Copywriting Archives - The Attorney Marketing Center

Compelling reasons to hire you

April 18, 2024 by David M. Ward

They need you. They want you. But that doesn’t mean they’re ready to hire you. A lot of things can get in the way between “interested” and “take my money”. It’s up to you to convince them to take the next step. Or more accurately, to provide them with sufficient facts and emotional appeals to enable them to convince themself.

For starters, that requires understanding their problem and how it affects them. Where is their pain? What do they fear? What is their objective and, if they don’t achieve it, what it will cost them and how will they feel?

If they don’t know this, you need to tell them. And provide examples of what happened to other people in their situation.

If they do know what can happen, tell them anyway, and invoke their emotions.

Remind them of the consequences and how bad things can get. And remind them that all is not lost, there are things you can do.

This may take a while. You should be prepared to tell them these things not once but repeatedly until they’re ready to act.

Vary your approach. One time, give them good news. Rainbows and furry animals. Next time, remind them that war is hell and paint a picture of the bloodshed that may ensure.

Use different examples and arguments. Bullet points and essays. The Yin and the Yang. If before you dispassionately told them “just the facts,” now you might get in their face with urgency and alarm.

And don’t stop. You can’t just send them a memo and expect that this will do the trick. You need to stay in touch with prospects (and clients), alternatively poking them and hugging them, and all the while, letting them know you’re ready to talk to them.

The words you use, your copywriting strategy, your tone, are all important. But nothing is as important as continually being “in their minds and mailboxes”.

This is where you hold an edge over your competitors. They may have a better track record or other reasons why someone should hire them, but most don’t stay in touch.

They don’t understand that marketing legal services is a process, not an event.

But you do. And that’s how you win.

Filed Under: Closing the sale, Copywriting

Too long; didn’t read

April 16, 2024 by David M. Ward

Lawyers tend to write articles and documents and memos and cover letters and emails… that are too long. They seek completeness and accuracy and to persuade someone of something, but often wind up doing anything but. Their writing is often long-winded, repetitive, boring, and ultimately persuades no one.

Search engines favor longer articles. But to be effective, they have to be well written. If they are, in terms of sales, long copy usually pulls better than short copy.

What can you do? Learn how to write long copy effectively or hire someone to do it for you. One takes time and practice, the other takes money and the good sense to invest it.

But that’s not the end of the story.

Yes, write long when you’re selling something (your services) or want to make love to Miss Google. But it’s okay to write short copy in your blog or newsletter, on social, in email, and for other purposes. In fact, it is often the best thing you can do.

Writing shorter pieces allows you to write more often. Your audience hears from you more frequently and is more likely to read what you wrote. That gives you more opportunities to “speak” to them and remind them about what you do and how you can help them.

You’re able to be in their minds and mailboxes more often, leading to more new clients and legal work for you.

This is a short message. If you got this far, it means you read it. We connected. That’s good.

Something else. Not only does writing longer articles mean you connect with your audience less frequently, your readers often save those longer articles to “read later” and we all know that later often never comes.

Yes, they do see that you emailed them again or published another post and that has value even if they don’t read your message. But it’s better if they do.

Ultimately, the best thing to do is to write both long and short articles, posts, and emails, and let each do their job.

How to start and write an effective email newsletter

Filed Under: Communication, Copywriting, Writing

Tell ‘em about the client who said no

April 9, 2024 by David M. Ward

Or waited too long to say yes and got burned. Or hired a lawyer with less experience and lost the case. Or didn’t follow your advice and had to spend thousands more to have you fix it.

Your words of warning or advice might go in one ear and out the other. So don’t just tell them, show them. Paint a picture in their mind, visually depicting what happened to other clients.

For example, if you have a client or prospect who says, “I need to think it over,” you might respond with something like this:

“I had a client say the same thing to me, but unfortunately, he didn’t ‘think it over’. Now, every time he opens his mailbox, a pile of collection letters falls out. Two weeks ago, Sherrif’s deputies knocked on his door and served him another lawsuit, and last week, his car was repossessed. Now, he has to ask his brother-in-law to drive him to work.”

Word pictures show people what’s at stake and give them a mental image that won’t let them forget it.

Filed Under: Communication, Copywriting

You can’t sell your services without answering three 3 questions

December 11, 2023 by David M. Ward

Prospective clients (and the people who refer them) won’t hire (or recommend) you unless you answer some fundamental questions about yourself and what you offer.

(1) Why should I give you any of my time?

I’m busy, I have problems and a life or business. Why should I download your report, watch your video, visit your website, or sign up for your webinar? Why should I listen to you or talk to you?

What will I learn? How will I be better off?

(2) Why should I hire you (now)?

What can an attorney do for me I can’t do myself?

What problems do you solve? What risks will you help me reduce? Why should I hire you now instead of waiting?

Will you save me money? Time? What other benefits will you help me get?

There are lots of attorneys who would like my business—why should I choose you? What do you do other attorneys don’t do? What do you do better or faster?

(3) Why should I trust you?

I don’t know you. I’ve been burned by attorneys in the past. Can you prove what you’re telling me?

What are your capabilities and experience? What resources do you have? What is your track record?

Do you have testimonials, reviews, endorsements, or awards attesting to your abilities and “service”?

When you address these questions in advance, you clarify need, increase trust, reduce objections, and get more prospective clients to hire you or take the next step.

Think of these questions as the agenda for all of your marketing and you won’t go wrong.

Filed Under: Copywriting, Marketing legal services, Salesmanship

Hope and opportunity

November 17, 2023 by David M. Ward

That’s really what you sell. Your legal services are merely a means to an end.

Clients want their problems to be fixed. They want to recover their losses and be protected against future harm. They want their pain to stop and the pleasure they seek to start.

And they want to know they have you by their side, fighting for them, defending them, advising them, and helping them achieve their goals.

Hope and opportunity. That’s why they hire you. And your presentations, articles, and conversations should feature these.

Clients aren’t especially interested in how you do what you do. They want to know that you can and will help them feel better and sleep better and be more prosperous. Clients choose you because of how you make them feel. They stay with you and tell others about you because of how you continue to make them feel.

In your marketing, talk mostly about the big picture, the benefits, and not so much about how you do what you do.

Other lawyers may point to their impressive track record, but clients will choose you because you did something those other lawyers didn’t do.

You made them feel good about themselves and their future.

Filed Under: Communication, Content creation, Copywriting, Marketing legal services

A simple formula

September 26, 2023 by David M. Ward

According to Wikipedia, “Copywriting is the process of creating persuasive marketing and promotional materials that motivate people to take some form of action, such as making a purchase, clicking on a link, donating to a cause, or scheduling a consultation.”

There are several copywriting formulas, starting with the most well known AIDA, which stands for Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action.

You can’t convince anyone to do something unless you first have their attention. That’s your headline or lead.

Once you have their attention, you present information that builds interest for your product or service or solution.

You then build desire for your product or solution by showing them how they will be better off when they buy it.

Finally, you prompt them to take action to get what you offer.

It works for most products or services, including legal services, but I use a somewhat different formula: PASBA.

PASBA stands for Problem, Agitation, Solution, Benefits, and (call to) Action.

Problem. What does your reader want and what’s stopping him from getting it? Sometimes, especially with an abstract like legal services, they don’t even realize they have a problem until you point it out.
Agitate. What can happen if they don’t fix the problem or get what they want? What can they lose? How bad can it get? What pain and secondary problems might occur? Show them examples, stories, statistics, or other factors to illustrate and build desire for a solution.
Solution. What you can do to solve, mitigate, or prevent the problem, or help them achieve their goal? Tell them about your services and options.
Benefits. What do they get when they hire you? Will they feel relief? Be safer, happier, or otherwise better off?
Call to action. Tell them what to do to get your solution and benefits. Tell them how to get started, encourage them to take the first step, and create urgency for doing that with a deadline or by reminding them about the risks of delay or inaction.

You can use variations of this formula in sales copy, emails, web pages, from the stage, in person, or any time you want to convince people to do something you want them to do.

Make sure they know the nature and extent of their problem, what you can do to help them, how they will be better off, and what to do to get started.

If you do, you’ll get more clients and help more people. If you don’t. . .

Filed Under: Closing the sale, Copywriting

Do this and you’ll get more leads, subscribers, and clients

September 25, 2023 by David M. Ward

Notice I didn’t tell you what “this” is. You want to know what it is, don’t you? So you started reading. And thus, illustrate the power of this principle—curiosity.

Humans are curious creatures. And you can use their curiosity to get them to do what you want them to do.

Prospective clients want information. They want answers. They want to know what can be done to solve their problem and achieve their goal. Which is why they visit your website, read your posts, sign up for your newsletter, watch your videos, and sign up for your seminar.

It’s also why they contact you, make an appointment, and keep it.

But hold on. You can’t rely on their innate “desire to know” to get them to do what you want them to do. You have to build on their curiosity. Make them hungry enough to take action.

How? By not telling them everything they want to know.

Hold back. Tell them some of the basics, but don’t tell them everything.

Most lawyers know that but don’t always do it. They want to impress the prospective client with their knowledge and experience and wind up telling them too much. Too much information, too many answers to frequently asked questions, too much detail.

They don’t have to take the next step if you’ve already told them everything.

Many lawyers do the opposite. They don’t tell them enough. They tell them their practice areas and accomplishments (in an ad or directory listing or website) and nothing else. They assume this is enough to compel prospective clients to call or write or fill out a form.

But it’s not. They want more.

Your challenge is to tell them enough so they see you have the information and solutions they need and want, but not so much that they don’t need to take the next step.

Make them curious. Don’t satisfy their curiosity.

Filed Under: Copywriting, Marketing legal services

Are you better than your competition?

September 22, 2023 by David M. Ward

Maybe. But the average lawyer is, by definition, average and unless you can delineate what you do better than other lawyers, you can’t call yourself better. Just average.

Do you get better outcomes for your clients? Give them more value? Help them in ways that go beyond your core legal services?

What. Exactly. Do. You. Do. Better?

I know that’s a tough call. Start by noting what you do differently, meaning that your competition doesn’t regularly do.

I know, that’s also tough, because many attorneys do what you do and you do what they do. Same laws, same procedures, same basic process, and very much the same outcomes and deliverables.

It’s true.

Still, if you want to stand out and show prospective clients an advantage to hiring you (instead of them), you need to give them reasons.

Why should they hire you “instead”?

You need to figure that out. Don’t worry. It’s not as difficult as you think. Because in marketing, “different” is often seen as “better”.

So, what do you do that’s different?

It doesn’t have to be big and amazing. It could be as simple as your process for investigating a new case and setting up a new file (for example).

What’s so special about that? Maybe nothing. Probably nothing. Your competition probably does the same things you do (questions, research, investigation, forms, first steps, etc.)

But while you (and your competition) see how you open a new file as small and commonplace and not worth mentioning, it can be a big deal to your clients who don’t know what you do and why it’s important.

By providing a few details about what you do, and why, something small and commonplace can be a big deal.

Clients don’t know all the steps you take, the forms you use, the procedures you follow, and the benefits these confer.

So, tell them. When you do, what’s commonplace and boring to you (and your competition) becomes important.

And gives you an advantage.

And, if you describe what you do when you open a new file and your competition doesn’t (because they assume everyone does it and it’s not worth mentioning), in the eyes of your prospective clients, you “own” that advantage.

Which is why you start by researching your competition, to see what they do (and don’t do), and what they say (and don’t say) about it.

Filed Under: Copywriting, Marketing legal services

I like pain. It feels so good when it stops.

September 20, 2023 by David M. Ward

Why do people hire you? Because you help them solve their problems and alleviate their pain. Or protect them from problems that could cause them pain.

Sometimes, they think they can do this themself. Or they don’t realize how bad things could get and they wait.

You need to splash cold water on them and wake them up.

Tell them why they shouldn’t try to fix things themself and why they shouldn’t wait.

Tell them why they need to call you now.

Tell them they should at least find out their options (and risks), and give them examples of clients who didn’t do that and suffered. The clients who didn’t listen when you told them to have you review that contract before they sign it or ask you about their problem when it was small and relatively easy to fix.

Talk about the pain this cost them. And then talk about the clients who took action, and how everything turned out okay.

You know the drill.

Of course “prevention” is a harder sell then “cure” so when you’re talking about what could happen if they don’t talk to you or follow your advice, be a little dramatic about what can happen—you’re doing them a favor.

Use their fear to motivate them to act.

One way to do that, especially right now, is to talk about the economy. Inflation, foreclosures, losing their job, credit card debt, the rising cost of feeding their family—it’s on everyone’s mind, especially the people who need to talk to you the most.

They’re in pain and afraid things will get worse. Agree with them, and then tell them how they can get relief.

People do things (and hire lawyers) for two reasons: pain and pleasure.

Make sure you talk about both.

Filed Under: Communication, Copywriting, Marketing legal services

It’s not just what you say, but when you say it

August 8, 2023 by David M. Ward

It’s called “staging” and it makes your written or spoken message more effective by putting your points in the most effective order.

For example, you stage your material when you start an article or presentation with the problem, not the solution, and follow that by explaining the risks of ignoring the problem or choosing a poor solution.

After you describe the risks, you build on that with examples of what might happen, the costs, delays, pain and suffering, and secondary problems that can occur.

Now, you have your reader’s attention and the desire to hear the solution. When you then describe the solution, e.g., your services, they’re all ears and ready to know what to do to get this solution.

You tell them what to do, e.g., call, fill out a form, etc., and to seal the deal, you tell them the benefits of taking that next step—clarity, relief, a proven plan of action, saving money, etc.

That’s staging. That’s using a logical order to improve your audience’s understanding, build tension, and show them a way to release that tension precisely when your reader or listener is most likely to do it.

But staging isn’t just the order in which you present the elements of your message. It’s also about how you transition from one element to the next.

Want an example? (There, “Want an example?” is an example of a transitional phrase that pulls the reader forward to the next element, in this case, an example).

Transitional phrases keep readers reading and listeners listening. They do that by asking questions and painting pictures in their mind with statements that get them to focus on an image or feeling, ready to hear more.

There are many ways to accomplish this. For example, you can ask, “What do you think might happen if. . ?” and letting their imagination do the rest. Or, “Imagine how you’ll feel when you no longer have. . .”.

You can also use transitional phrases to transition to your call to action or close.

A few examples:

“At this point, there are 3 questions you should be asking yourself. . .”

“When I show this to people, they usually tell me/ask me. . .”

“Here are your options. . . which one makes the most sense to you?”

“If this describes your situation, here’s what I recommend. . .”

Think of this type of transitional phrase as a palate cleanser, making the reader ready for the next course.

Anyway, this is just a brief introduction to staging and transitional phrases. You don’t need to be a marketing expert or copywriter to use them. But do pay attention to how others use them in their writing and presentations, and consider how you might use them in yours.

Filed Under: Closing the sale, Communication, Content creation, Copywriting, Presentations, Salesmanship, Writing