How To Ethically Confiscate Your Competitor’s Best Clients

competitor's best clients

Social media grants consumers extraordinary power to explore their legal representation options. As such, you must do everything in your promotional power to attract and persuade clients to choose you over everyone else!

It isn’t a stretch to say that with all the online options, every day you are competing to keep your current client base. Where ever you turn your competition is there; and, they are actively targeting your clientele.

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Moreover, if too many of your clients are lured away, and you can’t replace them, you will go out of business. What you are about to read does not focus on merely replacing clients willy-nilly, take all comers, fill the funnel; no!

You will learn how to attract streams of the “best” clients ethically. Fact, your most profitable future clients already exist; many of them work with your rivals. You just have to persuade them to do business with you instead.

Successful advertising equals effective communication. If you can’t persuade or interest consumers to read or listen to your message (depending on the platform you), they won’t call your office!

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Profitable advertising begins with the premise that “your clients have a problem they don’t want; however, they know there’s a solution to their problem ‘out there’ they want but don’t have.”

Profitable advertising begins with the premise that “your clients have a problem they don’t want; however, they know there’s a solution to their problem ‘out there’ they want but don’t have.”

Your task: identify their problem and deliver “the” solution. Depending on your specialty(s), you will target only those prospects that have already purchased or are in the process of buying, services similar to yours, and you will reward them for taking immediate action.

Traditionally, most promotional pieces are written for the wants and needs of brand new prospects — further; many advertising pieces try to appeal to everyone; as if everybody were a prospect. Decades of advertising industry figures point out that this segment only represents 5% of the available market; moreover, only a small percentage are going to take action.

Your objective is only to target those prospects that have a real interest in solving a specific legal need. The “gold” lies within the remaining 95%; they’re being ignored. This market segment represents your competitors’ best, most profitable clients and prospects. Embrace this concept, and your promotional campaigns get a whole lot easier.

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We must stress that we are not just commandeering clients solely for the sake of taking, looting and plundering. No, this approach targets people that in one way or another have been failed by your competitors.

People grow dissatisfied with businesses for varied reasons. Maybe, they no longer feel a connection they once felt. Possibly they built a relationship with a staff member who’s no longer with the firm. They aren’t happy with their results (real or perceived).

The reason(s) why they left a practice are essential; because you are going to position your firm as the superior alternative to all other legal service providers in town.

Focus your promotions on specific clients; your return on investment increases significantly. Your competitors’ clients already buy the services you offer — deliver greater incentives. Your rivals’ clients are immensely more profitable; they’re just waiting for the proverbial oasis in the desert.

Multiple marketing studies demonstrate that all consumers go through several logical and emotional steps before considering a purchase (in this case, legal advice).

  • We start by gathering data, collect brochures, compare attorney credentials, facilities, price, etc.
  • We browse websites and review testimonials.
  • We look for key components to facilitate our decision-making process.

When fact-finding, consumers are actually making emotional purchases.

This marketing strategy requires a focused message! You’re not just “beefing-up” your advertising; you’re enhancing and fine-tuning your reputation platform with every promotional piece. These highly targeted marketing tactics necessitate you to do a client inventory, for example:

If your specialty is family law, you may find that the bulk of your business comes from adoption work, followed by elder law, etc. Your goal: become the resident authority on elder law, adoptions, assisted reproductive law, etc. The aim is to do business with those people who have a history of, and additional need for, your targeted skills.

Hence, those people who already believe in the benefits of legal services identify themselves. There’s no need to waste valuable time and money trying to convince people who aren’t buying what you’re selling.

Once you establish your presence as the person that will alleviate their dilemma, offer these prospects an incentive (within guidelines of course); reward them for taking action to solve their problem. Show these prospects that you understand their needs.

Your incentive can be whatever you believe has the highest perceived value to your prospects; for instance, a specific dollar amount available of instant credit with your firm good towards future services, etc.

Your initial reward or special incentive is just a one-time acquisition cost your practice. The lifetime value of acquiring new clients could easily be worth thousands of dollars or more to your firm. Also, if your competitor has dropped the ball, their clients are waiting for a chance to change loyalties.

These clients represent the largest and richest pool to your firm!

You’re asking these clients to “jump ship;” is your proposal enticing enough to break loyalty factors? Keep this in mind when you’re creating your offers.

THE “BEST” AVAILABLE CLIENTS

Target the segment of your competitors’ business that makes the bulk of their receivables: that 20% of clients that makes up 80% of their practice’s revenues (based on the Pareto principle).

Incidentally, do you know the value of each of your clients (aka their lifetime value)? Your client’s lifetime value represents the average profits you receive from them over the entire time you expect to do business with them. Everyone knows that clients are the lifeblood of every business; however, very few practices fully understand the financial impact each client can have on their practice.

Until you quantitatively know the worth of each client, you cannot possibly know how much you will spend to get a new one; or, how much it can cost to lose each client.

DO SOME RECONNAISSANCE

Be conscious of what your competitors are promoting to their prospects. Monitor the publications and social media sites your competitors appear; i.e., business journals, newspapers, Facebook, LinkedIn, and so on.

List all the potential reasons why your competitors’ clients might be dissatisfied. You might find your competitors’ promotional pieces are lacking key motivational elements. For instance,

  • They feature a generic laundry list of legal services.
  • They don’t acknowledgment the prospects’ potential problems, nor offer solutions.
  • No enticing offers; no testimonials, etc.

CREATE SOLUTIONS

Depending on what you find from your investigation, this will allow you to create promotional campaigns that will accomplish the goal of enticing and attracting more clients to your firm.

Illustrate three valuable benefits about your firm to compel prospects to choose you over all others; use strategies and incentives to reassure your prospects that you’re the right firm for their needs.

Henceforth, you must continually review what your competitors are promoting, and ask yourself “what do prospects want that your competitors aren’t providing?” Now, you must prove and demonstrate the credibility of your claims as they relate to your services.

Finally, you MUST protect your firm too. Create deep relationships with your clients (ones that foster profound loyalty). Remember these new clients are in front of you because your competitor failed to serve their needs adequately.

It is incumbent on you to thoroughly demonstrate that you are indeed the superior alternative to anyone they’ve ever worked with in the past. Claudio Gormaz 

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