Archive for July, 2010

One Thing Most Advertising Agencies Will Never Do?

Talk about a former client.

We recently received a call from an attorney who stopped using our program a few years ago.  He decided at that time that he was going to scale back his practice so he could build up his real estate business.  The call was to thank us.  He said he had been meaning to do so for a while.   He said that he made a lot of money as the result of using our TV campaign and is still receiving checks from one particular type of case we informed him about (many hundreds of thousands of dollars, and counting).    He also wanted me to know that a few months following the conclusion of his TV campaign, he received a call from someone who had remembered him from our TV ads.  That case ended up settling for over $900K.

Now, it is very unusual for anyone to leave our program.  The few that have left have generally done so for reasons that have nothing to do with our campaigns (retirement, restructuring, partner dissoultions, career changes and, in one case, divorce). Whatever the reason, it is gratifying to hear from them that they were happy and satisfied with what we provided.  The above is the latest, but not only, example.

In the case of law firms, references from former clients are invaluable.  Ways to best to best capitalize on this diamond mine will be the subject of a future post.

The Worst First Question You Can Ask?

How did you hear about us?

The question seems innocent enough.  After all, you want to track your marketing and see what produced a call to the firm.  The problem is that it can actually cause more damage than good, and any information it provides is wholly unreliable.

When someone contacts a law firm for the very first time it is usually because they have a problem.  “How did you hear about us?” has absolutely nothing to do with what they need or why they called you.  It is a self-serving question that they are generally unprepared to answer.  Because it is asked, though, people will try to come up with an answer and usually that answer is whatever is the first thing that comes to their mind, true or not.  At best, you may get whatever was the very last thing they saw or heard before picking up the phone or coming into the office.  For example, they may have been seeing your TV ads for a very long time.  Then something happened and they needed a lawyer so they specifically looked you up in the phone book.  “How did you hear about us?” is then answered by “in the phone book”.
Numerous studies have been done that show that the answer to “How did you hear about us?” is often inaccurate.  Think about how you yourself have responded to that question in the past.  Additionally, it just plain sounds unprofessional for a law firm to be asking it of a prospective client. It cheapens the experience.

Stop asking that question.  Your clients will appreciate it.
Rick –

www.MarketMastersLegal.com