A Single Attorney Advertising Tip to Double New Clients – Surprise, it’s Not More Advertising
Do you own a law firm and find that you are investing a fortune in marketing and yet you don’t seem to be getting the return on your advertising dollars that you’d like to see? As of January 2014 we estimate that there are around 1.4 million licensed attorneys in the United States and that makes for a lot of competition and potentially costly investments for attorney advertising. In this post we share what may be the best carefully guarded secret and a must know Advertising Tip for Attorneys no matter what city your practice operates in.
Attorneys invest heavily in many forms of marketing to build their practice and most have found themselves spending more and more money yet seemingly getting about the same response levels as when they invested less. From yellow pages, to radio ads, to the internet, consumers are surrounded by legal ads and promotions and if you’re going to advertise in any of them you can expect to invest a few hard earned dollars. So this leads us to two questions. If you’re already advertising heavily why aren’t you getting more clients and is the answer to getting more clients really “more advertising”?
According to our findings the real problem often stems from missed calls and missed opportunities, and before you disagree you’ll need to read on to learn why. If you’re like most attorneys you spend the bulk of your day in court, with clients, or preparing for an important case. If you’re a solo attorney these things leave little or no time to play receptionist or answer calls responding to advertising promotions. If you manage a larger law office you probably have a full time receptionist answering calls during normal business hours, however you most likely have never even considered what was happening to calls outside of the hours of 9-5. Consider this, your receptionist is taking calls 40 hours a week but there’s still another 168 hours where callers are being greeted by your answering machine. Studies suggest that a whopping 25% of attorney’s new client calls come in outside of normal operating hours.
So I know what you’re thinking, you’re thinking “they’ll just leave a message”, right? The fact is most of your callers are not leaving messages, but instead they are hanging up and calling the next lawyer in the advertising material they are currently viewing. If you are lucky a handful of callers will leave a message, but think of how often you return a call only to be told they already found another attorney. The reality is people want to speak to someone live and until they reach a caring human voice to hear their concerns they are going to continue calling attorneys. Most legal professionals are surprised to learn that something as simple as a live receptionist answering calls will keep the potential client from calling another practice. To the caller something as little as speaking with a person says “my concerns have been heard, the ball is rolling, and my needs will soon be met”, and as such the need to continue calling more law offices dramatically declines.
Most Noted Benefits:
- Attorneys see immediate verifiable increases in the advertising responses. This totally eliminates the guessing game of the ROI received from a remote receptionist service.
- Calls are answered in your firms name days, nights, weekends, and holidays, and by having a 24/7 receptionist, as opposed to a machine, your image is greatly enhanced.
- A single response can pay for an entire month (or more) of attorney answering services.
- An answering service for lawyers can prequalify callers so you don’t waste time talking to people that are not a perfect fit or spend time answering calls that pull you from more important matters that may currently require your full attention.
- When a message is left you receive it in live time allowing you to respond quickly, if necessary.
So before you stroke another check for more advertising consider a far less costly approach. You might even find that you can cut out some of your current marketing expenses. Contact us today for more information about our live answering services for legal professionals and your free trial.
Here are some related articles you might be interested in:
How to Increase Your Billable Hours by Using an Attorney Answering Service
Don’t Miss a Call While You’re In Court! Use Phone Answering For Attorneys