If you’ve spent any time talking with marketing professionals (hi!) or researching legal marketing strategies, you’ve likely heard the term “conversion” tossed around. But what are conversions, and why do they matter?
A conversion is whenever a potential client follows a call to action (CTA), which is an instruction from you to take a desired action. This desired conversion action can be as simple as clicking a “read more” button or visiting your website after seeing an ad.
Some other examples include:
- Signing up for a newsletter
- Opening, reading, and clicking through your newsletter
- Filling out a contact form
- Following your firm on social media
- Downloading an ebook
Conversions like these matter a great deal for the success of your digital marketing strategies. Conversions turn website visitors into leads, which gives you a further opportunity to turn those leads into clients. That person who subscribed to your newsletter is now engaged with your law firm and in your contact list, which puts them one step closer to filling out a contact form. Once they fill out a form, they get the opportunity to speak with your team and learn more about their options — and you get to decide whether they’re an ideal client. All because your website was carefully designed to support them and make it easy for them to take the action steps you want.
Now that we’ve established why conversions matter, we’ll detail five steps that you can follow to set up your website and other digital marketing properties to maximize conversions.
1. Decide Which Conversion Actions Matter to You and Set Goals Around Those Actions
Developing tactics to grow conversions doesn’t have to be a long, arduous process. In fact, with a little planning, creating conversion goals and strategies to meet them can be relatively straightforward. Choose which conversions you want to focus on and make small, carefully planned adjustments rather than making lots of changes at once.
For example, your email newsletter is a great place to start thinking about conversion goals. According to the Legal Marketing Association:
- The average email open rate for a law firm is 34%
- 19% of firms surveyed said their email click-through rate was between 1% and 10%
If your current analytics reveal fall below these averages, don’t fret. Instead, try doing some research on tactics that improve email open rates and click-throughs. Examples might include:
- Adjusting the times that you send out the newsletter
- Combing through your email list and deleting contacts who haven’t opened an email in a long time
- Make sure your newsletter is designed to be mobile-friendly
- Use automation features that personalize newsletters for individual users
Remember that it takes time to build your digital efforts, and even small improvements make a big difference in the long run. With goals and strategies in place, you can analyze your efforts and adjust as needed. Working with a digital marketing partner who knows the legal industry can make this process even smoother.
2. Publish Video Testimonials From Clients
It’s one thing to say you’re an accomplished trial attorney who excels at client communications, but it’s another to have your clients say so. That’s why video testimonials are so effective in helping users take their first step to becoming clients — they offer “social proof” of your firm’s success. Social proof is a well-established psychology principle that says people are more likely to view an action as good when we see others we like and relate to doing that action.
So, when a potential client watches an injury victim describe their situation and explain how your personal injury law firm fought for them, it creates a powerful impression on that potential client and helps convince viewers you can likely help them, too. And, besides that, even just putting content in video form has a power all its own: according to HubSpot, product videos increase purchases by 144%.
While creating high-quality videos might seem an expensive undertaking, it doesn’t have to be. In fact, 92% of marketers say they make videos using resources they already have.
3. Use Straightforward Language
Lawyers sometimes struggle to communicate with regular people about issues. Attorneys get caught up in trying to sound “lawyerly” rather than giving people the information they need in terms they can understand. Your firm’s website won’t feel accessible to potential clients if it’s written like a legal brief — factually accurate but loaded with five-dollar words that only another attorney could understand.
For a potential client to understand their options and begin to trust your expertise, they need to understand not only their situation but how you can help them. When a person feels like you’ll communicate with them on their terms, they’re much more likely to click on a button, fill out a form, or otherwise perform a conversion action.
RELATED: 3 Foundational Legal Marketing Strategies You Need to Know
4. Integrate Live Chat
When you want more people to provide contact information or call your firm, live chat services are the way to go. When we build websites for our legal clients, we almost always recommend a chat integration.
Why? Chat features get results! We work with law firms across the country that have chat installed on their websites. On average, those firms get 32% of their leads from chat.
HubSpot’s 2019 statistics on chat integration support our love of this website feature:
- 79% of consumers say they prefer chat because they get instant responses
- Live chat has a customer satisfaction rate of 92%
- 63% of consumers who use live chat say they will likely return to that site
Even more telling are the numbers when firms remove their chat integrations. After removing the chat feature from their website, one of our legal clients saw almost a hundred fewer leads the following year.
Develop Effective Thank-You Pages
When someone clicks a button or fills out a form, you achieved an important digital marketing goal, so it’s easy to overlook what comes next: the thank-you page. But many clients will have to go through multiple conversions before they sign on as a client or even schedule a consultation. The thank-you page offers a critical opportunity to help people interested in your firm become even more engaged and perhaps even perform another conversion action.
Some tips for creating conversion-focused thank you pages:
- Write a genuine, thoughtful message thanking the user for the action they just performed and instructing them on what to expect next.
- Suggest specific next steps for the user. This could be as simple as directing them to valuable conversion-oriented pages like a practice area page or a library of client testimonials for additional information.
- Include social media icons and links to your profiles.
Remember that well-designed thank-you pages not only humanize your firm and make the potential client feel personally acknowledged but also expose the potential client to more resources and opportunities to connect with you.
Ready to Get More Clients and Cases? Contact LaFleur to Start Maximizing Your Conversions
At LaFleur, we’re passionate about working with clients just like you to implement forward-thinking digital marketing strategies that get real results. If you want to talk about how we can develop strategies that will get more conversions and leads for your firm, we’re ready to chat right away. Get in touch with us by calling (888) 222-1512 or completing our quick online form.
References
Legal Marketing Association, Good2BSocial. (2018, November 5). The 2018 law firm digital marketing survey. Retrieved from https://cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/3295561/DigitalMarketingPlaybook/The%202018%20Digital%20Marketing%20Survey_UPDATE(11-5).pdf?__hstc=261849554.209dbb17fc86ad5bdca33b2490d30698.1541534414243.1541534414243.1541534414243.1&__hssc=261849554.1.1541787128019&__hsfp=2025830326&hsCtaTracking=87910405-8158-4a8e-8a99-680a624466df%7Ca4c045fb-d78b-4e53-a5d2-7c29b96b034b
The ultimate list of marketing statistics for 2019. (n.d.). HubSpot. Retrieved from https://www.hubspot.com/marketing-statistics
