Email Optimization for Law Firms: Industry Open Rates and Best Practices

If you’re using email as part of your marketing or business development process, then you already understand its power. Just to drive home how critical this channel is, though – let’s look at some numbers.

Email Open Rates in the Legal Industry

If you send 200 emails focused on generating new meetings, and your average open rate is 20%, you’ll have 40 attentive email recipients. Of those 40, let’s say that on average, 10% of those individuals are interested in your services and you can set up a meeting – that’s 4 meetings. What if you could bump up the open rate on your email to 30%? If you are able to keep the same 10% appointment setting rate, then you’ll have 6 meetings – the potential for 2 more clients.

A study by Hubspot shared that the average email open rate for the legal and government industry is 44%. In their study, this percentage represented the fourth highest email open rate of 28 industries. There is a natural sense of urgency that tends to accompany the legal field that marketers can take advantage of. Consider the numbers above, and how many meetings you could be looking at if you reach a 44% email open rate!

Email Marketing Tips for Law Firms

Now that you know how many emails tend to get opened in your industry, take a look at your own statistics. If you’re not reaching those numbers, try some of our best practices:

1. Start with what you know – begin by reviewing your statistics. If possible, integrate your marketing platform and your website to track clicks and what happens after.
2. Take it easy on images: research shows that the more you have in your email, the lower the click-through rate.
3. Time it right: more research shows that the best time of day to send an email is 11 am ET.
4. Use the recipient’s name. This might seem common sense, but using the reader’s name in the introduction and even the subject line can drastically increase an open rate.
5. Pay special attention to mobile. Emails that don’t display correctly on mobile tend to be deleted immediately. Remember that mobile is responsible for about 50% of email opens – so make sure your email is optimized for mobile, desktop, and tablet devices alike..

Of course, don’t forget about the most important factor in email marketing: the subject line. If you have the time or technology, try to personalize the subject line to your recipient. LinkedIn can be your best friend in finding common ground to reference in a subject line. You should also keep the subject line short and sweet, reference what they can expect in the email, and don’t overuse capital letters or punctuation.

Takeaway

Email really can be a low-hanging fruit in your effort to stretch marketing dollars. Bumping your open rate can certainly lead to a higher ROI. If you need ideas, keep following along on the blog, or reach out to one of our digital experts.