A Review of Email Marketing Platforms For Law Firms

As marketing efforts continue to transition into our digitally influenced world, email remains one of the pillars of online marketing with the highest return on investment for small businesses. Obviously, the main goal of email marketing for law firms is to drive traffic and convert new leads into clients. Your second priority, however, should be to get anyone who can’t be immediately converted to join your email list.

Every subscriber on your list represents multiple chances to provide value, stay top of mind, and convert new clients.

There are several effective services designed to make email marketing easier. Capterra lists well over 300 in their Email Marketing Software Products category. With so many options available, it’s hard to know what to look for, especially for small to mid-sized law firms. 

In this blog post, we detail some of the most popular email marketing service providers and give you an honest comparison that should help aid in the decision-making process. We’ll break down some of the pros and cons to see how each service stacks up.

HubSpot Marketing Hub

HubSpot is an all-in-one, easy-to-use marketing platform best suited for small and mid-sized law firms. HubSpot’s Marketing Hub is not only an email marketing tool but a digital marketing platform all in one. Many of its lead-capturing/nurturing features are streamlined and simple to use such as email and landing page design, integrated contact lists, and baked-in email analytics. HubSpot continues to be a powerhouse software for legal and online marketers alike, and marketing software we continue to leverage ourselves here at Good2bSocial.

Pros: Complete all-in-one marketing hub with countless intuitive features for marketers looking to get granular with their data. Offers a free trial and a free-to-use version.

Cons: HubSpot’s Marketing Hub platform may begin to feel costly the more features that are unlocked and the larger your lead-capturing efforts need to be scaled.

Cost: Marketers can begin with a free trial and free-to-use version with limited features. HubSpot Marketing Hub begins at $50/month with a per-feature pricing model.

MailChimp

MailChimp makes it very easy to get started. With Mailchimp you don’t just get a free trial, you get access to the service and most of its features completely free forever provided your list is smaller than 2000 people and you send fewer than 12,000 emails per month. Some features are reserved for paying customers, but you’re not getting a crippled service. You can fully manage your list and send emails effectively.

List management is easy with functions to break lists into segments and even A/B testing to help fine-tune and maximize results. Hosted signup forms and integrations with other popular services also make it easier to keep your list growing.

Pros: The ease of use separates MailChimp’s email marketing services from the rest. Features are all simplified so small teams and beginner marketers can still effectively execute campaigns. Mailchimp is free to use for small firms.

Cons: Implementing a custom template and the HTML code can be painful. 

Cost: Free for firms with a list smaller than 2000 people and send less than 12,000 emails per month. Mailchimp pricing starts at $10.00 per feature, per month.

Constant Contact

Constant Contact, which has upped its outreach to law firms, gives you plenty of templates to help make your initial marketing campaigns a bit easier to produce. You can use theirs, modify them for your needs, or create your own from scratch.

Some of their other offerings include tools for social media marketing, delivery and open rate tracking, image and file hosting, survey and coupon creation, and of course, tools to help grow your list. 

Pros: Constant Contact gives you a full-featured free trial for 60 days. You can sign up easily with no need to enter billing information until the trial ends.  Constant Contact also has specific features and templates for law firms.

Cons: Constant Contact does not have a free basic version for small firms such as other email marketing service providers discussed here.

Cost: Pricing is based on your list size. A list of 2000 contacts will cost $45 per month.

GetResponse

GetResponse offers most of the same tools you’ll see with other email service providers, but they stand out from the others by offering some extras like landing page creation and webinar invitation landing pages that are more visually appealing than a plain Zoom webinar landing page. If your law practice is looking to get more interactive with your list subscribers, these extra features could prove to be a big bonus.

Pros: GetResponse has a few more interactive tools than the competition. This may be useful for firms looking for a more in-depth platform at an affordable price.

Cons: This platform is generally designed around a retail audience.

Cost: GetResponse offers a one-month free trial. Pricing starts at $15.00 monthly for up to 1,000 subscribers and an unlimited number of emails.

Mad Mimi

Mad Mimi is one of the most user-friendly options out there. If you’re looking for simplicity, this is the place to start with easy audience management, tracking, and support. It may be simple but it’s also robust with the ability to send emails to 2,500 contacts on the free-to-use version.

Pros: Simplicity and ease of use with robust delivery and reporting is what sets Mad Mimi apart. 

Cons: Its simplicity may get in the way of law firms that are looking to be a bit more creative with their outreach efforts.

Cost: Pricing starts at $10 per month. The next level up, the “Pro” version, facilitates 10,000 contacts for $42 per month. More packages are available for up to 350,000 contacts.

How to Choose

Choosing the right email marketing service provider for your law firm is going to depend on how big your email list is and exactly what you want to accomplish. There are, however, a few general things you should keep in mind.

First, you want to make sure the price for the service is going to fit your budget.

Second, take advantage of free trials to see exactly what a system will do. For those that only offer demos, be sure to have questions ready. This way you’ll make sure the demo session includes as much detail as possible about the features that will be important for you.

And finally, just as important as making sure you will get the features you need; you should make sure you’re not going to be paying for extra features you will never use.

Takeaway:

Once you have your email marketing set up, get to work on setting up your first campaign. Returns on email marketing for law firms are the highest of any online marketing method. You’ll be pulling in new leads for your law practice in no time.

Want assistance improving your email marketing strategy? We help law firms 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. 

This post has been edited and republished from Aug. 9, 2021.