Your 2008 (and Beyond) Marketing Plan
It's time to assess your 2007 marketing efforts and plan for 2008, but be careful: don't be too heavily influenced by what you've seen over the past couple of months. Just as your business likely sees seasonal fluctuations, so will the payoff on your marketing investments. It may be that at a particular time of the year, all of your marketing sources produce at a lower volume. Traditionally, for instance, you can expect to see fewer bankruptcy clients and divorce clients in December.
It's also possible, though, that certain marketing media reach more of your prospective clients during certain times of the year. When that's the case, assessing the value of your marketing outlets based on the results you've seen over a period of two or three months might paint a very misleading picture.
If you've been tracking where your clients came from throughout 2007, you're in a great position to use that information to make good decisions about 2008. If you haven't, gather the information you can and use this time to set up a complete tracking system for 2008. Here's some of the critical information that you should be gathering from every prospect who calls your office and also tracking as that prospects moves from initial call to scheduled appointment to visiting your office to becoming a paying client.
- How did you hear about us? It's pretty common for businesses to ask this question, but it's not enough. For instance, for most law offices, the response "yellow pages" is inadequate: you need to know which yellow pages, and which advertisement in the yellow pages. If you're assessing the power of your marketing dollars, you'll need to know whether it was the regular text listing or the high-priced graphic advertisement that brought the consumers to your door.
- How many/what percentage of consumers who responded to that ad scheduled an appointment? It's easy to think that a marketing outlet is working well for you if it keeps the telephone ringing, but those incoming calls don't earn you a dime—in fact, if they're not paying off in the long run, then they're costing you overhead without any return. While conversion efforts in your office make a difference, there are other pieces to the puzzle; one of them is that some sources bring in better prospects than others.
- Who talked to the client initially? Some people in your office are probably better at getting the appointment nailed down than others, and you want to make use of that skill whenever possible. Again, though, that's not the whole picture: if you keep and analyze thorough records, you may well find that one person in your office has greater success with people who are responding to a television ad, while another seems to connect with your yellow page callers or web prospects.
- How many/what percentage of callers who scheduled an appointment kept that appointment? Again, getting the call and scheduling the appointment can create the feeling of activity and payoff, but what's really important to you isn't phone calls or scheduled appointments—it's clients.
- What are the average fees associated with inquiries coming through this marketing outlet? Not all cases and clients are created equal, as you well know. Track the fees associated with each inquiry to determine which outlets bring in higher quality cases and clients.
Of course, knowing what information you need to gather is only half the battle; it's equally important that you set up a consistent and manageable system for gathering, recording and analyzing that information. That means:
- Consistency: Ask the same questions of every prospect who calls you or client who walks through the door.
- Tracking: Set up a spreadsheet or other easy-to-use system that's readily accessible by everyone who talks with clients, or put one person in charge of gathering this information from your staff and attorneys on a regular basis. Information should be updated at every stage of the process, from initial call to scheduled appointment to show/no-show to follow up calls to the day the client retains you.
- Analysis: Many law firms and other small businesses gather some of the information above, but then don't know what to do with it. Use the information you've collected to make assessments at several levels, including:
- Is this marketing source paying off for you at all?
- If so, is one of your ads there the clear leader? Are there any that aren't paying off?
- Is there a certain staff member or attorney that traffic from a particular source should be routed through?
- Are there other changes to your process that might increase conversions from one or more sources?
- Is the value of the prospects coming through a particular source higher than those coming through other sources?
- Are there marketing outlets that generate a lot of calls but rarely convert? If so, determine whether you should be working to increase conversion or investing those marketing dollars elsewhere.
2007 is the best time to make the most of your 2008 marketing! That means not only analyzing last year's data, but putting together a clear plan to gather data and keep refining in 2008 and beyond.
New Federal Rules Took Effect on December 1
The primary stated purpose of the overhaul of the Federal Rules effective December 1, 2007 was to eliminate archaic and unnecessarily complicated language and clarify—in most cases without changing the substance of the rules. A few rules were subject to substantive changes as well.
The overall flavor of the change is readily apparent at a glance. For example, here is Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 1, new and old:
New Rule: These rules govern the procedure in all civil actions and proceedings in the United States district courts, except as stated in Rule 81. They should be construed and administered to secure the just, speedy, and inexpensive determination of every action and proceeding.
Old Rule: These rules govern the procedure in the Untied States district courts in all suits of a civil nature whether cognizable as cases at law or in equity or in admiralty, with the exceptions stated in Rule 81. They shall be construed and administered to secure the just, speedy, and inexpensive determination of every action.
Some experts have expressed concern that changes intended only to update the language may in fact raise questions about the meaning of the new rules. Surely it's safe to say "all" and not explicitly list admiralty, but is the shift from "shall" to "should" significant? The degree to which questions like that will be significant as seasoned attorneys adapt to the new language and new lawyers review the rules with a fresh eye remains to be seen.
The new rules are available on the U.S. Courts' website:
While these rules took effect without Congressional action on December 1, 2007, evidentiary rules take effect only with Congressional approval. On December 11th, Senator Patrick Leahy introduced a bill to add Rule 502 to the Federal Rules of Evidence. The Rule, which is identical to the Proposed Rule 502 approved by the Judicial Conference of the United States, governs waiver of attorney-client privilege and work-product privilege in federal proceedings.
The Importance of Giving Back
With 2007 quickly reaching its end, you may have already taken the time to reflect back on the success you've had in the last year and how you will continue to improve your practice in the future. If you haven't yet done so, you will likely be planning such an evaluation shortly.
When evaluating the last year of business, it's important that you don't forget to ask yourself how you've fulfilled your responsibility of giving back to the community and how you will continue to do so in 2008 and beyond.
A practice that donates time and resources to the community shows that it is about more than itself and its bottom line, and is truly looking to make a difference by improving the lives of those around it. That means that every action you take to benefit those around you can benefit your practice as well, helping to establish your firm as a valued community member and a "familiar face" among your prospective clients.
The great thing about giving back to the community is you can do it in so many creative ways. Giving back doesn't necessarily have to mean giving money; it can be something as simple as encouraging your employees to contribute to food or clothing drives.
Making an impact can include partnering up with a local non-profit organization and helping them with one of their special events on a weekend, whether that's sponsoring a specific event or having employees volunteer their own free time.
Some of the ways we've given back in 2007 include:
- Total Bankruptcy co-hosted a fundraiser with Start Fresh Today, raising $2,000 for the Clark County Pro Bono Project;
- Total Divorce matched donations to Donors Choose in the first-ever initiative to join bloggers around the world in raising money and awareness for a cause;
- In our offices, we collect canned goods from employees for a Thanksgiving food drive; and
- Our employees donated more than 50 toys to Toys for Tots.
As you can see, there are many ways that you can give back to the community, and doing so can actually be a great means to get your employees involved and excited about being a part of your organization.
How did you give back to the community in 2007? Shoot an email to newsletters@totalattorneys.com, and perhaps we'll share some of the more creative responses in a future newsletter.
Kevin's Corner
Practice Management Tip of the Month:
"When we think about practice building, it's natural to look first to increasing revenues by driving new business. It's important to remember, though, that although bringing in new clients and retaining current ones is at the core of a successful legal practice, it's only one piece in the profitability puzzle.
"We've talked quite a bit in this edition of Practice Makes Perfect about assessing the return on your marketing investment. The premise is simple: devote your money to the marketing outlets that are paying off for you, and don't spend money where you're not reaping benefits. As a general concept, it seems obvious, but have you really assessed your other expenses to find out which ones are paying off and which are just money down the drain?
"For many businesses, assessing employee benefits can yield surprising results. Too often, firms simply go with standard benefits packages and don't really think about what their specific employees want and need.
"Assessing the return on investment with regard to employee benefits doesn't mean providing fewer benefits; it means making sure that the things you're paying for are things your employees value. Far from cutting corners with your employees, this assessment is all about making sure that they—and in turn your office morale, employee retention and loyalty—are getting the greatest possible value for your investment.
"That means understanding your employee demographics and what's important to the people who work for you. You can begin the process simply, by looking at the benefits you're currently offering to determine whether any of them are going unused. If so, that money might be better spent elsewhere.
"In upcoming newsletters, we'll look at factors to consider in assessing the value of various overhead expenditures in general, and employee benefits specifically."
- Kevin Chern is President of Total Attorneys Inc. and a Law Practice Management Consultant to more than 650 law firms throughout the country.
Putting the Total Program to Work for You
Asking the Right Questions
The Total Attorneys program does most of the foundational work to help you increase the likelihood of making a contact something more.
For example, our call center agents immediately and persistently respond to each inquiry with the goal of transferring that contact to your office, while the TA program also compiles and provides you with details about the contact to help you kick off your conservation with him.
While the TA program does much of the groundwork, it is ultimately in your hands to get that prospect to take the next step and make a commitment to you once contact has been made. With that said, asking the right questions during your conversation is a great way to connect with a client and get him to make a commitment.
But what are the right questions? In itself, this is a very good question that typically depends on the specific contact at hand. While the TA program provides you with introductory details about the contact even before you've talked to him—thus giving you an idea of possible questions to ask—do not discount the importance of listening to the contact.
The first 30 seconds of every conversation with a contact should involve the contact speaking about what's on his mind and you gauging what he wants to talk about. Once you have an understanding of what is motivating the contact, you can then use what he's said as a foundation to formulate some questions.
A key thing when asking questions is to remember that you want to verbalize the contact's experiences and make it apparent to him that action is required. This may often be accomplished by following up on his concerns with questions that are empathetic. In other instances, you may need to ask questions that you already know the answers to in order to further build a feeling within the client that you understand his problems and can help.
While asking the right questions requires a combination of listening to the client, building off of his current feelings, and confirming the need for action, it can go a long way to validating a contact and creating confidence within him about your abilities.
Your Sponsor Advocate Team
Clarifying the Appointment Time
Our sponsor advocate team occasionally gets questions about our notification of an appointment time with a contact. Here's a clear-cut explanation of what the appointment time is and what it means to you!
Whenever a contact fills out our online form, our system will automatically generate an appointment time at which a call center agent will attempt to call the contact and connect him with your office.
After submitting his information online, the contact will be taken to a "Thank You" page with the appointment time listed. This information lets the consumer know when our agents will be calling him and essentially gives him a "heads up" of when he can expect a call from us.
Of course, our agents will attempt to contact the consumer as soon as we receive his information. However, we don't always get through right away. The purpose of the appointment time is to increase the chance of the contact being there when our call center agents call him.
So how does this apply to you?
When a contact in your area submits his information online, you will receive a notification email of this inquiry and an appointment time.
The appointment time does not mean that you have to call the contact. Nor does it mean that we are scheduling an appointment with the contact coming into your office.
Rather, the appointment time is simply our notification of when we will attempt to call a contact and then connect him with your office. The appointment time notification thus lets you know when we are hoping to transfer the contact to your office and put him in your hands.
If you have any specific questions about the appointment time or anything else, Senior Sponsor Advocate Tressa DiGiulio and her sponsor advocate team can provide even more clarification.
Simply call 312-753-6911 or shoot an email to support@totalattorneys.com to get in touch with our sponsor advocate team, which is always glad to help out in any way possible.
Happy Holidays!
