Predictable Estate Planner - Heath Rost

Empowering Lawyers To Independently Scale

Apply Now

Attorneys: How To Get More Qualified Leads Through Your Website

by

What marketing strategy can law firms can use to increase the quality of leads they attract through their website as well as increase the quantity through their legal marketing efforts?  In this video I broke down three huge topics which I’ll do my best to unpack in future blogs and videos.  This was a very high-level question to answer.

How to get more qualified leads through my law firm’s website

1-You MAKE them qualified

The way you communicate with your prospects after they become a lead is how you warm leads up to working with you.  The closer they feel to you and your process the more likely they will be to not shop around for attorneys, as well as to actually signing to work with you.

2-Great website copy & design

This is where you make your true first impression with your prospects.  Saying things the right way is vitally important in order to achieve conversions through your website.

3-Answering your customers questions

The more your prospects are educated and you are the one educating them the more they will know like and trust you.

How To Say Just Enough On Your Website To Get More Leads

by

What attorneys should not to say on their website

Worst thing you can do: treat your website like its a filing system where you keep track of what services you provide.

What attorneys should say on their website

  • Pamphlet example
    • Your mindset for what to add to your website so it’s “just enough” to achieve the outcome you want is to design it like a physical pamphlet.
  • Cold Email by Eric Finnigan (building a foundation to start from before you scale).
    • Do the work to personalize each cold email.
    • You would never scale that cold email until you have a solution that you know works.

Call to action

  • I encourage you to take a look at your website and see where you can say more by saying less.
  • Pull out a notepad and hand-write what each section of your homepage and each page on your website is supposed to do, and how it feeds into the overall end result you hope the page will achieve.

How we can do it for you:

This is where the value of a great copywriter and a great website designer can play a huge role for you.

At EPLP we’ve already done that, we have the perfect formula already for estate planning attorneys to write more estate plans. We start everyone from a single landing page that converts, and we make sure its completely separate from your existing website so you don’t have to lift a finger to get started working with us.

Top 3 Mistakes Of Estate Planning Online Marketing

by

Whether you’re a solo attorney or a law firm looking to grow, there are certain mistakes most attorneys make when trying to generate more leads through their online marketing efforts.  In this blog I will cover the top 3 most glaring mistakes they are making.

Mistake #1: Sending traffic to your law firm website

The conversion rates on your law firm website will not be anything close to a tested and highly focused page stating clearly what you offer and what the next steps are.

Mistake #2: Not having automated follow ups

Often a potential client has found your page and is busy at work, or with their family or other activities. Tasteful automated follow up will continue the process of connecting and educating your new clients so you’re there when the time is right.

Mistake #3: Working with a “generic” agency

Winning with online marketing requires a great deal of understanding of your legal niche. Generic agency’s that work with multiple legal niches typically don’t have the focused energy to get you the best possible results.

EP Attorneys: 3 Things Your Digital Marketing Needs Today

by

Estate Planning Lead Pros started in 2019 after seven years of running my website company, Personable Media.  One of our very first clients was for an estate planning attorney, whom we worked with to build, host and maintain their website and for just $35 per month.  After nearly 10 years and over 100 blog posts later that client is still with us, and his website generates anywhere from 100 to 200 leads every month for estate planning.  When we saw the success we were able to obtain for this client we decided it was due time for our beloved website company to rebrand and focus our energy on working with estate planning attorneys and their marketing.

As we approach the final quarter of 2021 our company has grown leaps in the past year.  I’ve seen all the struggles estate planning attorneys go through when attempting to do their own marketing, so through this blog (and the blogs to follow) I hope to shed some light and inspire estate planning attorneys how to realign their focus with their digital marketing.  In today’s blog I’m going to discuss the top 3 high-level components to any marketing strategy that estate planning attorneys need to know.  The first one is about attorney websites, and the feeling that prospects have when they’re on your website. 

 

1) Website user experience that takes users on a journey

Imagine the satisfaction your website brings to your prospects when the next page they click to looks and feels exactly as they expect it to be. ?

This establishes a strong relationship with your prospect, right from the git-go. You have to get your prospect used to the way you communicate, and that starts with the way you communicate with them through the experience they have of you on your website. Your website should not only feel conversational, when your customer clicks on a button to navigate to a new page, they should see exactly what they expect to see. Psychologically you begin to train your prospect how to work with you and communicate with you. Implementing this principle throughout your website and web design will lead to more conversions and ultimately more business and grow your bottom line.

Great website design isn’t something you can achieve through choosing a template and hoping for the best.  There are even companies out there that lay claims to specialize in building websites for attorneys.  From what I’ve gathered from these [nameless] companies is that they do their best to provide the back-end interface that suits the needs of attorneys.  The thing these attorney website companies are missing though is the look and feel of the website from the prospects perspective.  It’s great that they’ve built a tool that is somewhat easy for an attorney or law office to adapt to, but the experience of building a high-converting website with great copywriting is something left to be desired.  Your best bet is to find a company with proven success in driving conversions through the website they’ve previously built for a solo attorney or law firm.  If you want to take it a step further, study the website and why it converted so well!

 

2) Get your website in front of the right people

Do you know we are entering the largest transfer of wealth in our nation’s history? Estate planning has never been a bigger industry, and with the Covid-19 pandemic the morbidity of your customers has never been more prevalent to them. Do you know how your customers try to find you? A general rule to follow is the more places they can find you, the better!

Search engines are a great place to start.  The places you can advertise your estate planning practice in 2021 include (in no intentional order) Google, Yahoo, Bing, Youtube, Amazon and Yandex. Setting up a new advertising account and directing traffic to your website through any of these mediums is a great idea to help you get the right eyes on your website. Some networks have more daily searches than others.  Consult your ad specialist before making a decision.

Social media is another great place to start. The places you can advertise your estate planning practice in 2021 include (in no intentional order) Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, TicToc, LinkedIn and Pinterest.  Like search engine advertising some of these social networks don’t have many of the types of customers you are looking for.  For example, the age demographic for TicToc is teenagers to early 20-somethings.  These type of people aren’t looking for estate planning.  Again, consult your ad specialist before making a decision.

 

3) Set up drip campaigns that nurture your prospects

A proper drip campaign is a fancy way of saying automated follow up. Once your website is getting in front of the right people and it’s converting leads you are doing great, but your work doesn’t stop there. Failure to have a proper drip campaign can and will absolutely result in higher no-show rates on your appointments. Not only that, it can drastically effect the way your prospect communicates with and works with you.

The only thing worst than having no automated follow up is having bad follow up. There is a right way to do automated follow up as an attorney. Great drip campaigns when executed correctly will result in lower appointment no-shows, cancellations and reschedules. Great drip campaigns will change the way your prospects communicate with you, and strengthen your relationship with them. Who knows, it may even change a prospects mind to work with you if they were shopping or on the fence.

 

Where to find estate planning attorney marketing that works?

Finding the right marketing company to work with your law firm doesn’t have to be a trying process. If you value results and transparency and you want to grow your practice now, schedule a call with me by clicking below.

Great Expectations: Managing Google Ads For Law Firms

by

Has your law firm tried Google Ads before without success?  Well the truth is if every law firm that ever attempted Google Ads to drive new leads was successful with it there would be no advertising agencies out there to help them.  Over the last 10 years working in attorney and law firm marketing I know what expectations are necessary to agree to prior to beginning a new working relationship with any search advertising specialist, and that’s what I will cover in today’s blog.

My hope is that reading this will save you time and money as you seek out the right marketer for you and your firm.

 

Expectation #1 : You want to hire an expert

This is the most basic expectation, it might seem elementary to even say, but you would be surprised at some of the inquires I get!

I once had a prospective client that told me they wanted one thing, which I can help with, but after the second conversation we had I learned that they weren’t actually in alignment with that they were saying they wanted.  This business owner said they wanted to grow their business, but they just did not have the right mindset when it comes to business to be able to work with us.  Let me explain.

The business owner believed that the first thing they needed was a unique legal service they can offer.  This seems pretty logical, however its important to get specific about what you really need to grow your business.  What any business needs first is customers that are interested in your service.  Just because you have a service doesn’t mean anyone wants it, that there is a market for it.  I can crumple up 5 pieces of paper into a ball and put on a website the service I provide, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to get a plethora of customers reaching out to me about my services.

It’s basic supply and demand.

Have you ever seen the movie “The Wolf of Wall Street?”  In the movie Jordan Belford asks a colleague to sell him this pen to teach his team a lesson about supply and demand.  The first person turns down his offer to avoid looking foolish, and the second colleague says sure I’ll sell you that pen.  He takes the pen from Jordan as as he does he turns and asks him, “hey can you do me a favor and write your name on that napkin?”  Jordan responds “I don’t have a pen.”

The takeaway here is you should be absolutely clear about what your product or service is.  When Estate Planning Lead Pros meets with a new prospective client the expectation is they are there because they want to hire an expert.  They want to work with someone they can trust and can provide them the best advice and execution on their marketing campaign.

 

Expectation #2 : You want to grow a longterm relationship with your marketer

As long as I’ve worked with law firms I can tell you that Google Ads are a great place to start.  That said, there is more to running a campaign than just setup and forget.  It needs to evolve to what works best and needs to be measured because what gets measured gets managed.

Our second expectation we encourage you to consider is don’t expect working with a Google Ads expert to be a sprint.  Getting a streamlined ad campaign running for any business requires patience, conditioning and a plan to get there.  It’s truly a marathon, and should be treated as such when you commit to working with your expert. Regardless of who you choose to work with, if you don’t allow for at least a couple months for your campaign to fully optimize you aren’t measuring anything.  And therefore, have nothing to manage.

Lastly it’s important to note that bringing traffic to your law firm’s website is only one piece of the puzzle to a winning Google Ads campaign.  Your law firm’s website design, look and feel need to be easy to use, easy to understand, and your website’s user experience should take your prospects on a journey.

To achieve a great long-term working relationship with your Google Ads expert for your law firm you should keep in mind that your website that could be fundamentally flawed.  That would be a great question to ask by the way!  What can you do to make my existing website convert better, and do we need to start over?  I promise being open to a fresh start by the expert managing your law firm’s Google Ads will pay dividends in the long run.

 

Expectation #3 : If something isn’t working, you communicate

If something isn’t working the way you want then the expectation you should have for yourself is to communicate issues with your expert. Common issues like maybe the last call you received was outside of your service area, or the last 3 prospects were just shopping or didn’t have any money.  These are great things to communicate.

Google Ads for law firms is a great place to start, but it’s important you approach hiring a Google Ads expert with the right expectations ahead of time.

Fulfilling Potential For Your Estate Planning Law Firm

by

“Changes that seem small and unimportant at first will compound into remarkable results, if you’re willing to stick with them for years. We all deal with setbacks, in the long run, the quality of our lives depend on the quality of our habits. With the same habits you’ll end up with the same results, but with better habits anything is possible.” James Clear, author of Atomic Habits

I attended a conference recently where the keynote speaker was talking about marketing for the industry he specialized in: law firms. Everything the speaker had shared up to this point in his talk I was really on board with. They were all strategies I’d implemented myself and found success doing: Google my business, phone tracking numbers, mobile websites. But then he started talking about his experience publishing content on his website, and the websites of people who worked with him. It was at this point in his talk though I felt despair.

Blogging Consistently = “Welcome to the matrix”

“Google says if you publish great content people are just going to magically link back to you. That doesn’t work because we don’t live in the matrix” said the speaker, and the crowd responded by laughing.

Myself and other A-listers in content marketing will tell you if you publish great content people will link back to you. I know this because I’ve edited blog posts that have received hundreds of thousands of views in the first month it was published. I’m able to do this because I help people organize and condense their message and story into an easy to read, and easy to consume format. Almost more importantly though, I help them get clicks to it.

The truth is that the only way to publish great content is to be consistent with it. Without having written a good ten blogs already and received feedback on them it’s hard to know if what you’re doing is actually working and what you can improve upon. Your best writing and publishing comes from experience with actually doing it and being consistent about it.  When you become consistent you enter a new matrix, a new reality.

 

Would you rather grind for a day to produce couple Good links, or consistently produce Great links?

The speaker then went on to say “Focus on a couple good links, those are so much more valuable.”

This might be true for the law industry in general, but this conference was specific to estate planning attorneys. Because of this I couldn’t disagree more with that statement. As you’ll hear me talk about on my Facebook Live on Tuesday people are more uneducated about estate planning than any other area of law. And not only that they want to learn.

If you’ve ever watched the movie “Yes Man” with Jim Carry in the movie Jim’s character Carl has to say “Yes” to everything and hilarity ensues. As a loan officer of a bank he has to approve or deny loans every day. When word gets around that Carl is approving everyone’s loans no matter how small they are a long line forms at his desk. Weeks later someone from the corporate office shows up to congratulate Carl for his work. Why? Because people were so appreciative to have their needs met, they were actually paying back on their loans, and the bank was making a lot of money.

I understand this was a movie, but the principle applies really well here. The more people are able have their questions answered the more appreciative they are to have their needs met. When people with estate planning needs have their needs met, and your law firm does that they’re more likely to choose you as their attorney to work with.

A couple good links will help people near you to find your website, but a couple great links not only do a better job of helping people find you, they help convert them into estate planning leads as well.

 

Creating better habits

“If you want better results, forget about setting goals, focus on your systems instead. You do not rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems.” James Clear

Are you ready to develop the right habits and systems to grow your estate planning law firm? Set up a call with me today.