On Thursday 5th November professionals across the sector joined together in a virtual setting to discuss how law firms manage potential leads, and ways in which those leads are driven without too much investment and ensuring every opportunity is maximised.
The roundtable was opened and hosted by Today’s Wills and Probate alongside leading telephone answering service provider Moneypenny. The discussion was centred around research conducted by Moneypenny into the ways law firms manage their marketing and sales pipelines, documented in their “Coming of age: Legal Inbound Marketing Report 2020” report.
The findings of the report found that lack of time and resource was the biggest threat to a law firm’s ability to becoming successful in the marketplace and so the main topics of discussion reflected these challenges:
- How firms manage their leads currently
- The ways to drive more leads without investing lots of £
- How to ensure you maximise every opportunity
Kicking off the discussion, Bernadette Bennett of Moneypenny asked the room to consider their own methods for capturing leads. Morag Welham of Brachers said that during lockdown, firms, professional and practitioners were inundated with Wills requests, as families were left with a lot more time on their hands to discuss the matter with their loved ones. Rightly, the sector reacted to the demand, which meant they diverted their marketing from events, seminars and sponsorships to changing their working hours by opening up at weekends. And investing in technology which enabled them to capture data from clients at anytime and anywhere, in the comfort of their own homes. While Microsoft bookings allowed clients to book an appointment with a solicitor when it is convenient.
Michael Simpson of Right Legal Group pointed out that cross selling or ‘cross pollination’, as it has been referred to, is a great way of tapping into firm’s past and present clients which could potentially bring in leads from existing clients.
Drawing from the report, delegates were advised that 28% of firms are “too busy” to manage leads, 64% are “often too busy” to manage leads and only 8% manage inbound leads. Furthermore, 46% of leads were managed outside office hours.
Jenny Lambert of Arken.legal said they focused on being a lot more responsive to clients and prioritising current clients by setting up business continuity webinars and utilising software to capture data seamlessly and conveniently, especially crucial for online Wills.
Lorraine Wilson from Weightmans added that generally clients adapted well during the lockdown as appointments were virtual and not the traditional methods of face to face. Even the elderly clients adapted very well to the difficult circumstances surrounding the pandemic, with few clients needing a face to face appointment.
Jenny Lambert talked about ‘Live Chat’ software which proved to be a successful conversion tool, especially in lockdown and is not just a ‘support’ for clients but also a great ‘lead’ tool as well. Bernadette told the delegates calls to law firms have increased 34% in the last 5 years and 38% of those calls result in a new enquiry so managing this channel better, is a real opportunity for firms to get more from their marketing. If you can’t manage your own calls effectively there are outsourced providers – like us who can help. Furthermore, this jumped to 63% in lockdown as the tool was found to be convenient and discreet, and included customisable options too.
Another area which can make a big difference in driving more leads which doesn’t cost the earth is ‘value proposition’. Firms should be asking themselves ‘when a visitor lands on their site, are they greeted with a headline that clearly outlines why they should choose you over another firm? Does it define the benefits of your services immediately?
There are lots of ways to test value propositions, you can start with asking clients and non-clients what they think works, you can do A or B testing on your site and if your traffic is too low for that, paid social could be used as a way to increase reach and test that way.
In terms of driving more leads for little investment, Paul Coombes of Legal Marketing Works raised GDPR, which operated on a consent basis when it came in and firms lost masses amount of email data. However, it was felt that email marketing still proved fruitful, especially B2B but firms lacked organisation in their captured data and ‘data cleansing’ and using a CRM pays dividends.
Michael said cleansing and management of data generates a lot of traffic and it would be prudent for law firms to analyse the data they have and ‘cross pollinate’. But Morag said there was a caveat in relation to the relevance of what is being sent out to customers which tended to be a ‘knee-jerk’ reaction of sending out millions of emails to everyone with no thought to the content.
Sattu Dhaliwal of Perfect Portal talked about the relevance of helpful videos about FAQs in private client matters for the public, utilising social media to spread the word, allowing everyone in the firm to act as ambassadors by sharing the videos on their own social media platforms.
In the final part of the discussion, Sattu touched on the value of a ‘referral network’ in the meeting which provided opportunities to law firms and individuals to share knowledge and expertise within the field, while making it quicker to send leads to law firms from estate agents for example, a sentiment echoed by Paul Coombes who advised that leads, regardless of whether firms can fulfil the requests, still have value as fee share or quid pro quo agreements can be made with firms who may better specialise in that type of work.
To discover the ways Moneypenny can support your Law firm, contact Bernadette Bennett:
- Email: bernadette@moneypenny.co.uk
- Call: 0333 202 1005
- Visit: https://www.moneypenny.com/uk/legal
For more information about being involved in a Tonya’s Wills & Probate roundtable please contact Grace Beech: grace.beech@practicalvision.co.uk.
