February 17, 2025 • 12 mins
Stop Wasting Time, Start Scaling: 3 Ways to Automate NOW
This episode explores how legal marketing automation can save time, reduce errors, and improve client experiences in law firms. We discuss strategies for streamlining client intake, automating email campaigns, and scheduling social media posts to maintain consistency and engagement.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome to Legal Marketing 101.
I'm Toby Rosen.
Are you spending way too muchtime on repetitive marketing
tasks like posting to socialmedia or duplicating contact
information in your CRM, or isyour team spending time on this?
Today, we're going to betalking about how automation can
help your law firm save time onthe back end, reduce errors and
(00:30):
help you actually scale things.
Because, look, let's face it,running a law firm is a juggling
act between managing the cases,handling the client
communications and keeping thebusiness side of things afloat,
which I realize.
I'm glazing over a huge amountof items there, but your to-do
list has got to feel endless.
I know mine does and I'mguessing yours is worse.
(00:51):
Now let's add manual marketingtasks to the mix and suddenly
you feel like you've gone fromtreading water and holding a
baby to treading water andholding two babies.
You're spending hours and hourseach week on things that just
aren't driving the results foryour firm and ultimately you're
just going to feel like you'redrowning.
So take an example how manytimes have you or your staff
(01:14):
sent the same follow-up emailmanually, maybe even in the last
week or the last day?
Or how often do you scramble tokeep track of leads to see who
has actually been, you know,contacting the lead, just
because someone forgot to updatethe spreadsheet.
These repetitive tasks don'tjust waste time.
I think you can clearly see whythey drain energy and lead to
(01:35):
missed opportunities.
And when we start talking aboutscaling which is where the big
dollars come from it becomesnearly impossible when your team
is already stretched thin onthese processes.
This is where marketingautomation comes in and really
changes the game.
By automating routine processes, not only are we ensuring
consistent follow-ups withpotential clients, we're
(01:57):
minimizing error and we arefreeing up tons of time for more
valuable work.
This is really important whenwe come to spend time on
strategizing how to grow thepractice.
But look, it's not just aboutefficiency.
Automation actually enhancesclient experience by delivering
faster responses, personalizedcommunications and a really
(02:17):
seamless end-to-end journey,from the moment that initial
contract is signed all the waythrough to the end of the case.
In today's competitive legallandscape, automation is not a
luxury.
This isn't something you canthink about doing later.
It is a necessity for firmsthat want to thrive.
So how do we start?
This feels incrediblyoverwhelming.
(02:37):
There are a million avenues anda million different platforms
that all want to take my money.
Let's just break it down withthree simple strategies.
I'm going to tell you thesethree strategies.
You can use any one of themtoday on your practice and they
will start getting your feet wetwith automation in a way that
is going to work for youlong-term.
Number one is streamliningclient intake, and you can do
(02:58):
this yourself, but you can alsocall me if it sounds
overwhelming.
Client intake this sets the tonefor the entire relationship you
have with a potential client,and in a lot of cases it can be
really difficult to change thisrelationship.
But for most law firms, it'sone of the most tedious and
inconsistent processes.
How many times have you lost alead because they didn't get a
(03:19):
timely response and someone elsefollowed up?
Or how often do you have todeal with the back and forth of
scheduling?
It's constant.
Streamlining client intake withautomation can solve these pain
points right away and it makesthe process smoother both for
you and your team, but also foryour clients.
The first step here, the easystep, is to use online intake
(03:40):
forms Tools like Clio, grow,typeform, formstack there are a
billion of these form tools.
They all allow you to createcustomized forms that collect
essential client information upfront.
These forms, while I don'talways recommend this for intake
, but they can be directlyembedded on the website on a
private page or shared via emailso that it makes it really easy
(04:03):
for the lead to provide you theinformation you need without a
whole bunch of back and forth.
And these forms integrate withautomated email responders, so
when a client fills out the form, they can immediately receive a
personalized email thatconfirms the receipt of that
information and then outlinestheir next steps.
This not only reassures theclient, but it also saves your
(04:23):
team from manually craftingthese individual replies.
And scheduling.
Consultations can also beautomated.
As part of this flow, toolslike Calendly, which I really
love and I use constantly.
They let clients choose anavailable time slot from your
calendar because it syncsdirectly with your calendar, and
this completely eliminates theheadache of coordinating
schedules.
And you can even add automatedreminders that reduce no-shows
(04:47):
and wasted time and, you know,keep people informed about
what's going to happen in theirmeeting.
Let's look at an example.
So let's take a personal injuryfirm that mostly relied on
phone calls for intake.
Maybe they'd get a few emailsor referrals or whatever, but
let's say it's mostly on phonecalls coming into the firm for
the intake, the firm is going tolose leads because it can take
(05:07):
hours or even days for a humanto respond, and when they
switched to an automated process, leads can now come from an
online form at any time, receiveinstant confirmation and book a
consultation within minutes.
No human interaction neededfrom our side.
What's the result?
Our response time immediatelydropped from 24 hours on average
(05:29):
to less than five minutes, andconversion rates jumped by 40%
because we were respondingimmediately.
Even though it was automated,it was immediate.
Streamlining this client intakeis not just about saving time.
While that is a great number toshow if you're the marketing
person, if you're not thepartner attorney at the firm,
(05:49):
it's great to show that, hey,we're going to save money and
we're going to save time, butthe reality is that streamlining
this intake process is aboutshowing your clients that their
needs are your priority, andwith automation, you can create
a professional, efficient andhighly client-friendly process
that sets your firm apart fromthe competition.
On this subject, though, let'stalk a little bit about email
(06:15):
marketing campaigns.
This is one that it sort offlows well with this intake
process, because, when it comesto nurturing leads and keeping
your current clients engaged,email marketing is still one of
the most effective tools at ourdisposal, but sending individual
emails manually, or even likewith the automated stuff that's
built into Gmail now, it'sreally time consuming to do this
for every lead and every client, and it's basically impossible
(06:37):
to do it consistently, and thereality is it's just outdated.
Automating our email campaigns,specifically the drip ones the
drip campaigns this is anincredibly powerful way to stay
top of mind with basically noeffort once it's set up.
So we've talked about dripcampaigns a lot.
It's a series of automatedemails that are sent over time,
designed to educate, engage andbuild trust with the audience.
(06:58):
This is really great for bothnurturing new leads and for
maintaining relationships withexisting clients and potential
referral sources.
But the key here is consistency.
When we use a program likeActiveCampaign or HubSpot or
MailChimp, the emails get sentout automatically at these
scheduled intervals, ensuringthat our audience receives
(07:19):
valuable content without ushaving to lift a finger, and
they receive it in a way thatfeels comfortable because it's
consistent.
These tools the MailChimp,hubspot, activecampaign,
convertkit there are a millionof them they make it really
really easy to set up thesecampaigns.
You can create the customizedemail sequences that go out at
specific times, and you can alsocreate emails that go out based
(07:41):
on specific action a lead takes.
So if there's a contact or apotential client who fills out a
form, they can automatically beadded to a series of offerings
on the legal tips that you offer, or case studies or information
on your firm's expertise.
All of this is designed to showyour authority and build trust,
but if they then click on alink, you could have an entire
(08:02):
another version of that seriesthat helps redirect the person
into more action.
But look, automation doesn'tjust help you convert leads.
It can also enhance yourrelationship with existing
clients.
Instead of every attorneyhaving to send out manual emails
when each of their cases isclosed, imagine if we could send
out automated email to theclients right when their case is
(08:23):
closed that thanks them fortheir business and offers
additional resources like apostcase guide or even something
like a referral bonus,obviously depending on your bar
rules in your state.
But these emails they feelreally personal and they feel
thoughtful and we don't have tomanually intervene.
Now I could give a specificexample, but this story has been
(08:44):
told over and over again.
The reality about automatingyour email marketing is that we
not only save time, but weensure that we're consistently
nurturing relationships andpositioning our firm as a
trusted authority in our field.
So let's move on to strategynumber three, which is social
media scheduling.
I've talked a little bit aboutsocial media on the podcast.
It's something I don't go intoa lot, but there's a lot of
(09:06):
chaos in the world of socialmedia at the moment, and
scheduling it does seem like agood way to minimize that chaos.
Having this consistent onlinepresence, whether it's on social
or a specific platform, onsocial LinkedIn versus TikTok
versus Facebook versus Instagramit is critical for building
brand awareness and engagingwith potential clients.
(09:28):
We've talked about why it'simportant to have social media
platforms in your marketingstrategy, but maybe not to have
all of them.
But let's be honest posting onsocial media every day, whether
you're posting on one channel orfive channels, it feels like a
full-time job.
It can feel like a full-timejob.
It just does.
And that's where social mediascheduling tools come in,
(09:50):
because they allow us to planand automate posts so we can
focus on the other areas of ourpractice that sometimes we just
feel are a lot more fun.
By automating our social mediaposts, we can maintain this
steady stream of content withoutthe daily grind.
I've talked about consistency,and it's no different in social
media scheduling.
So, using tools like Hootsuite,buffer and even things like
(10:12):
Later which I personally haven'tplayed with, but I've heard
about it they allow us toschedule posts in advance across
multiple platforms likeFacebook, linkedin X, tiktok,
instagram, etc.
You can batch, create contentfor the week or the month and
then schedule it to go live atoptimal times without having to
be online and engaged to press,publish and scheduling.
(10:34):
It doesn't just save us time.
It ensures that our firm staysvisible and relevant.
It helps manipulate thealgorithm in the right way and
we can use it to start creatingour content calendar with posts
about legal tips, case studies,client testimonials, industry
news.
I talked about building acontent calendar earlier in 2025
and Buffer or Hootsuite thesetools are great ways to get
(10:57):
started with that, thisconsistent posting.
It helps your followers stayengaged, shows potential clients
that you're active andcommitted to providing value,
and it does the same thing forthe platform that you're posting
on.
I guarantee the more consistentyou are, the more exposure your
platform is going to give you.
Now it's really easy to see whyeach of these tips helps you
out on a time basis, but thereality is that the more time
(11:19):
you create for yourself, themore money you're going to be
able to make by spending moretime on other areas of marketing
.
Automating social media postsit allows you to stay ahead of
the trend, share updates timelyand manage multiple accounts
from one platform.
It's a simple way to maintainthis strong, professional online
presence without the constantneed for all the manual effort,
(11:40):
whether it's promoting aparticular blog post, sharing
the latest in legal news.
Having this content system andreally having automation
throughout your practice is agame changer when it comes to
marketing.
Now, before we go, what I wantto say is this I recognize that
these things are challenging.
I recognize that it feels likelearning an entire new world of
tools, and that's because it is.
(12:02):
If you need someone to help,please don't hesitate to reach
out to me or talk to yourmarketing team.
Most of this stuff is old hatfor many marketers, and I may
have been in the game for awhile now, but a lot of the
stuff that we're doing when itcomes to automation is just
basic for a lot of new marketers.
So make sure that your team caneither do this or get in touch
with somebody who can.
If you need my help, you canalways visit my website.
(12:24):
That's it for Legal Marketing101.
Check out RosenAdvertisingcomfor more Thanks.
Welcome to Legal Marketing 101.
I'm Toby Rosen.
Are you spending way too muchtime on repetitive marketing
tasks like posting to socialmedia or duplicating contact
information in your CRM, or isyour team spending time on this?
Today, we're going to betalking about how automation can
help your law firm save time onthe back end, reduce errors and
(00:30):
help you actually scale things.
Because, look, let's face it,running a law firm is a juggling
act between managing the cases,handling the client
communications and keeping thebusiness side of things afloat,
which I realize.
I'm glazing over a huge amountof items there, but your to-do
list has got to feel endless.
I know mine does and I'mguessing yours is worse.
(00:51):
Now let's add manual marketingtasks to the mix and suddenly
you feel like you've gone fromtreading water and holding a
baby to treading water andholding two babies.
You're spending hours and hourseach week on things that just
aren't driving the results foryour firm and ultimately you're
just going to feel like you'redrowning.
So take an example how manytimes have you or your staff
(01:14):
sent the same follow-up emailmanually, maybe even in the last
week or the last day?
Or how often do you scramble tokeep track of leads to see who
has actually been, you know,contacting the lead, just
because someone forgot to updatethe spreadsheet.
These repetitive tasks don'tjust waste time.
I think you can clearly see whythey drain energy and lead to
(01:35):
missed opportunities.
And when we start talking aboutscaling which is where the big
dollars come from it becomesnearly impossible when your team
is already stretched thin onthese processes.
This is where marketingautomation comes in and really
changes the game.
By automating routine processes, not only are we ensuring
consistent follow-ups withpotential clients, we're
(01:57):
minimizing error and we arefreeing up tons of time for more
valuable work.
This is really important whenwe come to spend time on
strategizing how to grow thepractice.
But look, it's not just aboutefficiency.
Automation actually enhancesclient experience by delivering
faster responses, personalizedcommunications and a really
(02:17):
seamless end-to-end journey,from the moment that initial
contract is signed all the waythrough to the end of the case.
In today's competitive legallandscape, automation is not a
luxury.
This isn't something you canthink about doing later.
It is a necessity for firmsthat want to thrive.
So how do we start?
This feels incrediblyoverwhelming.
(02:37):
There are a million avenues anda million different platforms
that all want to take my money.
Let's just break it down withthree simple strategies.
I'm going to tell you thesethree strategies.
You can use any one of themtoday on your practice and they
will start getting your feet wetwith automation in a way that
is going to work for youlong-term.
Number one is streamliningclient intake, and you can do
(02:58):
this yourself, but you can alsocall me if it sounds
overwhelming.
Client intake this sets the tonefor the entire relationship you
have with a potential client,and in a lot of cases it can be
really difficult to change thisrelationship.
But for most law firms, it'sone of the most tedious and
inconsistent processes.
How many times have you lost alead because they didn't get a
(03:19):
timely response and someone elsefollowed up?
Or how often do you have todeal with the back and forth of
scheduling?
It's constant.
Streamlining client intake withautomation can solve these pain
points right away and it makesthe process smoother both for
you and your team, but also foryour clients.
The first step here, the easystep, is to use online intake
(03:40):
forms Tools like Clio, grow,typeform, formstack there are a
billion of these form tools.
They all allow you to createcustomized forms that collect
essential client information upfront.
These forms, while I don'talways recommend this for intake
, but they can be directlyembedded on the website on a
private page or shared via emailso that it makes it really easy
(04:03):
for the lead to provide you theinformation you need without a
whole bunch of back and forth.
And these forms integrate withautomated email responders, so
when a client fills out the form, they can immediately receive a
personalized email thatconfirms the receipt of that
information and then outlinestheir next steps.
This not only reassures theclient, but it also saves your
(04:23):
team from manually craftingthese individual replies.
And scheduling.
Consultations can also beautomated.
As part of this flow, toolslike Calendly, which I really
love and I use constantly.
They let clients choose anavailable time slot from your
calendar because it syncsdirectly with your calendar, and
this completely eliminates theheadache of coordinating
schedules.
And you can even add automatedreminders that reduce no-shows
(04:47):
and wasted time and, you know,keep people informed about
what's going to happen in theirmeeting.
Let's look at an example.
So let's take a personal injuryfirm that mostly relied on
phone calls for intake.
Maybe they'd get a few emailsor referrals or whatever, but
let's say it's mostly on phonecalls coming into the firm for
the intake, the firm is going tolose leads because it can take
(05:07):
hours or even days for a humanto respond, and when they
switched to an automated process, leads can now come from an
online form at any time, receiveinstant confirmation and book a
consultation within minutes.
No human interaction neededfrom our side.
What's the result?
Our response time immediatelydropped from 24 hours on average
(05:29):
to less than five minutes, andconversion rates jumped by 40%
because we were respondingimmediately.
Even though it was automated,it was immediate.
Streamlining this client intakeis not just about saving time.
While that is a great number toshow if you're the marketing
person, if you're not thepartner attorney at the firm,
(05:49):
it's great to show that, hey,we're going to save money and
we're going to save time, butthe reality is that streamlining
this intake process is aboutshowing your clients that their
needs are your priority, andwith automation, you can create
a professional, efficient andhighly client-friendly process
that sets your firm apart fromthe competition.
On this subject, though, let'stalk a little bit about email
(06:15):
marketing campaigns.
This is one that it sort offlows well with this intake
process, because, when it comesto nurturing leads and keeping
your current clients engaged,email marketing is still one of
the most effective tools at ourdisposal, but sending individual
emails manually, or even likewith the automated stuff that's
built into Gmail now, it'sreally time consuming to do this
for every lead and every client, and it's basically impossible
(06:37):
to do it consistently, and thereality is it's just outdated.
Automating our email campaigns,specifically the drip ones the
drip campaigns this is anincredibly powerful way to stay
top of mind with basically noeffort once it's set up.
So we've talked about dripcampaigns a lot.
It's a series of automatedemails that are sent over time,
designed to educate, engage andbuild trust with the audience.
(06:58):
This is really great for bothnurturing new leads and for
maintaining relationships withexisting clients and potential
referral sources.
But the key here is consistency.
When we use a program likeActiveCampaign or HubSpot or
MailChimp, the emails get sentout automatically at these
scheduled intervals, ensuringthat our audience receives
(07:19):
valuable content without ushaving to lift a finger, and
they receive it in a way thatfeels comfortable because it's
consistent.
These tools the MailChimp,hubspot, activecampaign,
convertkit there are a millionof them they make it really
really easy to set up thesecampaigns.
You can create the customizedemail sequences that go out at
specific times, and you can alsocreate emails that go out based
(07:41):
on specific action a lead takes.
So if there's a contact or apotential client who fills out a
form, they can automatically beadded to a series of offerings
on the legal tips that you offer, or case studies or information
on your firm's expertise.
All of this is designed to showyour authority and build trust,
but if they then click on alink, you could have an entire
(08:02):
another version of that seriesthat helps redirect the person
into more action.
But look, automation doesn'tjust help you convert leads.
It can also enhance yourrelationship with existing
clients.
Instead of every attorneyhaving to send out manual emails
when each of their cases isclosed, imagine if we could send
out automated email to theclients right when their case is
(08:23):
closed that thanks them fortheir business and offers
additional resources like apostcase guide or even something
like a referral bonus,obviously depending on your bar
rules in your state.
But these emails they feelreally personal and they feel
thoughtful and we don't have tomanually intervene.
Now I could give a specificexample, but this story has been
(08:44):
told over and over again.
The reality about automatingyour email marketing is that we
not only save time, but weensure that we're consistently
nurturing relationships andpositioning our firm as a
trusted authority in our field.
So let's move on to strategynumber three, which is social
media scheduling.
I've talked a little bit aboutsocial media on the podcast.
It's something I don't go intoa lot, but there's a lot of
(09:06):
chaos in the world of socialmedia at the moment, and
scheduling it does seem like agood way to minimize that chaos.
Having this consistent onlinepresence, whether it's on social
or a specific platform, onsocial LinkedIn versus TikTok
versus Facebook versus Instagramit is critical for building
brand awareness and engagingwith potential clients.
(09:28):
We've talked about why it'simportant to have social media
platforms in your marketingstrategy, but maybe not to have
all of them.
But let's be honest posting onsocial media every day, whether
you're posting on one channel orfive channels, it feels like a
full-time job.
It can feel like a full-timejob.
It just does.
And that's where social mediascheduling tools come in,
(09:50):
because they allow us to planand automate posts so we can
focus on the other areas of ourpractice that sometimes we just
feel are a lot more fun.
By automating our social mediaposts, we can maintain this
steady stream of content withoutthe daily grind.
I've talked about consistency,and it's no different in social
media scheduling.
So, using tools like Hootsuite,buffer and even things like
(10:12):
Later which I personally haven'tplayed with, but I've heard
about it they allow us toschedule posts in advance across
multiple platforms likeFacebook, linkedin X, tiktok,
instagram, etc.
You can batch, create contentfor the week or the month and
then schedule it to go live atoptimal times without having to
be online and engaged to press,publish and scheduling.
(10:34):
It doesn't just save us time.
It ensures that our firm staysvisible and relevant.
It helps manipulate thealgorithm in the right way and
we can use it to start creatingour content calendar with posts
about legal tips, case studies,client testimonials, industry
news.
I talked about building acontent calendar earlier in 2025
and Buffer or Hootsuite thesetools are great ways to get
(10:57):
started with that, thisconsistent posting.
It helps your followers stayengaged, shows potential clients
that you're active andcommitted to providing value,
and it does the same thing forthe platform that you're posting
on.
I guarantee the more consistentyou are, the more exposure your
platform is going to give you.
Now it's really easy to see whyeach of these tips helps you
out on a time basis, but thereality is that the more time
(11:19):
you create for yourself, themore money you're going to be
able to make by spending moretime on other areas of marketing
.
Automating social media postsit allows you to stay ahead of
the trend, share updates timelyand manage multiple accounts
from one platform.
It's a simple way to maintainthis strong, professional online
presence without the constantneed for all the manual effort,
(11:40):
whether it's promoting aparticular blog post, sharing
the latest in legal news.
Having this content system andreally having automation
throughout your practice is agame changer when it comes to
marketing.
Now, before we go, what I wantto say is this I recognize that
these things are challenging.
I recognize that it feels likelearning an entire new world of
tools, and that's because it is.
(12:02):
If you need someone to help,please don't hesitate to reach
out to me or talk to yourmarketing team.
Most of this stuff is old hatfor many marketers, and I may
have been in the game for awhile now, but a lot of the
stuff that we're doing when itcomes to automation is just
basic for a lot of new marketers.
So make sure that your team caneither do this or get in touch
with somebody who can.
If you need my help, you canalways visit my website.
(12:24):
That's it for Legal Marketing101.
Check out RosenAdvertisingcomfor more Thanks.
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