How Can You Automate Law Firm Marketing?

Noelle Price

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Check out the following tools to attract more clients to your practice.In today’s legal world, it is important to stay up to date on the latest trends in technology. Clients and legal tech companies enjoy working with firms that demonstrate an ability to provide valuable, cutting edge services. How can you use technology in your firm’s marketing practices to make your firm more profitable? Attorney at Work explores the many possibilities.First of all, you need to “close the loop.” Begin implementing analytics, call-tracking software, marketing automation software, and customer relationship management methods to analyze what marketing tactics pay off and which ones do not. You will be amazed at how much you can learn by using programs like Nutshell, CallRail, Active Campaign, and Google Analytics. You can even calculate you return on ad spend with many programs.Creating content is also key to successful marketing. Many programs, such as MailChimp, help business owners create professional quality emails for your subscriber list. You can use Buffer for social planning and updating as well.HootSuite is also a popular program. It is a social media manager that you can use to schedule posts in advance, and then post them to several social media accounts at the same time. It works with LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, WordPress, and Google My Business. You can even see all of your social media newsfeeds in one place, instead of having to check each one individually. HootSuite also provides a tool that allows you to see how your posts perform on each social media platform, so you can evaluate the value of your posts.Customer relationship management, or CRM, is pretty foreign to most attorneys. CRM can track potential clients and ensure a timely follow-up with these clients. It can also manage a network of referral sources and existing clients by storing data and by sending you reminders to reach out. Examples include LexisNexis InterAction for larger firms and Avvo Ignite for smaller firms. Google Analytics can also provide your firm with useful information, such as how many visitors you have to your website and blog, what they are reading, and what they are clicking. Such insight will help you tailor your website and blog to provide what readers want—which means more clients for your firm.Don’t forget about Facebook. You can set up a business page for your firm to draw new clients in to your practice. However, remember that many jurisdictions are strict about testimonials, so the reviews that your clients leave on Facebook, whether good or bad, can land you in hot water with your local bar association. To get around this issue, go to your page’s “About” menu, select “Categories,” and then select “Websites & Blogs.” This will allow you to turn off the review module while keeping many of Facebook’s other features. Keep your Facebook page updated with interesting legal information and updates about the firm.Finally, don’t forget the importance of the telephone. After all, clients will be calling to set up consultations and appointments. They need to feel that their time is important as well. CallRail tracks the sources of all calls, and it also records calls so that you can replay them later. Although this may be uncomfortable at first, it will help you objectively identify issues in calls and improve them. The program provides you with ten different numbers that you can use in different marketing schemes, so you know exactly where your calls are coming from.Answering services are also a valuable asset. For example, CallRuby will use your own phone numbers, and connects callers to professionally trained individuals—even after hours, if you like. If the service cannot get through to you, contact information will be gathered and you will receive a message with the details of the call.Aside from using technology to enhance your marketing practices, you can also use it to improve what goes on inside the office. Case management software can be used by firms to archive emails, to check for conflicts, to schedule appointments and court hearings, and to track time and billing. Some software even includes an accounting feature.How do you know which case management software is best for your firm? Capterra explores some of the key differences between many of these programs.One of the most popular case management programs listed on the site is Abacus. Abacus boasts that it works for firms of every size and practice area. It includes Cloud backup, rules-based calendaring, document and form automation, conflict checking, contact management, time tracking, trust accounting, and document and email management. It has 62,000 customers and 250,000 individual users.Houdini Esq is another hot program. With 37,585 customers and 250,000 individual users, it is not as popular as Abacus, but it is well liked in the legal community. The program allows you to keep your data in house or on the Cloud, provides one-click PDF generation, includes customizable fields forms and lists, and it integrates with numerous programs, such as Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Evernote, and Quickbooks.Firm Central is a program that was created by Thomson Reuters. It has 10,000 customers and 125,000 individual users. It is a cloud-based practice management program designed specifically for solo practitioners. It adds citation links to WestlawNext and KeyCite flags to uploaded documents, saving valuable time while researching and writing. It also includes billing and invoicing features, calendar management, time tracking, and records management.With so many options for marketing and case management, you will no doubt be able to find the combination of tools that brings the most success to your firm.Source: Attorney at Work Photo credit: wesleyacademy.org