The Law Firm Marketing Minute
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The Law Firm Marketing Minute
Why People Ignore or Forget Your Law Firm – Marketing Insights
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🧠 If people are ignoring or forgetting your law firm, your marketing isn’t speaking to them the right way. It’s not just about having a great website or landing page—it’s about understanding how potential clients think and what makes them take action. In this episode, Danny and Smike break down the key psychological triggers that help law firms stay top of mind and turn visitors into actual clients.
📌 Key Takeaways:
- The biggest reasons potential clients forget your firm after visiting your website
- How small tweaks in messaging can make your marketing more effective
- Why understanding human behavior is the secret to better client conversion
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Hey, welcome to the Law Firm Marketing Minute. This week we have a bit of a special edition kind of episode. This audio is from last week when Danny and I just kind of sat down and just talked marketing. You know, we touched on landing pages, we touched on lead magnets and a bunch of other marketing stuff that your law firm could surely use. And so I just took that audio and decided, hey, this would make a great episode. I know that our audience will get a lot out of it, so enjoy. And if you have any thoughts on it, please leave us a review. So my law firm needs the perfect landing page for its digital ads. How do I build the perfect landing page?
Speaker 2:The perfect landing page? That's a fun question, mike. There's not really any such thing as a perfect landing page. I think, as you probably well know, the perfect landing page is a landing page that converts at 100%. Right, because that is the only actual measure of a landing page. Is conversion right, like, really, you can design the prettiest landing page in the world, the smartest landing page in the world. Right, like, really, you can design the prettiest landing page in the world, the smartest landing page in the world. Right, you can create something that you feel amazing about. But at the end of the day, the point of a landing page is conversion. It actually doesn't matter how visually attractive it is or isn't, or how great the copy is or isn't. Ultimately, it's about conversion. So when I say 100% conversion rate, I'm obviously joking, right, because there's no such thing as a landing page that's actually going to convert at 100%. But the point is, all that really matters is conversion rate. So the better your conversion rate, the better your landing page, and there's a lot of elements that go into it. Right, and I can certainly talk about some of the most important pieces of a landing page and maybe even talk a little bit about what's likely to make a landing page convert at a higher rate?
Speaker 2:First thing I'll say is this you have to be testing. The mistake that most law firms and most businesses make is, when they create a landing page, they just create one version of it and um, and, and that's all they use. Well, for, for a landing page to really work, you have to test different variables, you have to test different headlines, you have to test different colors, you have to test different uh, call to action buttons, and so that's where we recommend using software Like we love unbounce, um, but there are other platforms out there as well. Using software like we love unbounce, yeah, um, but there are other platforms out there as well. Um, you need to be able to test, because otherwise you are just guessing. You're putting something out there. Maybe you feel good about it, but guess what I have in. You know, in the, in the 15 or 20 years I've been in this field, I've seen over and over again a landing page that I think is ugly but converts much better than a landing page that looks beautiful.
Speaker 1:So, honestly, at the end of the day, you just don't know, unless you're just trying things. If you have just one variant, just one style of landing page, and if it doesn't meet or even come close, close to your expectations, you almost don't have a sense of direction at that point yeah, no, you're kind of flying blind.
Speaker 2:If you just go with one landing page with no testing, you're kind of flying blind and, um, maybe it gets a. You know 12, 14 conversion rate and you're feeling great about that. But what you didn't know was that if you had used a different combination of colors and words and whatever, you could have been converting it 20 percent, yeah, and so you know. That's where we've talked in the past about how marketing is part art and part science, um and uh, and because we're dealing with like irrational human beings, we just don't know what's actually going to work. So the key is you need to put as many different sort of variables out there and test them and see what works.
Speaker 2:And, like you know, one of the things we like to do, you know, with our internal team, is when we're launching a new landing page or a new ad campaign is like we'll sometimes like guess you know? We'll be like all right, I think this version of the landing page is going to win, and some other people will be like no, this one and is going to win, and some other people will be like, no, this one. And sometimes we're right and sometimes we're wrong, and that's the whole point is like we've been doing this for like 15 years, seen hundreds of landing pages and even we can't necessarily write out the gate, say like this one is going to be the winner, because you just never know until you actually get it out there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that makes it a little bit more of a internally just a little bit more fun as well. Right, who's going to be right, like? Whose hunch is the better hunch here?
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I will say there are some higher leverage sort of pieces of a landing page. The headline and sub-headline are really important. You want your headline to visually stand out, so it's the first thing that people read. Headline to visually stand out, so it's the first thing that people read. And and your headline needs to grab people and, um, help them understand, uh, that they're in the right place. So so you, you don't, you don't want to just use a headline that says something like book a free consultation, right, like, let's say, you know, let's say we're talking about estate planning and you and you, and the goal of the landing page is to get somebody to. You know, schedule a, a consultation. You know, maybe your headline is something like you know, sleep better at night knowing that your kids are protected, right, you want to speak to.
Speaker 1:You want to speak to the benefits right and and that describes the who real quick, because it's speaking directly to parents- exactly, that's exactly right, exactly right.
Speaker 2:So it's like you know, yeah, so you make it clear who you're speaking to, how you're going to help them, sure down the line, you're going to tell them what to do next, you know, book your consultation. But like you really want to pull them in with a headline and really speak to the benefits, yeah, another sort of high leverage thing here, um, is the actual form itself. So the actual place that you want people to enter their first name, their last name, you know their contact information. You want that thing to be visually attractive. You want it to kind of pop. Um, you want it to look like something.
Speaker 2:I heard, I heard someone described it once as you want to make the form look like something that people are excited to fill out. Right, you don't want it to feel like a, like a, like a bank application, where it's just like boring and long and endless. Right, you want to make it like pop, visually feel high energy, get people excited to fill it out. And there's a whole conversation to be had about how much information you ask for on that form. Right, because we've tested, for example, like you could theoretically just ask for somebody's first name and email address and that's it. Or you could really just ask for just their email address, and we've tested, you know, asking for sort of minimal information and then asking for a lot more, and it really there's no right or wrong here. It depends on you know the specific campaign. The less information you ask for, the more people are going to fill out your form.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's just human nature, like people are lazy and also don't like to give up their personal information. But the less information you ask for, you know the less time you have or the less info you have to qualify the lead based off of right. So you know, if we're just giving away, like a free resource or something like that, we may just ask for name and email address. But if you know if we are internally or if we're working with our clients and they're trying to actually get consultation scheduled and they want to be sure they're not wasting time with unqualified leads, we might ask for a lot more information name, phone number, email address, but also like what's their zip code so we can be sure they're in the right geography. You know if this is a campaign targeting parents, like ask them how many kids they have, right, like we start asking for more information as needed to better qualify the leads. But we do know what's going to happen as a result of that is you're going to have a lower volume overall. So it's always just that trade off.
Speaker 3:Hey there, jana, here. I hope you're enjoying this episode and we will get right back to it in a minute. Listen, and we will get right back to it in a minute. Listen. Out of all the things Danny has taught me about marketing, one of his best lessons is that the hammer is a great tool, but it's pretty much useless if you need to get a screw in the wall. Marketing is the same way. There are so many tools, but the ones that make sense for your law firm depend on your goals. So when you have 30 minutes to talk about strategy and tools, I'd love to share proven tactics, some free resources, minutes to talk about strategy and tools. I'd love to share proven tactics, some free resources and possible courses of action. Check the podcast description to reserve the best time for you, and I look forward to talking more. Now let's get back to the episode.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that actually goes back to what the listeners can use as a variant, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:No, that's a great thing to test is what happens if I ask for more information versus what happens if I ask for less information.
Speaker 2:And the truth is like almost, I can almost guarantee you, if you ask for less information, you are going to have more people fill out your landing page, but you are then going to have to do some more work on the back end to qualify them, and so it's like if you've got a sales team with time on their hands and they can do that, fantastic. A lot of the attorneys we work with either don't have a sales and intake team or maybe they're part time, and so you know they don't have time to make five phone calls a day to a prospect, and so it is more important to focus on quality over quantity and kind of capture more information on that form, to focus on quality over quantity and kind of capture more information on that form. So that's just all something that really has to be worked out based on the goals of the campaign and also just the realities of each individual. You know, businesses, sales and intake team and process.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So it seems that it's proven again that everything comes down to the psychology of it all, the psychology of marketing, for example, just in real life, a scenario in life where, if I went to a birthday party but there was no decorations, no cake, there was just people just standing around, nothing else.
Speaker 1:I'd probably start questioning myself is something wrong? Am I in the right place, you know? So it's like to kind of go down the landing page itself and kind of touch on what you were saying. Start off with hey, make sure you're in the right place, right, if they show up there and they don't feel like they're in the right place deterrent, right off the bat, right place, deterrent, right off the right off the bat. Then next, make sure that you're giving ample information for them to kind of reaffirm what they're, what they're kind of thinking already, like you know, uh, what am I gonna get from this?
Speaker 1:Um is, is this gonna be worth my time? Is this? Also, is this gonna be work, worth information handing over my email? Because I think humans are smart enough at this point in the digital age to realize that, hey, yes, if I'm giving away a lead magnet, yes, I'm going to ask for an email and it's going to be added to our list and that sort of thing. I think we're kind of at that point where we have realized that right, so before you bring them to that form. You want to make sure you're saying like yes you're in the right place.
Speaker 2:You're the right person for this.
Speaker 1:This is the right thing for you and it's just your email.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I love that you touched on that, because even though we're giving these things away for free, right? So whether we're talking about like a lead magnet, you know, like a PDF or a checklist or a free report, and we're giving away for free, or even if and again you know, thinking about law firms out there who are listening to this, you know, maybe your consultation is free, right? And so there's this natural tendency with business owners to think, well, if I'm giving this away for free, like, all I have to do is say it's free and then people are going to be lined up for it. Well, to your point, mike, that's not how it works anymore.
Speaker 2:People are very reluctant to give up their contact information because they already get enough email, right. They're not looking for more spam in their inbox. And even when it comes to like a free consultation, like, yeah, you might not be charging them dollars for it, but they got to spend their time, right, whether it's 15 minutes or an hour, and people are busier today than they've ever been. And so, yeah, people aren't excited about, they're not going to be excited about spending an hour with you if they don't really feel like they're going to get something out of it, not going to be excited about spending an hour with you if they don't really feel like they're going to get something out of it.
Speaker 2:So, whether you are asking them just to, you know, give their email and in exchange for like your lead magnet, or asking them to schedule a consultation, you absolutely, 100% have to sell the value of it, and so having a landing page that does that, like you said, mike, it needs to show them they're in the right place. It needs to sort of communicate the benefits, like what's in it for them. Get them excited about it, even if it's free, market it like it's something that you're about to charge $500 for. Really sell the value of it, even if it's free.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so let's talk about lead magnets. Then I know you said you wanted to talk about lead magnets. Was there something in mind that specifically you wanted to talk about? No, let's to talk about lead magnets. Was there something in mind that specifically?
Speaker 2:you wanted to talk about. No, let's just talk about lead magnets.
Speaker 1:Cool, cool. So lead magnets I mean for people listening that might not be familiar with the term lead magnet. I mean kind of makes sense in the name, right, you're attracting leads, but like in what way?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So a lead magnet is something you're giving away for free in exchange for somebody's contact information. I like to think of it as when you are offering a lead magnet, you're basically getting someone to raise their hand and say, hey, I'm interested in this topic. And for you as a business owner, what you're doing is you are getting leads to identify themselves. You are getting potential clients to identify themselves. Think of it this way.
Speaker 2:Think of imagine you're an estate planning attorney. Let's say you're in a small town and there's 10,000 people in your town and you're just imagine you're somehow like in a big field and you're looking at all 10,000 of them lined up and you're like, all right, well, who do I talk to in order to sell my estate planning services? Well, if they're just 10,000 people standing in a line like man, you got it and there's no real way to like tell what are you going to do. You're just going to go one by one by one and you're going to waste your time talking to 9,950 people who have no interest in this. Or what if, instead, you say, hey, I've got this free checklist for parents who are interested in estate planning. Who wants it? 50 of them, step up and grab it.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, now you know, those 50 people are the first people you should talk to, right? Because they are the people that are actually interested in the subject material. Now, does that mean that all 50 of them are ready to hire you today? Not necessarily. There might even be a few people in that group of 50 who are just interested in learning because they're weird and they like to learn, right. But the bottom line is you've just gotten out of the 10,000 people in this town, you've now gotten the 50 who are most likely to be interested in estate planning, to identify themselves, and then those are the people that you're really going to want to market to. So that's the idea of a lead magnet is you're getting people to express some interest in the topic and then you market to those people, rather than wasting your time and effort marketing to. You know, 10,000 people, 99% of whom, like, aren't interested in what you're doing in the first place, for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. And to kind of add to the example that you were given there, some people who download the lead magnet might also just want to be proactive, right when it's like uh, I haven't been in a car accident. But I also to your point that I just want to learn. I want to know what the five, 10 things I should do if I'm in a car accident. But guess what? They don't need you then, but say they do get into a car accident, god forbid.
Speaker 2:They are going to think of you first because you're the one that taught them what to do yeah, and if you're doing it right, you're also, you know, once you capture their contact information, then you start marketing to them and so, like in your example, someone was in, you know, in a car accident.
Speaker 2:It might have been three months after they downloaded the lead magnet, it might've been three years, but if you've been doing it right, you know youing them a couple times a month and you've been retargeting them with your ad campaign. So they're seeing your stuff over and over and over again until the moment comes when they finally are ready to work with you. And that's the whole premise with lead magnets is we know that those aren't necessarily going to be the hottest leads. Some of them might be ready to hire you immediately. Some of them might just be in sort of the research stage of all this. And so once you capture their information like that's not the end point, that's really the starting point that's when you start nurturing the relationship. Again, you know we're big on doing that through email marketing, through organic social media content, but then also through some of the things we've talked about in previous episodes Mike, the retargeting right.
Speaker 2:So, ads that continually show up over and over to people that are on your list, because now it's about nurturing those relationships.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and how many lead magnets do you think that a law firm should have, like, let's say, within a one to two year time span, like should they refresh them every so often, or?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a great question Like how many lead magnets At minimum you should have two or three, yeah, and you really want to be testing them and that's why I say don't generally start with just one. This kind of comes back to we've talked about this with the landing pages too. You actually don't know what people are going to be most interested in, so you can create, let's say, you create a lead magnet. One of the lead magnets we've seen work pretty well, consistently for divorce firms is like eight you know, eight steps before you file for divorce or something like that. But so we've seen that work because we've tested that across a bunch of different markets.
Speaker 2:But if you just come out for the first time with a lead magnet that you feel great about, you might be wrong, like it might not be the thing people are looking for.
Speaker 2:So I always suggest people come to market with at least two lead magnets, test them both, see which one people are more excited by, and then you can lean into that one, but then also create a third.
Speaker 2:And now create, now test those two against each other, right, and if it sounds like never ending, it kind of is never ending and that's the. That's one of the things about marketing is you've got to be constantly managing, monitoring, adjusting your marketing systems, um, because what's killing it today might not be killing it 12 months from now, and you need to be paying attention to the data so you can kind of adjust as you go. So, like in an ideal world, if I'm talking to a small law firm, I would suggest they create a new, a new lead magnet every quarter, like every three months. Create a new lead magnet, um, and then test it against what you've already got, um, maybe it'll flop, maybe it won't, um, but this got, maybe it'll flop, maybe it won't, but this keeps you current, it keeps you sort of in the discipline of doing it and it just keeps you connected to what's actually working now in your market, just as opposed to what was working a year or two ago.
Speaker 1:So where does a small law firm owner begin when trying to think of, okay, what should I create as a lead magnet, like, what should the topic be Like? Is there a place that they can kind of start, or what do you recommend?
Speaker 2:Yeah, great question when to start with your lead magnet. So, um, the simplest way to answer that is you want to be answering the questions that your clients have in their minds before they've even spoken to you. The good news is, if you're listening to this, as an attorney, you probably already know these things, right. What are the questions when you sit down for a consultation with a new client Like? What are the first two or three things that you're usually asked? Well, good bet that those are. That would make for a good lead magnet.
Speaker 2:You can also just use some like intuition, right. And so again in the family law space often and talking divorce specifically most potential divorce clients out there aren't going to actually sit down with an attorney until they're pretty close. They've either made the decision their spouse has filed for divorce or they're about to. But if you want to get to them a little earlier which is a great thing you want to reach them when they're still in this thinking about it stage. Something like five steps before you file for divorce, five steps before you open your new business, five steps before you file for divorce right, five steps before you open your new business, five steps before you apply for a green card right and you try to reach people who are just in that stage of researching your services, Especially since they're going to be like you said, they're going to be researching, so they're going to be actively looking for resources to help them out to begin with.
Speaker 1:So if you're right, then they're like bada bing, bada boom.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, exactly. Another just strategy I'll throw out there for people and this comes from us having tested hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of lead magnets over the last several years People love checklists, people love cheat sheets, so like leaning into this idea that, like the consumer in 2025 is busy, right, and giving them something that feels like it's going to be short and to the point and really like man, like impress. What we've seen in recent years is, honestly, there's so much content and information out there and people just don't have time to consume it all. So 10 years ago, your 300-page e-book might have been a really exciting offer, but what we're seeing now more often is people get excited about a one-page checklist or five simple steps. Get excited about a one page checklist or or five simple steps. Right, they want things that are quick, digestible, get to the point and aren't going to take them their entire weekend to get through yeah, and to kind of talk about, um, you know what the almost like.
Speaker 1:I feel like the underlying theme of what we're, everything we've been talking about has been about how this is very much long term goals for law firms Like this is. I feel like there's a lot of marketing agencies out there that promise a real quick short-term fix, like, oh, we'll get you 10,000 leads in 30 days and this and that, but you know, at the end of the day, those aren't probably the best leads. You know they're probably names, but they're probably not the best leads to go off of.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of value in generating these leads that are earlier in their buying process. I'm glad you brought that up, Mike, because a lot of lawyers are only excited about the hottest leads, the leads that need to hire somebody immediately. And don't get me wrong, I understand why people are excited about those things right.
Speaker 1:I'd be excited about it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, because if they're ready to hire you today. Great.
Speaker 2:The thing is people that are in that place are generally price shopping right Because they're calling you, but they're also calling three other firms. They're often price shopping. They're often making the decision based just on who answers the phone or who gets back to them the quickest they're not necessarily the best long-term clients versus if you reach somebody through a lead magnet earlier in their buying cycle when they're still in that research stage. You have a lot of time. You sort of have like an exclusive relationship with them where you can do what I call preconditioning them right, where you can start sending them resources, send them a video about your law firm, like you can precondition them, get them really excited to work with you and then, when it comes time, when they are actually ready to make a decision, like they're biased towards working with you because they already feel like they know you, they're less likely to be price shopping, they're less likely to call five other firms because you've already created that relationship with them. And this is especially valuable when you can work video into your marketing because when they've like, watched some video and like, like you know, picked up on your body language and they feel like they know you. We get this all the time from clients where they're like, oh, they'll tell us, um, yeah, you know we.
Speaker 2:We launched videos last year and you know, now when people come in for consultations, they tell us. I feel like I already know you because I've been watching your videos and that's awesome. It's like you've now really separated yourself from all the other attorneys in your market and you did it because you got to them before they were calling everybody. Yeah, right, so that's the advantage, like it's like swimming upstream. You know it's your, your, all of your competitors, everybody's fishing in the same spot, but now you're walking 100 yards upstream and you have the opportunity to get to them before everybody else. That's what using lead magnets does. It's about moving upstream and getting to them before everybody else is marketing to them.
Speaker 1:That's a great way to put it Honestly, that's a great way to put it and it makes so much sense. I mean, you're taking them on this journey, you know, and the journey is worth it. We talk about story brand and how, like you know, as much as some lawyers may want to be the heroes of the story, they're not, but they still have that very important part to play as, like, the wise guide for the actual heroes, which is their clients.
Speaker 2:Yeah, which is their clients? Yeah, and the more time you have to market to them and create a relationship with them, the better you can, the more opportunity you have to establish yourself as that guide, that trusted resource. That's what it's all about. Yeah, absolutely Well.
Speaker 1:Danny, I appreciate you sharing all your knowledge here. Yeah, man, this turned into something a lot better than I initially thought.
Speaker 2:I mean don't get me wrong, I didn't have low expectations. But it's okay, mike, you can say it. I didn't think you knew shit about marketing, but no, yeah, man always good, always good. All right, man, thanks cool.