How can I increase my email open rates?

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We’re not talking about emails sent to clients who (one hopes) open everything from you because it might be important. We’re talking about your newsletter or promotional emails, because, let’s face it, a significant percentage of your subscribers don’t open these.

Guess what? It’s okay if they don’t. What’s important is that they regularly see your name in their email inbox because each time they do, it reminds them you’re still available to help them if they need help (or know someone who does). 

When they do need help, they’ll go find an email from you, get your contact information, and call or write (or pass it along to someone who needs help). 

Sure, it’s better if they do open and read your email. That’s how you build value with readers, engage with them, and get them to learn more about what you do and how you can help them. But seeing your name regularly, consistently, is most important. 

Unfortunately, many of your subscribers won’t see your name in their inbox. And that’s a problem. 

If you send your newsletter from your computer’s email software, your IP address can get blacklisted for sending too many identical emails. If you use a commercial email provider (with a good reputation), however, you shouldn’t have that problem. 

But, even if you do use a trusted email provider, your messages can still wind up in SPAM (or, in some cases, never delivered) if you use certain words in the email subject line typically used by spammers, or include too many images or links in the body of your messages, which can also trigger spam filters. 

Note to self: use a commercial email provider to deliver my newsletter. Don’t include too many images or links.

Hold on. Even if your message doesn’t land in your subscribers spam folder, if they use Gmail, it might wind up in their “promotions” folder, which they might rarely open. It’s a common problem. Make sure you tell your new subscribers to add your email address to their contact list and this will minimize that problem. 

Okay, a few best practices (and some common sense) should help you get more subscribers to see your message. And while that should be your top priority, you also want them to open and read your messages. That’s how you deliver value, show them what you do and how you can help them, engage with them, and present a call to action (e.g., contact you, fill out a form, share your content, etc.) which they probably won’t do unless you ask. 

Okay, you’ve got those emails delivered. How do you get them opened and read?

The simplest way to is to use better subject lines. Motivate recipients to open your message by offering a benefit for doing that. Promise (or imply) they will learn something interesting or useful—how to solve a problem (or avoid it), for example. 

Or make them curious about what’s inside your message. 

You can also get more opens by keeping your promises. Deliver the information or other benefits mentioned in the subject line in this week’s email and your subscribers will be more likely to open next week’s. 

For more about getting your emails open and read, check out my course on email marketing for attorneys

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Make it personal (even if it’s not)

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Thousands of people are reading these words right now, but as far as I’m concerned, it’s just you. When I say something or ask a question, I’m not asking or speaking to everyone. 

Just you. 

If you want to get more people listening and reading, more people responding, sharing, and liking what you write (and ultimately hiring or referring you), you should do the same.

When you write, write to one person. Not “everyone”.

Even if you’re writing a blog post or newsletter article, or speaking from the stage—even on social media. Write or talk to one person. Don’t call for a show of hands, don’t address everyone in the aggregate, don’t say, “I’m wondering what y’all think about this?” And whatever you do, don’t say “Hey gang!” (my personal pet peeve). 

As far as your listener is concerned, there’s nobody else there. Don’t bust that bubble, however fictive it might be.

They’re sitting in their office chair or propped up in bed, reading your words or listening to your voice, and for a moment, hearing a personal message from a friend. When you speak in the collective, it puts distance between you and the reader. Communication is most effective when it is personal. 

So, make it personal. 

That also means writing from your perspective, not “for the firm”. Tell the reader what you think about the subject, what you did yesterday, what you plan to do later today. Tell them to call you, not “the office”. 

“Talk” to them as though you were sitting together, having a chat. Because, virtually speaking, you are. 

How to write an effective blog

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Be brief

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At a time of diminished attention spans and lists of things to do as long as their arm, most people don’t have time to watch your lengthy presentation or read your lengthy article, blog post, or email. If you want more people reading more of your content (and you do), keep it brief. 

As short as necessary and no longer. 

In your core work as advocate, advisor, or draftsman, say as much as you need to say to do your job. For marketing and client relations, say less. 

This doesn’t mean writing less often. Actually, if you’re trying to build and strengthen relationships with clients and prospects and professional contacts, you should write more often. 

Once or twice a year or “once in a while” isn’t enough to keep your name in front of people. 

Good news. Shorter content is quicker to write so you can write more often. 

Yes, SEO favors longer articles and posts, and longer sales letters and pages tend to pull higher response, but for a busy lawyer, your top priority should be to get something out the door and into the hands of readers and followers. 

As often as possible. 

You can also write longer articles and reports, do longer videos and presentation, but make those extra. 

Shorter content, published more often, should be your thing.

If you’re using email (and you should), here’s everything you need to know

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The fortune is in the follow-up

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In marketing, many lawyers prioritize getting new leads and attracting new prospects when they should prioritize following-up with the ones they already have.

Anyone who expressed interest is far more valuable to you than someone you’ve never spoken to, doesn’t recognize your name, and may or may not have any interest in hearing how you can help them.

And since you’ve already invested your time or money to acquire those leads or attract those inquires, why wouldn’t you follow up?  

Some attorneys never follow-up. They meet someone, give them their card, and leave it up to the would-be client to take the next step. Or someone visits their website and downloads their report or asks a question and once they deliver the report or answer the question, that’s it. No additional follow-up.  

They justify this by saying, “If they want to know more, they know where to find me.”

This may be true, but it is beside the point. They showed interest but may not be ready to take the next step or ask for more information. If you don’t follow up with them, by the time they are ready to hire you or talk to you, they may not recall your name or know where to find you.

Or they hire another lawyer who did follow-up.

How long should you follow up? Days? Weeks? Months? Years?

Forever. Until they “buy or die”. 

Actually, don’t stop after they buy. They might buy again. Or need an update. Or tell someone about you. Or provide a review or testimonial. Or share your content. Or ask a question that gives you a great idea for your newsletter.

Don’t stop when they die, either. Their surviving spouse or children or partner may need your services, or know someone who does. 

So never stop. Once someone is on your list, don’t stop emailing or remove them unless they tell you to. 

“But I don’t want to annoy them?” 

Annoy them. You might email them precisely when they need you and be very glad you did.

It’s better to contact someone too often than not often enough. They can delete or ignore your emails, click the link to remove themselves from your list, or tell you to do it for them. 

How often should you contact them? At the beginning, just after you’ve met them or spoken to them or they signed up for your report, more often. They are more likely to hire you or take the next step with they are “fresh”.

Make your initial follow-ups more personal and do them more often. Strike while the iron is hot. 

After a suitable period, stay in touch with them more generally and (perhaps) less often, via a newsletter. You might choose to supplement that with something more personal: a card, a call, a reminder of something they told you or asked you about, but you don’t have to. You can let your newsletter do the heavy lifting, and it will.

How to use an email newsletter to follow-up with prospects and clients

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The best way to improve your content

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Content means information, right? About the law, how to recognize a problem, what to do and not do, what an attorney can do to help them (and why it should be you).

All good, but not necessarily compelling. 

You want readers to take action: click and visit your pages, read your articles, download your reports, view your presentation, and especially to contact you and hire you (or refer you). 

There are several ways to use your content to accomplish that. 

You can overtly disagree with what other lawyers say, to show the reader you’re different, i.e., better. Don’t just tell them what’s available, give them the pros and cons of various solutions, provide more nuanced comments about the risks, and follow with a well-reasoned recommendation. 

Tell them what and why. 

If you’re hesitant to do that without first speaking to the reader about their specific situation, use “if/then” writing to cover yourself and provide additional context. 

Another way to stand out and get readers to see you as the better lawyer is to explain how things work in the “real world”. Take them “behind the curtain” and show them why things are done one way and not another.

Or, when other lawyers provide “just the facts” and are serious and boring, you might take a lighter approach (if appropriate) and make your content more interesting and maybe even fun. 

The best thing you can do? Provide client success stories, to illustrate your points and show readers there are solutions to their problems—here’s proof. 

Give them hope while you educate them. 

But many attorneys tell client success stories. If you want to be more effective, don’t just tell the stories, make them personal. Tell the reader what the client told you, what you thought, how you felt, and what you did (and why).

Personal stories, for the win. 

You want readers to see you in their mind’s eye, asking questions, feeling what the client felt, considering the facts, weighing the options, and then being an advocate for or advisor to your clients. 

Why get personal? Because prospective clients not only want to know about their risks and options, they want to know what it would be like having you as their attorney. 

If you want to demonstrate your knowledge and experience, write about the law. If you want to build a following and get people to choose you as their attorney, write about your personal experiences.

How to write a newsletter that brings in more clients

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A simple tool for getting more referrals

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It’s extremely effective, costs little or nothing to use, and doesn’t take a lot of time. You can start using it today and start getting referrals almost immediately. 

Without talking to anyone. 

Yes, I’m talking about email marketing. Which means using email to stay in touch with people you know—clients, prospects, business contacts, even other attorneys. 

When you do, you’ll get more referrals. 

In this context, a referral can occur when someone forwards your email to someone they know who might need your help. Or know someone who does.

To start, ask people if you can contact them from time to time via email, with a newsletter, announcements, or special offers. That’s your initial list. (Don’t assume you can do this; ask).

Then, send them valuable or interesting information once a week (or at least once a month) and include a link to a page on your website about what you do and how you help your clients.  

When you email your list, ask your readers to forward your emails to their contacts. If the content is good, they will. And their contacts will find out what you do and how you can help them. 

Your list will grow and so will your referrals. 

If you want to grow faster, add a sign-up form on your website or blog for visitors to subscribe to your newsletter. Offer an incentive such as a report, ebook, checklist, or form for signing up. 

Your list will grow and so will your referrals. Which is why email marketing is one of your best tools for getting more referrals. 

Not everyone can hire you. But EVERYONE can send you referrals. 

Email Marketing for Attorneys

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It’s not just the information

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To be effective, your blog or newsletter, podcast or channel, needs more than good information. It also needs a healthy dose of your personality. 

Because no matter good the information in your articles and posts might be, people read and recommend content that gives them a sense of who you are—a real person with a business and personal life and a specific style. 

So, put yourself in your content.

Your content also needs to be easy to read. No matter how sophisticated your audience might be, they don’t want to slog through academic or boring prose. Give them something they can skim when they’re short of time (and they’re always short of time), or they can chew on and digest if they need more. . 

Your readers and listeners also want you to engage them by asking (rhetorical) questions, providing if/then statements, and illustrating your points with relevant and relatable examples and stories about people like them.

Want to know what else they want? A bit of fun. Something light or amusing, and certainly interesting, and sometimes surprising. Things they don’t expect. And things they usually don’t get from your competition. 

Variety is also welcome. Mix up your topics and how you present them. Today, tell them what you think. Tomorrow, interview an expert. Next week, recommend a book or blog you think they will enjoy. Mix up the length of your posts, too—long this week and a few paragraphs the next.

This is what makes your content valuable and keeps people reading and sharing it. This is what builds a relationship with your readers and subscribers and gets them to take the next step when they’re ready to talk to you about their situation.

It’s not the depth of your knowledge or the quality of your prose. It’s you, talking to them as you would a client or friend, not trying to impress anyone but simply sharing some ideas they can use or will enjoy hearing.

You know the blogs and newsletters you enjoy reading? Yeah, like those. 

How to build your practice with a newsletter

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Useful Idiots

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You have people on your email list(s) who have never hired you, hired you and fired you, or hired you one time ages ago and you’ve never heard from them since. 

They are dead weight—just taking up space. 

Keep them on your list.  

They are useful, because one day they may realize they need help, find one of your emails and contact you. 

Email is cheap. Don’t delete anyone. They are useful, even if their usefulness isn’t presently clear. 

Even if they never hire you (again), they might forward your link to someone who does hire you, or who forwards that link to someone else who does. They may tell someone about your upcoming webinar, your book, or your article, or share something you’ve said or done.

Keep everyone. Old clients, prospects, leads, and business contacts who couldn’t pick you out of a lineup. 

And, unless you have very large lists, I wouldn’t bother sending out a “Click here if you want to continue receiving email from me” message, or reminding anyone they can unsubscribe.

Keep everyone. Because anyone may become your next client or lead them to you.

Are there exceptions? Subscribers you might want to delete? 

If someone is a complete jerk and you never want to work with them or hear from them again, you might think about sending them to digital hell.

Think twice. 

They may be idiots, but they are still useful. 

They may never realize they are the problem, apologize, and change their ways, but they can still send you referrals. And traffic that turns into new business. Unless they’re completely in your face and making you miserable, keep them on your list. Forever.

Besides, if you delete them, what’s keeping them from signing up again with a new email (and IP address)? 

Jerks do that, you know. Just to mess with you. 

Don’t worry your pretty little head about the jerks and the idiots. Don’t try to figure them out, don’t engage them. 

Ignore them and go do some work. 

Email Marketing for Attorneys

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A short course in getting your emails opened

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Whether you’re writing to clients or business contacts, a newsletter or a solo email, or any other email to anyone, getting your message opened is your first and more important task.

Because if they don’t open it, they won’t read it and if they don’t open and read it, they won’t learn anything or do anything. 

Before you write your next email, ask yourself, “What can I do to get the people I send this to open it?”

My advice:

For starters, send that email to people who know you (or at least know your name), preferably people who like and trust you. They’ll open the email simply because they recognize your name. Job one complete. 

Failing that, or in addition to that (because just because someone knows, likes, and trust you doesn’t mean they will open everything you send them), make your subject line show them the email is relevant to them.

To them personally, their group or their business, or something that interests them. Because if it does none of that, why should they bother?

Still, even if it is relevant, many people will pass it up, unless you do something else to compel them to click. The simplest way to do that is to say something in the subject that makes them curious.

Curious to see what “this” is all about, what’s next, or what they need to know. 

Our brains hate unanswered questions. Make them curious enough to open your email, to find the answer to a question you pose, or they think about as soon as they see your subject.  

You want them to feel a little tug of discomfort at the thought that they’ll miss out on something they need or want to know, but won’t find out unless they open your message.

Curiosity isn’t the only way to get clicks, but it is one of the best. It’s why ‘click bait’ is so effective, even when said bait borders on the ridiculous. 

How to build your practice with email

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It takes a lot of emails to get a new client

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Yes, some new subscribers will hire you immediately, or at least soon. Or call and ask questions and then hire you. 

Of course, this depends on the urgency of their issue. If someone was just sued or arrested, they don’t have a lot of time to choose a lawyer. 

But you shouldn’t assume that, either. Because you don’t know who is on your list. 

Some subscribers need you but can’t afford you. They’ll try to fix their problem themselves, or hire someone cheap, and hire you later when they realize their mistake. 

Some subscribers aren’t in a hurry. They’re going to take their time. 

Some subscribers will never hire you (or any lawyer) but, if they like your emails, tell people about you.  

And some subscribers are already your clients and don’t need anything else. But reading your emails reminds them they made a good choice in hiring you, making it less likely they’ll leave, and more likely they will hire you again when they need your help.  

And no matter who they are, or where they came from, everyone on your list is busy. They might not see your message or read it. They might not be ready to take the next step. 

All you can do is keep mailing until they’re ready. 

And that might be a while. Weeks, months, or years. 

And? 

And until that happens, you should mail often.  

If it takes you 25, 50, or 100 emails before some subscribers are ready to sign up, and you email only once a week, it might be a couple of years before that happens. If you email once a month, it could take forever. 

Don’t be shy. Email as often as possible. 

You might think you don’t need to. You might not want to. But the more often you do, the more new clients and repeat clients you’ll get and the more you will earn. 

Is there such a thing as emailing too often? No. 

No? 

There will always be subscribers who think you’re emailing too often, and they will unsubscribe. 

Let them go. 

If your emails are valuable and/or interesting, as they should be, and they want to leave, they were probably never going to hire you.

At least you should assume that and focus on the ones who like hearing from you often because they are the ones who will help you build your practice.

Email marketing for attorneys

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