Email Marketing for Lawyers: 12 Tips & Tools to Increase Clients

Email marketing is one of the most underrated methods of digital marketing. It’s also one of the best ways for professionals and freelancers to grow their reach.

Popular professionals like Gary Vee and Marie Forleo have built their online empire with the help of email marketing campaigns and offers.

We all know that social media (ads) are a popular option for brands to generate revenue, but according to the CNBC survey, workers between ages 25 and 34 spend 6.4 hours a day checking their email.

Unlike social media, more than a third of this age group regularly check their email before they even get out of bed.

If this sounds like your demographic, keep reading. I’ll be teaching you the best email marketing tips, along with email marketing tools every lawyer needs and how to use these tips effectively.

How Do You Collect Emails from Customers

Before we dive in, if you’re new to email marketing, then I’d like you to start collecting customer data and emails. You can craft the perfect email, but if you have no one to send it to, you won’t see much results.

Around 61% of consumers are fine with data collection as long as brands give them a more personalized experience in return.

You can collect data about your email subscribers voluntarily with opt-in forms or website popups placed on your website and content. Be sure to ask for their full name and email; any additional information is just fluff.

Wishpond’s simple drag-and-drop editor makes it easy for anyone to create amazing popups, without the need for designing or programming knowledge.

Lawyer Email Marketing Tip #1: Know Your Audience

Gone are the days when selling was the most important thing about, well selling. Today customers want a more tailored experience, and they don’t want to be another name on your list.

Instead, they want to feel heard, understood by the profession they choose to represent them in the law.

The first step to crafting a killer email is to know your audience, who exactly you are writing this email for, and why they should open it, much less read it.

You could have the perfect email copy, but it’s written for the wrong audience. Instead of throwing out a wide net and hoping to catch anything, you can position yourself in a sweet place that speaks to the ideal client you’d like to pay for your services to get quality email leads.

Email Example: Landerholm Family Law

Five Things Your Audience Can Teach You about Email

What type of jargon you should use in your emails
What buzzword or power words to use in subject lines
How long or short your email should be
The variety of topics you can write about
What time you can send your emails for higher open rates

Lawyer Email Marketing Tip #2: Write An Amazing Subject Line

Your subject line is the first thing your customers see before they open the email. It’s the difference between a potential lead or another email thrown in the trash.

Mailer Lite said it best, “Treat your subject line like the movie trailer. Give a preview, so they know what to expect.”

Subject lines affect your open rate and increase your chances of success far more than the copy instead of your email. Try to spend most of your time a/b testing your subject lines as often as you can.

Five Things to Consider For Your Email Subject Line

Consider your subject line as a headline, because it is. You can use these headline formulas to guide you.
Most people use mobile to read their emails on the go; if the subject line is too long, they won’t see all the words and most likely won’t click to read. The perfect subject line should be eight words max.
When you use power words in your headlines, it piques your reader’s interest and drives them to click.
Avoid clickbait subject lines unless you want to be marked as a spammer by your readers or their email provider.
1. A/B test your subject lines. It may seem like a lot of work, but this practice can help you to find the best subject lines to generate the most conversions.

Here are some guides on how to craft the perfect subject lines for your business:

Lawyer Email Marketing Tip #3: Keep Your Emails Short

No one’s going to sit down and read an endless story about your practice as a lawyer, and people have short attention spans and even less patience for wordy emails. If you want to write more than 150 words, you can put it in a blog, not your email.

Let’s be honest we get massive amounts of emails every day and a long list of things to do, so the last thing anyone wants is an email that feels like an endless epistle.

Keep your emails short, straight to the point, and filled with content only your readers care about because, at the end of the day, you can list all your achievements, but all readers care about is what you can do for them.

Let them know that your email provides a solution to a problem they want to be fixed. How you are helping and what you want them to do to get that solution.

Email Example: Dorcey Law Firm

3 Marketing Secrets to Writing Shorter Emails:

Short sentences allow readers to skip through faster and forces you to write only the necessaries you want, so you get your point across.
Set a word limit and stick to it, you can use a word counter like Word Counter or try highlighting your text and pressing Ctrl+Shift+C in Google doc or Microsoft word to view your word count.
One tip that helps, imagine that you have to pay $1 for every word you write. If your email looks like it’s going to break the bank, time to trim it down to a shoestring budget.

Lawyer Email Marketing Tip #4: Write About Benefits, Not About You

It’s not you. It’s them. People are hardwired to point out benefits that can make their lives easier.

When it comes to getting customers with email marketing campaigns, the most important thing is to highlight your value proposition or benefits.

Wishpond has fantastic features like landing page creation, email marketing automation, and more. What our customers really care about is the fact that we can help them market their business more effectively and easily without the hassle of using multiple tools, this is the perfect example of listing the benefits you offer.

Explain the value of your service and what it is so your readers can quickly see how they themselves benefit from you as their lawyer.

4 Ways to Highlight Benefits that Sell:

Use testimonials stories about the benefits of your service.
Show real statistics resulting from a customer using your service.
Show off your credentials and how they help your reader.
Highlight big or small brands that you’ve helped along the way.

Lawyer Email Marketing Tip #5: Segment Your Emails

Email segmentation allows readers to see relevant content they’re interested in to encourage them to stay subscribed.

As a lawyer, you have different cases, for example, if you’re a divorce lawyer, the email you send to a young couple divorcing without kids will differ from an email you’ll send to an old couple divorcing with kids. They have two different lifestyles that require special services/requests for their situation.

According to a study by the Direct Marketing Association, segmented and targeted emails generated 58% of all revenue for the marketers surveyed, and 36% of revenues were driven by emails sent to segmented target audiences.

There’s no rule of thumb to segmenting your emails; it’s all based on your customer interest and what your email goals are. But here are some ways you can segment your email if you’re just starting.

If you want to be even more effective with your emails, then segment your email list based on income, law services, or geographic location.

Most lawyers (if they decide to send emails) will most likely send to all, but smart lawyers, marketing-savvy lawyers, know that extra effort pays off in the end when it comes to marketing.

Lawyer Email Marketing #6: Send Follow-Up Emails

Sending one email is not going to increase your client list massively; in fact, it would probably take a series of emails before you start booking appointments for your services.

You need to add a follow-up strategy to an email marketing campaign, or you’re not going to get any conversions any time soon.

Follow up emails may seem like a bother to some readers, but to others, it’s a gentle reminder that you’re still interested in working with/for them.

Let’s be honest we get hundreds of emails a week, even if we get an email that we’re interested in, it’s lost in our inbox or forgotten due to our day to day activities. That’s why you should always try to stay at the top of your reader’s inbox.

When you send a follow-up email, try to use testimonials showing off your old or current clients to draw readers in or reintroduce the benefits of your services to the reader to remind them why you’re the best choice for a lawyer.

Six Email Marketing Tools Every Lawyer Needs

1. Wishpond Email Marketing Tool

Overview: Awarded the G2 Crowd’ ‘s 2019 “High Performer” for Best Emailing Marketing Software category based on its high levels of customer satisfaction and easy-to-use email campaigns.

Wishpond’s email marketing platform integrates with many platforms, including Mail Chimp, Shopify, Salesforce, Campaign Monitor and Facebook, and so much more. Easily capture leads with forms and integrate them with your CRM platform. Not to mention built-in marketing automation

You can manage your email marketing campaigns on your own, or if you have your hands full, allow our expert marketers to manage it for you, the choice is yours.

Free Demo Available: Yes
Ready to Learn More: Click here!

2. Grammarly

Overview: Grammarly is a proofreading and editing tool, as well as a personal favorite for the Wishpond Content Team. Grammarly helps to structure your sentences properly, fix common grammatical errors, and it has a built-in thesaurus to expand your content’s vocabulary.

Free Account Available: Yes
Cost: $29.95 /month

3. Mailshake Email Copy Analyzer

Overview: Let’s say that you’ve just finished writing your email. Even a grammar nazi would be proud. But your copy’s missing something you just can’t quite put your finger on, Milkshakes Email Copy Analyzer can help you master email copy to help increase clicks and sign-ups.

Free Account Available: No, but a 30-day money-back guarantee is in place for new users.
Cost: $59-99/Monthly

4. Venngage

Overview: Venngage is an online design tool that helps marketers and small business owners visualize their ideas. Humans are visual creatures, and they retain images more than text.

Adding graphics and images to your email will give it a professional and memorable touch. Venngage makes it easy to pull off professional designs in minutes.

Free Account Available: Yes
Cost: $19-49/Monthly

5. Coschedule Headline Analyzer

Overview: Earlier we spoke about how much subject lines play a role in your email marketing success, instead of testing blindly here’s a headline analyzer that can make it easier. It not only tells you how strong or effective your subject line is, but it shows you where and how to improve it. Test and compare subject lines, all with one tool!

Free Account Available: Yes
Cost: Zero

6. Dictionary.com Thesaurus

Overview: As a lawyer, you’re trained in the art of law and defense; however, your client isn’t as jargon savvy as you. Sometimes you’ll need to use simple words in your email so your readers can understand what benefits you plan to deliver if they choose to work with you. This online thesaurus provides the best word alternatives to help you connect better with your readers. It’s also a copywriter approved tool, so keep it close.

Free Account Available: Yes
Cost: Zero

Last But Not Least

Email Marketing is a marketing niche on its own. When done correctly can help to grow your practice and online brand presence. It’s worth the investment.

There’s a bit of a learning curve if you decide to do your email marketing, but even if you pass the task on to an expert, you should still and take the time to learn specific terms and email marketing metrics.

Here are the top email marketing courses online (Paid & free) you should consider taking to educate yourself on the power and world of email marketing.

Here are the six email marketing tips every lawyer should follow:
*Send Follow-Up Emails
*Segment Your Emails
*Write About Benefits, Not About You
*Keep Your Emails Short
*Write An Amazing Subject Line
*Know Your Audience

Here are six email marketing tools every lawyer needs:
*Wishpond
*Grammarly
*Mailshake Email Copy Analyzer
*Venngage
*Coschedule Headline Analyzer
*Dictionary.com Thesaurus

What are some of the ways you’re using email marketing to grow your business? Comment below and let me know!