Marketing and Sales Tips for Lawyers: Successful Lawyers Understand How Clients Buy

He has worked hard to become a successful attorney. You want people to like you, trust you, and look to you as the expert who can help them resolve their legal concerns. After all, he spent years learning the practice of law. But, you need a constant influx of new customers to generate more billable time.

If you view marketing as a one-off event that helps you get through the boom-bust cycle from one payday to the next, your law firm will experience high stress and low profitability. Forget what your law professors told you about marketing; customers do not automatically come to your doors. Your marketing and customer registration process must be consistent to attract them.

Remember this: potential customers are buying a relationship with you first. They look for competence, credibility and reliability. Your signature and the prestige of your office is a secondary consideration to them.

To be successful, you need to understand the psychology of how customers make purchasing decisions. Connect your marketing effort at the five levels of the customer buying journey, starting with:

Level 1: Awareness – This is the stage where your potential client realizes that they have a problem that requires a lawyer. Articles, educational programs, targeted email campaigns, and discovery interview questions and answers work well for this stage of the process.

Level 2: Information Request – At this stage, they actively seek information to help them make their decision. Potential customers want to know that you clearly understand their needs. They want to know that you are competent, experienced, and trustworthy, but they want to see material that focuses more on solving their problem and less on you. Well-designed websites and brochures with consistent messages are great media to use. Remember to keep your marketing pieces focused on the needs of your prospect.

Level 3: Interest – The first goal of your marketing effort should be to spark your target customer’s imagination and capture their attention. Your material should evoke the possibility of how a relationship with you could be beneficial to them while inspiring them to take action.

Level 4 – Evaluation – Potential customers gather information from a few sources and then begin the process of analyzing their options. They are looking for legal counsel they can trust, and you hope they trust you enough to do business with you. For them, the purchase decision is risky. They want someone who will ease their fears, inspire confidence in their decision, and give them hope for a better future.

Level 5 – Enrollment buying decisions are made at this stage based on greater perceived value in buying what you offer compared to buying from a competitor. They must like you, trust you, believe in you, and trust you before signing up as a customer.

By understanding these simple concepts, you can enroll more ideal customers as you tailor your marketing messages to what’s most relevant to their key concerns at each level.