Law firms cannot afford to take a “set it and forget it” approach when it comes to maintaining a successful email marketing campaign. Instead, they must take proactive steps to ensure that these campaigns are efficiently managed, reaching the right people, adding value, and providing a positive return on investment. An email campaign audit is the best method for ensuring your campaigns are working effectively. Read on for some simple tips for conducting an audit.
What to Look for In an Email Marketing Audit
An email marketing audit provides an analysis of all the factors affecting your law firm email campaign. Done correctly, it can reveal weaknesses and opportunities for improvement. Specific campaign components and processes can vary from one firm to the next, but this post will focus on some of the commonalities.
- Email Recipient Strategies
While most law firms send campaign emails collectively to their entire email list, this may not be the best strategy for maximizing results… particularly if your firm offers services in various practice areas. Segmentation is the process of dividing a firm’s email list into smaller sections for more targeted marketing efforts. This can be done in a variety of ways, including by practice area, or based on an individual’s status with the firm.
For instance, a firm may divide its email list into the following categories:
- New Leads – Receive emails prompting them to initiate contact with the firm.
- Current Clients – Receive emails that reinforce the client relationship and request referrals.
- Former Clients – Receive emails aimed at encouraging their return to the firm for additional legal needs.
With so many emails flooding our inboxes, segmentation helps your firm increase open rates, improve response rates, and enhance repeat business.
- Attention-Grabbing Subject Lines
The email subject line is extremely important as it introduces your firm’s emails to recipients. Therefore, it must grab the reader’s attention and inspire them to open the email instead of deleting or ignoring it. To audit this component, take a look at your best-performing emails and analyze the subject lines. Identify any patterns and incorporate similar strategies for future messages.
- Message Content
Once you pass the opening test, it’s vital to ensure you are delivering quality content. Marketing emails should include information that provides recipients with valuable information that inspires the desired response.
As with subject lines, a great way to audit your message content is a review of previous emails. Identify which emails were most successful at igniting actions and ask questions like:
- What was the subject matter of these emails?
- What was the tone of the message delivery? Was it formal or more relaxed?
- Was the message informational or educational?
- Were real life examples used?
- What practice area(s) did these messages highlight?
The answers to these questions can help you craft future emails in a similar way to maximize campaign outcomes.
Additionally, every message should include a compelling Call to Action (CTA). This tells recipients what action your firm wants them to take after reading your email, such as scheduling a call or reading an article. Include a CTA that is short and compelling for better outcomes.
- Layout and Design
Humans are visual and drawn to emails that they find attractive. A standard written format can come off as boring and recipients may feel that your message will take too long to read and understand. An effective way to address this problem is through a message layout that breaks up content with shorter paragraphs and lists.
You should also consider including visual aspects within the messages, such as an image, a graph, or even a gif. Each of these components can add a splash of creativity to your law firm emails that the recipients will find interesting.
- Timing and Cadence
Timing and cadence are important aspects for effective email campaigns. Conduct a little research to ensure that your messages are being sent on the optimal days of the week during the times when they are most likely to be read. Also take note of the frequency. You want the messages to keep your services top of mind for recipients, but not so often that they become overwhelming or annoying. This can be a delicate dance, but it could mean the difference between emails that get results and those that get instantly deleted.
- A Process That Works
For an email marketing campaign to be successful, the mechanics of implementation must fit within the specific needs of your law firm. For example, these marketing efforts are typically non-billable, so you want to ensure that they are being handled efficiently. It does not make financial sense for an attorney who bills at $300 per hour to spend hours each week managing a non billable email campaign.
Consider the following when auditing your email campaign process:
- What is your firm’s current process for bringing an email campaign from idea to implementation? How long does the process take?
- Do you have a documented process that can be easily followed by any member of the firm?
- Who is responsible for each piece of the process and is this the best person (from a financial and skill perspective) to handle this task?
- What role does automation currently play in your email campaign workflow? Where can automation be utilized to promote greater productivity?
- Are you utilizing the best software and technology to streamline the email marketing campaign process?
A workflow audit provides a detailed view of your firm’s processes for the timely correction of weaknesses and errors.
Conduct an Audit to Ensure that your Email Campaign is Working
A regular campaign audit is essential to ensuring that your law firm email marketing efforts are yielding the results you seek. Consider doing an audit at least once a year to implement best practices and make sure to use quality metrics and analytics to help in your evaluation. These small efforts can result in huge success for your firm.
Law Ruler helps attorneys automate their legal marketing efforts for maximized results. Streamline your law firm’s marketing operations today by scheduling a free demo.
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