Today’s tire kickers are tomorrow’s customers Law firm editing service

Just because a potential client isn’t ready to engage you and your law firm today doesn’t mean all hope is lost.

I was recently speaking with a well-known local attorney who practices family law.

He has a small but profitable law practice targeting wealthy clients.

We were talking about how his clients found him. It surprised me.

Although he is active at the local bar association, it turns out that the majority of his new clients find him online.

I said, “That’s cool.” “Do you think the money you spend on digital marketing is money well spent?”

He said, “Eh.” “I tend to get a lot of tire kicks. They call us but aren’t ready to move on or just want information about the cost of the divorce.

“Today’s tire makers can be tomorrow’s customers if you engage them effectively,” I said. “What do you do to engage your tire kicks?”

He replied, “Nothing really.”

I said, “In this case, you’re just throwing your digital marketing money down the drain.” “You already paid to be found and to visit your website. Now you have to keep them engaged until they hire you or tell you they are not interested.

This family attorney does something that many law firm owners do, regardless of the size of their firm or practice.

They focus on potential clients, and the people they seem willing to hire. They often ignore the fact that just because someone hired them this week, or this month, or even this quarter, doesn’t mean they never will.

I came across a statistic a while ago that, though I can’t remember for the life of me the organization that posted it, has been etched in my mind ever since.

According to a direct marketing survey, 50% of people who asked for more information about a product or service ended up buying that product or service.

Only 15% of the 50% of people who purchased the product or service did so within 90 days of asking for information.

The remaining 85% purchased the product or service between 91 days and 18 months after the information was requested.

This means that if this statistic were still true today and applied to your company, for every 100 leads you encountered, between 7 and 8 customers would retain you within 90 days, while between 42 and 43 customers would retain between 91 days and 18 months after that . communicate with you first.

When it comes to law firms, I think that 15%/85% is about right, if they don’t expand to include more people in the 91 days to 18 months category.

After all, with the exception of criminal law and perhaps one or two other areas of law, most legal problems are problems that people don’t rush to address.

For example, if someone’s family member is involved in a serious accident, they may take weeks off to find a personal injury lawyer.

A small business owner looking for a franchise attorney but distracted by running his or her business can spend weeks researching attorneys, reading the content of their website and blogs, and maybe even signing up for a free consultation, but still drag their feet before hiring an attorney.

A family searching for a special education attorney for their school-age child may contact some attorneys early in the search process, but continue to read about the problems their child is having in school and what additional services should be available to the child before they can finally That includes keeping one of those lawyers.

In-house counsel in the market for a new outside hiring consultant may spend weeks researching lawyers and law firms and reading their content online after meeting a few of those lawyers at a conference before making a final decision and preparing for a serious conversation with an attorney about what they are looking for.

And for those people who are considering divorce, you better believe they will research the divorce process in their state, learn about spousal or child support and visitation, and generally educate themselves about what they are about to do and how it will go about it. They influence their families before they make a final decision about hiring a lawyer – even if they have attended a number of free consultations with different lawyers.

The tire kicks my family lawyer friend was complaining about were the tire kicks the moment they first contacted him.

But they may not stay kicking tires for long. He may be weeks away from deciding to hire a lawyer. Or just days away.

Once you realize that your tire users could be future customers but are not yet ready to make that decision, the question becomes how can you help them prepare to make that decision and guide them to the conclusion that they should do so by retaining you?

You can engage them with educational content.

I will address this topic in an upcoming post.

Bottom line: Just because a potential client isn’t ready to engage with you and your law firm today doesn’t mean all hope is lost.