Websites – to retain or gain clients?
The Gazette’s LinkedIn group is having a useful discussion centred around the launch of Shoosmiths Access Legal website. The responses mainly look at whether or how other solicitors should emulate Shoosmiths’ approach. What’s occasionally difficult to pick out is the real value clients will receive from websites and web-based services. While we see the website and the offers it makes, what we don’t see is the other side of promotions.
Although I haven’t spoken to Shoosmiths, from Marketlaw’s experience, I would suggest there is a lot of other activity that we are not seeing. While preparing a new website one of the first questions to consider is, who is it aimed at and how do we want them to use it? That helps design the site, but there is still one essential activity still to do. Telling the people you designed the website for that it’s there and the benefits to them of using it. And in a suitable manner, keep reminding them that it’s there to help them, 24 hours a day.
Websites and online services raise many questions and issues for solicitors. One point firms need to decide is if their website is primarily to retain or gain clients. For many firms it’s a mixture of the two, but the emphasis is important in deciding how the website is then promoted.
To gain clients requires effort and expenses that includes fighting for position on search engine rankings, competing against the many websites already out there and setting up your firm to take the incoming enquiry volumes (should they materialise).
To retain clients means looking at how you can help the people you already know by reinforcing their view that your firm is ‘their solicitor’; promoting the benefits of and how easy it is for the clients to get immediate help via the website.
Both approaches are there to capture client enquiries. The question to ask is not how good the website looks or what is does, but how good the promotion of it is to the people that you want to use it. Ask the person responsible for your website how the promotion is going and to which groups of potential clients.
Comments
Websites Get Cash Through Traffic, Content and Conversion.
I reviewed the Access Legal site a few days ago with
a short video.
The website discussion is simple.
Get traffic, give them content, register an enquiry, sell them something,
retain them, sell them something else, get them to refer, get a testimonial.
Landing pages from places like Google Local, (you are registered and
in the Magnificent 7 aren't you?) should focus on getting the enquiry.
Information rich sites position the firm as experts, ensuring
higher prices and greater conversions from visitors to enquiries to
sales.
There are great examples of sole practitioners using their websites
to generate businesses worth £300,000 a year on basics like
conveyancing.
And there's nothing stopping you from having several websites for niche markets like www.conveyancinginreading.com or www.personalinjurylawyerreading.com
One size does not fit all
The Access legal website is part of Shoosmiths' strategy of building a strong separate brand for their own consumer services. As such, the website is likely to be utilised to support a range of marketing tactics as part of the overall marketing strategy. This is an important point as the website is unlikely to have been designed as a stand-alone tool for either client retention or acquisition. It is more likely to be designed to fit in with the brand awareness campaigns across a range of media both online and offline that a significant marketing budget allows.
For solicitors without a significant marketing budget, the key question should be - why do we want a website?
If the reason is to generate new business, then a new website will not do this on its own. Marketing is the key here and the website must be designed to compete with competitors advertising in the same space and also appeal to exactly the kind of customers you want to attract. These factors must provide the basis for deciding on both content and design when building a website to gain more clients.
The design, presentation and content that existing clients require is very different to that of potential clients looking for a new solicitor. These clients already know you and care less about how fantastic you are and more about their case progress and specific legal issues.
When it comes to gaining new clients online, the more you differentiate from the competition and focus on specific target groups of clients the more successful you will be.
One size does not fit all.
So few Solicitors exploit their web presence
I think Boyd sums up the potential value of websites for any solicitor very well indeed. But so few solicitors have really got to grips with this. There is potential for significant work generation on the web, whether it be local business, national business or niche work. There is no reason why firms cannot target more than one market. My firm has an increasing number of successful micro-sites in addition to our main website [and I'm certainly not the only solicitor to do this]. Personally I'm simply glad that most solicitors don't appear to have taken Boyd’s advice and still haven't cottoned on to the huge potential of gaining new clients via their website.
The Website Quandry
Quite simply - this debate has become rather polarised.
The resolve lies somewhere in the middle. Prior to any decision taking place on whether you think it may be worth developing your site - you must ask yourself can I generate new business from it? Do I need an optimised site at all?
The majority of legal websites are merely a static point of reference in the middle of cyberspace. Some, such as Pannone, Shoosmiths, Eversheds and the like are highly optimised - can smaller firms compete? Probably not. It isn't the expense that is the issue, it is the time involved in such a task writing constnt copy and keyword rich phrases is laborious and incredidibly boring - the chances are that your readers will think so too.
Optimisation or not, one thing you must do when looking at your content is how it would read to a potential punter. If I have never heard of your firm, and I compare you against another firm I never heard of how can I differntiate between what you offer and what they offer?
Let me guess...
100% Compensation awarded? So what, who doesn't!
Your main objective is client care? That is what everyone says!
Plenty of Experience? I should hope so, you are supposed to be a bloody solicitor!
So before you decide that the web should be an integral part of your business development - get the message to make you different and take it from there...
Oliver Jones
The Legal Marketer
Retain 1:1 Gain - a draw?
Getting the balance between 'gaining and retaining' is crucial in relation to a law firm's website.
Hopefully firms will have a good idea in their overall marketing strategy as to which way they will lean in either direction.
If a website is well designed, with well structured content - it should be a fantastic tool in your armoury to achieve both objectives. However for most firms there will be more of a focus one way or the other.
However, if someone believes that Access Legal is following a "build it and they will come" strategy, then I think they are mistaken. The new site is already linked from http://www.shoosmiths.co.uk/ in a fairly prominent way. How long before the Services -> Service for you link redirects you to Access Legal….oh, just check, it already does! Doubtless will we see a range of other consumer/FCMG type marketing activities techniques over the next couple of years.
For example having a clearly defined search engine optimisation strategy that is unique to your practice, will over time increase your practice's standing within Google and naturally drive traffic to the site. However, that's becoming increasingly difficult in some practice areas with the amount of money some larger firms are spending on SEO.
Enquiry tracking through page specific telephone numbers through PPC campaigns can also enhance the ROI through your online marketing.
A content rich website relevant to your client base will make visitors 'hang around' longer on pages - similarly having decent call to actions (such as online forms) will increase key client engagement through your firm's site.
Sound obvious? Well to some of us it is, that's why we're doing what we are doing.
Regs….David.
Existing v New
I always find the debate around existing v new clients interesting.
Why would you spend so much marketing budget on people you don't know? Why not spend it on people you do, the same people who have played a big part in making your firm who it is.
Joseph Jaffe has done a great video on 'Flipping the Funnel' where he makes clear that even if you do not get repeat business from existing clients they can still be mobilised to be your evangelists, your ambassadors. May be worth watching this,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdqhYv5s3sE
Why I just mentioned to my wife 5 mins ago that our will is now ready with our law firm. Her friend was in the same room and said. "oh we need to get ours sorted."
Cost my law firm nothing to get that new piece of work.
So if you have 10,000 clients you also have 10,000 sales people, all of them utilising social media.
Existing And New Clients All Worth Investing In
Jon, I believe it's not either/or.
When you know what a client
is worth then you know exactly
how much you can afford to invest
in finding, getting, keeping, growing
(that's my mantra by the way).
99% of firms (law or not) don't know
how much it costs them to do this.
Until they do, they are going to struggle to keep
up with the 1% - (glad David mentioned tracking!)
And as for comments that smaller law firms can't compete?
That's not true. Smaller law firms can do twenty things and get
twenty new clients because they take a guerilla approach.
Big firms do one thing and expect twenty new clients.
Existing v New
Hi Boyd
I think it is both too but my point was that the balance leans too much toward the new client when you have an existing client who 'knows' you.
Content...oh well, has to be interesting I guess but is it really that engaging? It rarely is cos it does not follow the language of 'the crowd.' Most law firm websites I look at (and I look at a lot) are so written in the language of the law firm. That's the fundamental mistake.
Language of Law Is Not News Of The World
Jon, I agree on your
language of the law comment.
A great headline, summary paragraph,
sub-heads, short and long sentences...
Stories that engage, are humourous, leave
you wanting more...
Bad guys who get their just desserts
because the good guys of the law
beat them in the nick of time.
The surprise and suspense interwoven
in clean, crisp copy that would put a Daily Mail
sub-editor out of business...
Me?
I just try and copy Roald Dahl...