Law firms have no excuse to not market their services, claims Nick Jervis

There is one thing that every solicitor must do. This one thing provides you with a chance of competing with the new entrants to the legal sector. This one thing allows you to generate new instructions with very little cost. This one thing also allows you to charge a reasonable fee for your legal services. This one thing takes up little time yet can achieve brilliant results.

However, time after time I am told that this ‘one thing’ is just too difficult to do. This is no longer the case and you really do have no excuse not to be doing this any longer.

Tick list

This simple, inexpensive thing to do is to build a list of your clients and prospects and say something to them at least once a month, but preferably once a week. Now having been a marketing consultant in the legal profession for the last nine years, following on from 14 years as a practising lawyer, I know all of the excuses possible for not doing this, so I want to tick them off one by one for you.

1. It is too expensive.

You can obtain high-quality email software from as little as £20 a month. Every law firm can afford that to allow them to keep in touch with their clients and prospects (and the cost is covered with just one extra instruction each year). You can email me if you would like some recommendations of software to use.

2. It is too difficult to do.

The variety of software is vast, but nearly all of it is simple to use. Once you have set it up you should be able to put in your newsletter and content and send the newsletter within ten minutes. Ten minutes to send a newsletter to 100 or 10,000 people, it makes no difference on the amount of people in the database; the time is exactly the same. Now answer me this, if you send a monthly newsletter to 10,000 people, do you think that even if your newsletter was dreadfully written it would still make your telephone ring from time to time? I know it would.

3. I don’t know what to say.

Please forgive me for saying this, but solicitors are generally not the right people to write their own client newsletter, because they naturally want to focus on the legal detail and technicalities. I know this from having fallen asleep reading many a solicitor’s newsletter, and remember that I used to be one. Your clients do not want the full legal story; all they are looking for is the headlines and what they can do about the particular legal problem. Therefore, the purpose of the newsletter is not to provide the full solution, but merely to highlight the problem and explain that you provide the solution.

Ring around

There are countless freelance writers who would be happy of a regular retainer to write your bespoke monthly newsletter. Once again, you can email me if you would like some details. I mention bespoke because in my opinion the content does need to be tailored to your firm and used exclusively by it. While I know that there are many providers of ‘ready written’ legal newsletters, you should avoid these at all costs. First, because marketing is all about individuality, and second, because most of them are written by solicitors (see above).

You really must communicate with all of your clients and prospects every month of every year. How will your client remember you when they next need legal services if the last time they heard from you was seven years ago? However, if in that seven years they have received 84 emails from you, not only will your name be at the top of the list, it will be the only name on the list, so you will not be competing on a telephone ring around. Wouldn’t you rather be in that position when a client asks you for help?

Nick Jervis is a solicitor (non-practising) and the managing director of Samson Consulting, a law firm marketing consultancy. Download a free guide: 8 Ways To Instantly Attract New Clients from www.samsonconsulting.co.uk