Building marketing funnels for lawyers is crucial to understanding how to guide clients from the firm’s discovery phase to the point of hiring. Failure to do so can result in missed opportunities.
Although it’s widely studied by marketing and sales professionals, the truth is that every office manager needs to understand this topic. This is because a business without a sales funnel is unlikely to thrive.
Therefore, in this article of assistant for attorneys, you’ll learn about the importance of a sales funnel in the legal profession and, if you don’t have one in place, you’ll learn how to create one in practice. Stay tuned!
What are programmed marketing funnels for lawyers?
First, you need to understand what a sales funnel consists of before explaining how to create one for your law firm. The concept of a sales funnel refers to the process of closing a deal, covering everything from the moment a potential customer is captured to their conversion into a customer.
In other words, understand it as tracking a client’s journey, from the moment they first contact the firm or the legal services offered until the sale. In the case of law firms, the sale occurs with the closing of the legal fee agreement.
Through the funnel, you can understand your marketing strategy and how you’re converting these strangers into customers.
How does a sales funnel work?
The process of purchasing a product or service isn’t uniform and doesn’t occur simply. Rather, it occurs in stages. This is because, during the purchasing journey, the client goes through several stages that determine how close they are to actually acquiring the legal service the firm offers.
These steps are easily apparent. For example, if you have back pain, you’re likely researching solutions. Among the options presented, you might come across messages that would solve your problem.
This way, you can check out massage therapists who work in your area, build a relationship with one of them, and ultimately hire them. With law firms, as with any type of company, this process is the same.
Thus, there are several “steps” people must climb before finally hiring your services. First, there’s the initial contact, which is when they hear about your solution to their problem.
After that, people usually research what to do and what options are available, then compare them. Only then do they make a purchase. Eventually, they even recommend your services to others.
Therefore, a client who has recently discovered a problem and has had contact with your service is less ready to buy than one who has already compared your office with competitors and sought opinions about your service provision.
So, to determine what level of maturity an individual has in relation to the purchasing decision, it is necessary to divide these moments into parts, thus determining the stages of the funnel.
What are the stages of the sales funnel?
Before even building a sales funnel for your legal practice, you need to understand its stages. If you’re still not clear on how this concept works, these stages will help you better understand how it applies in practice. See below what the stages of the sales funnel are!
1. Top of the Funnel
The top of the funnel, or ToFu, is the moment of learning and discovery. This is the stage where a person begins to realize they have a problem. Until this point, they were indifferent and unaware of their need.
In other words, she wasn’t looking for any product or service, as she wasn’t even aware of the problem she had. However, upon first contact with your office, she realized she had a demand and began researching it.
To attract this user’s attention, your firm needs to position itself as an expert. To do this, you can, for example, provide blog articles or free e-books that cover the topic they’re searching for. This way, they can contact your firm if they have any questions.
Understand that, at this stage, you’re dealing with visitors who have somehow come into contact with your content or visited your website, for example. This is the time to educate them to convert them into leads and thus move them further down the funnel.
An example will help you understand. Imagine someone is worried about their retirement. However, they’re not yet aware that this is a real problem and that there are solutions.
While searching online for ways to improve her retirement, she might come across articles on a blog from a retirement agency that offers retirement planning. Reading about this, she begins to research further and realizes she needs to plan for her future.
2. Middle of the funnel
The middle of the funnel, or MoFu, is the stage at which the individual recognizes the problem and is considering the solutions presented. In fact, problem recognition is what determines whether the person has moved on to the second stage of the funnel.
Typically, visitors at this stage have already researched and read extensively on the topic and have admitted they have a real need. Now, they’re looking for ways to meet it. Therefore, your office needs to present solutions and demonstrate the alternatives it has to resolve the issue.
At this stage, your office tends to deal with leads, which are people who have already interacted with your content and provided you with basic contact information in exchange for richer content, such as an e-book, for example.
Because this lead isn’t yet aware of the ideal solution and doesn’t know how to solve their needs, they’re considering several alternatives. Therefore, they often have many questions about whether a particular service is right for them.
To help them, you should explain when they should purchase a particular service and whether there are other options besides the service they believe is best. In practice, you can offer mid-funnel content that helps them advance to the next stage.
Make it clear that your goal is to help, not just sell. This will help you build trust with your lead.
Using the example of the pension office, imagine that the user recognizes that he needs to organize his pension situation in order to retire in the best possible way.
However, they still have doubts about whether their case simply requires a consultation to determine the best way to contribute as a freelancer or a comprehensive retirement plan. In this case, you can encourage them to read articles that delve deeper into these services or compare them and explain which situations each is best for, for example.
3. Bottom of the funnel
The bottom of the funnel, or FoFu, is where the purchase decision occurs. Here, your firm deals with MQLs (Marketing Qualified Leads), which are contacts who have gone through the nurturing process and who the responsible department has classified as ready for the sales stage.
So, the MQL is the lead who knows their problem, understands that they can’t solve it alone, and understands that they will need to hire a legal service.
If your office has a well-structured sales funnel, you’re already seen by users as an authority in the market, earning their trust to negotiate. So, this is the time to demonstrate that your office is ideal for solving his problem.
To do this, you can deliver content that helps them take the first step of contacting the office and closing a contract.
In this example, the pension office could deliver, for example, articles with interesting cases in which clients managed to significantly improve their retirement and how the office acted to achieve this significant improvement in their lives.
It’s worth mentioning that the MQL has also compared your firm to your competitors. Now, they’re choosing the one that best meets their needs. To close your sales funnel, they need to choose you and close a contract.
Finally, the responsible department must use its knowledge to sell the service and win over the customer.
Define the sales funnel stages
The sales funnel in the legal field may differ from that of companies in other market sectors. In fact, firms may have completely different funnels. Therefore, there’s no rule about the number of stages a funnel should have.
It should have at least the three stages mentioned. However, it’s possible to divide them into more phases, detailing, for example, prospecting, qualifying leads, presenting solutions, developing the relationship with the lead, negotiating and closing the contract, and post-sales.
Use a CRM
Like many digital marketing strategies, the sales funnel also works best when automated. This allows for control and organization of activities, lead management, and the stages within the funnel.
CRM is useful for creating and managing the sales funnel and provides all necessary automation. When you have a plan, a structured sales funnel, and well-defined personas, the software can deliver satisfactory results and facilitate process management.
Conclusion
In short, a programmed sales funnel represents a valuable strategy for law firm growth. By increasing client acquisition efficiency, improving lead quality, reducing administrative time, and increasing client satisfaction, lawyers can significantly boost their practice. Implementing this tool facilitates client relationship management and positions the firm competitively in the market, promoting sustainable growth and a solid reputation in the legal field.