9 Ways to Increase Law Firm Email Open and Click-Through Rates

Did you know that the average person receives 88 emails per day? Email is an essential part of most of our lives, whether at home or in the workplace. It’s also an affordable way for legal marketers to reach their prospects – but that can only happen if they break through the noise. That means you need to focus on getting people to open your email and take the next step. We’ve implemented the following tips across many email campaigns. Use these tactics to improve both open and click-through rates for your law firm email strategy. 

1. Ensure email gets delivered

In order for your email to get opened, it needs to make it into an inbox in the first place. Clean out your email database and ensure any addresses with a hard bounce are deleted. To keep the highest quality email database, always give the option to unsubscribe. 

2. Optimize for mobile

Studies show that the majority of people open and read emails on their mobile devices, not computers. To better engage people on their smartphones, keep subject lines concise and clear. Make sure recipients can tell in the first few seconds what the email is about. 

3. Test on all devices

Even though most emails are read on a mobile device, you can expect some to be opened on a tablet or a laptop. Adobe found that on average, people spend 2.5 hours of their workday checking email. That means your email should not only come through but look great on various computer screens as well as mobile devices. Before you hit “send”, try sharing your email on multiple devices and catch any glitches or areas to improve. 

4. Personalize

Personalized emails have been proven to have better open and response rates than general ones. In fact, personalization has been known to improve several email performance KPIs. Start with first and/or last name, and try to add other tokens like company name or role. 

5. Run A/B tests

You’d be surprised at the difference that different elements can make in email performance. It’s a good practice to make A/B testing a regular aspect of your email programs. Try testing different subject lines, buttons, calls-to-action, etc. You can even do this the day of your email send. If you’re torn on subject lines, send 25% of your list one option, and 25% the other option. Wait a few hours and gauge the “winner” – then send to the remaining 50% of your list. 

6. Create valuable offers

Remember that your recipient is getting a lot of emails. Why is yours worth their time? Whatever you’re sending, make sure that what you’re asking them to do is worth their time. If you want them to download your newest lead magnet, make clear in your email copy what they’ll gain and why they should care. Don’t simply say “Download our latest white paper.”

7. Try different calls-to-action (CTAs)

In email, a CTA is a clickable button, link, or image that directs readers to an offer or next step. In many cases, the very first CTA is the most-often clicked one. That’s why it’s important to have a CTA that people see following the first paragraph, before they need to scroll at all. You can also add a button near the footer, and others as well. A/B test CTA placement, text, size, etc. The more that you provide opportunities for people to take action, the more likely they are to do so. 

Related: 8 Compelling Calls-to-Action (CTAs) for Law Firm Blogs

8. Include social share icons

When building out your email templates, make sure you’ve added social share cues. Research has shown that just adding these icons can significantly boost your open and click-through rates. 

9. Send at the right time

There is no magic formula to tell you the best time to send emails. The right time to send your firm’s emails will depend on several factors, such as your recipient’s demographics and geography. This is another area where testing can really help you to optimize your law firm email strategy. Try sending at different days and times to see what gets the best response. Don’t be afraid to try evenings or weekends too – you never know what will stick. Then use that timing going forward (but continue to test). 

Takeaway: 

Email is a critical part of a legal marketing strategy – but your firm isn’t the only one who knows that. Simply sending a compelling email isn’t enough. They need to be opened and clicked-through (and hopefully drive traffic to lead magnets and contribute to lead nurturing efforts). Review your overall law firm email strategy with these 9 tactics in mind.

Want help improving your email marketing strategy? We help law firms to create, customize, automate, and optimize email campaigns that lead to conversions. Contact us today to discuss your email marketing goals and how we can help you achieve them.