competitive landscape many of you are in, you owe it to yourselves to prepare yourself adequately and then position yourself as the IP legal services professional of choice within your target niche.

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4 Strategies Lawyers Can Use To Improve Their Websites And Get More Clients

Have you looked at various law firm websites recently? I have, and one thing is clear - despite the different names, logos, locations, etc, many are similar in the way they present information and are structured. For example:

Most simply list the various practice areas their staff cover. The backgrounds of key legal staff (mainly partners and associates) are included, focusing on their specialism and experience. The vast majority don't have a compelling offer that would get prospects to contact them immediately. By this, I mean they don't have information that would stop someone in their tracks...i.e. a free book, report or service offer with given guarantees. Many websites are 'self-focused' and not 'problem-focused'. They focus too much on how the firm does things, but do not have information on the typical problems clients face and what the desired outcome would be if the problems were eliminated. Many don't use their websites effectively as the first step for lead generation activity. What surprises me is that there are many that don't have a means of capturing contact details and, quite possibly, don't therefore have a system in place to communicate and follow up with prospects.

If this is the situation you are in, the end result is twofold:

You make it hard for prospects to select you based on the information they get from your websites. When there is little differentiation between you and your competitors, price becomes the key selling point. Competing on price is not as good as competing on value. Sure, price is important but if you have created a position of authority within the minds of prospects and clearly articulated the value and results of what you offer, then you have more leeway to keep prices at levels you want. Your law firm/practice is not growing as fast as it possibly could because you are not positioned as a leader that prospects would want to know or buy from. Basically, you are missing out on attracting a lot more money to your practice.

So, here are four simply steps you can take as a legal services professional to increase the value you provide prospects who are looking for specific information and help. Other strategies can then follow on from these.

Find out the questions your prospects/clients are asking themselves and create a report or book that people can download which contains the answers to the questions being asked. This should also give readers a glimpse of the results they get if they take certain action(s). Provide readers with the opportunity to 'opt-in' and give you their contact details so that you can communicate further with them and point them to more information or special offers you have. The only way to get people to 'opt-in' is to make sure you have something they think is valuable and which makes you stand out amongst your peers. Behind this opt-in, you have to map out the communications you will make with your list so that you move them towards the end of your sales funnel - where they actually ask you for your legal services. Redesign your website so that it builds your authority and helps you develop trust with readers. Blogs are great, but if you want to use your current website, think about how you can regularly add articles that focus on how to solve many of the key problems readers have. If you then syndicate these articles on various article directories /websites that link back to yours, you improve your search engine rankings before you start spending money on more expensive SEO strategies. Once found by prospects, you just have to make sure you retain their attention by doing points 1 - 3 above.

There are more strategies legal services professionals could use to improve their websites. I have only listed four, because I know how difficult law firms find it to start if the whole process seems too comprehensive and difficult.

Law firm websites need to evolve from being platforms that simply list the services on offer, and experience the senior team has. They need to inform, develop trust, provide a means for people to sign-up for regular information.

Think about how prospects currently look for information and select lawyers. They are used to searching for information before they make any decisions, and will still go online even if someone makes a recommendation about your services. Take advantage of this, and grow your legal services practice.

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