Halloween is almost here! This is always a fun time of year, packed with ghosts, ghouls, and gargoyles. That said, don’t let the spooktacular holiday fun distract you from your business. Plenty of boogeymen lurk in the dark reaches of the marketing universe just waiting to jump out and grab your firm. This Halloween, watch out for these three scary marketing mistakes: the zombie, the vampire, and the supervillain.
THE ZOMBIE: Failing to Engage Enough With Your Existing Network
If you shuffle straight ahead toward growth without paying attention to the existing clients surrounding you, you’ll live to regret it. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Staying in touch with your network is the key to increasing your referrals.
According to one study, 83% of satisfied clients are willing to make referrals for their law firms, but of those, only 29% actually do it. Why? Because if you don’t stay in touch and make sure your firm is top of mind, 2 out of 3 clients will forget about you and turn to someone else. Terrifying, right? To bring in more referrals, ramp up your contact with your existing network. You can do this by emailing, calling, or sending an email newsletter.
THE VAMPIRE: Overvaluing Search Engine Marketing
Is there anything scarier than throwing money down the drain? I don’t think so, especially not to law firm owners. But that’s exactly what you’ll end up doing if you fall victim to the money-sucking vampire of search engine marketing.
Say it with us: SEO is not the Holy Grail. A lot of marketing companies won’t tell you this, but the scary truth is that not everyone can win the SEO game, and playing it can cause more harm than good. It can lead you to prioritize the wrong things. If you spend all of your time catering to bots and algorithms, for example, you’ll miss out on connecting with potential clients. And if you focus entirely on traffic, you might miss the fact that you’re driving that traffic to a website that’s too weak to convert leads.
The truth is that SEO is a constant uphill battle, and if you don’t invest a lot of time and energy into it, you’ll end up flushing your funds away.
THE SUPERVILLAIN: Making Yourself the Hero of Your Marketing Messages
Think about the latest superhero movie you watched. At center stage, there was the hero or heroine. They were doing the flashy work, fighting the bad guys, and getting the accolades. But they weren’t alone on screen, were they? Every hero has a guide or a best friend helping them along the way. To market successfully, that’s the dynamic you need to strike between your firm and your clients. Your firm isn’t the hero. You’re the Yoda to your client, Luke Skywalker, the Nick Fury to their Avengers.
No one hires a lawyer because of who the lawyer is — they hire a lawyer because of what the lawyer can do for them. They want support and guidance on their journey. In other words, your clients need to see themselves as the hero. When they visit your website, they need to see the person they are or want to be, not a photo of your face. If you make the mistake of centering your marketing on yourself rather than your clients’ wants and needs, a scary thing will happen: They won’t realize that you’re the right lawyer for them, and they’ll pass you over for the next guy. That’s what makes this mistake a supervillain. To learn more about the concept, check out the book Building a Story Brand by Donald Miller.
This Halloween, keep these three marketing mistakes in mind. With the right marketing strategy, you can keep the zombie, the vampire, and the supervillain at bay.
Spotlight Branding
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