Law Firm Marketing: How To Differentiate Yourself from Your Competition
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Ken Hardison, founder of the Personal Injury Lawyers Marketing and Management Association (PILMMA) and founding partner of Hardison & Cochran, is my guest blogger today. Here is his post on how to differentiate yourself from your competition with law firm marketing:
Consumers are bombarded with advertising material on a daily basis and most have learned to just tune it out and ignore it. How are you supposed to reach potential clients and stand out from the pack?
I have formulated a five-step plan that guarantees potential clients won’t just pay attention to your legal marketing, but they will even remember your name!
1. Create a U.S.P (Unique Selling Proposition)
A U.S.P is an absolute must-have for any business, especially a law firm. Your U.S.P. is a list of benefits or the number one benefit that you can offer potential clients that your competition can’t. Choose a unique feature of your law firm and tell your potential clients why it is so beneficial to them and focus on it in every area of your law firm marketing.
Make it a compelling offer or guarantee that answers the question – “Why should I do business with you instead of the other lawyers in town?” This will put you at the top of their mind when they need the service you provide. Create a memorable catch phrase to present your U.S.P. in all your law firm advertising and marketing material. Consistently using the same phrase will create an association between you and your message in the minds of potential clients. Make sure you keep it short, simple and concise.
2. Specialize
You can’t be all things to all people, so go ahead and become The Expert on one particular topic. This topic should also be the focus of your U.S.P. Your U.S.P. should become your mantra and you should use it in everything you produce. Put yourself out there, write articles, write a book, become a local expert in the media on your specialty.
This strategy doesn’t appeal to all potential clients, but then again, you shouldn’t try to appeal to everyone! This approach will attract clients who value your knowledge and expertise over your prices. Having a specialty is an easy way to assert your uniqueness and announce to potential clients how dramatically different you are from your competition.
3. Be First to Proclaim Uniqueness
Being the first to declare your individuality from the pack gives you a clear advantage. Until your competition follows suit, you are the ONLY one claiming to be different from all the rest. You are the client’s clear #1 choice!
4. Make an Irresistible Offer
An effective U.S.P. boldly declares big benefits and illustrates your exceptional service. You have to promise potential clients something so valuable they will never even think of calling your competition. It must grab their attention, so even though they don’t need your services now, when they do in the future, they will remember you.
Studies have shown that some of the most motivating desires we have are for tranquility, vengeance, fairness and social justice. Choose one of these key desires, hone in on it and appeal to it in your U.S.P. Try to evoke an emotional connection with the audience that will make your offer irresistible.
5. Give Social Proof that Clients Prefer YOU
Use testimonials from previous clients in your legal social media marketing. They validate your claim that you can help potential clients get what they want. Testimonials make it easier to market yourself because someone else is doing all the talking. Even in states where the use of testimonials is prohibited in law firm marketing, you can still use them in materials you send to prospective clients after they have initially contacted you. These responses are priceless for marketing your firm to potential clients.
These five steps will help you uniquely position yourself as the expert and #1 choice for anyone looking for an attorney in your area.
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Stephen Fairley Guest Speaker at PILMMA Legal Marketing Boot Camp March 1 in San Francisco
At the Personal Injury Lawyers Marketing and Management Association (PILMMA) one-day boot camp, you will learn "How to Increase Your Caseload... Without Spending a Boat Load," from some of the sharpest legal marketers in the world. These are the very people (secret weapons, really), who have worked behind the scenes at all those successful firms that have been grabbing the big cases from you for years. Now they'll disclose their entire Vault of Secrets to you...
One of PILMMA’s guest speakers is Stephen Fairley, legal marketing expert and CEO of The Rainmaker Institute. Stephen will share the secrets of Getting Your Law Firm to the Top of Google on Thursday, March 1 at the San Francisco session of the PILMMA one-day boot camp.
Registering is simple and takes less than 2 minutes. Simply click this link and learn how you can start snagging these big cases for yourself!
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