CaseDetails.com - Internet Marketing for Law Firms

Knowing the maze of regulations surrounding legal advertising (that vary state by state), I suppose I thought lawyers would never pursue spammy marketing tactics. In a general sense, I never thought lawyers would pursue broadcast email marketing, just because of the difficulty in targeting qualified candidates, extremely low conversion rate and the negative reflection of the firm I believe it imparts. I was entertained by a piece of perceived lawyer spam I received via email the other day.

Now I’m sure I’ve never indicated I was in need of legal services. I honestly wonder how many clicks and/or calls the law firm will receive from this - the conversion rate? As the Wikipedia entry on Spam says:

Although only a tiny percentage of their targets are motivated to purchase their products (or fall victim to their scams), the low cost may provide a sufficient conversion rate to keep the spamming alive.

It’s the broadcast nature of this kind of solicitation that breeds mistrust of the brand (your law firm’s good name). Is it worth 500000 negative impressions of your firm for, say, 5 leads? Granted, that’s assuming a low, spam-like, 0.001% conversion rate, but the overall message is that, in my opinion, broadcast email marketing that’s perceived to be spam by 99.9% of recipients isn’t the best way to market your law firm. What can lawyers learn from this?

Take away: don’t be tempted by offers to conduct broadcast email on behalf of your firm. Be skeptical of (nearly) all “pre-qualified” lists of email addresses. The most effective email marketing your firm can conduct will start with opt-in lists developed through your own website or client list. This protects your good name by making sure that you approach recipients that are receptive to your message and it pays off in ROI by delivering more leads than non-targeted lists.

The next question is “how does my firm effectively build an email marketing list that I can trust”? Start with a reference or two such as:

Selecting Specific Targets When Marketing Your Practice by LexisNexis for general advice (disclosure)
28 Ways to Build Permission-Based Email Lists by EmailLabs
Email Marketing Tips, Tricks and Secrets by About.com

Then move on to deciding what success will mean to you in this campaign. Meaning, do you want X number of new clients? Then your message should target potential clients. Do you want to spread the news of a recent verdict? Increase referral business? Then your message should target other law firms.

Above, I’ve used this example of lawyer spam to advise the average small law firm on the do’s and don’ts of email marketing. Am I the end-all expert on email marketing, list development and targeting? No. But I do hope I’ve at least stirred a gut reaction from you on the approach that was taken recently to deliver this un-targeted message. That aversion should lead you to explore the right way to pursue an legal marketing campaign via email.

Technorati Tags: lawyer spam, email marketing

I probably forgot to turn off some opt-out when filling out an online form, so this may not truly be a 100% "unsolicited" email message but that’s why I’m “protecting the innocent” law firm by not revealing their name.