The challenge of finding general legal leads is nothing compared to the work necessary to find legal leads for a particular mass tort. Not only must law firms reach potential plaintiffs, but in many cases, they must make the potential plaintiff aware that he or she has the option of joining a mass tort.
The number of potential leads for a particular mass tort is limited, and other law firms are after those same leads. Even if a firm manages to get legal leads for a mass tort, the firm needs trained legal intake specialists to ensure conversions.
There are six major avenues to find and convert leads for a mass tort. These are:
1. Traditional Advertising
Television, radio, and billboards are commonly used by law firms for a reason. 93% of Americans listen to some form of radio every week, and 89% of Americans watch television at least once a week.
Traditional advertising is how many potential leads become aware that they have the option of joining a mass tort. Digital advertising depends largely on targeting smaller niches with individuals who already know which mass torts are applicable to them. Traditional advertising educates the masses without depending on them going online.
A potential downside for traditional advertising is that many leads will be people who do not have real standing to join the mass tort. Trying to vet leads and do intake in-house can waste valuable billable hours. Even worse, call overflow may lead to legitimate leads being lost.
A popular solution is to partner with a legal call center that can qualify leads, do intake, schedule appointments, and answer the phone after work hours. Thanks to lead tracking, no marketing dollars are wasted on good leads that slip through the cracks.
2. Social Media Marketing
Some potential prospects do not trust advertising at all. That is where social media marketing comes into play.
Social Media Marketing refers to the use of social media platforms to connect with an audience, build a brand, or drive conversions. Instead of “selling” to the audience, the goal is to create an engaged community of users that naturally attracts relevant potential leads.
No one wants to join a group dedicated to a law firm. However, quite a few people may want to join a support group for mesothelioma sufferers.
Do not make the mistake of setting up a “bait and switch” group. If firms actively pitch their wares on a group meant to support survivors, users will revolt and leave the group.
Instead, the community manager should only attempt to convert individuals who proactively express interest in joining a mass tort. Even then, the conversion should never feel like “selling.” It should be a friendly interaction where the law firm offers to help the individual join a mass tort.
3. Pay for Performance Advertising
Pay for Performance Advertising means that affiliates or vendors with pre-existing lists receive payment every time they can get a user to perform some action. Some examples of this are Cost per Lead, Cost per Action, and Cost per Thousand.
Cost per Lead (CPL)
Law firms pay a vendor every time the vendor provides a legal lead.
Cost per Action (CPA)
Law firms pay a vendor every time a lead performs some action such as filling out a form that qualifies them as prospects.
Cost per Thousand (CPM)
Under this pricing agreement, vendors are paid every time 1,000 people view a particular advertisement or web page. The acronym stands for “Cost per Mille” where “Mille” refers to a thousand views.
Caveat
Pay for Performance advertising works as long as this basic rule is followed:
Only buy lead from vendors who give out their full contact information. Why?
First, there is no way to know whether the leads received are potential prospects, random visitors, or even bots.
Second, vendors are incentivized to maximize their profit from each lead. That means selling the lead to multiple firms. Unless the vendor is brand-new, firms will purchase leads that were already distributed to other firms.
Third, vendors rarely actively seek out prospects who fit certain criteria. The chances that a vendor will have a lead for the appropriate mass tort is near zero.
However, as long as you have real contact information for the vendor, he or she cannot run a scam and then disappear.
4. Pay per Click (PPC) Advertising
A more orthodox lead generation method is advertising on websites and search engines. The advertising platform receives payment every time a user clicks on an advertisement.
Unlike pay for performance, this means all visitors to a landing page have some interest in learning more about mass torts. Otherwise, they would not have clicked on the advertisement. While some issues exist with “ghost traffic” and bots, search engines like Google are good at making sure firms don’t pay for fake clicks.
PPC takes place primarily in two forms:
Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
In SEM, users are exposed to an advertisement based on what they are searching for. This is an excellent way to find prospects who are already aware of the mass tort and want further information on it.
Display Advertisements
Another useful tactic is to put advertisements on websites that leads are likely to visit. For instance, advertising on a medical or legal advice site can help move prospects down the sales funnel.
5. Content Marketing
Why should potential leads go to your website?
If the only answer is “to sign up for a mass tort,” then content marketing is desperately needed.
Content marketing, the creation and distribution of content such as blogs, videos, and podcasts, is at the heart of establishing credibility, expertise and trustworthiness. When relevant, content marketing also establishes emotional connections between the visitor and the firm.
A firm’s blog is where they demonstrate their superiority to competing firms. Everyone wants to be represented by “the best of the best.” Firms with blogs that put out expert content will be perceived as experts. Firms that can reach the level of “thought leadership” gain even more of an advantage.
Content marketing is best combined with other forms of advertising unless a firm already has a steady stream of organic traffic.
6. Search Engine Optimization
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the flip side of Search Engine Marketing. Instead of paying for advertisements on a Google search, the goal is to build content which naturally appears at the top of relevant search results. The content usually comes from a firm’s content marketing efforts.
SEO can be broken down into two practices: regular SEO and local SEO.
Regular SEO
Sources tells that in regular SEO, users type queries into the search engine with the intent to accomplish some task. That task may be to learn something, find another website, or engage in a transaction. Google’s goal is to provide whatever URL best satisfies the user’s intent.
It is important to note that, in regular SEO, it is not enough to write great material. According to indexsy, Google wants trustworthy material, and Google’s algorithm determines trust in part by seeing how many trustworthy sites link to a particular URL. For competitive queries, it is rarely possible to rank highly without building some links back to the URL. These are known as “backlinks.”
Local SEO
Local SEO aims to satisfy search intents that involve businesses in close proximity to the searcher. Besides proximity, Google ranks local SEO by seeing which business is most relevant, which the best reviewed and which is the most prominent.
Google uses “Google My Business” reviews to determine whether it should “trust” your business. A close and relevant business with many one star reviews may rank worse than a business which is further away but has only four star reviews.
The ideal way to market your mass tort practice changes depending on where the ideal lead can be found. Once firms decide on who they are looking for, one of these six marketing tactics can be used to attract new leads.
The quickest way to lose a legal lead is to not answer the phone immediately. This is when the benefits of legal call centers come into play. By harnessing economies of scale, legal call centers ensure coverage 24/7/365.
