When it comes to law firm marketing, lead generation often takes center stage. After all, a law firm can’t hope to achieve any sort of sustainable growth without a steady stream of legal leads.
But while many invest large amounts of time and capital in lead generation, many law firms miss the mark in terms of lead management and tracking. And as digital marketing costs skyrocket for legal practices, and the market becomes more crowded, big and small law firms alike can’t afford to lose highly qualified leads to their competitors.
The painful reality is if your law firm isn’t focused on developing and implementing a healthy lead management system, then there’s a good chance you are letting qualified leads (and possibly your ad dollars) walk out the front door.
Why lead management and tracking is important for law firms
If lead generation is the yin, lead management is the yang. You can’t have one without the other. While a healthy lead generation strategy will drive new legal leads to your doorstep, maintaining a strong focus on lead management will make it easier and more efficient for you and your sales team to convert those leads into paying clients.
Here are a few ways a holistic approach to lead management for your law firm can help you and your team drive more conversions:
- It can help you stay organized as you track and follow up with potential leads.
- It can save you time by providing a repeatable framework you can use to quickly qualify and convert leads.
- It can save you money by helping you identify which marketing channels are providing the highest ROI and increasing the number of conversions from your lead generating strategies.
- It can boost your reputation by showing that your law firm is attentive and responsive, ensuring that every lead has a positive experience when contacting you (whether or not they hire you).
- It can keep your law firm top of mind if leads look for legal help at a later time.
All of these benefits depend on a healthy focus on lead management, but, as good as they sound, many law firms don’t have a lead management system in place to make them a consistent reality.
In their 2019 Legal Trends Report, Clio reported that out of 1,000 law firms tested and surveyed, 60% didn’t respond to emails, and 27% were unreachable by phone. While they concluded that these telling results “will undoubtedly hold back firms from achieving high-growth success. They also state that “this deficiency presents a major opportunity for law firms to innovate and differentiate themselves within their markets.”
Pull Quote: Firms that meet – or exceed – expectations will capture more clients as they reach out. — 2019 Legal Trends Report, Clio
So how can your law firm or legal practice work to improve your lead management and, in turn, boost your conversion rates? Here are five law firm lead management tips you can start implementing today.
5 law firm lead management tips
1. Respond to every inquiry within 5 minutes
When it comes to responding to inquiries from potential clients, urgency is the name of the game. On average, 78% of clients say they chose the first business that responded to their inquiry, with additional data showing an 80% increase in lead qualification if leads are contacted in 5 minutes as opposed to 10.
A 5-minute response time might sound difficult, but using automated response software for your phone systems and online forms can help you seriously cut your response time and keep leads warm, even while you’re out of the office.
Don’t take leads for granted. Learn how to improve your lead response time.
2. Use detailed, trackable forms on your website
One of the simplest steps you can take to improve the quality of leads and level up your law firm lead management is to use detailed, trackable contact forms on your website. Not only will they help you and your team stay organized as you sift through lead information, but they show potential clients that your firm is attentive and caters to their particular needs.The images below are modeled after contact forms belonging to two real law firms. Compare them and ask yourself: Which of these demonstrate a higher level of professionalism and attentiveness? Which one would better help you organize your lead management?
Simply tweaking your web forms can save you and your sales team time, energy, and money in the long run. Especially if your firm relies heavily on digital marketing and paid advertising campaigns
3. Develop a system that flags highly qualified leads
Not all leads are equal. When you’re looking to maximize your time and legal marketing ROI, you need to be able to pinpoint which leads deserve the greatest attention.
Using specific input fields and detailed forms on your website will definitely help, but what if your law firm relies more on phone calls?
One way to better qualify leads over the phone is to review previously successful conversion conversations and identify what keywords and scenarios were spoken over the phone during the onboarding process. Keeping these in mind will help you and your sales team identify similar leads in the future.
For example, personal injury attorneys who excel at in-home accident cases might listen for words and stories involving slips and falls. In turn, they would focus more on those leads rather than conversations involving vehicle accidents or medical malpractice.
If you’d rather have these keywords flagged automatically, Conversation Intelligence can help by recording your calls and automatically recognizing and flagging keywords you’ve designated as “high value.”
4. Track your leads using customer relationship management software
Nearly 25% of law firms don’t use CRM software to track and manage their leads. What’s worse, 45% of those firms that don’t use a CRM software don’t have an identifiable tracking system at all. If your law firm is not tracking leads — be it with a CRM system or with simple pen and paper — there’s a good chance a number of them are slipping through your marketing net.
CRM software helps you collect and organize important lead information, such as contact details, call logs, follow-up schedules, and more. Many popular systems include useful integrations that will help you better understand your incoming leads better and focus on high-conversion marketing channels.
5. Conduct quality assurance checks regularly
No one enjoys being put on hold forever, never receiving a follow-up call, dealing with insensitive office staff, or having technical issues with websites. Be sure your lead management systems are clean and polished to provide the best experience for legal leads.
Ways to accomplish this include the following:
- Making sure your automated phone system is clear, concise, and up to date
- Recording inbound and outbound calls to make sure your tone of voice is friendly and helpful throughout the onboarding process
- Using a tool like Semrush to check for broken links on your website
- Updating your website forms to be sure they’re accurate, and that the inquiries land in the right inboxes
Where lead management fits in with standard marketing tactics
Although these and other lead management tips could be considered marketing tactics in and of themselves, it is better to view them as foundations on which other marketing efforts are built.
The role of standard marketing tactics, such as pay-per-click (PPC) ads, content marketing, social media advertising, etc., is to bring potential clients to your front door. The role of lead management, on the other hand, is to warmly greet them and welcome them in, increasing the chances of those leads becoming paying customers. Both roles are necessary for successful marketing. Without proper lead management, standard marketing tactics can result in wasteful ad spend.
Through this lens, lead management enhances other marketing tactics, creating a more rewarding experience for both you and your potential leads.
Drive more conversions with law firm lead management
Your law firm is only as strong as your lead management.
Before allocating more time and resources to lead generation, take an inventory of your lead management system and see whether there are any gaps you can improve. Can you improve your response times? Keep better track of incoming leads? Provide a higher level of customer service than your competitors? By focusing on those important factors, you can stand out in a competitive marketplace and save ad spend by converting more inbound leads.
To truly level up your law firm’s lead management, consider using a dedicated tool like Lead Center to help you effectively track, manage, and follow up with new and existing leads.
