Lawyer Business Development - How to Generate Leads
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by Brandon Cornett
Lead generation is essential to lawyer business development. After all, without leads, you have have no business. So in this article I will attempt to change the way you think of online lead generation and business development.
When you mention the word "marketing," most people think of invasive, intrusive tactics that are thrust upon consumers. But what if people actually wanted to contact you? What would this do for your business development efforts? I know it's a revolutionary marketing idea, but can you imagine the burden that would be lifted if people contacted your freely — and often — without any form of "push" marketing on your part?
Making People Want to Contact You
One of the best ways to generate leads via the Internet is to make people actually want to contact you. Instead of contacting strangers to offer your services, what if they contacted you and asked about your services? This is a significant shift, and it can do wonders for any lawyer's business development.
When people contact you, they are much more inclined to listen to what you have to say. That's because they've already "screened" you somewhat prior to contacting you. Thus, they are more trusting and receptive as well. In other words, you would have a much easier time developing a business relationship with them. Now that's a much better way to generate leads and build your business, don't you think?
The trouble is, many lawyers consider this approach to business development "wishful thinking" ... an impossibility. If you think like that, it will be impossible. But I can tell you firsthand that this strategy works, when properly executed. In fact, I make my living largely from people who contact me for my marketing services. I make no unsolicited calls or emails whatsoever. None. Nada. Zilch. People read my e-books, articles, blogs or press releases, and they contact me for help with their own marketing.
And you can apply this same exact strategy to your legal profession.
Lawyer Business Development Starts with a Response
Sure, having people call or email you is the ideal scenario for lead generation and business development. But how do you go about it? How do you motivate people to initiate that critical first contact? Well, there are several things you need to do. Here's a summary:
1. Be Visible
People cannot contact you if they don't know you exist. So you must strive to make your business visible, online and off. Internet visibility is a big part of this, which leads us to the popular topic of search engine optimization (thoroughly covered in my free ebook). After all, the more visible you are online, the more likely people will be to find you.
But there are other ways to increase your visibility as well. You can publish articles in your local newspaper, syndicate articles and press releases online, be active in your community, conduct free seminars, and many other aspects of PR. Visibility and awareness are the first steps to generating leads and attracting new clients.
2. Be Valuable
The law firms who succeed with lead generation are those that understand the concept of "perceived value." When a consumer perceives a product or service as being valuable to them in some way, they naturally want to acquire that product or service. From a law perspective, this perceived value might comes from many elements:
An attorney or law firm with expert knowledge of a certain niche ... or one who offers unique services or benefits ... or one who simplifies the process of online inquiries ... or one who offers an online legal library to pre-educate clients about their specialty ... you get the idea.
These are just a few of the many ways an attorney could increase his or her perceived value, which is the initial value your audience perceives you to have. The higher this value, the more effective your business development.
3. Be Trustworthy
Generally speaking, people distrust strangers. We covered that already. So if you cold call or email strangers, you face a hard, uphill climb in terms of lead generation and business development. So the key is to inspire trust within your target audience. This will help you overcome the natural skepticism people have and make them more likely to contact you.
So how does one generate trust? Well, customer testimonials help. So do professional certifications, long track records, professional / industry endorsements, published articles and news stories (see how it all ties together).
You can also create trust by sharing your expertise with people. Publishing a law blog is a great example of this. If you publish an educational blog over a long period of time, and people find that blog online, they will feel as if they already know you to an extent.
If you publish quality content to your blog (and elsewhere online), people will also realize that (A) you know your business, (B) you are active within your field and up to speed on developments, and (C) you obviously like to help people. Suddenly, you're not such a stranger ... you're a perfect candidate to be their legal adviser.
Lead Generation = Business Development
Is all this effort worthwhile? Let me ask you this. What would it be worth if you never had to email or call a stranger again? What if they contacted you instead? That's a goal worth striving for, isn't it? That's the kind of thing that can happen when you change the way you think about lead generation and lawyer business development.
Related article: Website Lead Generation