When looking to market your product to professionals in the legal industry there are a number of factors to consider; who are the right types of leads for your business? how will you source their contact details and how will you craft the most successful marketing campaign possible? Despite the rise of social media, email is still very much the most effective tool when it comes to turning potential leads into customers, and in order to use it efficiently your business needs to have the direct contact details for a large number of leads; this is where list-building comes in.
The Legal Industry in 2017
According to the Legal Executive Institute, the legal market is currently worth around $437 billion - and that's just the US. Despite new challenges following the economic downturn, there are still plenty of opportunities for businesses wishing to market their product or service in this industry; for example, legal process outsourcing has become increasingly popular in recent years thanks to its ability to greatly lower costs and increase efficiency. As a result, according to a report published by Grand View Research, the global legal process outsourcing (LPO) market will be worth $27.19 billion by 2024.
Globalisation has also lead to new opportunities within the industry, with many law firms seeking to expand across borders thanks to the rise of the internet and advances in data security. The growth of ESI (electronically stored information) thanks to the recent amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure has also lead to new potential opportunities as the technology continues to grow. Environmentally-friendly solutions are also becoming more in-demand for many law firms, as new legislation and initiatives are impacting the industry, as well as leading to an increase in environmental law and more niche sub-practices.
How to use Listbuilding
Simply put, your list is just a database of contacts that your company can reach out to with various promotional messages. Once you've set it up, it will easily become your business' greatest asset in terms of engaging with potential customers and therefore driving sales, as it makes the whole process of setting up an email campaign much more efficient.
Types of Email
When you're ready to send your first email campaign there are a wide variety of different promotional emails you can use. For example, you may wish to let your leads know about a new product or service you have and how it can help them, or you could also notify them of special offers such as discounts or free trials - limited-time deals like these can often give curious leads the final push into becoming customers. If your company is planning on hosting an event such as a launch, conference or webinar, or even attending a trade show, email is the perfect way to invite potential leads. Offering incentives for early sign-ups can make the campaign even more effective.
Of course, you can also send out general news and updates from your company, though at Global Database we advise sending no more than one email every two weeks; this is enough to ensure that you stay top of mind with your contacts but not too often that your messages become intrusive and therefore likely to result in being reported as spam.
Benefits
When it comes to marketing, email is still king. In fact, the Direct Marketing Association email marketing sees a return on investment of around 4300 percent. There are a number of factors that make it so effective, including:
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Targeted emails - The fact the email allows you to segment users when sending campaigns is a huge advantage that can't be said for any other kind of marketing interaction. It means that you are able to engage different customers in different ways; ultimately in a way that suits them best and will therefore make them more likely to be responsive. You can also target your messages towards certain types of customer, for example, sending information about a more high-end product to businesses with bigger budgets, or separating those who have already bought a certain product from those who haven't.
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It's direct and private - Because your emails land straight into your customer's inbox, they are not competing so hard for their attention, unlike social media where there is a wealth of potential distractions in your follower's feed. It also means that any further interaction between you and the recipient is private, so they are more likely to be responsive if they have a question or want to know more about what you're offering.
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You own your list - It's no secret that social media can be extremely volatile when it comes to getting your posts seen; you're at the mercy of another company's policies after all. There's no need to worry about that with your email list; you own it and therefore have a much tighter control over your messages being seen and also how they are presented.
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Customers prefer it - Perhaps surprisingly, email is actually the preferred type of marketing communication for the majority of the public; a survey conducted by MarketingSherpa resulted in 72 percent of participants stating that they prefer to receive promotional content through email, compared to just 17 percent who prefer social media.
Finding the Right Contacts
Getting hold of the right kinds of legal professionals to target is obviously imperative when it comes to selling your product or service. You should aim to be as specific as possible when narrowing down exactly who to target, and always ensure that you have their correct and direct contact details; constantly being met by dead ends due to invalid information or gatekeepers is not only extremely frustrating, it will also take up some of your valuable time and resources.
As you start to think about building your list of legal professionals it can be hard to know where to begin; according to Statista there were 235,000 of them in the UK alone in 2016, and when looking at lawyers specifically there are currently around 1,336,000 just in the US, as states the American Bar Association (ABA). When seeking out these professionals by means such as website sign ups and in-person interactions at events, it can quickly become a time-consuming process. Many experts suggest that around 1000 contacts is ideal for a successful marketing campaign, and realistically for many businesses this could take months.
Thankfully, there are shortcuts available with which you can efficiently build lists from scratch while ensuring high quality contacts. At Global Database we have over 5 million contacts across 195 countries, with a range of filters in order to ensure that you are targeting the legal professionals who are the best fit for your brand. These include:
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Location - Are you just looking for legal professionals in a certain country?
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Seniority level - In order to ensure that you are only reaching out to people who can actually make purchasing decisions, you need to target the people at the top of the company - and we can provide this information with a range of job titles to filter.
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Employee size - Should you want to solely target legal executives that work in companies with less than 1000 employees, for example, you should use this filter.
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Sales Volumes - Obviously you want to make sure that your potential clients have the budget to buy your product or service, and filtering companies depending on their revenue is the perfect way to do so.
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Industry - Narrow your search down to industry sectors such as Telecoms, Banking, and HR.
Creating an Email Campaign
When the time comes to start putting your campaign together, chances are you will be wanting to use an email marketing service. Though it may be tempting to use a free service such as Microsoft Outlook, that isn't advisable as you will not be able to segment your contacts, access analytics such as who opened your email or clicked a link inside, and you also have more of a risk of being identified as a spammer.
Fortunately there are plenty of affordable options in the market, and at Global Database we recommend either Sendgrid, Amazon SES or Sendinblue; these are all reliable, easy to use and offer good value for money.
Following Up
According to The National Sales Executive Association 48 percent of sales people never follow up with a prospect. This is a big mistake when it comes to email campaigns, given that the second and third emails generally have better response rates. In fact, research by Yesware found that you have a 21 percent chance of getting a reply to your second email, and if they still don't reply to that one, a 25 percent chance you will eventually get a response after subsequent emails.
When it comes to writing the subject lines for follow up emails it is vital to make sure they are intriguing and attention-grabbing enough to entice the recipient to give your message another shot. Research conducted by Hubspot found that having the word 'tomorrow' in the subject line had a 10 percent higher open rate, and those with the word 'you' actually had a 5 percent lower open rate; it's better to use the recipient's name in order for them to be more likely to engage.
No matter how carefully you craft your email campaign, you will always have a certain level of unsubscribes; this is natural so don't be disheartened. At Global Database we recommend sourcing new data after your first three email campaigns in order to keep your data as fresh as possible. Fortunately this is extremely easy to do once you have purchased access to our database, as we add new data every day. This means that you are able to regularly export new lists of professionals from the database, for free and with no limits. We also validate every email address on a 30 day basis, resulting in an accuracy rate of 93 percent - one of the highest in the industry.
