Step by Step Marketing—Part 1

To many lawyers, marketing a law practice is collection of dark arts, where the focus is on a confusing array of the latest tactics. This kind of approach is bound to fail and waste a lot of money in the process. Because attorneys are often a logical group, I thought I’d offer some strategic step-by-step concepts so you can see if your marketing activities are on track.

Step number one is to identify your ideal clients. No use having a fabulous marketing campaign generating lots of business from clients that are unprofitable, or worse, that you hate working with. Construct a virtual avatar of all the perfect clients’ traits and demographics. That’s right, actually construct a vivid picture of these folks or companies. Where do they live? What kind of income and net worth do they have? What organizations do they belong to? Where do they spend their leisure time? You get the picture.

Next, identify the lifetime value of those ideal clients. In other words, over the full lifetime relationship with your firm how much revenue will they generate. This is an important and often surprising number because it will influence how much money you spend on marketing efforts. After all, if you knew that over many years clients typically generate $35,000 in fees to your firm you would have no problem spending more money acquiring that client as opposed to focusing just on the $3,500 initial transaction. The question you should always be asking is how much would I gladly pay to acquire a client worth $35,000 to my firm. The answer will change the way you look at marketing expenses.

With the ideal client profile and the lifetime value of the client firmly fixed in your mind, you’re ready to start the 7 step marketing funnel that we can discuss in our next blog.

Robert Armstrong
President & Co-Founder
American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys, Inc.
6050 Santo Rd Ste 240
San Diego, CA 92124
(800) 846-1555
www.aaepa.com