Making the most of email newsletters for lawyers
1st October 2013
If your law firm is planning an email newsletter to promote the expertise of your lawyers, then how can you ensure that you will get the best return on investment?
Set clear objectives
For a fast, urgent bulletin, a simple plain text email may suffice to alert clients regarding a topical issue quickly.
To raise awareness of a new service offering from your solicitors and really get people talking, you might wish to commission an interactive marketing campaign.
To promote a programme of seminars, you will want to send a series of emailers with the facility to book places and link to a payment facility.
It is important to give your law firm marketing team a clear brief.
The subject line
The subject line is the most important part of the emailer. This may be all that the recipient sees before whether deciding to open or delete the email.
If you have a large enough database, consider splitting the data and trying different subject lines.
Quality control
Set up an internal test group to view all new emailers and check them thoroughly.
Ensure the design and content of your legal e-newsletter is signed off and the target list is agreed.
Response handling
The majority of responses and enquiries from an electronic marketing campaign are generated very quickly, compared to a traditional direct mail campaign, and therefore require careful management in terms of planning, scheduling and follow up by solicitors.
Fee earners need to be ready and available to respond promptly to any enquiries that are generated.
A measurable return on investment
Market-leading email service providers also provide a number of additional benefits in terms of accountability.
If you are using your email client to send bulk emails, you may not know if your email is being delivered or read. Sophisticated emailing systems, such as Enablermail, provide impressive real- time tracking that allows you to see exactly who has opened the email and which articles they have clicked through to read, which web links they have followed and which attachments they have downloaded. This information is invaluable when targeting potential new clients to assess their level of interest.
Spring clean your data
When emails are not delivered, you will also receive better information indicating whether it is a hard bounce (where that email address no longer exists) or a soft bounce (perhaps where the email inbox is temporarily full). You can then take a view about whether to send these contacts a hard copy version, and proceed to clean the data in your CRM system.
To launch an email newsletter for your law firm
Contact us for an informal discussion on 01785 859 995 or email info@bernersmarketing.com.
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