How do you know your marketing is working? You look at your numbers.

The amount of traffic to your site, the number of new subscribers, the number of leads and conversions, tell you a lot about what you’re doing right.

If you advertise, you track keywords and publications, ad copy, headlines, and offers, so you can do more of what’s working and less of what isn’t.

You record the number of new clients you get each month, and where they came from. You track your revenue, and which types of work and which types of clients are producing it.

But there’s one number that is arguably more important than any other: the number of clients who hire you again.

It’s a number many professionals take for granted. They assume that if their client needs them again, for the same or other types of work, they’ll call on them.

But that’s not always true.

There are many reasons why clients don’t return. And when they don’t, you need to find out why.

Some things you can fix. Some you can’t. But you can’t do anything if you don’t know who needs you but doesn’t return, and why.

That’s why you stay in touch with your clients after the initial engagement. That’s why you talk to them, survey them, and build relationships with them.

You want to know what’s going on their life or business and see what you can do to help them, and remind them that you’re just a call away.

Ultimately, if a client needs your help and doesn’t return, there is only one acceptable reason: they can no longer afford you. But you need to know that, too, so you can refer them to an attorney in their price range.

If the work you do typically doesn’t have much return business, e.g., consumer bankruptcy work, your key metric should be referrals.

If a client can refer other clients to you, but doesn’t, you need to find out why so you can do something about it.

The Quantum Leap Marketing System for Attorneys