7 Best Practices for Law Firm Lead Nurturing Emails
Well-planned lead nurturing strategies play a big role in obtaining new clients. Building a relationship with leads and ushering them through each step of the sales funnel requires several marketing tactics – with email lead nurturing being at the forefront. A lead nurturing email is a message delivered to contacts as they move through your firm’s sales funnel, with the goal of guiding them towards becoming clients. Effective law firm lead nurturing emails will both engage and entice the reader and promote interaction with your firm.
If your firm is hoping to implement or refine an email lead nurturing process, make sure you keep these best practices in mind when creating law firm lead nurturing emails.
1. Offer Valuable Insights and Real Expertise
It’s important that you offer something of substance to your leads right out of the gate. Many email marketers consider lead nurturing campaigns to be like mini blog posts. Items with subjects like “Top considerations for…” or “5 Steps to…” are likely to generate interest and provide information that your leads will find helpful.
Position your communications as though you are a renowned expert in your field and aim to teach recipients something new. You’d be surprised how much people will look forward to getting your email when they know that they’ll receive new and helpful information.
2. Narrow Topics Down to One Per Email
Every nurturing email should focus on a single timely subject and include a compelling call to action. In this phase, it’s important to keep the content of emails closely tied to the topic that initially piqued the lead’s interest.
It’s also essential to ensure the content delivered relates to the appropriate stage of the sales funnel. For example, if someone downloaded a paper on creating an estate plan, chances are they are in a research phase. Send them content that provides further answers, not material that’s more appropriate for the bottom of the funnel, like specific case studies. Seek to solve problems with the material you’re sending, but don’t overwhelm email recipients.
3. Be concise
To put it simply: keep things short and sweet. Ideally, a lead can glance at your email and within a few seconds be able to tell what value it will provide to them.
Information overload can happen quickly in an email. Adding busy graphics, links to unrelated content, or multiple calls to action will only confuse readers and divert attention. In some instances, it’s ok to have wordier emails if the word count truly helps you better connect with leads. But in most cases, a shorter email will be better received.
4. Carefully Plan the Flow of Emails
A well-rounded campaign will gently guide leads through your sales funnel. For example, the first email sent upon initial contact should be educational in nature. Subsequent emails need to balance providing helpful information with providing more opportunities to convert.
As the lead moves further along the funnel, they should be presented with more opportunities to interact with your firm and take more actions, such as downloading a white paper or registering for a webinar. Work with your business development team to understand what qualifies as a sales-ready lead, and then create your campaigns accordingly.
5. Pay Attention to Email Performance
Various forms of testing will be key to your email strategy’s success. Test each campaign and then monitor metrics so you can see which version worked best and where to optimize. Try A/B testing, trying new subject lines or times of day, different content, etc. Look at click-through rate and unsubscribe rate on a regular basis.
A well-performing email campaign should have an unsubscribe rate of less than 5%. If you see numbers creeping higher, it’s time to re-evaluate your strategy. Be proactive in understanding how campaigns are being received and make changes to improve future performance.
6. Personalize Whenever Possible
You should be segmenting lead lists and sending different types of emails to different groups. You should also layer in more personalization when you can, using knowledge of who the lead is and what their interaction with your firm has been up to this point.
Ideally, you are using tools and software that allow you to see if a lead has registered for events, signed a previous contract with your firm, etc. How long has it been since they’ve heard from your firm, and what was that communication? All of this context should inform how you communicate with a lead, and contacts should be able to tell when they read your emails that you see their “bigger picture”.
7. Be True to Your Brand
Even small firms have a voice, personality, and branding elements that need to be consistent across email campaigns. Make sure each email sent represents your firm well and adheres to brand guidelines. Use every touchpoint as an opportunity to create familiarity over time and build lasting relationships.
Anatomy of a Lead Nurturing Email
Now that you’ve reviewed some of the best practices for plotting out email lead nurturing campaigns, give some thought to how you’ll compose each individual email.
Here are some best practices to keep in mind as you execute campaigns:
- Document the purpose of each email.
- Personalize both the greeting and the subject line.
- Address specific pain points. Ask yourself “What problem will this content help to solve?”
- Include testimonials or other social proof.
- Provide a compelling piece of research or statistics (we think of these as “knowledge bombs”).
- Include a CTA.
- Make sure your unsubscribe button is present and visible.
- Follow up – that is, make sure you understand what happens once the email is sent. Track metrics, see who opened the emails and what they clicked on, etc.
Takeaway:
Remember that a potential client’s first interaction with your firm is just the beginning of your relationship. An initial interaction can kick off a long and productive partnership, provided you make every effort to nurture the lead through your sales funnel. Effective law firm lead nurturing emails are one of the best channels for staying top-of-mind with future clients, creating trust, and demonstrating expertise.
If you’d like assistance developing and navigating an integrated email strategy to generate and convert more leads, contact us today for a free consultation.
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