Building a tribe of raving, loyal fans is the #1 objective of any lawyer. Your good work is not nearly enough to build a tribe—you have to stay “top of mind” with your referral sources as often as you can. You have to reach out to your fan base with valuable tips and advice that they can use to build their law practices.
The list of your top referral partners is your most valuable asset. You can build the list of referral partners the old-fashioned way with an email opt-in and a weekly email newsletter. When you deliver tons of value, your email subscribers will love you and your list will grow by 1-2 subscribers per day.
“Your audience is your business and their attention is the most valuable commodity in the world.”
-Mike Dillard, Self-Made Man Podcast
Think quality over quantity. Even if your email list is only few hundred, it is the quality of those relationships that counts. Just 3-5 high-quality referral partners may be all you need for a thriving referral practice. Attract people to you by educating them and constantly deliver value to your list through content-rich blogs and email newsletters.
The Backbone of a List-Building System
Begin by creating a landing page (a/k/a “capture page”) that is designed to entice your clients with a free offer, i.e., ebook, white paper, DVD or CD. In return for their name and email address, you give your prospective clients an ebook with your best tips and advice. You just started the conversation.
On your capture page, just ask for the prospective client’s first name and email address, i.e., “Not getting new cases from your website? I know how you feel because when I started my law practice I had to figure it out on my own—I struggled for years to find the right system for my law firm’s website. That’s why I created this ebook, “How to Get Your Law Firm’s Website on the First Page of Google”. Add a Call to Action button that reads, “Do you want to learn how to get your website to drive get more clients?” Leadpages.net is a great tool for creating a capture page from scratch.
Let Customers Fund the Facebook Ad Campaign
The second step is to create a marketing asset, such as a book or guide, which delivers a ton of value at a very low, entry price, i.e., $27. Your list will be re-directed to offers for your front-end entry level book and, they’ll receive a hard-cover book that knocks their socks off. The value of the book that the prospective client receives far exceeds the cost and this makes it easy for them to take out their credit card…and buy more of your marketing assets.
Now your entry level product is generating some cash. You create a Facebook ad campaign to drive traffic to your capture page and funnel all $ generated by sales back into a Facebook ad campaign. This will allow you to spend more on Facebook advertising. Your goal should be to create a list building system that pays for itself–your customers fund the Facebook ad campaign when they buy your book, ebook, etc.
“The greatest asset a business can ever possess is a known list of satisfied, loyal customers.”
-Dan Kennedy, GKIC
Let’s say at the end of the month you spent $300 on a Facebook ad campaign that generated $320 in book sales. Your Facebook ad campaign paid for itself! You can adjust the Facebook ad spend every week/month to correlate with the income you receive—in a down month, you can lower the ad spend. As long as you break even, the Facebook ad campaign makes perfect sense—you are buying traffic to your landing page and your list of loyal fans is growing by the dozens daily.
Using Your List to Create Passive Income
Having multiple package offerings increases conversion rates versus just having one package or level of pricing. Once you get the capture page and entry level product in place, you should redirect your fans to higher-priced products that will give your fans greater access to you, i.e., your “back-end” products.
Your higher-ticket items might consist of a Shock & Awe package for $197 that consists of a collection of your best marketing and management materials. Create a video showing what goes into your Shock & Awe package (video increases conversion by 30%) and offer no-risk, money back guarantees for everything, i.e., “All of the risk is on me”.
You might add a monthly continuity program for $29/month, where your fans receive:
- Print monthly newsletters,
- CD of the month,
- Access to a private “members only” online group where you answer questions and interact with members and build a community of fans and
- Discounted rates to your special events.
Offer a 30-day risk free trial and $29/month billed automatically after day 30, and a two-month discount on the annual fee if a member pays for the entire year. You might offer a free Shock & Awe package as a special gift for those who commit for 12 months to your monthly continuity program.
A List Building System that Pays for Itself
Put the $ back into the Facebook ad campaign. As you make more $, begin creating multiple Facebook ads and split test the campaigns to find out what’s working best. The $ from your sales of your book, Shock & Awe and continuity program will pay for your Facebook ad campaign and your email subscriber/list grows into the thousands.
Start small and test your results with a limited budget for ad spends. Find out which Facebook ads are converting and bring in $. Once you know which Facebook ads are making cash, you can amp up the ad spend and pay extra to “boost” your conversion-friendly Facebook ads.
Little intimidated about creating and split testing Facebook ads? (You’re not alone). Hire the experts at a digital advertising company and let them do the work for a management fee that is 10-20% of the ad spend. I’ve worked with Ralph Legnini at Dragon Search in NYC and they do amazing work.
Expand Your Influence to the World
As your list grows, so will your influence and legacy. With your Facebook ad campaign, you can appeal to a mass market and sell to thousands across the globe (yes, there are injury lawyers in Egypt and New Zealand). Through the power of Facebook ads and a robust capture page and continuity program, your influence can span the globe, your list will bust at the seams and you might even make some cash.
