Posts Tagged ‘attorney’
Tips on Gaining Estate Planning Clients Through LinkedIn
One thing that I get asked a LOT is how to gain clients through social network sites like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Well, the short answer is that you don’t.
Let me clarify.
You don’t go into social networking with the mindset of getting clients. You go into social networking with the mindset of sharing, educating, getting to know people and allowing people to get to know you.
In this post, the focus will be on the social network called LinkedIn. LinkedIn is considered to be the more “professional” of the networks. Even so, you shouldn’t consider LinkedIn as a platform to push your estate planning services.
Just like any other social network, LinkedIn is really about developing relationships—not pushing products and services. While it is very possible to gain clients through LinkedIn, it doesn’t necessarily happen quickly. So, when developing your LinkedIn profile, you should treat it like your blog, your Facebook fan page, and Twitter; do what you can to increase your exposure (not push you r services) and educate people, and clients will follow along naturally! Here are a few things to consider when using LinkedIn:
- “Pimp out” your LinkedIn profile. Make sure that it is written with the client in mind. A lot of people use LinkedIn as sort of an online resume. T his is great if you are a job-seeker, but if you are a business owner, you really want to be talking to clients and referral sources. Be sure to keep in mind that everything you write should spell out the benefits of the services that you provide, not the services themselves.
- Join Groups in LinkedIn. For example, if one of your service areas is planning for special needs kids, then do a search on “special needs San Francisco” (or wherever you live). Then, after you join groups, actually PARTICIPATE. This is where many professionals lose out on the chance to educate people and build credibility. Participation in groups is important on LinkedIn, just as it’s important on Facebook and any other niche groups you find.
- Search LinkedIn questions on a daily basis. LinkedIn has a great “Questions and Answers” area where people post questions. Do a search for the keywords on which you are focusing.
Doing all of these things will result in getting really good (targeted) connections and not just a bunch of random people who want a large number next to their “Number of Connections” field.
When you have a really good foundation built, you will find some of the more direct promotional types of things are more effective. Then you can:
- Post your upcoming events.
- Link your blog to your profile.
- Use LinkedIn to find referrals for YOUR clients (think reciprocity).
- Start your own LinkedIn Group – but I caution you to only do this if you plan to update it on a regular basis and keep it active. These groups are like blogs-if someone visits and notices that it hasn’t had activity in months, the chances of them returning are slim to none.
Remember to think of social media not as a sprint, but more like a marathon. In social media, slow and steady will definitely win the race.
Quick Tip of the Week: A Twitter Bio is a Must
You may remember back in the olden days of Twitter (like about 6 months ago) where everyone pretty much followed everyone else? Those days are long gone. You should know that people are becoming a lot more selective in who they add to their list. To increase your chance of getting relevant followers, you should create really great bio.
Here are some basics that every Twitter bio should have:
- Add your avatar, to create brand recognition.
- Provide a descriptive one line bio, that makes a really great first impression but also includes relevant keywords like “lawyer” and “attorney.” This can be tricky given the 160 character limit, but it can be done!
- Mention your location, to maximize your chances of those searching in your local area will find you – critical for estate planning attorneys!
- Include the URL link to your firm website and/or blog.
If you don’t have a really great bio, or worse, you don’t have one at all, head right over to Twitter and create one today. Done correctly, you should see an immediate increase in followers.
The Era of Value-Driven Marketing
Marketing is moving into a new era – the era of Value-Driven Marketing
The reason is that unlike traditional marketing, the purpose of value-driven marketing is to create meaningful value to your clients. By providing quality value on a consistent basis utilizing social media marketing, you will become the “go-to” lawyer for your community when they are ready for estate planning. An added bonus is that you will cultivate lifetime client loyalty and your clients, in essence, become your sales team by directing prospects to you.
There are a few key points in value-driven marketing that you should embrace:
- Value-driven marketing requires a deep desire to serve. Since you have chosen to practice in estate planning I’m guessing this point describes you exactly! But, it needs to move beyond ‘desire’ to a system that demonstrates this to your prospects. It requires a daily commitment to seek ways to add value to your clients’ lives. Social media provides the means, but you must commit to the process and provide great content on a consistent basis.
- To create value, you must know your prospects and clients. It is important for you to understand exactly who you are speaking to – what motivates them, their decision criteria, etc. This is easily accomplished by thoroughly researching your prospects and then setting objectives and developing a comprehensive strategy.
- Value-driven marketing does not produce results overnight. Value-driven marketing is about building relationships – and relationships take time to develop. You can’t expect to throw a lot of money at a big marketing campaign and expect people to instantly trust you or see you as an expert. Your prospects are very savvy and somewhat distrustful of those old-fashioned, in-your-face, tactics. Instead, commit to small acts to build solid relationships with them.
While on its face, value-driven marketing may seem daunting, it is important to note that it will result in driving new clients to your law practice. The speed at which your relationships develop depend upon how much time and resources you plan to devote. If you set an aggressive schedule for blog posting and participation in social networks then you will see results rather quickly. While it is important for you to be very involved in your social media strategy, it is not necessary for you to do everything yourself. You can outsource many social media marketing strategies to free your time.
The answer is simply to commit to providing great content that has good value and you will see the results!
Why Offer-Driven Marketing Doesn’t Work for Estate Planning Services
Sounds good, right?
This should bring in LOADS of eager estate planning clients who are beating a path to your door.
After spending thousands of dollars for targeted mailing lists, design services for a wonderful postcard and postage you find that the results are less than stellar. But, why?
Because offer-driven marketing doesn’t work for estate planning services.
Well, let me clarify, offer-driven marketing doesn’t work for people with whom you have no existing relationship. I will be the first to admit that I have not done extensive research to find the root cause of the failure of offer-driven marketing. But I have spent years talking to estate planning prospects and clients and I think there are two key reasons.
1. Because people don’t necessarily love the idea of developing a plan that will prepare their family for their death. This is not fun for most people and they are not motivated to do this by money.
2. Because people know that when they do estate planning they will be sharing every detail of their lives with their lawyer. They will have to disclose all of their financial information and sometimes not-so-pretty details of their family life. Most people want to share this information only with people they know and trust.
What does this mean to you in terms of marketing your estate planning practice? It means that you need to find ways to showcase your expertise and allow potential clients to get to know you. Reach out to them and teach them that estate planning is not about death and dying. Show them the joy in creating a legacy for their family.
Social media is ideal for this. You can do this by regularly posting to your blog, updating you Facebook fan page, communicating using Twitter, and many, many other channels where you can connect with potential clients.
Once people get to know you, trust you, see you as an expert, and not fear estate planning, then you can them make them an offer they can’t refuse.
Step Four: Carrying Out Your Strategy: “Who’s doing what?”
One of the things that we often hear is that social media marketing is free. While it is true that most social media networking sites have no cost to participate, there is the cost of executing.
One of the key components of a good social media strategy is to develop a plan that will keep you or your firm participating regularly. In order to do this, you must decide if you will be the person to manage this or if you plan on outsourcing this task, or if you want a combination of both.
Here are some examples of different roles that are often outsourced:
• Research Specialist: This person offers ongoing research services to help you identify where your target market is online, which is constantly evolving. He or she suggests new networks to target, finds new networks in which to participate, lists of friends to invite, etc.
• Company Representative: If you don’t feel you have the time to carry out all aspects of your strategy on your own, you can hire someone to act as a representative of your practice on your behalf. This person would participate in discussions on behalf of your company online, post relevant and informative articles out to your audience, etc.
• Online Reputation Manager: This person is responsible for tracking and monitoring your online reputation, which is a handful in and of itself! He or she would use tracking tools to find every post and site where your name or firm is mentioned, and would respond to any negative comments, trying to minimize negative exposure online.
• Blog Manager: The blog is the heart of your social media strategy. It is important to make sure that your blog is continually maintained and upgraded when appropriate. There’s quite a bit more to running a successful blog than simply writing a post. A Blog Manager will make sure that your blog stays current by adding the most up-to-date plug-ins and keeping the posting schedule consistent.
There is a cost to outsourcing, but this must be compared with the cost of your time. If you have a team in place effectively taking care of parts of your social media strategy, you are free to concentrate on the aspects of the strategy where your personal voice really needs to get through and connect with your audience – writing articles and blog posts, for example.
If you decide that you would like to spend your valuable time on the parts of social media marketing that will allow you to put a voice to your message and delegate the rest we’d love to help you discover how easily this can be done.
