Over the last few years, digital marketing has become an integral part of running a successful personal injury law firm. What is digital marketing, you ask? Google it…just kidding. Digital marketing is basically any marketing you do over the internet (including mobile devices and apps), e.g., this blog post is digital marketing…how meta! See? It’s everywhere! That’s why, over the next few weeks, we’ll introduce you to the different components of digital marketing for personal injury firms and help you navigate them—so you can gain prospective clients, increase website traffic, lap the competition, and more. We’ve already brought you up to speed on social media, now let’s continue with email marketing for personal injury law firms.
We don’t have to tell you about the power of email—like most people, you probably checked your inbox before you brushed your teeth today. But just as email is a powerful tool to keep in touch with your family members across the globe, it’s an even more powerful tool for reaching potential clients (and recurring ones too).
That’s because email marketing campaigns are inexpensive, simple to track, and easy to change—especially compared to pricier and more static forms of marketing, like TV or outdoor. And because people are glued to their inboxes for a variety of work and personal reasons, you’ll always have a captive audience.
But before you start sending emails all willy-nilly like your mom shares medical stories on Facebook, let us show you some tips for producing effective email campaigns. Here are a few ways that your personal injury firm can harness the power of email to reach potential clients, strengthen bonds with your existing clients, establish your firm as a leader in the personal injury practice area, and, ultimately, receive new referrals and more business:
1. Add to your contacts
You can have the fastest car in the world, but if you don’t have the address to your destination, it won’t get you there any faster; similarly, you can have the greatest email marketing campaign ever, but if you don’t have any email addresses to send it to, you won’t add business any faster. So how do you bulk up your email list? Here are a few ways to put addresses in your address book:
- Put the option to subscribe everywhere: e.g., your website, your blog, your social media channels, your child’s PTA meeting
- Pull email addresses from past prospects, website inquiries, existing clients, your rec league softball team, etc. and encourage them to opt-in
- Add a share button to your existing emails so current subscribers can share with targeted prospects
- Do a “quid pro quo” by offering a service, a feature, a tool, insider info…anything of value to prospects in exchange for their contact info
- Purchase contact lists—but be careful, make sure you buy from a reputable source and use it with discretion, since these contacts didn’t opt-in
- Create useful content (see below)
2. Create useful content and become a resource
Sure, you could blatantly ask prospects to employ your services or straight up tell them to give you referrals, but that’s likely not a winning strategy—in addition to potentially running afoul of ethics rules (be sure to check), hardcore sales techniques are something you’d expect from an infomercial, not your trusted attorney.
Instead, it’s better to establish your firm as an expert in the field, a reliable source of information on personal injury law—so when a PI issue arises, your firm will be top of mind. While the content possibilities are endless, here a few ideas to get the sending rolling:
- Start a blog on PI topics that your clients, prospects, and peers want to hear about and push it out to your contacts list
- Provide guides, checklists, explainers, etc. on various PI subjects—like with the blogs, you can provide partial lists/info and push various calls to action in order for recipients to get access to the rest (i.e., visit our website)
- Update prospects on what’s new in the PI world: important case law, just-passed legislation, potential class-actions, new and groundbreaking causes of action, and the resulting implications…hook them up, they’re relying on you
- Tout your firm’s achievements…go ahead, brag a little
3. Target your mailings
The beauty of email marketing for personal injury lawyers is that you can pick and choose who you send your campaigns to (similar to how you can pick and choose who you include on evites to your birthday party), instead of sending out blanket messages to everyone.
Think about what is relevant to the different subsections of your mailing list (e.g., current and past clients, prospects, peers) and target them specifically. The more relevant your message is to a recipient, the more likely they are to pay attention.
4. As always, analyze and adjust
Email marketing isn’t like searching for signs of intelligent life in the universe, i.e., you shouldn’t be sending emails out into the abyss, merely hoping for a response; instead, you should be constantly evaluating and reevaluating the effectiveness of your campaigns (through analytics software or other means) and readjusting as needed.
Don’t be afraid to have fun with it: switch up the subject lines, spilt test various calls to action, change the time of day you hit send…and when you find a strategy that works, stick with it.
And if you’d like to stick with us for all things related to the personal injury practice area, subscribe to our email list…again, how meta! Then sign up for a free demo of CloudLex—our all-in-one cloud-based personal injury case management software for all your personal injury needs…so you can put inefficiency in the spam folder and open up your firm’s productivity.
