The Benefits of Email Marketing for Lawyers

I’ve screamed it from the rooftops and shouted it into the infinite void of the worldwide web, but I’m here to say it again! Email marketing is one of the most remarkable and profitable ways to refine your digital marketing strategy. It’s a low-cost ticket to prestige, awareness, and website visitors.

And guess what?

It even works for lawyers!

Yes, your law firm can benefit from its own email marketing strategy. It may seem strange, but a well-researched email marketing content calendar can earn more than positive click-through rates; it can be the key to your firm’s growth!

So, join me! Keep scrolling to learn more about email marketing for lawyers!

What to Know Before Your First Email Marketing Strategy

I’ll start with what every email marketer must know.

You can find the best email marketing platform on the planet, but it can’t save you from a half-baked email marketing strategy. You need a solid base. You need a conceptual foundation for your email marketing efforts. Moreover, you need a system in place to manage customer data.

Your prospective clients are valuable resources.

Guarantee the success of your email marketing by checking these boxes off before you initiate any email marketing for your law firm.

Know the Laws

It may seem obvious, but breaking the law in your email marketing campaigns is a bad look. It’s an especially bad look when the sender is a law firm!

Now, I don’t have enough time to cover the intricacies of digital privacy and marketing laws. However, I can offer a list of pertinent laws. (United States law firms should keep a close eye on ADPPA, too!) Regardless of your specialty, you’ll want to know the specifics of…

• The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) in the United States.
• The Federal CAN-SPAM Act in the United States.
• The Consumer Privacy Protection Act (CPPA) in Canada.
• The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the European Union.

Failing to heed these laws is more than a faux pas for your email marketing. Intentional or not, it’s a red flag! Consumers will see such errors as signs of complacency or malicious ignorance, neither of which are traits you want attached to your law firm’s name.

Know Your Audience

You’ll also need a thorough understanding of your target audience.

Allow me to explain…

You wouldn’t speak to a work colleague the same way you’d speak to customers. Likewise, you wouldn’t use the same language you use in the office at public speaking engagements. How about when you’re around prospective clients?

Different audiences have different levels of comprehension. The marketer’s job is to find the middle ground and ensure the customers understand the content marketing strategy.

In some ways, this is easy! Marketing pros have access to boatloads of information and analytics. Strategists can instantly review a campaign’s performance metrics and cross-check those numbers with a law firm’s website traffic.

Law firms should be particularly interested in demographic segmentation. This technology allows marketers to create unique audiences based on potential clients’ individual demographics, such as their…

If necessary, a strategist can even narrow down the audience pool and investigate the specifics of an email’s audience! This goes beyond basic contact details. I’m talking about the nitty-gritty stuff! A skilled strategist can easily spot the difference between potential clients and returning customers. Moreover, high-quality email service providers offer enough insights to make your head spin! And all of that info is re-invested into your email campaigns as personalized messages and segmented audiences.

Summarily, law firms must understand their audience before implementing an email marketing strategy. Otherwise, you’re setting yourself up for a massive mess!

Know Your Limits

But you can’t collect too much information!

Yes, you need customer data and what your potential clients want to see. However, you can’t be too nosy about it! You can certainly suggest that subscribers provide such information when you collect email addresses, but you can’t demand as much. Requiring excessive information in your sign-up form is actually one of the fastest ways to lose future clients, as they’ll opt to forgo your newsletter altogether!

Email marketing for lawyers may be profitable, but it’s still a slight gamble. Don’t place bets against yourself! Instead, build the foundations for an effective email marketing strategy. Understand your limits and grow your list organically. Remember that old tale about the tortoise and the hare? Email marketing is exactly like that!

Ultimately, your email marketing has three major limitations — regardless of your status or industry:

• Consent: Outside of cold emailing, you must acquire consent from subscribers. Moreover, you must be willing to immediately cease all communications when asked.
• Relevance: You need relevant content. It’s not enough to be in constant contact with your potential clients; you need to be in constant and relevant contact. Give them something valuable!
• Respect: You must respect your audience. Don’t pry too much! Digital privacy is a huge issue right now, and failing to heed the will of a prospective client is a surefire way to pilot your own fall from grace.

Slow, purposeful growth is the foundation for healthy customer relationships. Catering to both old and new clients will — over time — reveal your audience’s interests. Again, it’s all about those metrics. So, allow me to make an “ABC” acronym for email marketing for lawyers: Always Be Checking (those email metrics).

The Most Significant Perks of Email Marketing for Lawyers

What does all of that work get you?

For starters, you get an on-demand method of attracting future clients and appealing to former clients. Your contact list is yours to keep. It doesn’t matter who provides your email marketing services. You’re golden as long as you have a copy of those contact details. (Add “portability” to those perks!) And you get so much more than lead generation.

As a lawyer, email marketing is a source of endless connection. It’s a direct link between your law firm and its clientele, and that makes it one of the best ways to grease your sales funnel.

Nurture Your Leads and Court Prospective Clients

I’ve already emphasized how powerful email marketing for lawyers is as a lead generation tool. But what about as a lead nurturing tool?

That’s right; email marketing works both ways! While your relationship begins with the sign-up page, it truly blossoms when the content starts rolling. Use that power. Leverage email marketing as the hero of your customer experiences.

Beyond its immediate and obvious use as a method for establishing your legal expertise, high-quality email marketing for lawyers emphasizes your importance to your target audience. Automated email flows allow law firms to speak directly to clients. At the same time, segmented and personalized emails offer delightful customer-centric experiences to existing clients.

It’s a win-win scenario! Your legal services gain prestige and an ever-growing community of supporters, and your subscribers gain access to your law firm’s expertise.

Promote Brand Awareness for Your Legal Services

Another benefit of lead nurturing is its ability to emphasize brand awareness. You may not think of your law firm as a “brand,” per se, but its status as a business entity is undeniable.

Don’t believe me? Well, how about Thompson Reuters?

As Jen Deszo so eloquently points out, well-known law firms earn a whopping 38% more than unknown legal services. This isn’t abnormal; recognizable brands have higher revenue and bring in more new clients across every industry. That’s the sheer power of brand recognition. It’s why you’ll spend $6 for a pack of Oreos over a cheaper generic sandwich cookie that’s half the price.

Your law firm can become the metaphorical Oreo! All it takes is clever branding and well-executed email marketing efforts.

Form Lasting Connections With Clients

A large part of that recognition comes from how something makes people feel.

Let me explain. I want you to imagine eating at your favorite restaurant. Think about how delicious the food is. Now, think about the experience. You’re probably getting that “warm, fuzzy” feeling, right?

Of course, most law firms aren’t going for “warm fuzzies.” The legal world isn’t really the place for sentimental thoughts! Nonetheless, your branding can only go so far. A truly successful email marketing strategy takes things a step further, providing both current and prospective clients with a first-class experience.

Much of the heavy lifting in this area is done with personalization, which sounds scarier than it is.

Don’t worry!

Your lawyer email marketing won’t need constant retuning. Today, email marketing platforms do most of the work for you. All it takes is a set of well-researched parameters and some clever content.

Think of it as a less fragmented way of delivering social media links. Instead of spreading that content across dozens of social media channels, you’re focusing your efforts on a single digital marketing platform. Naturally, this means your email recipients will have different needs. Your B2B marketing shouldn’t be as casual as your consumer-facing content. Similarly, when dealing with general advertisements, you must create content that prospective clients understand.

You can even craft amazing email campaigns to serve existing clients! Again, you’ll want to use email automation to cut down on labor and maximize the impact of those client alerts. You’ll also want to think about how to…

Establish and Maintain Your Brand Reputation

Returning to that Thompson Reuters piece, I want to point out another fascinating statistic.

While brand awareness is an all-around winner, it can’t compensate for a sloppy marketing strategy. You need a cohesive and united effort to have any hope of producing effective email marketing! Otherwise, you’re bound to confuse your target audience.

Think of it this way: If your email marketing campaign is fun and bright, how will potential clients feel when the law firm’s website is a drab shade of legal gray? Many will be confused; some may even wonder if they clicked the wrong link. Your click-through rates suffer, and your careful investment begins to spiral.

This is not me saying that law firm email marketing is a waste of time. It’s one of the most effective ways to amplify a law firm’s marketing strategy. However, your marketing emails must align with your existing branding and content.

As I always say: A great email marketing tool can’t save a lackluster email marketing strategy.

Amplify Your Email Marketing Campaigns

So, how do you get the most from your legal email marketing software?

While it’s entirely possible to run successful digital marketing efforts in-house, it’s a massive burden on your resources. The required effort often becomes a financial loss, and those marketing emails quickly become massive headaches.

Save yourself the stress of an internal marketing team and hire an on-demand team of marketing pros at The Email Marketers! My hand-picked marketing gurus are always ready to tackle a new challenge, and we can’t wait to show you the potential of email marketing for lawyers.

Schedule your free strategy session today for a glimpse of your future success! You can also browse the rest of the blog to find more amazing content and email marketing tips.