Legal Marketing

No matter the size of your firm or the practice areas you serve, professional networking is an important aspect of growing your business. While growing your professional network is important, we know that you are accustomed to dealing with competing priorities and this one may sometimes take a back seat to other more pressing items.Lawmatics is just the tool to aid you in not only tracking referrals, but also interpreting insights into your network and making informed business decisions based on them. With the help of automations, you are able to “set and forget” an all-encompassing process for building and strengthening your referral relationships.In order to make the most of your referral tracking efforts in Lawmatics there are several things you first need to account for. You’ve probably heard the phrase “garbage in, garbage out” when it comes to entering and interpreting data. This phrase certainly applies here: without clean data going into the system, you will not reap the benefits of the helpful insights that can come out. When all of these elements of referral tracking come together, you will wind up with the key pieces of data you need to determine where and how to best invest in your referral network. Lawmatics not only makes these results easy to produce, but also simple to interpret and take action upon. By the end of this tutorial you will be able to provide a better experience for both new referral clients and referral partners, leading to more conversions, more referrals, and more bottom line.

Setting Up Marketing Sources

Your first step in tracking referrals is to familiarize yourself with and make any adjustments to the marketing settings in Lawmatics. To get started, click on the “Settings” gear icon near the top right corner and then select “Marketing Sources” from the left sidebar. If you are brand new to Lawmatics, you will only see one source here, and that is Referrals. Take the time to add any other sources from which your firm may get leads.Let’s focus on that built-in Referrals source. This source is different from any of the other custom sources you may create in that it will allow you to track individual referrers under this source rather than tracking a subset of campaigns.

Notice how in the image above, you see a list of names under the Referral source. To make the most of this feature, we suggest importing a list of all your firm’s referral partners using our mass import feature.It’s recommended to use a tag to label these contacts as referral partners, so before you import your list, format your spreadsheet as shown in the image below:

Feel free to include any additional fields such as phone number, company name, birthdate, etc. Then go to the “Import” page found on the left sidebar in settings to run your import. We’ll dive deeper into how you go about actually using and populating this data in your CRM in the section of this tutorial.You may have noticed that the built-in Referrals field does not necessarily differentiate between attorney referrals, client referrals, and any other type that may come into your firm. If this is something you would like to track, we suggest making a custom field for this data. Try to avoid creating additional custom marketing sources for these different types of referrals as they won’t follow the same format as the built-in Referrals field.Your custom field for tracking referral type may look something like this:

Now you’ll be able to select not only who referred the new PNC, but also which of these categories they fall into.Last but not least, if you also would like to track other attorneys that you may refer matters OUT to, we suggest setting up a custom field for this as well. This is completely optional, but is something that we recommend if you would like to view any statistics on this data down the road. That custom field will look something like this:

By making it a lookup type field, you will be able to select from any of those contacts that you have imported in from the spreadsheet example above (or any other contact in your CRM).All of these steps are setting you up to avoid the “garbage in, garbage out” debacle that can happen so often with CRMs. Take this a step further by reading onto the next section.

Populating Data in Your CRM

With referral tracking setup taken care of, refer to the following best practices when populating actual referral data into the CRM. There are several methods by which data can be entered, the first of which is the matter profile.

Matter Profile

Remember that Source and Campaign are both built-in fields in Lawmatics designed for data entry and we do not recommend making custom fields for tracking referrals except for the “type” and “referred TO” fields explained above. When you go to a matter’s profile, click on the “Details” tab to view all data fields for this matter, and then click “Edit” at the bottom right to populate or change any data. You will find both the Source and Campaign fields under the “Matter Information” section on the page. Note that once you select “Referrals” as the Marketing Source, the Campaign field label will update to display “Referrer” instead, as shown below.

In the “Referrer” field, you will be able to select from any contacts in your CRM. Simply begin typing their name or email address and the contact will appear in the drop down. Remember the import we discussed earlier? Any of those referral partners that you imported in will be available to search for in this drop down list.The reason for populating this data via drop down list rather than having you type in the name is to normalize the data for future reporting purposes, avoiding any misspellings or name variations. You’ll be able to easily generate lists of which referrers brought in which matters along with any other data points, covered in the reporting section of this tutorial still to come.

Custom Forms

In addition to populating data directly in the matter profile, you can also capture this information in a custom form. This can be very useful if you use an internal intake form for leads calling in, a staff notes form, or really any other variation of an intake form for collecting initial information.The main thing to keep in mind when collecting this data via form is to once again make sure you are using the proper built-in fields. You will find the fields for Source and Campaign (remember, this field changes to Referrer when Referrals is selected as the source but it is still technically called Campaign) in the Standard Fields section in the form builder. Drag and drop the fields onto the form, as shown below.

If you are using an internal form for the intake process you may also wish to include the “Referred TO” or “Referral Type” custom fields that you created in the first section above. However, remember that lookup fields can only be used on internal forms, which applies to your “Referred TO” contact lookup field.

Automate the Referral Process

You now have everything in place to effectively track your referral data. Take your setup to the next level by adding automation to the process. There are many different ways that automation can be implemented into your referral tracking, here we will discuss a few suggestions from the Lawmaticians.

Thank the Referrer

One of the best and most simple ways to strengthen your referral relationship is to thank someone for sending a referral your way. Without Lawmatics it may seem tedious and labor-intensive to keep tabs on who referred each lead and to actually go about thanking the correct referral once the lead hires your firm. An automation can make this a quick and easy step in your process.In the example below you will see that we have created an automation that triggers when a lead changes to the Hired status, only if their source is Referral and a Referrer (Campaign) has been populated. We are then assigning a task to call and thank that referrer.

Depending on your process, you may find a different automation trigger or action item works better for you. Feel free to customize this so that it best suits your firm. However you decide to set it up, the small step of thanking this referral partner can greatly strengthen and solidify your relationship to that person.

Refer a Matter Out

If you commonly refer matters out to other law firms, you may like to set up an email template for sending the matter’s information to this partner. Begin by going to the Emails page under the Assets tab and create a new email.When creating this email template you will need to keep something in mind regarding field merge. This email template will either merge in the matter’s information or the recipient’s information, but it will not merge in both. Most commonly, you wish to have the matter’s name, phone number, email address, and any other pertinent information merged in as opposed to the referral partner’s information.To accomplish this, note how we have addressed the email Dear Friend as opposed to using the referral partner’s name, since the name merged in will be the matter’s name.

When you build this email template into an automation, it is crucial to make sure you select the email recipient, as well as the merge data from option accordingly. This is demonstrated in the example below.

This tells the system to send the email to the contact selected in the Referred TO field, but any merge fields in the email will display the automation target (the matter)’s information.You will see that we have implemented a custom sub-status of Referred Out as the trigger for this automation. This is a great way to set up future reporting on how many leads were referred out of your firm and to whom they were referred.

Referral Reporting and Analytics

Lawmatics custom reporting puts you in the driver seat to slice and dice your data any way that will prove insightful for your firm. While there are infinite ways to customize a referral report, here we’ll walk through some of the basic steps.

Create a Custom Report

You’ll find the reporting feature under the Insights tab at the top of your page. Once you create your report, you will begin by adding columns and filters. Below you will find a sample report showing some columns and a filter that we would recommend for tracking marketing sources. Feel free to add any additional columns or remove any of these on your report as you see fit.

Filter the Report

Note that we have filtered this report if Source Has Any Value. This will show us our referrals in comparison to other marketing sources as well, if you wish to only see referrals on this report, simply select Source Is Equal To Referrals.

Add Grouping

If you do keep the filter that we have demonstrated in the image above, then we recommend grouping the report based on the source field. This will blanket your Referrals together, and show you the total number versus your other marketing sources.

Now we are seeing valuable information on our referral performance. First, we see that four matters came from referrals versus less for the other two sources shown. We also see the referrer Saul Goodman brought us two leads, where our other referrers only referred one each. Looks like it might be time to take Saul out to lunch and build that relationship.

Analytics Page

In addition to custom reporting, you can also utilize the Analytics page, also found under the insights tab, to gain insights into your referral performance. First, use the provided source stats graph to visually see where Referrals stack up against your other marketing sources.

When you scroll to the bottom of the Analytics page, you will also notice the Stats by Source section. Expand the campaigns on the Referrals source, as shown below, to see an abundance of data on each referral partner, including any money you have spent on that person as well as how much revenue they have brought in to your firm.

Whether you are customizing a report or taking advantage of our built-in graphs and calculations, Lawmatics has all the tools you need to make informed decisions on how to best manage and strengthen your referral partnerships.

Conclusion

While you may or may not enjoy networking, there is no doubt that it is an essential part of running a successful law firm. With these referral tracking tips Lawmatics helps you streamline this once-tedious and time consuming element of your practice.One key takeaway from this tutorial is the importance of creating a strong foundational setup for your referral tracking. If you aren’t populating data into the system correctly then you won’t end up reaping all the benefits. When you put good data into your CRM, you will come out with good insightful reporting on that data. Use these insights to determine where to invest further in your referral network.Like everything in Lawmatics, once you add automation to the referral process you will up your game to the next level by removing any need for manual labor. Not only will you save time, but you will also create stronger relationships with referral partners than you ever have before through the use of automated thank you’s and check-ins.Worry less about managing the business side of things, and create more space to think about your clients and practicing law. We’d love to hear how you use Lawmatics to track referrals and how it has helped build your relationships, email us at support@lawmatics.com to share!

When it comes to marketing your law practice, email is one of your most powerful tools to reach your entire audience in an effective and efficient way. Lawmatics is just the platform for managing not only your detailed target audience, but also creating a marketing campaign that best suits their needs.Marketing is of course a broad term, and there are many different ways that you can utilize email sequences to get your message across. First and foremost, you may use marketing throughout your intake process. In order to take on worthwhile clients, you need to actively feed your sales pipeline, and convert any leads. Then during your intake process, you may utilize email marketing in the form of follow ups, check ins, reminders, and much more.To complement your marketing sequences, Lawmatics also makes it simple to create beautifully designed email templates. Choose from content-rich HTML templates, simple plain text emails, or a combination of the two to get your marketing message across. Once you have created your email templates, easily build them into an automated sequence where you will never have to lift a finger to send out the email.With Lawmatics there is a world of possibilities for improving your email marketing game. Automated marketing is a low-risk, low-investment opportunity to convert more leads, create happier clients, and increase your firm’s bottom line. Let’s walk through a few simple marketing campaigns that can dramatically boost your lead conversion rates.

1 New lead follow up

Given the importance of intake, one of the first email marketing campaigns on which you’ll want to focus is a new lead follow-up automation. This workflow will be designed to ensure that any hot lead contacting your firm is automatically followed up with at a cadence of your choosing, reducing the probability that they go cold. A new potential client may have every intention of hiring your firm, but as we all know life can get crazy, and it may slip their mind. Use this marketing campaign to remain top of mind with these types of leads.When a new lead receives emails from this campaign, they will feel like their legal matter is of the utmost importance to your firm. They will not necessarily have any idea that they are part of an automation. When it comes to this workflow, we recommend using plain text emails as opposed to HTML, since these emails often seem more personal and give the impression that a real person sat down to compose and send the email.

Email 1

Your first email should be triggered in your workflow roughly 10-15 minutes after your conversation with the new lead. This gives enough time to create the impression that you personally composed the email, but doesn’t delay long enough to allow a prospective client to shift their attention to something else. In the body of this email, thank them for connecting with you and give them a call to action for next steps in the intake. Though the intake process in each firm varies, generally you’ll want them to book a consultation with your firm. If this is the case, be sure to communicate in detail how they can go about taking that next step. Whether it’s via a booking link included in the email or an office phone number accompanied by office hours, make the next step as obvious as possible.

NOTE: Before moving onto the next email in this campaign, do not forget the importance of exit conditions in this automation. Once a prospect has taken the designated next step such as booking a consultation appointment, we suggest removing them from the automation. Adding exit conditions will prevent them from receiving an automated email that does not relate to their current stage in the intake process.

Email 2

After you have added your first email, add another time delay. Remember that the duration of the time delay applies to the window of time between the previous step of the automation (Email 1) and Email 2, as opposed to from the very beginning of the automation sequence. We suggest sending your next email 2-4 days out from the initial conversation. Use the second email to remind prospective clients that you are still available to help with their legal issue while offering a call to action to book a consultation.

Email 3

Your third email ideally arrives in a prospective client’s inbox seven to nine days from the time of your initial conversation with the lead, so set your time delay accordingly. Remember to count from the previous delay as opposed to from the very beginning of the automation sequence. In addition to offering a call to action, use this third email to try to instill a sense of urgency. Phrases like “it’s not too late” or “reminder” can help nudge them toward taking their next step in the intake process.You may choose to end your automation here after the third email, but feel free to keep adding steps for as long as you would like.

NOTE: Depending on the demographics of your typical clientele, it may make sense for you to pepper in a sequence of text messages into this workflow as to complement your email templates. The automated task action item can also be a powerful tool if you think your leads will respond well to a personal phone call, add in a task assigned to a staff member to call them at any point during the marketing campaign.

2 Consultation no-show

Another email marketing campaign you may wish to implement is a no-show follow-up drip campaign. While there are many practices you can follow to reduce your no-show rate, they still occasionally happen and there’s no better way to recapture a prospective client’s attention than with an automated campaign.The ultimate goal (or call to action) of this campaign is to get the lead to rebook their consultation. Keep in mind that this workflow could apply for other types of appointments as well, with consultations being just one of many use cases.This marketing campaign calls for a variety of touchpoints such as emails, text messages, appointment requests, and likely even a task to call. Knowing that this person was already engaged enough in your firm to schedule a consultation in the first place, you can choose to be a bit more aggressive with your type and frequency of outreach.

Email 1

The first email touchpoint should be sent out as soon as someone is deemed a no-show. Approach this email with messaging along the lines of “Sorry we missed you today!” It is a great idea to send this out either as an appointment request action or simply include a booking link within your email template.You may also wish to accompany or swap out this email with a text message. Again, since this lead has booked an appointment prior to this correspondence, it is less likely that you will come across as intrusive with a text message. To include both an email and a text message in your drip campaign, simply add each action item into your automation consecutively without any time delays between them, and then they will send at the same time.

NOTE: Be sure to add exit conditions to this automation to ensure that leads no longer receive no-show emails once they’ve rescheduled a consultation.

Email 2

We suggest only a 1-2 day delay between Email 1 and your second touchpoint. Whether you choose to send an email, text message, or both, be sure to reiterate that your firm is still here to be of service to them.Try to avoid language that could shame them or make them feel guilty and uncomfortable for missing their consultation in the first place. Your goal is simply to get them rebooked with the intention of attending the rescheduled consultation — and leading with empathy goes a long way.Once again make sure you include a concise call to action, be it a booking link or instructions to call your office, so that expectations are set on all sides.

Email 3

Your third email should be dispatched roughly 5 days after the missed consultation. As with your new lead automation, at this juncture it may help to instill a sense of urgency for the sake of motivating a prospect to rebook now rather than later. Be selective with your word choice in this email; use persuasive language that will inspire them to take action..While it may seem like a no-brainer to follow up with your consultation no-shows, how often do you actually take the time to manually send that follow up? Creating this automated campaign will allow you to take that tedious task off your plate.As with the New Lead Follow-Up campaign, feel free to continue alternating time delay actions and touchpoints to keep following up with these leads for as long as you would like.

3 Content sharing

In addition to using email marketing for intake, you can also utilize this powerful tool for delivering content, newsletters, and any other announcements your firm has to share.Content marketing can be a great way to build a relationship with potential clients without coming across as pushy or overly salesy. You may already have a library of content such as ebooks or whitepapers, or you may be in the early stages of creating this content. Either way Lawmatics has what you need to distribute it among your audience.If you have any exclusive educational content available on your website, you may opt to gate said content, requiring a form fill of name and email address for access. Should you decide to go that route, create a Lawmatics form to embed on your site for capturing this data, and then anyone who submits it will automatically be created as a new PNC in your CRM.After someone has filled out a form to gain access to your content, use your email marketing campaign to automatically send them an email with the requested content — either attached, or linked in a button. This is a perfect use of those HTML templates for sharing a beautifully designed and eye-catching email. You may also wish to use the change attributes automation action to apply a tag to this lead, perhaps stating that they are interested in content, or maybe even a particular practice area or other area of interest based on the content they requested.The cadence of this email campaign should be much more spread out and less aggressive than the other scenarios that have been discussed thus far. We suggest creating a campaign with a cadence of 1-2 touchpoints per month. In each following email you may wish to share another piece of content, link to an interesting and relevant news story, share FAQs about your firm, or even share a booking link and prompt them to schedule a networking call or consultation.Sending a variety of types of emails and content can help keep them engaged and interested in the emails coming from your firm.

Conclusion

Email marketing requires a relatively low investment and can bring about very high returns for your firm. Lawmatics simplifies the process of marketing to your leads and clients by keeping your resources all in one place.Create custom filtered audience lists and/or trigger highly specific automations targeting a particular demographic or a lead at a certain point in the intake process. Additionally, use Lawmatics to build a library of email marketing content, including both plain text and HTML email templates. Lastly, sequence these email templates into a campaign and you’re ready to go. Once you put in the initial effort of setting up your campaign, it becomes a well-oiled machine that requires little to no human intervention.Take your marketing to the next level by tracking engagement metrics such as opens and clicks on the Emails page in Lawmatics, and make adjustments to your templates based on what seems to be performing best for your clientele.Lawmatics can turn you into an expert-level marketer, whether you feel like one or not. Between the variety of touchpoint types such as email, text message, content, etc. and the customizability of your automations, you will be perfectly targeting your audience in no time. At the end of the day, all of these marketing efforts will free you up to spend less time tediously marketing your firm, and more time doing what you do best.

1 Understand your law firm as a business

You didn’t go to law school to learn how to run a business. But at the end of the day, you provide a service to customers. If you understand your firm as a business — and look for ways to improve your operations as a business — you’re setting up your firm for success. In turn, you’re putting yourself in a better position to set clients up for success.Communication is at the center of any successful business operation. In the legal world, clients (i.e. customers) can often feel overwhelmed about a process they may not understand. Feeling out of control and out of the loop is a recipe for a dissatisfied client — and is why insufficient communication is one of the most common bar complaints against attorneys. A client intake process designed to over-communicate at each step of your client’s journey will lessen their anxieties, and make them feel more at ease in the hands of your firm.

2 Understand the client journey

Quality customer service is what separates good law firms from great law firms. To maximize opportunities to delight your clients, you have to meet them where they are. With the right tools and process, you can create a seamless personalized experience for each client.Ask yourself critically: when does your client’s journey actually start, and when does it actually end? Does it only start when they sign an engagement agreement? Does it really end when they’ve paid their last invoice?The reality is that the client’s journey with your firm starts before they even schedule a consultation. Your client’s experience with your firm’s intake process — how easy it is to find your firm and make an appointment — forms their first impressions of the quality of your customer service and your effectiveness as a firm.Keep in touch with clients after their matter has concluded. Something as small as sending an email on their birthday improves their customer experience and increases referral opportunities.

3 Automations are a necessity for modern law firms

It’s become almost physically impossible for law firms to rely solely on manual processes to provide robust experiences throughout the client journey. Consumer expectations in the digital age demand immediate engagement, clear communication, and convenience. Automations are a necessity to create a seamless experience that can keep up with the demand of the client intake process.With automations, you can engage clients immediately at the start of their intake process, even if you’re not available. Expand your capacity to delight clients with personal details, like sending a birthday card or newsletter, without additional administrative labor. With automated follow-ups, make sure nothing slips through the cracks or gets lost in the shuffle.

Takeaways

In any kind of consumer-driven law practice, your client’s matter is likely the most important thing going on in their life. Your client intake process should reflect that. Give clients the convenience of booking a consultation on your website. Give them peace of mind with an automated confirmation email. Use the tools at your disposal to engage your clients at every stage of their journey. Take a step back and ask yourself, “How would I want to be treated if I came to this law firm with a matter that was the most important thing in the world to me?” Let your answer be your lodestar.

Podcast transcript

Allison Williams

Hi, everyone. It's Alison Williams here, your Law Firm mentor. Welcome to another episode of The Crushing Chaos with Law Firm Mentor podcast. Today, I have a special guest for the podcast. His name is Matt Spiegel. Now I'm sure you know who he is even though you may not necessarily know his name because he is someone that I consider to be a big innovator in the legal space. He helps lawyers in a variety of different ways, but the ways that you guys probably know about is practice management software MyCase. He is founder and CEO of MyCase, and he is founder and CEO of Lawmatics.Now, the beautiful thing about bringing Matt to the podcast is that we got to talk about both aspects, practice management software and legal automation. I know that these are two areas where we get a lot of requests. People that reach out to the podcast will say, "Hey, you did a show on such and such or so and so. I'm really interested in learning more." And almost universally, that deals with some form of efficiency tool for our law firms. Because we all know that with each day and each moment that passes more and more data, more and more people come into our orbit, and managing that effectively is what is going to keep us out of the realm of grievances and malpractice suits.So we actually talk about bar grievance and we talked about Matt having had a bar grievance. I personally had one as well. And when people make complaints, it usually is not because they didn't get the result that they wanted. Most clients can intellectually understand that you can't wave a magic wand and get them to a great result, but it's how they felt in the process. And so, how do you get to a better client experience for your customer? How is it that your client can get the star treatment when there are only so many hours in a day?The answer is automation. So Matt and I talk about that, but I want to let you know that Matt is a serial entrepreneur. He is actually a lawyer. He still has his law license. No longer has his law firm, but he was a law firm owner. And through the experience of being a law firm owner, he created the solution that he needed in practice, which was the tool of MyCase, which started off as a client portal, which you're going to hear more about when we speak.He also then founded Lawmatics. After a break from MyCase, he shifted over into the world of legal tech automation, and it's really interesting how he got there. He is somebody who actually is scaling Lawmatics. The way we talk about scaling law firms, he's scaling Lawmatics, it is a venture-backed company, and their approach to automation may be a little bit different than you realize. Something you may or may not have heard before. So you're going to hear it here on the podcast. Check out my talk with Matt Spiegel of Lawmatics. Here you go.All right, Matt Spiegel, welcome to The Crushing Chaos with Law Firm Mentor podcast.

Matt Spiegel

Thank you, Allison. I'm very, very excited.

Allison Williams

So it's great to have you here. I'm really excited that we have the chance to connect. Because I think what you do is somewhat similar to what I do in the sense that you started a law firm, you had experience from that, and then ultimately you grew into serving lawyers from your experience with something very specific. And in this instance, you did both practice management software and automation, and you refer to yourself as a serial entrepreneur. So talk to us a little bit about what that journey was like for you.

Matt Spiegel

I appreciate you saying that we're similar, although I would think that your story and journey is a bit more impressive and you're juggling more than I'm juggling probably at once. So I appreciate you putting me in the same light, but I'm really impressed with things that you do and you are doing, and there's other people in the same situation as you, which just continues to impress me and also fuel the industry a bit. It's been really cool to see the growth of podcasts in the legal space. It's not just non-lawyers out there preaching for their products. It's actual people like you helping, which is awesome.For me, it was a bit of luck, maybe opportunity at the right time, which I think always is part of it, but it was a fun journey for me. I was like everybody, like most listeners, I am a lawyer. I obviously don't practice anymore, but I still maintain my license. I was a criminal defense lawyer, as cookie cutter as it gets. I started my own practice and it was very quickly in starting my own practice that I had an itch that I needed to scratch, which I think is the way that this happens for a lot of entrepreneurs. It's kind of a tale as old as time. You start doing something and you're like, "Man, this is difficult. I wish that there was the way to do this better." Then if there isn't, you decide to build it yourself.And so, that's kind of what happened, and it's how I ended up starting the company MyCase. It just started out of a need that I had at my own law firm. I think I've always been a little bit more business-centric when I started. I went into criminal defense, quite frankly Alison, because I thought it would be a good business to run. I thought that consumer-driven law, especially criminal defense, was something that you could sort model a franchise off of. You could create a process that was going to be repeatable for each client. You could have a fee structure that was repeatable. So I liked it from a business standpoint. That's one of the reasons why I went into that area of law, and transitioning into building software companies felt somewhat natural for me.

Allison Williams

So I love that you actually own the fact that you had a business mind when you were approaching your law practice. Because I think, first of all, it's very unique. I think a lot of us, we start practicing and then we figure out that we happen to be in a business. But you really had a very different perspective on that, and it informed both the practice area that you chose and the way that you approached business. So talk to me about what was missing in your business that you saw that was a hole in your law practice that you filled by virtue of creating MyCase.

Matt Spiegel

At the time, and so to piggyback off that point, because you make a very good point and I think we'll probably talk about it a lot more today, but that's one of the problems, is that lawyers don't think about their law firm like a business as much as they need to. They just think about it as being a lawyer. But for me, that moment, it was actually client communication. I think very few people know this at this point. But when we first started MyCase, it was not a practice management software. It was simply a client portal. It was the first ever client portal, but that's all it was and we tried to launch it like that. It was met with awful response. Lawyers were like, "Okay, this is cool, but this should be part-"

Allison Williams

I got dropouts for that. We go for that.

Matt Spiegel

Or, "This is great. This is useful, but it needs to be part of a bigger system." And so, that's ultimately how we ended up building the full practice management system around client communication. But the catalyst was, it was actually, to be honest with you, Allison, it was a bar complaint. I got a bar complaint and it was stupid. It wasn't like that I was a bad lawyer. It wasn't that I got a bad outcome or that it was malpractice or ineffective assistance accounts or anything. It was quite literally, "I didn't call you back quick enough." It was attorney-client communication. And so then I went down-

Allison Williams

Number one complaint, by the way that we'd get.

Matt Spiegel

It was the number one complaint in 2009, and it's still the number one complaint. It's ridiculous and actually embarrassing that that is still the number one issue that we have as lawyers. But that's what caused this, that's what kicked off this whole journey for me was a bar complaint.

Allison Williams

Well, bar complaints, we don't talk about them a whole heck of a lot. In fact, we ought to do a whole series here on Law Firm Mentor, on the podcast, about bar complaints because they're embarrassing when you experience them, but they cause a lot of terror in the hearts of lawyers. It's usually because of some inefficiency in the business that cause either a breakdown in communication or a disconnect in expectations or a lack of client service. That pisses off a client so that they find something to point at whether it's right or it's wrong. Then ultimately, the lawyer is raked over the coals while the bar is trying to find the justification of whatever the person said.So you actually were not just ahead of your time in terms of proactively dealing with that for your own business, but very much on what I would refer to as the cutting edge in terms of pulling together the client journey and the client-centric approach with the necessities that we have of sending out our bills and getting our calendar organized and making sure that our client documents are all cataloged together.So now, I want to shift and talk about how that really fits with your second venture. And I just have to acknowledge this. I just recently hired a lawyer for what is now going to be my third business. That lawyer told me you're going to get your bill through Lawmatics. So it's kind of ironic that you and I are talking today, but those two pieces fit very well together. So let's talk about Lawmatics. Talk about the evolution of all that you learned as the innovator behind MyCase and what you created as a foundation that grew, and then transitioning over into the automation kind of toolkit that is Lawmatics.

Matt Spiegel

It's a good question. I don't know if the story is all that exciting, but I'm happy to share it. The truth is that Lawmatics ultimately was born out of what I experienced. And so, I left MyCase in 2015 and I went and did some other things for a few years. When I look back it feels like I was gone from the legal industry for six years, but apparently I was only gone for two years. So in 2017, ultimately I wanted to start my own business again because I was running a company that had nothing to do with legal, and I was reporting to a chairman and I was like, "I just wanted to do my own thing again." Quite honestly I wanted to go back into legal.What I understood was that back in 2014 at MyCase, we started to see lawyers, they were showing signs of thinking about things a little differently. They were showing signs of starting to prioritize the business side, especially on the solo and small firm side of the market. They were starting to show signs of thinking about their business. As tech companies, we've always had these tools that are 100% business driven. They are designed to give us KPIs on how our business is performing. Things like Salesforce or HubSpot or Infusionsoft or whatever CRM we were using to give us insight into our business.I started to think that, "Man, if lawyers start thinking about things from a ... " Well, actually it really came from my own law firm too, because I was thinking about things very economically. When it came to my law firm, I was looking at things like acquisition cost, cost per lead. To me, it was formulaic. If I could go and spend this much money for a DUI case and a DUI case brought in this much money, it's a formula. And so, I thought to myself, I'm like, "Man, these business metrics, that kind of dashboard KPIs that I'm used to getting as a tech company, why wouldn't lawyers want that? They're a business just like anyone else."And so, we started to see that shift in 2014. We started to hear it come up like, this idea of a CRM or business kind of insight tools. So fast forward to 2017, and looking back at something I knew was a kernel of an idea three years prior was now starting to become a little bit pick up some steam. And so, we decided that there's a massive gap in the market for this, for a true business intelligence CRM backed up with the foundation of which would be automation because that's what drives a lot of these products that we were used to. And so, that's ultimately what led to us going down this path, and it has been a winding journey for the last five years now, and we're really just getting started.

Allison Williams

So as you talk about how you got here, because you have this mind that goes to the KPI, you asked the question that I think was very poignant which is: Why would a lawyer not want all of that data available to them so that they could be more effective in delivering a metrics-driven process and service to their client? And I'll tell you why. Because lawyers have some really fucked up thinking.

Matt Spiegel

You said it. You said it.

Allison Williams

Let's just own it. I said it all right. We're not going to put that on you. But there are a whole lot of us that have the fear that, we get taught we're a professional, and that somehow is antithetical to being good in business.

Matt Spiegel

Exactly right.

Allison Williams

And so, if you're focused on how do I deliver this service as economically and efficiently as possible so that I can generate the most profit off of each person I'm serving, we think that that is somehow not in the client's best interest. So therefore, we're prioritizing ourself over the client which, of course, is nonsense because I always say the worst thing for the public is a broke lawyer. As soon as we have to figure out if we're eating this week and we have to decide whether your deposition is something we should spend money on because we have a family to feed, that is where we start getting into trouble with ethics and with choice over client. But when a client is actually being served well, and the lawyers being served well, it's a win-win. Everybody's happy or as happy as can be with their legal problem in that scenario.So automation really does help that. And it really is something that I think you're right. There is a movement in our profession to get people on board with that. So how does Lawmatics really take the lawyer who has that messed up thinking and they don't quite understand how to get into the numbers of their business? They know that they should, but they don't know how, it's overwhelming. It feels very outside of what they learned as a lawyer. How do they take a tool like Lawmatics and really automate their entire law firm?

Matt Spiegel

It's a good question. Here's one of the ways I look at it is I don't think that lawyers, I think the catalyst for going into automation, is not necessarily like, "Oh, I want to automate." It's more, "I want to provide a better service to my clients," or "I want to be able to have insights into my business." You're asking yourself those questions. It just happens to be that in order to answer those questions, I think you have to have automation. So to me, as a business owner, law firm or any business owner, it's asking the right questions first, which is what leads you down the path of how to automate and what to automate.But I'll give you an example, lawyers that are doing a lot of advertising. Let's say you're advertising on Google or you're advertising on Facebook or wherever it is that you're advertising, but you're spending some money on digital advertising, which my guess is most of our listeners today are doing that. If they're not, they probably should. But that's a different topic altogether. But the point is, and I work with a lot of law firms not just in the capacity of Lawmatics. I will constantly I'll help friends or random people that reach out that just want a little bit advice on whether it's marketing or how to maybe drive more leads and things like that.One of the things I will tell them is, "Look, you can go and spend money on marketing, that's great. But if you cannot measure that marketing, then you shouldn't do it." I don't care if it's going to be the best marketing source, if it's going to bring in a ton of leads and you're sure of it, if you can't measure it, don't do it. The reason is because when you start throwing money at a bunch of different things, you're not going to know what's working unless you have analytics to drive that. You end up spending a ton of money. You're just putting money into a bucket that has holes in it. It's just blind. You have no idea which hole the water's coming out of. There's a bunch of water getting stuck at the bottom, but there's also water going out these holes, and you have no idea which one to plug unless you have reporting and analytics.And guess what? The only way to get analytics and good reporting on where your leads are coming from is to have some automation that is driving that. Something that says, "Okay, this person came from here so I'm going to automatically associate it with this campaign. I'm going to do whatever it is that you want to do to identify that it came from a certain source." And that can happen at any part point in the process, whether it's the moment that that lead comes into your website and fills out a form, the moment that they call your receptionist or call you, or during the intake process, after they've come in. There's different parts of the process You're going to identify where somebody came from. It's important to have automation designed to handle that. Then you can report on it, and then you can get the metrics that you need to make very sound business decisions.

Allison Williams

So when a lawyer says, "I want to dive into this, but I think it's going to be overwhelming for me to even understand things like cost per lead and cost for client acquisition," aren't those the same thing? How are they different? How do I learn it all? How does using an automation tool help facilitate that knowledge and where does the rubber meet the road? Is this something that you only do once you have a certain amount of volume of lead flow? Once you have a certain revenue stream? Where is the entry point for somebody who wants to give their clients a better service, who wants to know their business better, but just doesn't know where to start?

Matt Spiegel

That's actually a really awesome question because there's no rule. There's no, oh, when you reach this amount of clients, then you're ready for an automation or a CRM or business intelligence. If you are interested in providing a better service to your clients, which you absolutely should be, then you absolutely need a tool. The reason is because, and I look at it in terms of the full client journey. So, what does it look like at your law firm when a client from the moment a client comes in and finds you all the way through until after their case is over with you? That entire process is the client journey.There's three phases. Phase one, intake phase. They're trying to determine if they want to hire you, and you're trying to determine if you want them as a client. Phase two is there's an active case. You're handling a matter for them. Most of the time there's a start and end date to that. In family law, there certainly is a start and end date. That end date may be a little ambiguous, but there's sort of an end date. Criminal offense, there's obviously very much a start and end. Phase three, which is the most neglected, I think Allison, is after the case is over. They are a former client. If you are not doing things to engage that former client, you are losing out on business categorically.I always ask the question to people whenever I'm talking a big group is, "How many people here have more than 500 old clients?" Everybody raises their hand. "Well, how many of you are sending them notes on their birthday?" Then every hand goes down. Because they're like, "Well, I can't send everybody an email on their birthday." Well, you can. You just need automations. You just need automation for it.So I think when you look at it in terms of that, think about delivering, at what point of the relationship, the whole journey, can you deliver an amazing experience that delights your customer? Because I will share a bit of insight that I believe very strongly in. I believe that you could be the best lawyer in the world and provide bad customer service and fail. But I also believe the flip side to be true. Maybe not the worst lawyer in the world, but you could be an average lawyer or maybe even a little bit below average, but provide the best customer service in the business and you can be successful. I think that that's something really important that lawyers lose sight of. I think if you think of businesses outside of law that have really good customer service scores, their products are not necessarily better than anyone else. Sometimes maybe their products are inferior, but the customer service, the experience you get brings you back. It's the same with law.

Allison Williams

It is 100% the same with law. Since you mentioned customer service, ironically, I was just with my family at an engagement party over the weekend. A story that I told on social media came up again and it was about the infamous coffee. I won't out the hotel chain, but there is a hotel chain, very well known, that had a conference, and I was staying at a companion property of theirs because the primary property was sold out. At the companion property, they had golf carts that would take you over to the main property at the time of the meeting. And so, on checkout day, I wanted to leave my property. I wanted to leave my bags at the front of the hotel, take the golf cart over to the meeting, and then have my bags delivered so I could go to the airport.As I'm about to leave, I ask for a cup of coffee as I'm in the waiting area. I was told that coffee was not available, but I could buy a K-cup for, I don't know, $5, $3, whatever it was. I was just stunned. I sat there and I looked, I was like, "Let me get this straight I'm spending ..." I'd actually look it up, "$504 a night for the hotel room, and you're going to try to sell me a K-cup." You realize how stupid a business model this is. You could literally charge me an extra dollar. If I'm spending 504, I would have spent 505. You could have made a dollar on every human being in here and made more money by just including the lesser included offense of the coffee in the lobby. But it was the lack of foresight at some level, I'm sure very far, far up the food chain in corporate that led to that result. The offense to the client or to the customer because of just doing things in the way that we're doing things and kind of tacking something on.Automation very much lends itself to taking out that residual. Because when you start to understand numbers as a result of understanding things like how much it costs to acquire a client, how much it takes to deliver a service, you can start to find ways to not just make more money, but to deliver a better service and a better experience so that the person who is being served by you actually perceives it better.

Matt Spiegel

It's a 100%. I think it's funny, right, because your example is very similar, and I know this is what got you thinking about it, but the thing that you off had actually nothing to do with the real product. They're a hotel. It didn't have to do with your stay there. It was something ancillary that could have very easily been addressed. That's often what happens. It's the same thing with law. It's not necessarily the outcome of the representation. It can be something that's unrelated, that's customer service generated. And so, my point is that you're going to start to look at your law firm and think, "All right, what are all the different areas, the steps of the journey that I can delight my customer? Oh, you know what? I can just engage them immediately as they come in even if I'm not available. I can send everybody an email on their birthday. I can have newsletters going out to my current clients, keeping them up to date with things that I'm researching to stay on top of trending issues for their case that I'm representing them on."And guess what? You might be hearing me say that and thinking to yourself like, "Oh my God, that's impossible. How am I going to do all that?" You can't. I'm saying you should do this. You should think about all these different ways that you should delight your customer. But I'm telling you that you can't just do it yourself. You have to have automation to take these things off of your plate because no lawyer is going to be expected to go have a calendar that has all their clients' birthdays on it, and then they're going to go and send an email every day to the four or five clients that have a birthday. Automation is there to help you with this.

Allison Williams

Well, the beauty of it, I mean, since you mentioned that, I know someone who actually does do quite a bit of automation of not just the phase two as you described it, the delivery of the service, but it is in delivering the essentials. Because you talk about delighting your client, and we know, especially I deal in family law, so of course I have a lot of very unhappy humans that were otherwise nice people before they decided that their spouse was the spawn of Satan and they had to escape. But most law clients are not happy. Most of them are dealing with some type of troubling, traumatic, challenging issue in their life. So you are a very easy target for them because you are the thing, the buffer between the resolution. The resolution may be positive or negative, but at least it's over. That trauma that they're going through from problem to solution, you're on that pathway.I know a law firm in Minnesota, I won't name them because I don't have permission to, but very exceptional law firm. They actually automate all of the communications from the start of the case to the end of the case. So all of the education about this is what the next conference is about, and this is what the next, every time we get a letter from the adversary here is how we are going to approach this. They get so much in the automation pipeline that clients are getting an inundation of data and information so that there's never a time that a client actually has to wait to ask a question. It's almost like their FAQs are on redux and they're constantly being given to them.When I learned about that, I thought, "Wow, that's really brilliant if you think about it because so much of clients calls to the office are about the anxiety they feel of not knowing." If you start giving them education every day of their case, they don't really have a time for that anxiety to build. It's still going to build by virtue of life, but it's not going to build by virtue of silence. That oftentimes can ward off things like bar complaints.

Matt Spiegel

Absolutely.

Allison Williams

So, it sounds like you help clients with that process, not just by having the tool, but by the way that your company actually facilitates their understanding of and utilization of the tool.

Matt Spiegel

It's true. So one of the things that we think is important with any tool, it doesn't matter whether it's Lawmatics, whether it's MyCase, or anything, it's important to understand how to get the most out of it. I can't say this about all companies in legal, but I can say this about a lot of them, that they know best practices. They know how to help you with certain things. Kind of tying this back to what we talked about in the beginning about client communication. It's like, there should never be an issue with client communication. You should be over communicating every step of the way and that's one way to delight your customer. You can't do that without automation.The reason why this is important is something that you just mentioned, which I love to talk about as well, which is lawyers lose sight of the fact that with almost every type of law out there, all consumer-driven law, especially family law, criminal defense, this is the most important thing happening in your client's life. No matter what, bankruptcy, family law, estate planning, criminal defense, personal injury, it is the most important thing that they have going on right now. To you, it's just another client. You don't think about it the same way.We need to put ourselves in our client's shoes, and we need to think about like, if this is the most important thing happening in your life, how would you want to be treated? What type of experience would you want? Forget about the outcome. Forget about the letter of the law. Forget about that for a moment. Just think about the way that you would want to be treated. How would you want to be handled? And when you think about it that way, it really, I think unlocks this idea of delighting your client, and you really figure out ways to just create a better experience.

Allison Williams

And so, I think that is such a profound way for us to wrap up today's conversation because it really is about the experience and the fact that automation can help not only the client, but the lawyer to be a better version of themselves. Because the time that you are not expending, thinking through all those communications that you have to have in order to get to the minimum compliance, let alone the delighting stage, you are now going to be able to have an automation tool help you with that. I am platform-agnostic on this podcast. I'm very clear about that. But I know a lot of people that use Lawmatics and I get a lot of positive feedback about how it has transformed the industry. And so, thank you for being a voice and an innovator in this space, and for bringing this level of service and assistance to the lawyers that are out there trying to make their day-to-day experience of being a business owner that much better.

Matt Spiegel

Allison, thank you so much for having me. When we have good chats, I tend to get very passionate and this was an awesome chat, so I appreciate it today.

Allison Williams

Yeah, absolutely. So, one last question. If someone wants to learn more about Lawmatics, if they want to reach you directly, how would they go about doing that?

Matt Spiegel

You can always check us out on our website, www.lawmatics.com. Very easy. You can call, you can explore, you can get a demo of the product. We can just talk in that demo about how you want to automate your firm, what parts maybe are missing for you. So it's not just like, "Hey, this is what Lawmatics does," but we also want to try to give you some assistance and help understand where you're struggling and how we might be able to help or how something else might be able to help. Every customer that comes to us, Lawmatics is not necessarily a good fit. Maybe there's a better fit out there.You can also always reach me personally. I love chatting with lawyers. It's very helpful to me. It's insightful to me, so I really love doing it. Matt@lawmatics.com is my email address. Very easy to get in touch with me there. So I would encourage anybody, if you have any questions or thoughts, feel free to reach out.

Allison Williams

All right. You heard it here. Matt, thank you so much for being here. As I said before, you've been a great resource to the legal community, and of course, by virtue of sharing your thoughts and your experiences here on the podcast. Everyone, thank you again for tuning in to another episode of The Crushing Chaos with Law Firm Mentor podcast. I am Allison Williams, your Law Firm Mentor. Have a great day.

Automation can transform your intake process from one filled with tedious, manual tasks to a well-oiled machine that requires little to no human intervention. What could be better than creating a templated workflow once, knowing that it will run on autopilot and facilitate the same experience for every new lead?Lawmatics has simplified the automation process by creating an easy to use, plug and play Automation builder. Simply select a trigger, add in an assortment of action items, give it an exit condition when needed, and you’re off to the races. While the Lawmatics Automation builder is intuitive, there are a number of tricks and tips that can help you optimize your Automations for maximum efficiency.Though the benefits of Automation are plentiful, if set up improperly there can be pitfalls. You want to make a good impression with all incoming leads and clients, and an Automation misfire sending out an incorrect message is absolutely not the way to do that. The good news is that these kinds of misfires are one hundred percent avoidable. With the following tips you’ll become an Automation pro in time. Read on to learn the secrets of making your Automations work for you, instead of the other way around!

Entry Conditions

When creating a new Automation in Lawmatics, you will be prompted to make several selections right off the bat.

First, select the type of Automation from the options of Trigger, Event, or Date Field. The majority of Automations are trigger-based, meaning that they begin when a specified action occurs. The other two types of Automations are both triggered around the date of either an event on the calendar or populated into a custom date field.Next, you will also need to select the type of your Automation. Most often, the type will be Matter, meaning that the Automation applies to any potential clients or clients. You may sometimes create Automations that are contact type, meaning they could run on plain old contacts like friends, family, colleagues, etc as opposed to only for matters.Last but not least, when the Automation is matter type, you must also select the status that is viable to run in this workflow. If the Automation is purely intake-related, the status will be PNC. Select Hired, Lost, or some combination of the three accordingly.

Pro Tip: Making improper selections at this point can throw your Automation off course, so be sure to pick the proper options or email the Lawmatics support team if you get stuck.

Once you have created your Automation and are in the Automation builder, you will then select your specific entry condition(s). This will be the kickoff or initiator of the workflow. Some of the most common triggers used for intake-related Automations are ‘filled a form’, ‘event created’, ‘match on fields’, and ‘signed a document’.You can also create Automations with more than one entry condition, and choose to give the conditions an “and” or an “or” relationship. In the example below, you see that this Automation will trigger either if the intake form is filled out, or the consultation event is created.

Pro Tip: There are certain entry conditions where it would not make sense to use an “and” relationship, so paying extra attention to the entry condition relationship will help make sure to avoid Automation mishaps. For example, a matter can never be multiple practice areas simultaneously or in different pipeline stages at the same time. For that reason, having an Automation triggered if “practice area = X” AND “practice area = Y” would not be a logical entry condition.

The match on fields entry condition option is a very powerful one, and also one that can cause some confusion and errors when not used properly. This trigger refers to the value of any data field being populated, so the Automation triggers when the specified value is matched.

For example, this Automation (above) will trigger when a matter enters the Missed Consult stage (AKA the stage field is populated as Missed Consult). Remember, Automations that use the match on fields entry condition will trigger as soon as the data is matched.

Pro Tip: Know your triggers! A common cause for Automation misfire is populating a field internally without realizing that this field is in use as an Automation trigger. If you are not familiar with your triggers then you may think you are just populating a field and unbeknownst to you have triggered an Automation. This problem can be easily avoided by keeping tabs on (or documenting) which fields you have selected as triggers throughout your workflow, and by being intentional when populating those fields knowing that they are an Automation trigger.

Action Items

Once you have selected an entry condition for your Automation you are ready to begin adding action items. While this step is overall a straightforward one, with the plug and play colorful interface, there are still several best practices to be aware of that can level up your Automation.One action item that you will undoubtedly use in plenty of your Automations is the time delay. As you may guess, this action creates a pause in your workflow for the duration of your choosing. This is particularly useful for drip campaigns, reminders, etc.

Pro Tip: When using multiple delay action items in an Automation, such as for a drip campaign, the time delays add on from the previous step. In the example below, the second email is sent after a one day time delay, and is then followed by a two day delay. When the next action occurs after that two day delay, it will be three days from the start of the Automation, since it stacks on to that initial one-day delay.

When it comes to the other options for automated actions, most are self explanatory but a few could cause you to slip up. Let’s review some other common mistakes and misconceptions when adding action items.

Create Appointment vs. Request Appointment

These two options may seem the same or similar at a glance, but they are actually very different. The Create Appointment action will book an event on your calendar with the target matter. This action is typically used for webinars or other events, since the event will be scheduled for a static date and time. This action books the appointment for the date that you have selected in the Automation, with no input from the client. Request Appointment on the other hand will send a link to the target and allow them to select their own appointment based on the host’s availability. This is a more commonly used action item in Automations.

Send Documents vs. Request Signature

E-signatures are collected from documents, so the send document action item may seem tempting as the correct one to use, but in actuality it is not the action you would use for e-signature. The Send Document action simply merges the target’s information into the document and sends it as an email attachment, with no e-signature involved. The Request Signature action is what you will use to send a document to someone for collecting an e-signature.

Sending Email to Recipient (Other Than the Automation Target)

By default, an email used in an Automation will be sent to the Automation target (AKA whichever matter is running through the Automation). If you select a recipient other than the target, such as a related contact or internal user, then you must specify whose data fields should be merged into the email, the Automation target or the recipient.

Pro Tip: Make sure you select appropriately so that any fields, such as first name, display the proper values. If you are addressing the email “Dear [first-name]”, then make sure you select the email recipient in the Merge Data From box, so that the recipient’s name will be merged in as opposed to the matter running through the Automation. If you need to reference the matter’s name in the email, for example if you are sending their info to another attorney as a referral, then you would select the Automation Target option for merge data from.

You cannot have some fields in the email template show the target’s info, and others display the recipient’s, so make sure you keep that in mind when building fields into an email template.

Matter Conversion

Use this action item to change a matter’s status from PNC to Hired once they have completed your intake process and hired the firm.

Pro Tip: This action item can only be used at the very end of an Automation, so you will only see it available to select when there are no steps following.

Sharing Items via Portal

The client portal is a useful tool for keeping clients engaged with their forms, documents, and other deliverables. Use an Automation to share any of these items to the client portal.

Pro Tip: You must first invite the matter or related contact to have access to the portal before any items, such as forms, can be shared. This can be done via Automation as well, just make sure to use the Invite.

Delivery Windows

As an Automation best practice, we recommend setting delivery windows on most, if not all, of your automated deliverables. Especially if you frequently find yourself burning the midnight oil, delivery windows make sure that your Automations don’t send something out at an off time.It's great to send emails, forms, and documents via Automation, but sending them during business hours can be even more useful to help increase your open rates. This is especially important for documents or other items that require prompt attention from the client or prospect.Delivery windows can be selected for any automated action items that are sent to a target, either via email or SMS. To set up a delivery window, click on the action item, and then select the window as shown below.

Pro Tip: You may choose the Wait Until option, to make sure the deliverable gets sent at a specific time, or the Time Window, which will allow it to send any time during the window of your choosing.

Conditional Logic

One of the biggest power features within Automations is conditional logic. This feature also has the potential to cause problems when not set up properly. When adding action items to an Automation, you will see the option to Add If Condition.If conditions work similarly to entry conditions in that they check if a particular condition is met, and trigger the appropriate action (side of the branch) when met or not met. When you select the If Condition action, you will see a menu on the right side of the screen to select which conditions should be checked for this branch.

Once you select your condition and click save, you will see a branch created in your Automation. When the condition is met on a target in the Automation, they will flow down the "yes" (green check mark) side of the branch. When the condition is not met, they will head down the "no" side.

Pro Tip: It is very important to note that branches should only be used for conditions that are already determined at the time the Automation triggers, such as practice area, pipeline stage, marital status, etc. You should not use if conditions for sending reminders to fill a form/sign a document/book an appointment etc.

Once the condition is checked at the branch, the matter will flow down one of the two sides. At that point, the condition will never be re-checked (unless you have another if condition further on in the Automation). In other words, once a matter flows down one side of the branch, it will never go back to the other side.

Pro Tip: When editing an Automation, if you delete the if condition then all action items underneath it will also be deleted. For that reason, take caution when deleting a branch!

Exit Conditions

Exit conditions, although sometimes easily overlooked, are a surefire way to level up your Automations. Adding proper exit conditions to a workflow is the best way to ensure that matters only stay in a workflow that is still relevant to them.Let’s say you have an Automation that sends out a series of reminders for a potential client to reschedule their consultation after a no-show. This Automation would likely span over days, weeks, or even months, and would include a cadence of emails and/or text messages prompting them to reschedule. Now at any point if that PNC does in fact reschedule their consultation, you do NOT want them to continue receiving reminders from this workflow. Cue exit conditions.In this example, an exit condition of Event Created would be necessary to make sure that they exit once that appointment is booked. When you add exit conditions into an Automation, these conditions will be checked at each action item, and if the conditions are met, the matter will immediately exit the Automation and no future action items will run on them from that workflow.

Pro Tip: Exit conditions are not continuously checked 24/7, rather they are checked each time a matter hits the next action item. So let’s say you have a 3 day time delay in your Automation, and the matter meets the exit condition on the 2nd day of that time delay, they will not actually exit until the full time delay has run and the next action item is hit.

For that reason, it is crucial to think through your exit conditions carefully. Many users want to use a pipeline stage as an exit condition, but this can sometimes be problematic because the matter may already progress past that stage before the exit conditions are checked.With that in mind, the best exit conditions are ones that are “permanent”, meaning not a temporary status or a pipeline stage. Picklist fields or true/false fields make great exit conditions, since you will typically make a selection for those fields, and it will not change frequently like a pipeline stage would.

Conclusion

When done right, Automations are one of the best tools for saving time while also providing optimum communication with your clients. The best practices laid out here help you avoid any pesky issues that can cause your Automations to become troublesome.While building your Automations, keep in mind all of the various components, from entry conditions to action items to conditional logic to exit conditions, this will allow your Automations to work for you, instead of the other way around.Add these tips to your toolbox for creating your next Automation, and see how Automation can make your life much easier.

Meeting with your potential clients — whether in person or via video chat — is the ideal way to acquaint them with their legal counsel and your firm’s core values. In doing so, the initial consultation is a make or break moment in the client-attorney relationship, one in which you impress upon them the importance of your services in hopes that they select you above all others to represent them. However, this opportunity to showcase your value will be missed if the PNC is MIA for their consultation. Not only will it cost you hours of prep time but you are robbed of the opportunity to form that favorable first impression.Seeing as an initial consultation is a crucial step in your intake process, why not give it the attention it deserves? Lawmatics offers several easy ways to reduce, and possibly even eliminate, appointment no shows — and it all starts with booking.

1 Online Appointment Scheduling

The first step in getting someone to show up for a consultation is to, or course, schedule it. And with the right tools, achieving the critical milestone of securing a consultation appointment couldn’t be simpler.Lawmatics' legal calendaring software simplifies the process of scheduling in a way that makes it more likely for the appointment to stick, while also incentivizing the PNC to actually show up. If your firm is accustomed to a high volume of phone traffic for initial inquiry, one of the best ways for you to go about scheduling is from an internal intake form.

This form can serve almost as an intake script for your staff to intake new leads calling in, including a scheduling option. Depending on the nature of your clientele, it may be a big win to get a consultation booked, or it may be a run-of-the mill step of your intake process. Either way, the form can increase the probability of getting that appointment set by functioning as a reference document to inform your staff of what to say on an initial call.

Features to Use in Lawmatics

Booking Request Field

When building your intake form, we suggest using the booking request field to include a scheduling widget within the form that only shows the host’s availability. This feature makes it very easy to book when the caller is ready to set their appointment, Always make sure your firm’s Lawmatics users have synced their calendar in settings so that the system can be sure to pull their correct availability. This is a great way to simplify scheduling, since the intake staff can very easily select from times when the host is available based on their working hours, lunch time, other bookings, etc.

Booking Form

If your firm does not take many leads via phone, Lawmatics can automate your scheduling right from your website as well. Simply create a booking form and embed it right on your site. This will allow leads to see your availability right on your site, select a date and time that works for them, and confirm their appointment all without needing to speak to anyone.

Booking Link

Alternatively, you can also create a booking link in Lawmatics that can be linked on a button on your site. Add an eye catching call to action button, perhaps on your home page or contact page, and when a lead clicks on it they will be taken right to a scheduling page.

Request Appointment Email

If your firm is new to automation and looking for a manual approach to scheduling, Lawmatics has you covered there as well. You or your staff can simply go to a matter’s profile within the CRM, and click the Request Appointment button to send out a personalized email with a link for the lead to schedule an appointment based on the host’s availability.

Manual Booking

Looking for something even more manual? You can also go right to the Calendar to book an appointment at an agreed upon time there, or select the time yourself right from the matter’s profile.

Whatever method (or combination of methods) you choose, Lawmatics will turn your scheduling process into something you and your staff do not dread doing.

2 Automated Appointment Reminders

Now that you have a consultation booked, the next step in reducing no-shows entails reminding your leads of their appointment. Familiarly, this concept is standard practice with dentist’s offices or salons, so why not use the same tactic as a law firm? It should come as no surprise that Lawmatics has the tools you need to automate these reminders. Aside from reducing no-shows, automated appointment reminders create an overall smooth client experience requiring ZERO effort from you or your staff.Simply create the reminders once, and they will be delivered to the right leads automatically relative to the date of your appointment at a cadence of your choosing.

Features to Use in Lawmatics

Event Types

Your appointment reminders will be set up using an automation. Before you jump into creating the automation, familiarize yourself with the concept of event types. Your automation will correspond to a particular event type, such as initial consultation or follow up meeting, so it is important to make sure you are booking the proper type of event to trigger the corresponding automation.For the purpose of this example we will refer to the Initial Consultation event type, but keep in mind that reminders can be set up for any or all of your custom event types, as you see fit.

Email Templates

You’re but one step away from creating your automation. First, you will need to create a few email templates for your reminders. If you prefer to send your reminders only via text message, then you can skip this step, but we recommend sending a combination of both emails and texts for a higher chance of engagement.To create an email template, go to the Emails page under the Assets tab at the top of your page. You can choose to create your reminders as either plain text or HTML emails, the HTML emails tend to be more eye-catching and polished, whereas the plain text emails will appear to have a less-automated, more personalized touch. Whichever type of email you choose to create, be sure to use the event merge fields; these will populate with the prospect’s appointment date and time automatically once sent. This is where those event types start to come into play, you must make sure that you select the proper event type in your merge fields to align with the type of appointment you are building the reminder for. To send reminders for multiple different types of events, feel free to do so, but make sure you create a different email with the correct merge fields for each event type.

Create an Event Based Automation

Now that you have your email templates created, you are ready to create your automation. Use the Event Created entry condition, and then select the event type that corresponds with the fields merged into your email templates. Once you select the event created entry condition, the automation will become an Event Automation. This enables you to create time relative triggers to send out your reminders a certain amount of time before the PNC’s specific consultation date and time.Click the orange button labeled “Event Automations”, and then create a new event automation for the relative time that you wish to send out a reminder. Keep in mind that you can feel free to have multiple reminders, so if you want to send out an email 3 days before the event and then a text message 1 day before the event, you will create a separate event automation for each of those.

After you have created the necessary event automation triggers/timeframes, then click on each to add in your action items. This is where you will select the email templates that you already created, or use the Send SMS action to send a text message.

Rescheduling

If at any point a consultation is rescheduled, the event automations will update as per the new date and time, so your reminders will still be sent at the appropriate times based on the rescheduled time.These reminders are so useful because they will ensure that a lead does not fail to show as a result of forgetting the appointment with your firm. While there may still be external factors to miss an appointment that we cannot account for, you can at least take away the possibility of forgetting through the use of Lawmatics automated event reminders.

3 Actively Tweak Your Process

Even with digital scheduling and automated appointment reminders, the occasional no-show is inevitable. While the goal is to avoid this occurrence altogether, understanding why no-shows happen is key to improving your processes and reducing the instance thereof.

Tracking No Shows

Your first step is to locate the calendar event, either on the event calendar found under the CRM tab or on the matter’s profile, and then click the edit button. Here you will see a toggle button to label the appointment as a no show.

This is an important step for setting up reporting potential with our built-in no show analytics. Head to the Analytics page, found under the Insights tab at the top of your page. Here you will find a graph depicting your appointment show rates for each of your event types. You may notice that certain event types have a weaker show rate than others, which gives you a clue on where you may need to focus your efforts.Use this data to not only learn about the patterns of your no shows, but then take it to the next level by employing that data to make changes. Track your data over time and see if your show rates have improved as you have made adjustments and improvements to your process.

Automate No Show Follow-Ups

In addition to labeling the no show from the calendar event, you may also wish to create a pipeline stage or sub status for your no shows. The goal of this is to trigger an automation that will automatically follow up with, and hopefully reschedule, your no shows.Whether you decide to track these no shows using a pipeline stage, custom field, sub status, or any combination of those, this will be your trigger for the automation. Use the automation to send out an appointment request along with a nice email message letting them know that you’re sorry to have missed them, but they are still welcome to reschedule their consultation.

This is also a great opportunity to make a drip campaign of reminders for them to reschedule, spanning over weeks, months, or even years. Stay top of mind by setting up this cadence of check ins and reminders to reschedule, that way they won’t just become a dark lead after missing a consultation.

Conclusion

Your law firm has a personality as unique and individual as you, and meeting with a lead on a consultation is a great way to show off that personality. Maximize this potential by using Lawmatics to reduce your number of no-shows, giving all the leads a chance to meet and interact with you in person or virtually.With a smooth and streamlined scheduling process, you’re sure to make the initial appointment set up a breeze for both your leads as well as your staff. Between automated scheduling as well as reminders, you’re able to run your law firm’s appointments like a well oiled machine, without needing to lift a finger.All of this sounds great from a time-saving perspective, but at the end of the day it is also going to bring in more leads, create more happy clients leading to more referrals, convert more leads, all of this leading to more profits for you and your firm.

Personal injury law firms need to attract a steady and predictable stream of prospective clients to stay in business, and many have put a marketing strategy in place to do just that. However, to protect their bottom line and increase revenue, PI firms must understand how successful their marketing strategies are by analyzing their client acquisition costs.Client acquisition cost (CAC) is the approximate cost required to retain a new personal injury client, considering marketers’ salaries, the amount spent on marketing campaigns and strategies, and other advertising expenses. CAC can be measured through a simple calculation: the money law firms spend to obtain new clients, divided by the number of clients gained. It is always in a law firm’s best interests to lower its client acquisition costs. When CAC is too high, a firm might be losing money even as it attains new business if the investment to gain a client is higher than the lifetime earnings the firm receives through the representation of that client. Some marketers estimate that most CACs will be profitable if a firm spends 15 percent (or less) of their expected settlement on acquiring the lead. However, unlike flat fee or retainer-based cases that tend to yield a foreseeable amount, personal injury cases are hard to predict, and CAC depends on the settlement value of individual cases. If a firm wins more cases than it loses or tends to obtain higher settlements from profitable tort matters, it may be able to spend more on marketing. However, there are no guarantees.Here are some of the ways that personal injury firms can reduce their CAC costs:

1 Generate more cost-effective leads

Personal injury client leads come from many origins, and many don’t cost a lot of money. Here are some of the most common types of leads that can turn into paying clients:

• Organic leads – the kind of leads your firm naturally gets when prospects find you through keyword searches on Google or other search engines rather than directly visiting your website or clicking on an ad. According to MonsterInsights, the conversion rate for organic leads could be as high as 14.6 percent, making them an affordable and effective way for personal injury firms to find clients.
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – a strategy that involves the intentional use of keywords to online content to attract the right visitors, e.g., those looking for an experienced attorney to assist them with a personal injury matter. SEO, one of the most effective ways to generate leads and attract potential clients to your website, involves optimizing your site’s content with relevant keywords like “personal injury,” “car accident,” “injury lawyer,” “motor vehicle accident,” and “fair compensation.”
• Pay-Per-Lead (PPL) – some personal injury law firms pay an advertising affiliate for every qualified lead they generate under the terms of an agreement. PPL marketing can be a cost-effective, low-risk way to find leads since the marketing company must produce results to get paid; however, PPL does have drawbacks. For example, it can be a one-dimensional approach that favors quantity over quality, multiple attorneys may be getting the same leads, and no guarantees are made that the leads are considering hiring a lawyer now.
• Social leads – According to an Attorney at Work survey, 96 percent of the 302 lawyers who responded said they use social media like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to bring in new clients. Personal injury attorneys who use social media can focus on having positive interactions with followers, while attracting leads often comes as a byproduct. By creating and sharing meaningful posts, videos, and images that encourage discussion among followers, lawyers can demonstrate their knowledge to potential clients without their efforts coming off as “marketing.” Posting engaging content on social media will also improve a firm’s ability to bring in organic leads.
• Referrals – When someone recommends your injury law firm to a friend or family member, they give you a referral. Research has shown that more people choose an attorney based on a referral from a friend, family member, or another lawyer than by any other method. Legal client relationship management (CRM) platforms help law firms manage and engage clients by automatically keeping track of critical information about them.
• Partner leads – Just because you can’t help a potential client doesn’t mean another attorney can’t. For example, when a lawyer meets with a potential client and realizes that a firm specializing in car accident cases would be a better fit, the best-case scenario would be for the attorney to hand off the case to a qualified personal injury attorney. Partnering with other lawyers to build a referral network can help everyone involved offer and receive quality leads. When you’re getting a large amount of business from lawyer referrals, that speaks to your excellent services and will encourage others to refer potential clients to you as well.

Personal injury leads can be challenging to come by, and even more difficult to convert. However, when you utilize the right strategies, encourage referrals, and provide a high level of service, the right clients will find their way to your firm.

2 Increase customer lifetime value

It is generally acceptable for firms to spend money on advertising campaigns to retain new clients. However, firms must also make critical investments in their existing client base to build, create and maintain positive relationships with current clients that will continue to increase over the years. While getting a prospective client to your firm’s door might seem challenging enough, firms must continually work to earn trust and loyalty to boost their customer lifetime value (LTV) and monetize their existing client base. Here are a few ways to increase LTV among your existing legal clients:

• Prioritize them – While no law practice can survive with only one client, clients still demand personal attention from their legal team. Making clients feel like their case is at the top of the priority list helps keep their anxiety at bay while enhancing their trust in their attorney.
• Set goals – Each client has different goals regarding the outcome of their case. Legal professionals need to understand client expectations at the beginning of the case because whether their goals are met will likely determine how satisfied they are with the overall representation. Knowing these goals from the onset will also help the legal team manage client expectations throughout the process.
• Be responsive – Law practice management software helps legal professionals manage client communications by allowing them to access client and case files anytime and anywhere. In addition, an agile attorney-client management platform for law firms will provide comprehensive support services that automate the intake process, scheduling, reminders, follow-up, workflow, billing, and more.
• Personalize your services – Try to meet with your clients in person occasionally, if possible, to get to know them. Ask them a little bit about their background, family, and interests so that you will be able to discuss something with them besides their legal matter. Clients don’t usually want to talk business all the time and appreciate it when you show interest in them as a person.
• Be prepared – You should encourage clients to come to meetings prepared and give them the same consideration. Your degree of preparation builds rapport with the client, helps you make the most of the time you spend with them, and demonstrates that you value their time and take their case seriously, which will, in turn, strengthen their loyalty to you.
• Stay in touch – One way to enhance the client relationship is to conduct regular consultations with clients in the office or online to get a sense of their approval or dissatisfaction and deal with any issues before they poison the attorney-client relationship. You can make more time for your clients by automating routine, time-consuming tasks with practice management software.
• Meet deadlines – If you want to build and maintain client trust and loyalty, getting work done efficiently and on time is essential. Legal technology can drive efficiency by automating and streamlining tasks that would otherwise require tedious manual processes and time lost, regardless of practice area. For example, for those who practice in the personal injury space, a legal CRM can provide templates, generate complex documents, manage files, automate time and billing, and present an injury case in the most compelling way possible.
• Be a strong advocate – Since they are often paired against insurance companies with deep pockets and specialized lawyers who work only for them, personal injury attorneys must also be strong advocates for their clients. Although no attorney wins all their cases all the time, it is vitally important that you win over your clients by building and maintaining solid relationships with them.
• Encourage honesty – All relationships function best when both parties are open and straightforward. One of the best ways to maintain positive relationships with legal clients is to be honest and encourage honesty. Answer all questions as truthfully as possible, and if mistakes are made, admit them immediately. Also, encourage your clients to be honest by emphasizing that if they fail to provide truthful information, this could negatively affect your ability to represent them.

To build strong professional relationships, a legal CRM is an excellent tool for managing personal injury leads, prospects, and client contact information.

3 Automate your marketing efforts

Law firm marketing strategies are often complicated and time-consuming. Legal professionals are always busy and under constant pressure – the last thing they want to do is focus on time-consuming marketing strategies. However, marketing automation allows law firms to stay ahead of the competition by automating various marketing tasks such as email, social media, lead generation, and data analytics.Automation software streamlines the entire client communication process to deliver the right messages at the proper time to the correct leads. In addition, automation platforms provide firms with essential data tools that provide valuable insight into potential clients’ behaviors that they can use to formulate actionable steps. Here are some of the benefits of marketing automation for law firms:

• Collect critical data – No more wasted time chasing a lead that might prove to be futile. Automation tools collect and record data about your prospects’ behaviors, allowing you to manage contact lists, plan actions, and follow up as needed to nurture your prospects from initial inquiry to paying clients.
• Maximize social media – Automation tools allow users to enhance specific actions on social media platforms, eliminating the need to carry out tedious tasks. For example, through automation, a user can schedule a social media post to go live at a designated time and subsequently analyze the post’s performance to determine its performance.
• Streamline workflows – Law firm marketing strategies require a long-term approach. Automation offers firms the ability to set up dynamic email workflows for all marketing approaches.
• Enhance customization – Legal CRM systems can customize all alerts, follow-ups, and digital intake forms, allowing teams to target their communications to create audience segmentation and engage leads to retain their business.
• Save time – Automation actions can be set up to send emails, update social media, launch newsletters, answer FAQs for clients, provide and receive client updates, and present performance surveys. These capabilities save legal teams countless hours while increasing the firm’s bottom line.
• Measure performance – Automation provides various performance indicators that measure return on investment (ROI), conversion rate, and cost per lead. In addition, the software allows users to track what visitors do on their website, evaluate advertising campaigns, oversee social media, and use public relations outreach services as a part of the law firm’s marketing strategies.
• Improve communication – Some believe that automation creates mass-produced communications such as emails with little or no personalization. However, automation tools provide customization options using innovative artificial intelligence (AI) that allow firms to segment leads, personalize communications, and give the unique information sought by each potential client.
• Track budgets – Marketing automation lets legal teams know exactly where their money is going and helps them determine if they want to spend additional funds on advertising. If they decide to expand their budget, automation enables them to pinpoint the best use of funds: should they beef up their website’s content, launch an email campaign, send out a newsletter, or escalate their digital marketing reach?

Lawmatics offers law firm CRM for attorneys who want to take their firms to the next level with powerful, easy to use, and effective software solutions. Our marketing automation system takes care of everything from the initial first contact through becoming an established client to help ensure your firm’s marketing approaches are on target.

Ready to lower your firm’s CAC and boost client acquisition? Lawmatics can help

Want to take the next step? Contact us to learn how Lawmatics legal automation software can help you turn all your law firm marketing strategies into realities.

Vendors, marketers, and consultants often advise law firms to incorporate more automation into their client intake and marketing processes. As you've heard, automation is a great way to improve efficiency, reduce staff time spent on administrative tasks, and make your team much more agile. However, due to the sensitive nature of a legal practice, legal teams may be anxious about setting up systems that will make leads and prospective clients feel like cattle herded through a cold intake process. When a potential client visits your website, clicks an ad, or calls a law firm from a directory listing, they are most likely in a very vulnerable state in seekiLegal workflow softwareng your help. But there are automated systems you can put in place that will make clients feel safe and guided by your team. The right messaging and empathetic intake staff can guide these leads through converting them into a client. Simply put, intake and marketing automation helps to make converting leads easier, explicitly referring to any digital marketing. We'll highlight six ways to implement automation throughout the marketing and intake processes while maintaining the same level of customer service a potential client expects from your firm.

Law firm marketing automation and client intake process

Making the jump to automation can be a daunting task for any business. For law firms, it can be tough to let go of the manual management processes that have been in place for years.However, with the right tools and approach, automation can make these processes more efficient and create a more personalized experience for clients. By taking the time to understand their firm's and client's needs, law firms can empower themselves to make the most of automation technologies and improve their business.

Struggling with manual management

The client intake process differs widely (and wildly) among law firms.Some firms have their intake team siloed, answering calls and manually writing out information on client intake forms to hand over to a paralegal. Some firms use practice management software and have strung together an intake process but don't relate that information to marketing efforts. Some firms are staffed to only answer calls from 8:30 - 5 P.M. and have intake people follow up on any missed calls the next day.No matter where your firm starts, there is always room for improvement regarding catching high-quality leads and cases.The 2020 State of U.S. Small Law Firms found that only 27% of surveyed firms use Client Intake and 18% use a Customer Relationship Manager (CRM), and 74% of firms aren't using any other technology to help unburden their practice. Yet, the top three priorities for the firms were to improve, upgrade more technology, increase marketing efforts, and cut overhead costs. The cost of software investment and training staff can be a significant hurdle for law firms looking to automate their marketing and intake processes. When looking to put systems in place to track marketing and have a high-converting intake process, firms should consider the following tools: call-tracking and a CRM or intake management software. Ideally, you will also want a law practice management software that integrates with these tools.

Taking the leap into automation

Legal workflow software can provide law firms many benefits, such as increased efficiency, reduced staff time spent on repetitive tasks, and improved agility. Additionally, automating specific processes can improve the overall experience for potential clients by making law firms more responsive and efficient. Examples of automation in law firms include online forms to collect information from potential new clients allowing legal staff to gather information without spending a long time on the phone.Additionally, law firms can use online calendars to schedule appointments with potential clients. This saves time for law firm staff and allows potential clients to see available times and choose a time that works best for them.

Using automation to create a personalized experience

Automation can be a powerful tool for creating a personalized experience for your clients. Automating repetitive tasks can free your valuable time to focus on more important tasks. Using software to track client data, you can create a more personalized experience for each individual.Take your time when setting up these processes. Start small and iterate over time. And don't forget to rely on human interaction as well. After all, automation should be about empowering you to provide a better experience for your clients, not replacing you entirely.

1 Custom messaging on landing pages and forms

Law firms need a marketing system that is both automated and human-touch friendly. To start, you need to take the time to customize your messaging for each type of client or case you handle.

Don't do advertising that you can't track

There's no point in spending money on advertising that can't be tracked. For one reason, advertising opportunities that cannot be tracked are typically non-specific ads. For example, a magazine ad may have branding and a phone number, but the messaging will not be specific to the potential client. If you can't track the efforts, how do you know if it's performing at the expected level? Instead, focus your advertising efforts on channels that allow you to measure the results. Not only will you be able to track the results of your advertising, but you'll also be able to craft the funnel a potential client will take and see which ads are generating the most leads and conversions. This information is essential for deciding where to allocate your advertising budget.By focusing your efforts on trackable channels, you'll be able to maximize the return on your investment, curate messaging, and ensure that your marketing dollars are well spent.

Hyper-customize landing pages

Whether it's your law firm's website or dedicated ad landing pages, customizing your messaging is a great way to improve your conversion rates. For example, a landing page that discusses Prenuptial Agreements should be tailored to speak to the typical client.Speaking of audiences and messaging, you don't need a marketing agency or dedicated marketing person to tell you who your audience is. Your intake team, legal staff, and you are the experts who most likely need Prenuptial Agreements for your local area. You can gather this information from past client experiences and intake calls.By tailoring the messaging and call to action to specific demographics, you can ensure that your visitors are more likely to take the desired action. Take it further and include tailored social proof on your landing pages, like a client testimonial focused on that type of case, to increase trust and confidence.Instead of having the same generic call-to-action on every page that says, "Call for a free consultation today," tailor it to that practice area or concern: "Call us today to discuss your prenup."

Reduce friction with your contact forms

Keeping the user experience in mind when designing a contact form is extremely important. The goal is to make the form as short and straightforward as possible while gathering enough information to provide a helpful response. You'll want to collect contact information and a first and last name so you can run a conflict check. But beyond that, every additional field you add will add friction and decrease the likelihood of getting a submission.So less is definitely better when reducing friction on your contact form. Keep it short, sweet, and easy to use, and you'll be more likely to hear from potential clients.

2 Personalized follow-up communications

Personalizing your messaging as much as possible will increase trust and connection as you nurture your leads. Your recipients are more likely to engage with an email that speaks to them directly, rather than feeling like they're just another contact.

Talking to an audience of one

Firms can automatically segment and communicate with each person based on their unique needs if they are using a CRM. So instead of emailing every contact the same newsletter, your business can send targeted specific emails about the subject they want to learn more about. For example, the potential lead filled out the contact form on the prenuptial agreement page. With automation tools, you can trigger a workflow to segment that person into a prenuptial email nurture drip campaign (which is a marketing way to say- email follow-ups). People contacting your firm are expecting a quick response time. Automated emails may not be as personal as having your staff call back, but you can send them out quickly-- informing your potential client that you will get back to them shortly.

Always personalize automated emails

Generic emails will quickly be deleted or ignored, but emails that are personalized with the recipient's name and a message that is relevant to their interests will be more likely to be read and acted upon.You can personalize your automated emails by using merge fields to insert information like the recipient's name into the email. When drafting your email templates, you need to inject your brand voice into every email. By taking the time to fine-tune the copy, you'll ensure brand consistency, and your communications will sound more like you.

Add videos to your follow-up

In your follow-up emails, you can embed a video that speaks directly to a potential client about their issue. Make quick videos that give 60 seconds of insight into their case and how your firm can help. A video that speaks directly to our prenuptial client may cover:

• Who is a prenuptial agreement good for?
• How our firm handles prenuptial agreement matters

Keep it simple. Keep it short. And most importantly, keep your audience front and center in your marketing communications- it'll make all the difference.

3 Weed the leads

Generating leads is essential to your success. However, not all leads are created equal. That's why it's critical to screen your leads carefully before you invest time and resources in pursuing them.

Perform your conflict check

Performing conflict checks is an important step in your intake process that can be easily automated with the help of a legal client intake software. Typically, a CRM or client intake software can automatically run a conflict check. The program can search using any terms, like a name, to check if those terms are present within any of your firm's matters and suggest whether to approve, deny, or flag the results as a possible conflict.

Screen the leads before the consultation

On the website contact form, we aimed to reduce friction to get as many leads as possible. At this stage, we want to add in just the right amount of friction to reduce the number of consultations your firm has with unqualified leads.Assuming your website contact form is short, you will need to quickly determine if a lead is in your correct geography, if they need your services and if they can pay you. If your follow-up includes having your intake team give a call-back, have them ask these questions upfront. To automate the screening process, you will need to craft a follow-up email asking these questions and be upfront about pricing. You don't need to quote an exact amount of expected fees, but you can outline a few tiers of what fees may look like depending on their case. Take it a step further and have your potential clients submit all relevant information upfront. This can be done through an online intake form embedded in your website. You can ask for all the information you may need and have leads upload pertinent documents.By requiring potential clients to submit all relevant information before the consultation, you can identify the potential clients who are serious about working with you and focus your attention on those people.

Create workflows to handle unqualified leads

Once you've reduced the friction for potential clients to contact you, you will end up with a percentage of unqualified leads you are not interested in taking.How you handle these leads reflects your brand values, and you need to figure out a way to either help them or move them along. Depending on why the lead is unqualified will determine how you route them.Here are some common ways to route unqualified leads:

• Send eBook that addresses their specific situation or helps them through it themselves
• Send them to your local Bar Association Lawyer Referral Program.
• Send them to your referral network
• Send an email to connect on social media in case they do need your help down the line

Having a plan for dealing with unqualified leads ensures that your brand is consistently represented positively.

4 Presell and consultations

A good intake process should be designed to gather as much information from the client upfront so that the lawyer can assess the situation and provide the best possible advice. It should also be designed to presale the need for an attorney so that the client understands why it is in their best interest to hire one.

After scheduling, confirm the consultation

To combat no-shows, you must send a confirmation email and, ideally, a reminder for every consultation. Include a calendar event so they can easily add it to their calendar. If you handle your consultations in person, you need to add information about parking information and accessing the building. You can make these confirmations, and reminder emails, look more personalized and custom. With some tools, you can send out the confirmation on a slight delay, so it feels like your intake team wrote it and sent it manually.

Presell the need for an attorney

Just before a consultation is a great time to presell your qualified leads on the need to hire an attorney. After all, most people know that attorneys can be expensive, and the thought of dealing with the legal system can be daunting. But you can incorporate email messages with videos that address the many good reasons to hire an attorney.

Prepping for the consultation

Avoid making the potential client repeat their whole story during the consultation. You should already have most of the information you need from their initial contact with your firm. Using a call-tracking system, you can prep for your conversation by listening to the recording of the initial call. During the consultation, your goal is to confirm your data is accurate and get any additional information you need to strategize and price the case.

Track your close consultation rate

If you're tracking your close rate and noticing that you're booking many consultations but not closing many deals, it's likely something you're doing (or not doing) during or after the consultation. Make sure to track this information so you can identify any patterns.

5 Keep the human touch after the sale

After the consultation, keeping the lines of communication open will maintain a good relationship with your clients. Delight your clients with the extra effort you've put into ensuring they feel cared for.

Automatically send retainer agreements and collect eSignatures

Using your intake software, you can leverage the document automation features to generate and send a retainer agreement to your new clients. Set up email reminders nudging clients into returning the contract to you. You can inject your brand voice into your email message and even include a pre-recorded video saying thank you for their consideration of hiring you.

Automatically generate invoices and receipts

If you bill clients regularly, you know how important it is to have a system for generating invoices and tracking payments. These days, there are many software options available that can automate this process for you. While some people may be hesitant to use automation, it can save you time and hassle in the long run.Use invoicing software to customize your invoices with your branding elements (logo, color scheme, etc.). This will help ensure that your invoices make a good impression on your clients and help to build your brand identity. A law firm time and billing software can help you automate sending invoices and tracking payments. This will help you save time and ensure that payments are processed quickly and efficiently. Easily automate the delivery of your flat fee invoices, enabling you to accelerate your billing process to get paid faster and free up time to focus on other priorities.

Implement automatic payment reminders

Making sure your clients pay on time can be a big headache - but it doesn't have to be. You can set up automatic payment reminders to avoid the frustration of past-due invoices and ensure your clients are always up to date on their payments. You can customize each invoice reminder by using merge fields in your email reminder template and even create different templates for different invoice types.

Automation can be personal

When it comes to automation, many people think of it as a cold and impersonal process. However, automation can be a great way to improve your customer service and nurture your leads. Personalizing your automated messages and landing pages can create a seamless customer experience that will reduce friction and increase conversions. Screen leads early and automate a process to reroute unqualified leads so you can ensure that your staff is only spending time with qualified leads. Following these tips can lay the foundation for a successful automation strategy that will improve your customer service and help you close more deals.Lawmatics provides a comprehensive, automated client intake and marketing solution that helps law firms reduce friction while still providing a human touch. Contact us today to discuss how our services can help your business run more efficiently.

At its core, conditional logic is a powerful tool that allows you to diversify your Lawmatics workflows using if/then rules and conditions. Simply put, you are able to create reactionary automations based on the profile of your client, the nature of their matter, and the unique progression of their case — all of which serve to accommodate the numerous branching pathways of the client experience. Applying conditional logic to your law firm’s processes introduces a high degree of versatility to your external forms, legal documents, automations, and communications. And while it can be tricky to comprehend at first, Lawmatics conditional logic is your key to achieving peak efficiency in your law firm.

The mechanics of conditional logic in Lawmatics

Before you start diving into conditional logic and its many uses, it is first important to understand the mechanics behind it. In its simplest form, conditional logic is simply an “if, then” statement. If a certain condition holds true, then the desired outcome will take place.While conditional logic looks a little different in each different area where it can be used in Lawmatics, the basic concept is the same. Let’s consider the example shown below from an automation.

Here you will see that our “if” statement is if the Practice Area is Estate Planning. When this condition is found true, then the outcome will be that from the yes/green side of the branch. If the if statement is not found true, then the outcome will occur from the no/red side of the branch.In this particular example, the yes/green outcome is that the Estate Planning Questionnaire will be sent to the target matter. On the no/red outcome side of the branch, nothing will occur and the automation simply ends there.There are also certain instances where multiple conditions can be used as your “if” statement. When this is the case, it is important to give those conditions an “AND” or OR” relationship accordingly.Notice in the image below how we have not added a second condition to our if statement, and given it an “OR” relationship to our initial condition.

How to unlock new efficiencies with conditional logic

You may be wondering where and when you should use conditional logic in Lawmatics. The short answer? Anywhere and everywhere. But for the sake of simplicity, let’s start with perhaps the most common application: audience segmentation based on practice area or case type. Even if your intake flow is uniform across practice areas or matter types, there are surely variations and countless branching outcomes in the processes and actions that follow. Enter conditional logic.Not only does conditional logic improve your internal workflows, but it can also facilitate a better experience for your clients on external facing forms and documents. It can be off–putting for clients to feel inundated with questions or information that does pertain to the specific details of their matter. Conditional logic helps avoid this pitfall by using if/then rules to dynamically update your forms and documents based on an individual’s data points and submissions.Below we will break down the main three areas of Lawmatics where you stand to benefit the most from conditional logic, and share some tips and insights for how to use each. Whether you are already dialed in with your Lawmatics process or just getting set up, adding conditional logic will truly optimize your practice.

Three places to start using conditional logic

1Custom forms

One of the most obvious areas of Lawmatics to use conditional logic is within your forms. Whether you are using our custom forms for intake, case management, reviews, something else entirely, or a combination of all of these, you stand to benefit from adding conditional logic to your forms.

Lower the barrier to entry

What is more important than customer convenience? In an industry that thrives on referrals, the better experience you provide for your clients, the more likely they are to seek you out for legal assistance again, or refer their friends and family to you.One of the most simple but also significant benefits of using conditional logic in your forms is that it makes them aesthetically shorter. This is always a good thing! Clients and/or leads can be easily intimidated by the sight of a long form that looks like a multi-hour ordeal. In many cases, they abandon the form altogether not knowing that many questions therein don’t even pertain to them and can be skipped.This is why all dependent follow up questions on your forms should be set up with conditional logic, so that anyone filling out the form will only see questions that pertain directly to them based on previous field completion. Need to collect detailed property information if your client owns property? Begin by asking whether or not they own property, and then configure your form to reveal follow-up questions regarding said property only IF they do in fact own property.Doing this for all questions on your forms with dependencies, drastically shortens the form to the delight of your prospective clients. In addition to shortening the form, conditional logic also provides a better overall experience for your matters by only showing them questions that are relevant to them. If they don’t own property, why should they have to scroll through questions about the purchase price, current value, mortgage, etc. Save your clients the trouble by simply using conditional logic.

How to apply conditional logic to forms in Lawmatics

There are a few key things to keep in mind when setting up conditional logic in your custom forms. First, remember that you’ll find your custom forms under the Assets tab at the top of your page. Click the edit pencil on an existing form or create a new form to begin editing your form.When setting conditional logic in custom forms, remember that you will set the logic on the field that is conditional, as opposed to the field that sets the condition.Let’s break this down using the property ownership use case mentioned earlier. On your form, you will first ask the question on your form “Do you own property?”. This will likely be a boolean (true/false) field or a picklist field with options of Yes and No. The next question you’ll ask is “If so, what is the address of said property?”.To set up conditional logic in this example, click on the second question, the followup question, and turn on conditional logic there. You will then select which field sets the logic for this field, which in this case is the field “Do you own property?” being TRUE.

In short, rule number one of using conditional logic in custom forms is to set the logic on the field that is conditional.That brings us to rule number two. Conditional logic can only be set using fields that have defined values, such as true/false fields, picklist, or multi picklist fields. You cannot set conditional logic using fields that are open text fields, since these are open-ended and do not have defined responses.To clarify further, this rule pertains to the field that is setting the condition, not the field that is conditional. Returning to our example from earlier, you’ll notice that the conditional field “If so, what is the address of said property?” is in fact an open text field. This is perfectly acceptable, since this is not the field that is setting the condition. The field setting the condition is “Do you own property?”, which was created as a true/false field. A picklist field would also suffice in this example.As long as you keep these two rules in mind for using conditional logic in your custom forms, you are sure to create a better customer experience for clients filling out your forms.

2Custom documents

Your process of generating and drafting documents can be simplified through the use of conditional logic. Lawmatics offers three different types of documents, all of which can be used to collect e-signature, and two of which have conditional logic capabilities.The first type of document we’ll discuss is custom documents AKA start fresh. If you are looking for a simple solution to conditional logic in your documents, this is your best bet. You can think of this as a way to auto-generate a document based on conditions applied from a particular matter. Does your retainer agreement have certain sections that only apply to a particular practice area, if a case is being filed jointly, if they’ve requested certain services, or any other customizations you may offer? Conditional logic is your key to allowing for all of these customizations, without needing to spend your valuable time making tedious tweaks to each and every document template.

How to apply conditional logic to documents in Lawmatics

When creating a custom doc, begin by dragging over text fields for any sections of the document that may or may not apply depending on the client’s circumstances.

In the example shown above, we are creating a single fee agreement that contains varying paragraphs for the firm’s different practice areas. The first text block will not be conditional, this will be the opening of the document that applies to all practice areas. The second text block is specific to our criminal defense practice area, so we want to apply conditional logic. To do so, first click the small gear icon shown on the right for that block. Doing so will reveal the menu shown below.

Here we have first turned on conditional logic, and then selected which field sets the condition, which in this case is practice area = criminal defense. At this point in the process, setting your conditional logic is very similar to setting it in custom forms.When this document is previewed internally and/or sent out to a matter for e-signature, the system will check your conditional settings, and only the appropriate sections of the document will be included based on the data populated in that particular matter.You can also set conditional logic in your DOCX type documents. This option functions much the same way, but is a bit more technical to set up. We suggest reading this article to learn more on the specifics of formatting conditional logic in those types of documents.

3Automations

Last but certainly not least, you can also set conditional logic in automations. This is done through the use of If/Else Conditions.You may be wondering, when should I use an “If” statement within an automation versus just creating a separate automation with a different trigger? As a general rule, it is best practice to use an “If” condition in an automation when a particular trigger has varying resulting actions that must occur dependent on some predetermined factor such as practice area or other case specific question.For instance, any time a new lead books a consultation you will want to trigger an automatic confirmation email. You may also wish to include the link to your intake form for their particular practice area in that email. Since we have now introduced the variable of sending a different form for each practice area, this workflow is a good candidate for conditional logic.

How to apply conditional logic to automations in Lawmatics

Below you will see several different If/Else conditions in use. First, we are checking whether or not the practice area is criminal defense. If the matter entering this workflow does in fact meet that condition, it will flow down the left/yes/green check mark side of the branching pathway and receive the criminal intake form. If the matter does not meet that condition, it will head down the right/no/red X side. At this point the matter is checked once again to see if it is an Estate Planning matter, and then once more it will flow down the appropriate branch.

Below you will see several different If/Else conditions in use. First, we are checking whether or not the practice area is criminal defense. If the matter entering this workflow does in fact meet that condition, it will flow down the left/yes/green check mark side of the branching pathway and receive the criminal intake form. If the matter does not meet that condition, it will head down the right/no/red X side. At this point the matter is checked once again to see if it is an Estate Planning matter, and then once more it will flow down the appropriate branch, as shown below.

In this example, if the matter is not an estate planning case, we are simply sending our Basic Intake form and not checking for another practice area. However, you could continue adding branches for each practice area that you offer at your firm.Additionally, this concept can be applied to much more than segmentation by practice are Conditional logic can be applied using any field in your CRM, set it up to trigger different actions based on the matter’s county, prior arrests, type of injury/accident, marital status, or any other field you can possibly think of.Remember that conditional logic in automations is best used to check data that has already been collected and saved in your system, and not for actions such as whether or not they have filled out a form or signed a document. This is because those actions are not permanent states, whereas the specific data of their case is.Once a matter has flown through an If condition in your automation, it will not be rechecked again at a later time. For this reason, it often is not advised to use branches to trigger certain things when a form is filled out or some other action, because that condition could change on the matter at any time.

Give conditional logic a try

Conditional logic is a powerful tool in Lawmatics that will elevate many different areas of your workflows to the next level. Like any automated feature, it is important to understand the nuance of using conditional logic so that you can use it correctly and efficiently.Conditional logic works best when used in conjunction with our many other automated features such as forms, documents, reminders, and any other automation action item. The more you add this functionality into your practice, the more of a Lawmatics power user you will become. Remember, the power of conditional logic will benefit not only your internal procedure, but also result in a better overall client journey.We’d love to hear how you’ve implemented conditional logic into Lawmatics at your firm, email us at support@lawmatics.com to share your story!

Lawmatics automations are your key to not only saving valuable time, but also facilitating better communication with both leads and clients. Better communication leads to increased conversion rates, happier clients, more referrals and repeat business, so why wouldn’t you want to add automation into your practice?Nearly every aspect of your business can benefit from automation, from intake to payment collection, and Lawmatics is just the tool you need to make that happen. In fact, you can use Lawmatics throughout the entire client lifecycle to keep clients updated on every aspect of their case — all without you needing to lift a finger.Don’t forget the importance of staying in touch with your old book of business. Whether you are looking to keep clients updated on industry news, firm announcements, or even current promotions, Lawmatics automations allow you to keep in touch long after a case has ended.Let’s take a further look into some of the areas where automation can help keep leads and clients updated.

1 Intake form delivery & follow-up

New client intake is often one of the most critical processes in your firm, since this is the first interaction new leads get to have with your business. Automation makes it possible to delight them with your responsiveness right off the bat, leading to more conversions.

Send an intake form & reminders

Whether you are collecting data from leads during your intake or sending a detailed questionnaire to clients, Lawmatics has the tools you need to make sending forms and collecting client data a seamless process. Firms like Buchanan Law, a New Mexico Employment and Personal Injury firm, swiftly qualify clients by sending automated reminders for clients to complete missing information.While working your leads through the intake process, the goal is to make them feel involved and engaged without bombarding them with a surplus of information or emails. Automations allow you to send your forms, along with reminders to take action on said forms, at a cadence of your choice. Send your forms via email, text message, or a combination of both, and use delivery windows to ensure that the form is only sent during an appropriate time window.

Set a delivery window so that your messages are only delivered during business hours, or any other time window of your choosing.

Use exit conditions to make sure prospective clients stop receiving reminders once they have submitted the form. Follow these steps to create your form reminder workflow:

1. Go to the Automations page under the Marketing tab and create a new automation.
2. Select your entry conditions or trigger. This is the activity that should trigger the sending of your intake form. Maybe once they book an appointment or submit a contact request on your website.
3. Use the plus sign to add the Send Form action, and then select the specific form you wish to send.
4. Click the plus sign icon again and add a time delay, setting a particular time delay before your next reminder.
5. Use the plus sign icon to add the Send Form action again.
6. Repeat steps 4 and 5 to add as many reminders as you would like.
7. Add an exit condition of the form

Create a drip campaign of reminders to fill out a form. Make sure you include exit conditions so they exit once they submit the form.

Send a confirmation email or text message

It’s all too common for an intake process to stall because a prospective client hasn’t received a confirmation or instructions on next steps immediately following their last action — in this case a form fill. Imagine a lead having to wait for an update until you or your staff have the time to manually review their form, and then you end up playing phone tag trying to schedule their consultation. Sound familiar?Automation will make this scenario a thing of the past. Once a prospective client fills out a basic intake form, said client will automatically receive a thank-you email and/or text message that delivers a link to book their consultation. Your leads will not be left wondering and guessing what their next step with your firm will be, instead they will receive instantaneous and personalized messaging confirming that you have received their form submission and advising them on what comes next in the process.Here’s how to make this happen:

1. Create a new automation using the Filled a Form entry condition
2. Click the plus sign icon and select the Request Appointment action item
3. Alternatively, create a custom email and include a booking link in the email, and send that email instead of the appointment request

Trigger an automation when the client/lead submits a form so that they receive instant communication of next steps.

Share an intake form in the Client Portal

Last but certainly not least, forms can also be shared directly to a matter within the Client Portal. Inviting a matter to access the portal gives them the ability to create their own password, and then sign into their own custom dashboard for their matter. Their portal becomes their hub for all things case-related, from intake forms to documents to appointments, making it one of the most versatile tools for keeping clients up to date on their case.No matter how you choose to automate your forms, Lawmatics will take all of your tedious and manual steps out of the form sharing and collecting process.

2 Appointment & event reminders

Perhaps one of the most important pieces of your intake and case management puzzle is appointment scheduling. But whether you’re booking initial consultations, signing meetings, virtual calls or in person sessions, appointment reminder message(s) should always follow. This not only helps improve your show rates, but also reassures clients and prospects that they’re actively moving through the process. And the best way to take care of this important step? You guessed it, automation.

Send appointment reminders

As with forms, all communication regarding your firm’s appointments can be triggered automatically to send out an email or text message. Use event automations to send time-relative reminders about an upcoming appointment, such as an email the day before and/or a text message the hour before their consultation. You will also want to make sure you stay in touch after an appointment, especially for new leads meeting with your firm for the first time or for clients awaiting an important case update. Event automations allow you to automate touchpoints X number of hours/days after an event as well.

Use event automations to trigger automations relative to the time of an appointment, such as 2 hours after a consultation.

For clients who prefer to be more hands-on with their case updates, give them client portal access to allow them to see their appointments (along with any other case information) any time they would like at the tip of their fingers.

Your clients can login to their own portal, as shown above, where they can manage their tasks, events, documents, forms, etc.

You may find that some clients prefer more frequent communication, and others take a more passive approach by checking their portal independently. Lawmatics automations make it easy to provide updates in a way that best suits the needs of your clientele.

3 Assign tasks to clients

Tasks are a great way to automate internal steps and notify staff members of important to-do items and deadlines, but they can also be assigned and shared externally directly to your clients. Use the client portal to share tasks with any of your matter-related contacts, and automate these tasks based on triggers within your process.If your firm commonly works with matters that go on for a long period of time, or if you have a lengthy and extensive intake process, you may find that your matters disengage during these steps. Assigning action items (in the form of Tasks) and case updates encourages your clients to stay involved with the important information being shared via their client portal.This can all be automated, of course. Simply:

1. Invite the appropriate contact(s) to access the Client Portal
2. Use the Add Task automation action
3. Select who you would like to share the task with.

With this process you are essentially creating a template of tasks, and it can be specific to the practice area, case type, or any other condition.

Select who to assign your automated tasks to, this can be the main contact, any other contacts related to the matter, or an internal user.

For matters that involve multiple clients such as a married couple or business partners, you have the option to share tasks with all contacts related to a matter, or pick and choose which tasks should be assigned to which contacts.

4 Documents and file sharing

Not only can Lawmatics help automate the delivery and submission of forms, it can also populate the data collected on any form into emails or documents, such as retainer agreements. With automation, you are able to complete the whole process of receiving client data, drafting a document with that data, and sending it for signature without lifting a finger.Create templates for emails and documents alike, and auto-populate them with client data in lieu of manual data entry, after which you can send them via automation.

Use the dropdown menus provided to add merge fields in your documents. These will automatically populate with the client’s information when sent or previewed.

You may also have standard file templates for things like court filings, medical forms, or even FAQs and info about your firm. These types of documents can be shared as attachments to any of your email templates, giving an extremely personalized touch to what would otherwise be a standard automated workflow.

5 Marketing emails

One of the many benefits of Lawmatics is the ability to stay in touch with contacts in your CRM as well as clients long after their case has concluded. Our marketing features make it simple to stay in contact with your whole book of business on an automated basis.One of the most common ways of marketing to your audience is by sending out a firm newsletter, educational content, or attorney bios. These are great tools for building a relationship with your contacts and making them feel connected to your firm. You will be certain to stay top of mind when they need help with another matter or have someone to refer to you.Make sure to take advantage of our HTML design suite to create beautiful newsletters or other eye-catching announcements. Also use the Promotional Email option to give recipients the opportunity to opt-out.

Turn on the Promotional Email option to add an unsubscribe link to the bottom of your emails.

We also suggest creating a birthday email template along with an automated birthday email campaign to send a birthday greeting to your contacts and past clients.

Why automate with Lawmatics?

No matter how you decide to use them in your practice, Lawmatics automations are designed to save your firm priceless time while increasing your ability to stay in touch with clients.From intake forms, to retainer agreements, to appointment reminders, to birthday emails, automation is your key to unlocking new efficiencies in the operations of your business — and a newfound work-life balance as well.If any of these automation ideas stand out to you, feel free to schedule a demo to find out more. If you’re already a Lawmatics user, reach out to your implementation specialist for help with setup. You are not by any means limited to the examples given here, we look forward to hearing how Lawmatics automation can help benefit your unique practice!

An informative webinar can be a strong lead generation tool for law firms — the success of which hinges on registration volume, attendance, and engagement. But did you know you could coordinate and automate the heavy lifting of webinar promotion, registration, and follow-up in Lawmatics? From capturing registrants via a custom form, to triggering automated reminders and updates regarding the webinar, to reporting on engagement, Lawmatics is your one-stop-shop tool for top notch webinar management.

Before you build in Lawmatics:

Choose a topic

As you begin planning your firm’s first webinar, try to select a topic that is granular enough to be covered in a 30-45 minute webinar presentation. At longer durations it can become challenging to hold the interest and attention of your audience. In addition, many in your target demographic likely don’t have the bandwidth for a 1+ hour seminar in one sitting. If you select a topic that is too broad, you then run the risk of touching on only high-level information that doesn’t offer much practicality to attendees. For broader topics, consider hosting a webinar series, breaking the overall topic down into narrower sub-sections.

Timing

Much of the success of your presentation may hinge on the time of day at which your webinar is held. Research shows that 11 AM local time is the best time to capture and keep the attention of your audience. Since Lawmatics only handles the marketing and performance tracking of your webinar, make sure you select and familiarize yourself with a webinar platform that best accommodates your business and webinar objectives. With these housekeeping items out of the way, you are ready to start creating your automated webinar workflow in Lawmatics. In this article we’ll walk you through each step of capturing your webinar leads and creating Lawmatics automations to stay top of mind with this audience as your webinar approaches.

How to build a webinar campaign in Lawmatics

The first step in creating your Lawmatics webinar campaign is to use a custom form to capture webinar registrants. Keep in mind that there is no one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to lead capture in the broad legal landscape. Consider the nature of your practice, your target audience and the topic of your webinar when building out your webinar registration flow.

1Create a registration form

Our suggestion is to begin by creating a simple Matter type custom form. Do this by going to the Custom Forms page found under the Assets tab in Lawmatics. When creating your new form, give it a title such as “September 2022 Webinar Registration” and select Matter as the form type. This will need to be an external form, since it will be filled out by potential leads outside of the platform.

One key thing to keep in mind when creating this form is to keep it simple. Try to limit the fields to only those that are strictly necessary: typically first name, last name, and email address. Those 3 fields should all be included in your form and marked as Required. You may wish to include additional questions such as “What are you hoping to gain from this webinar?” or “Do you have any questions on this topic that you would like to see answered during the webinar?”. It is strongly recommended to make any additional questions or fields such as these not required, so that a lead isn’t deterred from registering if they don’t wish to provide additional information.Additionally, we suggest creating a custom field and adding it into your form as a hidden field, with a default value of the date and time of the webinar.

This field, invisible to anyone who fills out the form externally, will be necessary for triggering automated reminders for the webinar, as covered in a later section of this article. Create this field right from within the form, and make sure you select date/time as the field type. After you have created and saved your custom form in Lawmatics, make sure to embed and feature it on your website. You may even consider a google ad or landing page, depending on your budget for promoting the webinar. When embedding the form, don’t forget to adjust your styling options to make the form eye-catching but not distracting.

2Build your webinar post-registration automation

Before you go live with embedding your custom form on your site or promoting your webinar, make sure you have your automations place. This will ensure that any potential registrants submitting the form will receive immediate attention.

Add an Entry Condition

Begin by navigating to the Automations page found under the Marketing tab in Lawmatics. Create a new automation, and title it based on the name of your webinar. Once you have created the automation, add an entry condition and select the Form Filled toggle. You will then select the specific webinar custom form that you have already created in the step above. You have now set this automation to trigger when someone fills out that form. The registrant will not only be created as a contact and matter in your Lawmatics CRM, but they will also enter into this workflow.

Add Action Items (Tags + Marketing Source)

Next, you will add action items into this automation. What actions you choose to add may vary depending on what you all wish to track and how you want to communicate with registrants, but there are a few items that we strongly recommend for all webinar workflows.First, you may wish to use the change attributes action to apply a tag (or multiple tags) to each registrant automatically. You could tag each contact based on the topic of the webinar, to indicate that they are interested in webinars in general, and also the specific name of this webinar. This is a great way to set yourself up for future reporting and audience segmentation down the road.We also suggest creating a marketing source (found in Settings>Marketing Sources) called Webinars, as well as a campaign under that source for this specific webinar. This is a great way to track how the number of leads that originated from your overall webinar efforts, and compare the success of each webinar over time. Use two more “change attributes” actions in your automation to set both the source and campaign fields accordingly.

Add a Confirmation Email or Text Message

At this point, you will also want to send out an automated confirmation email or text (or both). Create your email template under the Assets tab of Lawmatics; this is a good opportunity to use the email design suite to create an HTML designed email. The email can include your logo, color scheme, or even a video thumbnail promoting the webinar. Also be sure to include all pertinent information for the webinar itself, such as the date, time, and directions for joining.

Once you’ve created your email template, add it into your automation using the Send Email action item. It can’t hurt to add a time delay of a few minutes prior to the email action, making it seem more personalized and less automated. Depending on your audience, and if you have chosen to capture phone numbers on your registration form, you may also wish to use the Send SMS action to deliver a text message confirming the registration.

Add Webinar Reminder Emails or Texts

Remember that hidden field you added to your registration form to default the date and time of the webinar? We’re finally coming back to that and using it to trigger our next automation. Return back to the main automations page and create a new automation, this time select Date Field as the type of automation, and then select the field you created for the webinar date as the Date Field.

You won’t be adding any action items to the main section of this automation, but rather click on the yellow Date Automation button at the top of the page. Here you will be adding time-relative triggers to create a sequence of reminders leading up to the webinar. You may wish to include emails, text messages, or both in this sequence, and they can be used not only to remind registrants of the upcoming webinar date, but also to build hype and get them excited for the event.The cadence of timing is up to you, but we suggest including at least 2 touchpoints: one 5-7 days before the webinar and one the day before. Each of your touchpoints will be created as a separate date automation, and you will set the time frame when you create that date automation. Then add in your email template or other desired action item to each date automation accordingly.

If someone registers for the webinar after any of these timeframes have already passed (for example, if they sign up less than a week in advance and you have a 1 week reminder email set), they simply will not trigger into those workflows that have already passed.

3Track webinar registrations

Now that you have set up your automated reminders to build excitement and boost attendance for your webinar, your next step will come on the day of the actual webinar. Be sure to track (or log) which registrants actually attended the event; this information will be used to send the appropriate follow up emails. Depending on which platform you use for the webinar, it may track attendance automatically, or you may need to download/capture a manual list.Whichever method you use to track attendance, you’ll want to input that information into Lawmatics so it can be used for reporting and segmenting your follow-up audience. Create a custom field or a tag to label attendees, either option will suffice.

It may make sense to use an import to update your existing contacts if you have high numbers.To keep your marketing statistics up to date, you will also need to input the dollar amount that you spent on this webinar. Return to the marketing sources page in settings, locate the campaign that you created for the webinar, and click the dollar sign icon to log your spend. This will be used to calculate the ROI on this webinar as leads start to convert.

4Schedule a post-webinar follow-up email

After you have completed logging attendance and spend of your webinar, you are ready to start following up with these leads and gather insights to help prepare for your next webinar.First, create a separate audience list for attendees and no-shows, filtering either by your tag or custom field that you used to track attendance.

Then create a thoughtful email to send to each group. In both emails, thank them for their interest, include access to view a recording of the webinar, and a call to action for them to get in contact with your firm if they have questions or would like to learn more about you. This is another great opportunity to use some creativity when crafting an eye-catching and professional HTML email template.As a bare minimum, send the email to each group using a one-time-send email campaign. For increased touchpoints and exposure, create a whole sequence of automated emails to continue following up with these leads long after the webinar has occurred. Your automations could be triggered by the attendance status of either attended or no-showed, or you could use a date field automation along with conditional logic for the attendance to keep in touch X number of days after the webinar.

Every audience is different and may respond better to certain outreach, so Lawmatics grants you the ability to customize and personalize your workflow as much as you would like. However frequently and intensely you decide to go after this audience, make sure that your outreach is aligned with what you know about your audience in particular.

5Further engagement

As time goes on and these leads start to engage with your firm, you can use Lawmatics reporting to collect insightful data on what went well and what didn’t for your first webinar. Create a custom report filtered by source to pull in only your webinar leads, and add columns like tags, attendance, status (to track conversions), and estimated value. This report will dynamically update as updates are made in your CRM, so check back to view your updated stats. Hosting your firm’s first webinar may seem like a daunting task, but Lawmatics is here to keep you organized and keep your leads engaged through each step of the process. From initial registration, to automated reminders, to post webinar reporting, Lawmatics has all of the tools you need to host a successful first webinar, and hopefully many more to come. At the end of the day, webinars are a wonderful way to capture leads who otherwise may not have engaged with your firm, and what better way to keep those leads engaged than with a webinar workflow in Lawmatics.Best of luck with your webinar, and feel free to share your experience and results with our team, we’d love to hear from you!Sources citedhttps://www.goto.com/blog/7-webinar-scheduling-secrets#:~:text=Plan%20it%20for%2011%20a.m.,mess%20with%20people's%20lunch%20hourhttps://www.airmeet.com/hub/blog/why-webinars-should-be-a-part-of-your-marketing-strategy/https://www.thebalancesmb.com/best-webinar-platforms-4802615

Marketing your law firm, whether you like it or not, is a necessary part of attracting and retaining clients. Because despite how adamant you may be that providing a good service should be enough to grow your business, marketing plays a critical role in the overall success of your law firm. What’s more, marketing your law firm today isn’t the same as it was 20 years ago. Whether you just opened your practice or have been at it for some time, it’s easy to fall behind on the latest marketing methods and tips to get the most return on your investment. Without further ado, here are five top tips for marketing your law firm in 2022.

1 Your website matters

Your website should be the cornerstone of your entire marketing strategy. But why does your law firm need a website when your business is visible from the street or featured in the local paper?

It establishes your credibility

If a potential client Googles you and can’t find a website for your law firm, they may question the validity of your business. After all, in a world where even amateur photographers have websites, why wouldn’t an attorney have a website as evidence that they exist.Your law firm’s website is an opportunity to shine by showcasing your strengths and proving you’re as credible, if not more, than your local competition. Use the real estate on your website to highlight cases you’ve won, and share customer testimonials— show a prospective client why you’re the best person for the job. This is done by both demonstrating your abilities and the human element of your business. Beyond the content of your website, the design and user experience matters equally. It must look professional and well constructed, with an easy-to-navigate layout. For this reason, it’s highly recommended to hire a skilled professional to design your website.Your design should have:

• High-quality photos
• Clearly stated services and practice areas
• Awards and recognitions
• Previous experience
• A strong call to action

It generates leads and increases visibility

The better optimized your law firm’s website is for SEO, the higher you’ll appear on Google results. The higher you appear in Google’s search results, the higher the likelihood that you’ll be found by someone seeking legal representation in their area. By nature, humans want as effortless of an experience as possible. 95% of web users will never click past the first page of Google search results, aka Google SERP. Yet 25% of people will call the first three law firms listed. In short, if you don’t show up on page 1 of Google, you may as well not exist.

It will streamline your client intake process

If you’re a smaller firm without the luxury of a front desk staff, then your website can serve as a full-time receptionist. It can provide answers to frequently asked questions, helpful information such as your location, the option to self-schedule consultations, and a client intake form for prospects to fill out that will automatically push their information into your intake software. From that point on, prospective clients are tracked from every stage of the client journey, ensuring that no engagement opportunity is missed. Client intake software seamlessly moves leads from one stage to the next thanks to custom marketing workflows, not only saving you time but delivering a positive customer experience at each step.

2 Embrace the TikTok era

We live in a digital world where people are more distracted than ever. While words will always be valuable, it’s a lot easier to grab someone’s attention with a video than a wall of text. Platforms like TikTok are fun and entertaining, and during these times of Covid, a climate crisis, and political unrest, many are looking for an escape from the exhausting news cycle. Entertainment aside, video also humanizes your business which, in turn makes you and your staff more relatable to legal consumers.The great thing about video is that there are so many different ways to use it as a marketing tool. Some lawyers find great success in adding a quick 30-second legal tip to their social media channels each week. Others create funny, relatable videos about the seldom seen side of an attorney’s life. It all depends on how much work you’re willing and able to put into video creation. In the end, it’s better to have something than nothing, so don’t fret over production value or media experience. Regardless of whether you’re ready to learn a TikTok dance or not, one thing is for sure, video grabs more people's attention in today’s distracted society, even if as simple as a quick informational video recorded with your iPhone.

3 Five stars or bust

We live in a star-rated world where consumers value a Google review as much as they would a personal recommendation. Not only will a strong rating on Google make you look more credible to prospective clients, but it will also result in a higher ranking on Google search results. Remember— the winners are at the top. If you don’t have a Google My Business profile set up yet, then you might want to do that—now!Don’t be afraid to ask for reviews — in fact, it’s encouraged, particularly when clients have visibly or verbally expressed their satisfaction with your service.If you somehow manage to get a poor review, don’t panic. One negative review in a pool of positive ones won’t risk damaging your overall reputation. The best way to respond is to remain calm, apologetic, and offer a solution if you can. On the other hand, if you’re noticing the same negative points coming up in reviews, it may be an opportunity to address the problem area and make changes where necessary. Even though criticism can be hard for your ego, reviews can be an extremely effective way to learn what’s working and what’s not.

4 Leave the legwork to marketing software

Email remains one of the most ubiquitous forms of communication. For that reason, launching a weekly newsletter is still an extremely effective way to stay top of mind. If you’re thinking, “You want me to learn TikTok and now you’re asking me to take time out of my already spread thin schedule to write a weekly newsletter?” don’t worry, there's software for that.The last thing lawyers need is a more time-consuming task to add to their plates. That’s why delegating your marketing efforts to automation software can be a time changer. Marketing automation makes it easy to send scheduled and tailored content to specific email lists using audience segmentation software. With automation, you can create a digital marketing campaign that delivers pertinent messages to the right person at the right time, on autopilot. Automation features like drip email marketing send out emails based on triggers of your choice, whether someone signs up for your newsletter or schedules a consultation. What’s more, you can track every interaction and analyze contacts’ behavior thanks to data so you can fine-tune your marketing strategy.

5 Start a blog

A blog is a great way to create fresh content on your website that keeps Google’s search engine happy, while also establishing your authority and legal experience. The more relatable and informative you can make every blog post, the more likely legal consumers are to read and share your content.If you’re not sure where to begin, try starting with addressing your clients' most frequently asked questions. Offer a hot legal tip of the day, or highlight one of your staff members. Get to know what the most commonly searched phrases are related to your practice area like “how much time do debt collectors have to sue for payments?” or “Is it legal to record a conversation?” Finding out what questions people are asking can be a great source for writing information for your legal blog. Make sure that you sprinkle your blog with plenty of relevant keywords that will push your content even higher on Google search results, which is known as SEO (short for search engine optimization.) Check out our guide to law firm SEO marketing here.

Stand out and grow your practice with Lawmatics

Law firm marketing can seem like a time-consuming part of running a law firm that you’d rather not have to deal with. Nevertheless, it’s a necessary ingredient for law firms who want to generate more clients at a steady pace.Yet marketing your law firm and generating a steady stream of leads isn’t all it takes. You’ll need to have an effective system in place to keep track of all of your contacts and ensure no opportunity gets missed. When you consider that the average law firm takes three or more days to respond, it’s easy to see that many busy lawyers struggle to keep up with the success of their marketing efforts.By using legal technology like a CRM and client intake software like Lawmatics you can ensure no opportunity is missed, and automation takes care of your follow-ups so you can focus on what you do best — practicing law. Are you ready to see how Lawnatics all in one legal client intake, CRM, and marketing automation can put you on the top of Google search results? Sign up for a free product demo today!Sources CitedMatt G. Southern, Search Engine Journal, Over 25% of People Click the First Google Search Result, July 14, 2020https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-first-page-clicks/374516/#closeNathan Thompson, OptinMonster, 10 Crucial SEO Ranking Factors You Need to Know, March 8, 2022https://optinmonster.com/seo-ranking-factors/

After going to law school, it can be discouraging to find yourself more of an office administrator than a lawyer. There's so much administrative work that goes into running a practice, that it can eat up your day in no time. For that reason, the most efficient lawyers turned to law firm automation as an alternative to copying, pasting, and printing for hours every day.Legal automation is exactly what the name suggests — automating tasks in your law firm with the help of AI. Legal AI is there to give saturated lawyers more time to focus on what matters most in their practice. For most, that means more time to devote to their clients, and engaging potential leads.Automation itself is hardly new, however, automating your law practice may seem like uncharted territory. Law office automation is in its infancy, so many lawyers may initially resist the idea, dismissing it as unnecessary. However, once lawyers realize how much time they're losing on manual time-draining administrative tasks, the more they'll start to realize the value of turning to automation to free up their time.

8 Signs your law office could benefit from automation

1You’re only spending a small portion of your day on billable work

According to the most recent legal trends report, the average lawyer only spent 2.5 hours of their day on work they could bill for. This is a clear indication that many lawyers are struggling with serious inefficiencies in their law practice.From answering incoming inquiries to getting back to clients with the status of their case, to scheduling appointments with clients, each of these repetitive tasks are typically non billable and can delay actual casework.Not only are manual processes harder on your legal team, but they can also try the patience of your clients and leads who eagerly await your response. When you get to a point where you have to choose between serving your paying clients, and responding to an incoming lead, it's a sign that you could benefit from a better system where you don't have to choose between one or the other.

2Your online reviews are poor

Online reviews play a crucial role in your law firm's credibility since they provide social proof that you're the real deal. 74% of consumers say that a positive online review makes them trust a company as much as a personal recommendation from a friend or family member. Anything less will lead them to turn to another law firm. In addition to increasing your credibility, positive reviews increase your visibility. Google tracks your ratings, and if your average rating is high, you’ll show up in more search results as a top choice for people looking for legal representation in your field.If you start to notice negative reviews of your firm with a recurring complaint, then it's a red flag you should pay attention to. One of the most common complaints about lawyers is poor communication. The average law firm takes up to three days to get back to a lead’s inquiry, and 30% of law firms don't answer the phone at all. As a lawyer, you know how much goes into running your practice, so it's not hard to believe that it could be challenging to get back to every single incoming call right away.That's why it's critical to turn to automation to put your responses on autopilot. Personalized and automated responses make your clients feel connected to you every step of the way without you having to do a thing. While nothing replaces the sincerity and value of a direct call under some circumstances, automation is there to remind your clients that you'll be with them shortly.

3You are putting in long hours

Lawyers have incredibly heavy caseloads, strict deadlines, and clients who expect quality representation and effective client communication. Because of this, lawyers often find themselves putting in over 60 hours a week. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, that number has gone up with the rise in remote working. Despite its many perks, working from home often means their professional life tends to spill over into personal life, upsetting work-life balance.When overwork leads to burnout, mental health decline often follows. Recent statistics show that legal professionals have some of the highest rates of depression and anxiety. As many as 28% of lawyers say they suffer from depression, often attributed to quality of life changes as a result of overwork. This is an arena where automation can make a real difference, reducing the number of tasks in your day for better work-life balance. The more you can help yourself, the better you can serve your clients.

4You don’t show up on the first page of Google

If you don't have a Google business profile yet, then park your dinosaur outside, and step into the modern world please. To expand your law firm, being visible on Google is an absolute requirement. In today's digital world, lawyers are found online, not in the yellow pages. Studies show that 95% of web users never click past the first page of search results, ergo, showing up on the first page should be a key objective for any law firm — that is, unless you don’t yet have a website.Although there is a lot that goes into your page ranking, one of the most important determining factors is user interaction on your page. The more visitors to your website, the more Google will favor your website as a valuable source. Automation can help you bring more visitors to your website, by sending out automated marketing emails that encourage visitors to take the next steps towards becoming a client. Whether you publish blog content, or invite your leads to schedule a consultation, the idea is to drive more traffic to your webpage with calls to action in your automated marketing emails. The more you can get people to interact, the higher your website will rank in Google Search results.

5You feel torn between potential clients and paying clients

From a prospect's perspective, initial response time plays heavily into the decision to hire your firm or not. Fail to respond almost immediately and chances are they're going to call the next law firm in their Google search results. We live in a consumer-driven world in 2022, and people shopping around for a lawyer don't like to have to wait. However, your paying clients shouldn't have to wait either. You've taken them on and have committed to providing quality legal service from start to finish, so making them sit around waiting to get in touch with you isn't the way to build positive rapport.This tug of war between being attentive to our potential clients while still taking care of your paying clients can run busy lawyers ragged. The smaller your firm, the more difficult it can be to allocate your attention amongst all of your incoming phone calls and emails. You should never have to choose between ignoring one over the other. A steady stream of leads and happy clients is the only way to continue to build your practice. So, automating your responses is the best way to ensure everyone gets the attention they deserve at the same time.Rather than being forced with the impossible choice between picking up the phone and pre screening a potential client or calling back a paying client, automation ensures that all parties are tended to in a timely manner, from the first phone call to the retainer agreement. When you put your replies on autopilot, no one gets left behind.

6You’re not getting many referrals

Client referrals are the lifeblood of the majority of law firms. In fact, 75% of law firm business comes from former clients. If your former clients aren't recommending you to their friends and family, that’s a pretty big indication of a shortcoming in your practice either in your service or efforts of gathering referrals. So if you're failing to capitalize on the kind words from your former clients as a source for new business, you're missing a huge opportunity.One of the biggest reasons for a low referral rate is failing to stay top of mind for your past clients. Many lawyers make the mistake of thinking they only have to engage and nurture future and active clients. However, continuing to engage former clients long after the matter is a major business opportunity. Automation can help you send out personalized messages, from wishing them a happy birthday to congratulating them on a new baby. By strengthening the bond with your prior clients, you'll significantly increase your referral rate, and in turn, your revenue.

7You have a high no-show rate

Client no-shows are a big problem for many law firms. Each time a client schedules a consultation and fails to show, you’re forfeiting time and money for a preventable mix-up. Imagine losing half an hour or more every other day unnecessarily as a result of missed appointments. Automation can significantly reduce your no-show rate: when a client schedules an appointment with you, they’ll receive automatic appointment reminders as the date nears. This introduces accountability and visibility on both sides — the clients and yours. No more scheduling mix ups or forgetting important dates. Automation keeps everyone in sync.

8You’re unsure of where new clients come from

Marketing should be in every attorney’s repertoire, period. It’s all too common for law firms with a steady stream of clients to get comfortable and never seek to identify their top lead sources until the well starts to run dry. If and when that happens, you’ll be completely in the dark about how and where to replenish your sales pipeline without incurring great costs.Tracking your leads assures you know what's working and what's not in your marketing at all times. If you're running multiple ads across different platforms, you need to know which one is performing the best. If you have multiple referral sources, you should know instantly which generates the most clients. By tracking your leads, you'll get the answers in real-time. From impressions to click-through rates, analytics will help you pinpoint what leads are doing from point A to point B. Ultimately, you can identify what path people take to become prospective clients of yours and what helps them convert.

How automation can help lawyers run their practice more efficiently

Greeting leads

Nearly half of law firms fail to get back to their leads within three days. Unfortunately, every second that ticks on the clock is an opportunity for your leads to call a competing law firm. When an interested potential client reaches out to your law firm, automation replies instantly, leaving a positive first impression. Your responses are personalized and tailored to their unique circumstances.Whether you want to include a bit more information about your law firm or share success stories of similar cases you've won, automation makes it possible to engage from day one. A speedy and personalized response asserts that you're an attentive attorney who values your clients. From their first initial inquiry to their consultation and beyond, automation will continue to engage and inform potential clients. Your instant and prompt reply already gives you an edge over half of your competitors, which will make a significant difference in your conversion rate.

Capturing client information

The client intake process is one of the most burdensome and time-draining parts of running a law practice. Like it or not, however, the client intake process is the foundation of your client-attorney relationship. First impressions matter, whether you practice family law or criminal law — an outstanding client intake process will set you apart. In order to set the tone for your clients' journey at your law firm, you can start by collecting their personal details. From their name to the case type, to their contact information, all of this information can be collected and stored virtually (and securely) upon first interaction with a new client.Automation makes it possible to input your client information directly into your client intake software or case management software. That means no more time lost to data entry moving forward. From that point on your client's contact information and case details are securely stored in one central location, making it easy to access by anyone working on the case from anywhere with an internet connection.

Automating billing

A whopping 14% of invoiced legal work is never paid by clients. While there are varying reasons as to why this happens, it's often a result of law firms failing to follow up. Regardless of what the cause for unpaid invoices is, the end result remains the same — money and time lost for your law firm. Automating your billing can revolutionize and simplify your collection process.A recent trends report found that nearly half of all legal clients are more likely to hire a lawyer who accepts electronic payments. In a world where people can pay with PayPal, credit card, or even cryptocurrency, clients expect the same amount of flexibility when paying their lawyer. Offering online electronic payments can win you more clients, and ultimately simplify your invoicing.Automatic follow-ups go out to the people who need to be paid, without you having to go through a list and identify who still owes you. Collection automation gives you total control over your billing, without unpaid invoices slipping through the cracks.

Tracking leads

The most efficient firms rely on client intake software to automatically track every single stage of the client journey. There's no need for you to juggle multiple spreadsheets and paper trails, or ask other members of your staff if a certain lead has been followed up with or not. Client intake software makes sure that each client gets nurtured from one stage to the next, thanks to automated customizable tools like legal workflow automation.You can easily create pipelines and workflows so you can track and evaluate your data in a way that's easy for you to understand. You can see things like who needs to be followed up with next and how your new clients are moving along. Ultimately, you can see their entire journey step-by-step, identifying what sources are working to convert clients and which ones aren't.[oxygen-template id="6138"]

Automating scheduling

Your clients have busy schedules too. Finding an appointment time that works for you and them can often be a challenge. Delaying casework to continue an email chain, or answer the phone while frantically scrolling through your online calendar is counterproductive. Automating your appointment scheduling will eliminate this common bottleneck, and serve as a convenient alternative for both you and your clients. It's as simple as sending a link to your schedule, where your clients can choose an appointment from only a list of available times you want them to see.Clients will receive an automated appointment reminder, and so will you, ensuring that everyone stays on track.

Marketing

Automating your marketing means continuously engaging and producing a fresh stream of leads, without having to take time away from your paying clients. Easily build email campaigns with custom triggers that send personalized and relevant messages to the right person at the right time. Audience segmentation software groups your leads and clients into specific groups, sending them different marketing materials based on their unique circumstances and stage of the client journey. So if you’d like to send an email to all clients of a specific practice area, you can.

Document automation

Lawyers are no strangers to lengthy documentation that can take hours to days to assemble and organize. By using legal document automation, you can shave hours and hours off of your workday, generating everything from retainer agreements to affidavits within a matter of seconds, significantly improving your document management. Custom fields make it easy to merge whatever data you want from your matters and contacts and plug it directly into your PDF and word documents. Not only do you save time, but you reduce the risk of error.

Running data reports

Although data is relatively new in the legal world, it's hardly new in the business world. Running automatic reports on your law firm's most important metrics like who your most lucrative clients are, how they're finding you, and which of your staff is most productive, can help you make more informed business decisions.Set your objectives, and automatic reports will run in the background, continuously keeping you accountable for your progress. With Lawmatics visual data analytics, for instance, the information is easy to read and digest. That way you can easily monitor your efforts, and make changes wherever necessary to meet your goals.

Advantages of automating your law firm processes

Reduced errors

Whereas manual systems are prone to human error, automation pulls contact information directly from your CRM, allowing you to streamline your operations, and significantly reduce your chances of mistakes. When it comes to your scheduling, you don't have to second guess whether you entered a date or time correctly, since you're relying on software to automatically schedule for you. Automatic appointment reminders mean fewer no-shows and scheduling mix-ups.Errors don't just cost you and your staff time to make corrections, they waste your client's time as well. Automation means you can set it and forget it, without having to worry about costly errors.

Better reviews

If you can offer your clients a more streamlined and attentive client journey, then it's naturally going to lead to better reviews. However, you can't expect clients to leave reviews unprompted. Programming an automated email to go out after a client case has closed is a great way to remind your clients to share their experience. Most clients are more than willing to take a few minutes to write a review with minor incentive.

Better communication

A lot of smaller firms don't have the luxury of a front desk staff to get back to leads and clients right away. Yet, response rate has a remarkably large impact on a client's overall experience. Automation ensures that your clients get immediate responses from the very first minute they call your firm until you can call them back personally. You can personalize your automations based on whatever triggers you choose, making each client feel like they're your only client. Automatic routine messages, paired with access to features like a client portal ensure your clients are never sitting around waiting for an update on the status of their case.

Improved work/life balance

The average lawyer works 50 to 60 hours a week. When you consider that the majority of legal industry professionals’ time is spent on administrative tasks, it's no wonder that they are some of the most stressed-out professionals out there. Automation can shave hours of time off of lawyers' work weeks, and allow for a better work-life balance. Regardless of how much you love practicing law, it's still important that you get rest, and make time for your friends and family.

Money saved

Efficiency goes hand in hand with revenue for any profession, but especially as a lawyer. The faster you can get things done, the more clients you can take on. On top of that, automation eliminates the need for hiring extra staff. Routine tasks can be delegated to automation and give you back time to devote to more revenue-generating work. And when it comes to invoicing, automation can ensure that you get paid for every hour you work, faster.

Improved client experience

We live in a world where you can order groceries through an app and receive them within an hour. We can sit down and watch an entire series in one sitting, without having to wait for the next episode a week later. With instant gratification so abundant in our lives, why would anyone expect anything different from their attorney? Automation enhances the client experience, by eliminating bottlenecks that force your clients to wait. On top of a fast initial response, automation keeps your services consistent, and error-free, ultimately creating a memorable and engaging customer experience.

How to get started using automation

1Choose what you would like to automate

If any of the aforementioned challenges ring true for your law firm, the time has come to assess your operational efficiency. Where do you lose the most time in your day, and how do you think automation could help you complete these tasks faster? Start by creating a list of all the things you'd rather not have to do as a lawyer, and using that as a reference when researching legal automation software features. If you're not sure which of your processes and tasks translate to automation, make a mental note. Many programs may seem like a great choice, but in reality, they lack the critical automation tools lawyers require to eliminate the busy work in their practice.Lawmatics is considered the most comprehensive CRM and Client Intake software on the market for lawyers looking for robust automation features. With Lawmatics you get the following:

• Marketing automation
• Reporting and insights
• Custom automations
• Custom form builder
• Automated appointment scheduling
• E-signature for law firms
• Document automation
• File requests
• Pipeline management
• SMS/text messaging
• Client portal
• Email drip marketing campaigns
• Audience segmentation
• Custom reporting

2Get to know what’s out there

There are new deployments of legal technology emerging every day. Get to know what's out there, and which features you could benefit most from in your firm. Ideally, you want to choose a company that gives you the most amount of features for the best value, with a thorough and customized onboarding that works at your pace. It's also important that you have ongoing support like Lawmatics offers to ensure you get the most out of your automation tools.

3Develop a plan

Once you've selected the right software for your firm, your next course of action is to develop an implementation plan. The point of this is to unify your legal team on the choice of software and ensure they’re invested in the onboarding process. If you're switching from one legal software to another take the time to understand how to transition your processes to the new software. Doing so is well worth your time for the promise of peak efficiency and productivity in your firm.

4Monitor your results

Ultimately, the goal of implementing automation in your law firm is to become more efficient. However, how can you be sure if your tools are improving your efficiency if you don't measure your results? Lawmatics CRM and client intake software comes with built-in law reporting analytics so that you can actively track your firm’s performance, and assess whether you're meeting your objectives. By measuring your progress, you'll see exactly how much time you're saving, and where you have room for improvement.

Stop losing time on tedious administrative work and start automating with Lawmatics

Switching from a manual system to an automated one can be a daunting process for lawyers resistant to change. However, turning to legal workflow software can be one of the greatest financial investments you ever make for your law firm. Automation in law firms strengthens client relationships, gives lawyers more hours in a day, and ultimately boosts revenue. Are you ready to see how Lawmatics all in one legal intake solution, marketing automation, and law firm CRM can help you stop working harder and start working smarter? Sign up for a free product demo today!

Sources Cited

Rosie Murphy, Local Consumer Review Survey 2020, brightlocal.com, December 9, 2020 https://www.brightlocal.com/research/local-consumer-review-survey/#Clio, The 2019 Legal Trends Report https://2b9twj15256023uw4w1i3g6q-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/2019-Legal-Trends-Report.pdfLeverage Marketing, How Far Down the Search Engine Results Page Will Most People Go? theleverageway.com, 2014 https://www.theleverageway.com/blog/how-far-down-the-search-engine-results-page-will-most-people-go/#:~:text=Things%20start%20to%20get%20grim,for%20remaining%20search%20results%20pages.

The only way to keep your law firm running is by bringing in new business consistently. That's why at the core of every successful law firm is a solid marketing strategy that has all the right components in place. In order to scale your law firm, you have to successfully target your ideal client, engage current clients, re-engage former clients, and stand out against the competition.Yet, not every type of marketing flies when it comes to promoting your law firm. There are certain rules that need to be followed in order to avoid ethical concerns and any disciplinary consequences that come along with them. Failing to comply with advertising rules could lead to serious repercussions that you’re better off without.For this reason, many law firms work with marketing agencies that have experience working with law firms, or who have had legal experience. Since they’re familiar with the ins and outs of advertising legal services, law firms don’t have to worry about their marketing methods violating rules.

Knowing what not to do when advertising your law firm

In order to successfully advertise and scale your law firm, it's a good idea to stay familiar with the rules that apply to you. That way you can successfully reach your target audience, and bring in more business, all while respecting advertising laws. Regardless of what kind of advertising channels you're planning on using, the same rules apply. Here are the most important advertising rules that you should know when marketing your law firm.

! Don’t make false claims

It goes without saying that making any false claims is dishonest. Lying isn’t an admirable quality in any business, and law is certainly no exception. Under no circumstances should you make a claim that is misleading, could be considered dishonest or stretching the truth.That means avoiding making any bold statements that could be deceiving, like guaranteeing you’ll win your client's cases. The same goes for making superlative claims like you’re “the best lawyer.” Simply put, don’t make any promises that you can’t keep.Instead, stick to the facts that no one can dispute. Claiming you’re the best lawyer in the world could be considered unsubstantiated and unverifiable. However, no one can deny that you have won a certain number of cases if you can back the claim up. When in doubt, always double-check any statements and make sure you can prove them.

! Don’t set unrealistic expectations

On your testimonials page, you may likely have bold statements from prior clients making claims like “My lawyer won my case and made me richer than I ever dreamed of!” which is entirely possible, however, it doesn’t guarantee that every client will have the same outcome working with you.Be careful of creating expectations that would lead a client to believe that their situation will turn out identical. Although you may have gotten one client a considerable amount of money for their claim, it’s dishonest to claim you can do the same for every client.There’s a reason that at the end of many commercials a voice can be heard saying “results may vary.” Keep your promises in check!

! Don’t say you’re a specialist or expert

Certain states have rules about presenting yourself as an expert or specialist. As such, you should avoid either one of these terms. The ABA clearly states that “a lawyer shall not state or imply that a lawyer is certified as a specialist in a particular field of law” unless they are officially certified and deemed specialist by an approved organization that is approved by the state or is accredited by the American Bar Association.Substantiating your expertise in law with the number of years you’ve been an attorney isn’t enough either. You must be able to demonstrate that you are officially an expert with certification and proof. Otherwise, you’re better off steering clear of calling yourself an expert or specialist.

! Don’t solicit your legal services directly

The American Board Association approves of traditional advertisements like billboards, search engine optimization, pay per click, and social media advertising. However, soliciting your services by targeting an individual directly is prohibited.In other words, targeting someone one-on-one may be viewed as soliciting your services for your own financial gain and not for the client’s best interest.[oxygen-template id="6133"]

Tips for successfully advertising your law firm

1 Do build the right website for your law firm

One of the most straightforward and effective ways to advertise your law firm is to build the right website for it. Having an online presence is a must for a lawyer, so the first place to start building your digital presence is by creating a strong website.Not only should you have a website, but you should make sure that it ticks all the right boxes. A great law firm website does the following:

Establishes credibility

Having a website serves as proof that you're a legitimate business. In today's digital age, Googling a lawyer's name and finding they don't have a website could be considered suspicious. Your web page is your digital business card. It’s a way to showcase your skills and offer testimonials that serve as social proof for your services. First impressions are everything when it comes to a website, so if you can present a professional and well constructed page, people will be that much more likely to hire you.

Generates leads

You likely have many different marketing methods in your marketing strategy. However, the cornerstone of it all should be your website. If you manage to optimize your website, then Google will start to favor it. As a result, your law firm will come up first in search results, generating more traffic, and in turn leads.

Increases your online visibility

The more visible you can make your website, the more leads you'll attract. Ultimately, Google is one of the biggest determining factors in your law firm's success. The more visible you are, the more you can target your ideal clients.

Offers valuable information

You can have the most professional-looking website in the world, but, if it doesn't have the information that people are there for, then you might as well not have a website at all. Your website should clearly display what kind of law you practice, and where you're located.You can also offer valuable information by adding a blog to your website. One of the best ways to bring people to your page is by offering relevant and free legal advice.

Saves you time

A fully functional website can save you a considerable amount of time. Offering your clients the ability to self-schedule using automated appointment scheduling software means that you no longer have to waste time on lengthy email back-and-forths. Clients can simply fill out a legal client intake form that goes directly into your law firm CRM, eliminating the need to manually input information. Above all, it's much more efficient. The minute a lead fills out their information, your CRM and legal client intake software like Lawmatics will meticulously track them. That way, you don't have to worry about who's been followed up with or what actions need to be taken next. Your software follows up for you, ensuring that no opportunity gets missed.

2 Do set up a Google Business Page

Online reviews are a critical part of building a digital presence for your law firm. It's critical that you set up a Google business profile where leads can read former client reviews, find out where you're located, and get your contact information. While there are many different review sites available to lawyers, Google is considered the most important, since it's what shows up first on search results.Don't be afraid to ask your former clients to leave you a review on Google. The more reviews you start generating, and the more you respond to, the more you’ll improve your ranking since Google favors active profiles.

3 Do create a social media profile

Nowadays, clients want to connect with their favorite brands, and their lawyers are no exception. Creating a social media profile for your law firm is a great way to build a connection with your clients, and increase brand awareness. If you can manage to create useful and shareable content, you'll build a following for yourself on social media, which will generate more leads. The best part is, social media is entirely free to start a profile on, which can be especially appealing for smaller firms with tighter advertising budgets.

4 Do create a blog

Starting a blog is a great way to establish yourself as an expert in your area of practice without outright calling yourself an expert. Starting a blog is a great way to add more content to your website, which will, in turn, boost your rankings on Google. Something as simple as a weekly blog post that offers a legal tidbit is a great way to get more visitors to your website. It's a good idea to familiarize yourself with the right SEO keywords and make sure they are there throughout, improving your organic search results.

5 Do use calls to action

Advertising is much more powerful and effective if you always include a call to action. Everything from your website to your marketing emails should encourage the reader to take further steps towards becoming a client. A call to action usually comes in the form of a phrase with a hyperlink.

Some ideas of CTA's for your law firm could be:

• Download an ebook
• Sign up for a Free Consultation
• Subscribe to Our Newsletter

The idea is to encourage a lead to take action before letting them click away.

6Do measure your results

In order to ensure you get the maximum return on your marketing investments, you have to measure your results. Using legal reporting software will help you identify what marketing channels are working and what aren't. Custom reporting allows you to assess your marketing campaigns, and identify room for improvement by keeping a close eye on your most important marketing metrics.Although data and analytics may seem out of context in the legal world, it can be one of your most valuable tools for standing out against the competition. Your law firm should be tracking important metrics such as:

• Bounce Rate
• Visit to Lead Ratio
• SEO Keyword Ranking
• Conversions by Source
• Email Click Rate
• Backlinks
• Newsletter Growth

Knowing how well your marketing is performing will help you determine whether you should continue in the direction you're going, or make changes.

7Do keep your leads engaged

The most successful law firms rely on marketing automation for law firms to keep their leads engaged. Attorney intake software streamlines your marketing emails, targeting specific audiences based on characteristics of your choosing. Tools like audience segmentation software allow you to customize what emails go out to who, based on certain triggers. For example, if someone signs up for your newsletter, they'll receive a specific follow-up, while someone who downloads an ebook will receive a different message. Automated personalized messaging makes your law firm memorable, and keeps your leads engaged which ultimately breeds brand loyalty.

Attract new clients and engage your former ones with Lawmatics

Advertising your law firm is a critical part of expanding your law firm and acquiring new clients. However, In addition to the legal market being competitive, it can also be risky if you don't know the advertising fundamentals. Understanding the most important advertising rules will help you maximize your marketing efforts and build a solid long-term marketing strategy for your law firm without problems.Having a clear understanding of the most relevant issues that may come up will help you build brand awareness without any ethical issues.Advertising your law firm starts with embracing legal technology. Trying to manually advertise your firm can be time-consuming, and full of potential errors. By automating your law firm marketing efforts, you can stay focused on what matters most at your law firm, while automation handles the rest.Are you ready to see how an all-in-one legal intake solution, marketing automation and law firm CRM software like Lawmatics can help increase your outreach and win more clients? Sign up for a free demo today!

In today's digital-driven world, people are much more likely to go online to find lawyers than they are to look inside of a heavy phone book. People go on Google to find what they need and they want to find it quickly. Studies show that after performing a Google search, 25% of people will call one of the first three results on the page. If that wasn't enough to make your ears perk up, 95% of web users never even click past the first page of Google search results aka Google SERP.

As the joke goes:- Where is the best place to hide a dead body?- On the second page of Google SERP.

So, in short, you want to make sure that you show up on the top of the first page! The secret to getting to the top is SEO for law firm websites. If you're not sure what that means, don't worry. Chances are they probably (definitely) didn't teach you about it in law school. Besides, this article isn't for lawyers who are already SEO experts. It's for lawyers who are just getting started with their online marketing strategy. So, let's break down what SEO is and how it can help your law firm.

What is SEO?

This short and sweet little abbreviation stands for search engine optimization. It is the practice of bringing more visitors to your website and improving your search engine results. There are a few different ways to use SEO to encourage your websites to appear at the top of the search result page for search engines, and there are several different search engines out there, but the one we all know best is Google.SEO-optimized websites generate more traffic to your law firm’s website on Google and in turn, generate more leads. In short, SEO helps people find your site without it getting lost in a sea of search results.

What is an SEO ranking?

Your ranking, as the name suggests, refers to how you rank on search engine results. For example, a number one SEO ranking means that you appear at the very top of the page for a particular search term.Without making your head spin too much, basically, Google has incredibly complicated algorithms that decide what content gets displayed, how, and the order it will show it to you in. Google gets this information by sending around search bots known as spiders to creep and crawl around the web (Get it? Spiders? Web? You see what they did there?) and add optimized pages to Google's index. So, when people go to Google and search for something, Google will go into its index and deliver what they think the most useful pages are.These spiders check for qualities like:

• Page purpose
• Content quality and amount of content
• Information about whoever created the content
• Reputation
• User Interaction like bounce rates and amount of time spent on the page

And lastly,

• E-A-T: expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. Meaning that they want to make sure that your page can be trusted as a reliable source.

Why does SEO matter for lawyers?

So, how do all these crazy acronyms come into play for your law firm? SEO matters for your law firm because it's a key method for reaching customers, not to mention it's more cost-effective than traditional advertising. Many businesses have been optimizing their website for SEO for years. However, more than ever have now caught onto the importance of focusing on their digital marketing strategy since the onset of COVID. People are online more than ever now, so now is the time to get your law firm visible on Google search results.Let's go over how SEO helps you take your law firm to the next level.

Organic search matters

A recent trends report revealed that nearly 20% of legal clients found their lawyers online by performing a basic search. Usually, it goes something like this: "best lawyer in Denver'' or "divorce lawyers near me." Google lists the best results according to its band of spiders, and the user makes their selection on what to click. This is known as an organic search because the results aren't influenced by advertisements.Organic search traffic is one of the most effective ways to grow your leads. So, as marketers are starting to figure out, you need to make friends with Google if you want to increase your brand's visibility. Although there are different ways to improve your website's performance, ultimately, organic search is almost always the primary source of website traffic.

Builds trust and credibility

Quality SEO establishes trust and credibility for your law firm. When someone clicks on a beautifully laid out website that's easy to get to from a simple web search, then people are more likely to trust its credibility. People assume that whatever Google shows them must be the real deal. However, trust and credibility don't happen overnight; it takes time and patience.By chipping away slowly at your SEO strategies, over time you'll build authority and credibility on Google that establishes yourself as an industry leader.

Better understanding of clients

Once you start tuning into the SEO world, you start understanding the voice of your legal clients. In short, SEO keywords tell us what your potential clients are looking for, and what they need. By observing SEO data, you'll understand the intentions of your ideal client. What are they looking for? What is their user behavior? SEO will lay all of this out to better understand the brains of your target audience.

Improved user experience

Ask any marketing expert, and they'll tell you that user experience should be a high priority. Despite the value of better organic search rankings, user experience is still high up there on the scale of importance. Google knows how to interpret a good user experience, and if it rates your website as a poor user experience, it will affect how successful your website is.So, what goes into the user experience? Some examples include:

• How quickly users can find what they need on your page
• Any errors a visitor encounters
• How mobile-friendly your site is

A great user experience is one that addresses the needs and desires of your website visitors and delivers.

More clients

Local SEO will optimize your presence for a specific area so people can easily find a lawyer near them. By optimizing your page so that it focuses on a specific city or region, you'll stand out as the local trusted source for your practice area. Make sure that in addition to optimizing your website with local citations and backlinks, you also encourage user reviews on your Google business profile. When people search for a local lawyer, and they see you with a 5 star Google review next to your name, chances are they're going to call you first.

You can measure your results

One of the best parts about SEO is that you can measure your results with tracking and analytics. The most successful firms are data-driven and use analytics to understand their performance, especially when it comes to their online marketing efforts.

How to monitor your rankings

Before you can start improving your SEO ranking, you need to know where you are starting from. One of the most straightforward ways to find your starting point is to start Googling search terms that you think potential clients would use to find you. See where your website appears in the list of results.You can also use online Keyword research tools that will show you the specific organic keywords that your website ranks for. Here are a few to choose from.[oxygen-template id="6129"]

6 SEO strategies to start with

1Do keyword research

A great place to start is thinking of what kind of topics or keywords you'd like your law firm website to rank for. Write down at least ten of these. Once you have a few topics in mind, start identifying some important keywords that fall into each of these categories. For example, if you are a family law attorney, and you'd like to rank on a topic like "getting custody of my children," try to think of a few keywords that people might type in related to that.When coming up with keyword ideas, use keyword research tools to find even more alternatives that you may not have thought of otherwise. There are several different keyword research tools to search from, but for purposes of keeping things simple, try using Google Keyword Planner first. It's a straightforward tool that helps you identify how often certain keywords are used, and other alternatives to consider.

2Create a blog that answers potential clients common questions

Websites that have a blog get 55% more web traffic and a whopping 70% more leads than those that don't. Starting a blog on your law firm's website can be an incredible boost to your ranking. Each time that you add a blog post it counts as a new indexed page and increases your credibility.The key to a successful blog is writing about subjects that your target audience wants to know more about. For example, if you're a DUI attorney, it would make sense to write a blog about common DUI charge questions. Provide something valuable that will lead people to your page for more information. Instead of making it an overly self-promotional post, stick to legal advice and double down on what you're good at. Focus on providing your readers with solutions and expertise.A great way to get more readers to your blog is sending out an email blast and promoting on your social media accounts. You can use law firm data analytics software directly built into your law firm CRM to see how well your emails are performing. If your click through rate is not where you'd like it to be, meaning that people aren't following the link to your blog, then tweak your call to action wording a little next time until you see an improvement.The more visitors you can get to engage with your blog, the more credible you'll appear to Google

3Optimize your website with relevant keywords

Now it's time to start using all of those keywords throughout your law firm's website. Every single page on your website should include those keywords to help Google understand what your website is. Each time that you create a new blog post, make sure that you've included all of the words in your keyword list. The more that Google sees these keywords, the more that you'll be leaving bread crumbs for a prospective client to find you.

4Link to your own content

You can think of the number of links that lead back to your website as a popularity ranking on Google. The more websites that link back to your page, the more Google will trust that your website is a valuable source. Linking to your own content can help Google recognize your website as a relevant and authoritative source, increasing your search ranking. In short, each time that you link to another page on your site you're reinforcing your authority.

5Create a Google My Business account

Google My Business is a totally free listing directory and is your direct link to Google Maps and Google local search results. And although there are many different business directory sites, Google is the most important that you should focus your efforts on. 72% of consumers say that they would trust a positive review on Google as much as they would a personal recommendation from a friend. So, if you can manage to establish a five-star reputation for your law firm on Google, you'll find a significant increase in reaching more potential clients.The more reviews you can get from your clients the better. Not only will it improve your search engine rankings, but you'll also establish trust.You can even link directly to your integration with Lawmatics CRM for lawyers and attorney intake software so that people can book their own consultation directly from your Google business profile.

6Analyze and improve your results

Building a winning SEO strategy doesn't happen overnight. You'll have to go through a continuous cycle of trial and error to eventually get the results that you want to see. Analyze your results and refine them as you go. Use a tool like Google Analytics to see how your SEO efforts are performing and how well you're ranking.

Should I do my own SEO or hire an expert?

If all of this is making your head spin, then you're not alone. Your area of expertise is law, not keyword optimization. But using on-page, off-page, and technical SEO can be one of the best things that you do for your law firm. Make no mistake about it, however, there is a time investment required which isn't always realistic for busy lawyers. Adding one more project onto your plate when you already have so many administrative tasks required to run your practice may seem impossible.You may want to consider hiring a law firm SEO expert. Outsourcing your attorney SEO to a pro may be much more convenient than trying to take it all on yourself. Although they are convenient, a law firm SEO expert is an additional investment. So if adding one more expense to your budget isn't something that you want to commit to, then you'll need to carve out more time in your schedule to focus on your law firm SEO marketing strategy.[oxygen-template id="6131"]

Grow your practice with SEO

The overall premise of SEO isn't complicated. Its purpose is to increase your law firm website's visibility on Google and get you more clients. Yet, there is a big learning curve and a significant investment whether you decide to do it yourself or hire external law firm SEO services. Like it or not, it is an essential part of marketing your law firm in 2021.By implementing a marketing strategy full of the best SEO marketing for lawyers and content marketing for law firms, you'll skyrocket the number of leads you produce and in turn, boost your revenue. However, it can't be stressed enough how important it is that you understand what legal client intake is and that you have an effective intake process in place once leads contact your law firm.Many law firms find themselves with a sudden rush of incoming inquiries but don't have a reliable response system that organizes leads and ensures no one gets forgotten. Manually inputting each contact's information is incredibly time-consuming and risks plenty of errors. Statistics show that 86% of the time law firms fail to collect a potential client's email address, which means they can't follow up with email.The right client intake software like Lawmatics will get all of the necessary contact information from a lead the minute they first contact your law firm through Google or fill out a legal client intake form. From that point on they're tracked meticulously, ensuring that no opportunity gets missed, alerting you what actions need to be taken next.You'll be able to see where each lead stands from a glance in one single dashboard, ensuring that your hard SEO efforts don't go to waste. Are you ready to see how Lawmatics law firm CRM and client intake software can help boost your law firm SEO strategy? Sign up for a free product demo today!

The digital world is a marketing hotspot for your law firm, so if you don't understand the value of content marketing yet, then it's time to get acquainted! More and more lawyers are starting to realize that implementing content marketing in their law firm's marketing strategy is vital. It doesn't just enable a law firm to increase brand awareness, build better relationships, and produce more leads — it dramatically boosts your revenue.In today's consumer-driven market, people have seen enough of the same old advertising tactics. It's not as easy to convince consumers with the same approach that worked once upon a time. To grab people's attention in a sea of online advertisements, it's important that you give them something valuable that catches their eye. This is where the value of content marketing comes in.Recent statistics show that content marketing generates triple the number of leads as traditional outbound marketing methods and cost over 60% less. In other words, you get better results for less money. Say what?So, follow along for the Lawmatics guide on content marketing for law firms.

What is law firm content marketing?

Unlike traditional law firm marketing like billboards and newsletters, content marketing is all about creating valuable content that attracts and retains your target audience by offering them something useful. In other words, instead of pitching your services, you attract new business organically by sharing valuable content.In today's world, people can smell slimy sales pitches a mile off. Content marketing is all about convincing people that you're the right lawyer for the job by pitching your business without actually pitching it.Content marketing uses an authentic approach that proves you're the authority in your area of practice. By presenting yourself as an expert, you'll give yourself credibility and convince a prospective client that you're the right person for their case. If you declare yourself an expert, then you're the person they'll turn to when they need legal services.

Benefits of content marketing

Increased website traffic

After spending so much time and energy on building a high-quality website for your firm, it would be a real shame if it didn't get any attention! If you're serious about getting people to your legal website and taking your search engine optimization or law firm SEO marketing to the next level, then you have to start producing quality content. The very foundation of organic Google search results is relevant content that draws people in. By generating high-quality content peppered with plenty of SEO keywords, you can start generating an audience that yields leads.The better content you manage to produce, the more that Google (or any search engine) will start to favor you. The higher your rankings are in Google search results, the more visible you will be to potential clients. In turn, every piece of content you create will add more and more keywords to your website, strengthening your Google presence. The end result is higher web traffic and more high-quality leads that become clients.

Establishes trust

One of the biggest perks of effectively executing your law firm's content marketing is establishing trust. If you can manage to create content that covers common pain points then you'll position yourself as the authority and expert for that particular query. As a law firm, one of the most important qualities you can have is someone your clients can trust. So, rather than mere self-promotion, create material that provides value for your readers. Educate them on what you're best at, and offer helpful insights with expert advice.Become an authentic resource for important and helpful information, and your potential customers will trust you that much more. The idea is to create engaging content that will encourage potential and existing clients to rely on you as a trusted source for expert knowledge.If you can manage to do that, then you'll appeal to a larger audience. A recent survey showed that a whopping 90% of consumers would choose a brand with greater authenticity when making their buying decisions. So, if you manage to make "keeping it real" a priority in your legal content marketing strategy, then you have an opportunity to strengthen your bond with readers and establish trust.

Increased brand awareness

The more that you appear on your potential client's radar, the higher the likelihood that your target audience remembers you when it comes time to hire a lawyer. So, get yourself visible on Google search results by familiarizing yourself with the most common search terms.Establishing brand awareness can be one of the most powerful digital marketing strategies in your arsenal. The more that you can drive your leads to instinctively opt for you compared to other brands the more sales that you can generate.If your law firm continues to pop up with answers to popular legal queries, the more you increase your brand awareness, and the more people will naturally gravitate towards you rather than a lawyer that they've never heard of before. People prefer what's familiar, and it's often really that simple. To help you achieve this, content marketing and marketing automation for lawyers is key.

Improved client relationships

If a potential client is looking for information online and you happen to offer the exact answer to their questions, you give them a reason to love you just a little bit more. If you can manage to provide valuable information at the exact moment they need it, you'll form a better relationship. Combine being informative with being entertaining, and interesting, and you encourage people to become more emotionally invested and form stronger bonds.When you can interact with your potential and paying clients, you'll foster a connection that will delight, entertain, and engage. There's a much better chance that people will do business with you, and perhaps even lead to repeat business if you create great content developed around what they're hoping to solve.

Money saved

Compared to one-way advertising, attorney content marketing is significantly more cost-effective. Social media platforms like Facebook can be one of your greatest resources for reaching the maximum number of people-and it's totally free.Although content creation does require some investment, the return on investment is substantial — whether you outsource to a writer or take time out of your schedule to do it yourself. Posting engaging content on websites, blogs, and social media is significantly inexpensive in contrast to traditional forms of outbound marketing.

Increased sales

Because effective content marketing for lawyers leads to increased web traffic and engagement, increased brand awareness, stronger relationships, and more leads, all these factors will consequently lead to increased sales. Law firms are starting to catch on to this fact, which is why over 60% of law firms spend most of their marketing budgets on their online legal marketing efforts. People are using the Internet to find lawyers more than ever, so if you can make yourself a go-to source on Google, then you'll see a jump in your sales in no time.So lawyers, if you aren't already using legal content marketing as a part of your strategy, then it's time to get started.

Types of law firm content marketing

Blogging

According to recent statistics, blogs are one of the top result-producing forms of media in attorney content marketing strategies. In fact, the very thing you're reading right now is a blog post. Blog posts are a straightforward way to provide valuable information for your target audience that is engaging and informative.

Ebooks

Ebooks are an incredibly worthwhile tool for increasing your contacts. For example, offering a gated e-book on a particular legal issue in exchange for an email address is a fantastic way to grow your contact list in your law firm CRM. It's important to note that Ebooks are typically longer than blogs, and their primary goal is to attract web users to your law firm website. They also make a great call to action at the bottom of your newsletter, or on the landing page of your website.

Podcasts

Starting a podcast is a cool way to engage your listeners and let them get to know you on a more personal level. The great thing about podcasts is that they're candid and can be totally improvised. Statistically, one out of three people in the United States have listened to a podcast over the last 30 days. So, if you have an interesting legal idea to share and decent recording equipment, consider making a podcast!

Social media

There are over 4.2 billion active social media users, so it's safe to say that this is a great place to be seen. Although there are several different social media platforms, some appeal to the legal industry more than others. A great place to start is Facebook.Create a page for your law firm, and engage, share, and comment. The idea of social media is a two-way conversation. The best part about sharing relevant content on social media is you can share third party content. Just make sure that your feed does more than just repost articles with no caption all the time. Share your opinion on it or provide some additional insight. You can share non-original content as long as you include your brand's voice in the caption. Have an opinion!These are just a few content marketing campaign ideas for your law firm. Feel free to do some basic market research of your own to get to know what your target audience's ideal form of content is.[oxygen-template id="6129"]

How to use content marketing for your law firm

Understand your target audience

So you're ready to get started creating content — now what? The great news is that even though you might not think of yourself as a writer, all it takes is a little bit of creativity. No one's asking you to write the next Moby Dick, all you have to do is write about what you already know — law.Before you start a 5000-word essay on legal doctrines that will make readers snooze, back up, and simplify. The reality is that most people aren't looking for long-winded responses with complex legal jargon. Get to know your target audience and what it is that they want to read. One of the most effective ways to do this is to ask your past clients.It's as simple as creating a custom survey and sending it to your contacts with questions like:

• Where do you go for your legal questions online?
• What kind of legal content would you like to see more of online?
• What have been your biggest legal issues?

Get to know what kind of content your potential clients are looking online for by getting to know your past clients better. That way, you can generate engaging and useful content based on what people actually want to see.

Strategize

The first place to start in reaching your long-term visions is by creating a strategy. Without a strategy, you risk wandering through the dark with no real end in sight. By creating a content marketing strategy, you'll significantly increase your chances of getting the kind of results that you want to see.Your content marketing strategy is there to help you set intentions and reinforce why you're doing it in the first place. Here's what your strategy should include:

Who is reading?

The first step is identifying who you're writing for. Who is your target audience, and what type of customer are they? Do they have kids? Are they married? What kind of salary do they have? If you plan on appealing to many different kinds of customers, then segment your content into groups to deliver targeted material to each different type of reader. Define each audience so that you can fine-tune your content to appeal to them as much as possible. Audience segmentation software can be a great tool for getting the right content to the right people at the right time.

What kinds of content will you produce?

There are all different sorts of content that you can produce. Do you plan on writing blogs? How about a podcast? Perhaps you'll create weekly videos on social media providing a quick legal tip. Make a list of the different content formats that you plan on creating, so you'll know exactly what's ahead of you.

How are you different?

For every Google query out there there are about five bajillion (fictitious figure based on zero actual data) other legal blogs attempting to answer the same question. Your strategy should include why your content is unique and why it's worth reading more than the competition's. Have a clear definition of why you're the trusted source that people should turn to.

What issues are you solving for your readers?

After you've picked your past clients' brains for what kind of legal content they'd like to see more of online, make a list of the legal issues that you plan to shed more light on for your audience. A thorough content strategy identifies what your ideal reader's pain points are so that you can become their go-to resource for all things law.

How often do you plan on creating and publishing?

The key to successful content marketing is consistency. Your strategy should include a content schedule that outlines how often you plan on creating and publishing your material. There are all sorts of third-party applications that make it easier to create a content marketing schedule and keep you on top of your goals.

Where will you post your content?

Including a blog on your law firm website is a great way to make Google love you and get people to your page. However, that's not the only channel you can post content to. From LinkedIn to Twitter to YouTube, get to know all of the different channels and decide which ones you plan on focusing on.

Measure your results and stay persistent

Content marketing is an undeniably fantastic way to generate more leads for your law firm and establish yourself as an industry leader. However, to ensure that your marketing efforts are worth your time and resources, it's critical that you measure and evaluate your results. A data-driven approach to your content marketing efforts is the best way to perfect your strategy and yield the most results.By using legal reporting software, you can track your results and make improvements where needed.Are you ready to get an advantage over your competition and scale your law firm? Sign up for a free product demo today to see how Lawmatics can help!