Edward Poll
Dolan Media Newswires
It’s probably been a long time for most of you since the lazy days of summer: your student days when things got hectic only nine months out of the year. This is true for your potential clients, too, which is why summer is a good time to think about marketing.
Lazy days of summer (relatively speaking)
For many of you, summer is still probably a lazier time of the year if you have children. With children, you undoubtedly spend the school year juggling their activities with your work schedule. Fitting in, between briefs, an afternoon performance of a play in which your elementary-school child plays a tree; attending the evening Honor Society initiation ceremony for your junior high-schooler; and working in, between client visits, your high school athlete’s soccer game. During the school year, you might be on lunch-making duty, sick-day duty and homework-helping duty. It’s not just you who may have more free time in the summer, though. Potential clients, too, may have a little more free time than usual.
Opportunity knocks
Clients who need legal services right away won’t wait for a less hectic time of the year to go looking for a lawyer. But there are many potential clients out there who need legal services that are not necessarily of an imminent nature. For example, many people need to make wills or create trusts, but they just haven’t gotten around to it yet.
This is where you come in. Seize the opportunity that the free time of the summer is affording both you and potential clients and amp up the marketing.
Marketing ideas for summer Internet marketing
Potential clients may have more time to surf the internet in the summer, and this is a good time to revamp your law firm’s website. Websites offer a great place to publish information that prospective and current clients can access.
The two types of promotional websites are brochureware websites and information-hub websites.
Brochureware websites are the most basic websites available. They are generally used as an alternative medium for communicating basic promotional information about the firm and often are merely online versions of glossy pamphlets or brochures that firms would typically hand out to new or prospective clients.
Information-hub websites generally have all the information contained in brochureware sites as well as other information that is useful to clients. Information-hub websites should be specifically designed to attract particular groups of prospective clients to the website by providing high-quality information.
The personal touch
With potential clients having more time to attend networking events in the summer, this category includes anything that involves your personal attendance.
For example, you can attend community events and subtly market yourself to others. You can speak at conferences and in front of industry groups.
You can conduct presentations and seminars.
Those are all ways to get out there and personally meet potential clients and show them what you have to offer.
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Edward Poll is the principal of LawBiz Management. He coaches lawyers and is the creator of “Life After Law,” a program that helps attorneys plan for profitable exits. He can be contacted at edpoll@lawbiz.com.
