June 27, 2025 • 28 mins
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💰 Too many law firms throw money at marketing without a real plan. In this episode, Danny Decker lays out the essential first steps—from setting growth goals to defining your ideal client and creating emotional, SEO-smart content. Whether you’re brand new or refining your funnel, this is your starting line.
📌 Key Takeaways
- Learn how your growth goals should drive your marketing strategy.
- Discover why understanding client emotions is the key to better content.
- Get the 4-part framework that turns clicks into actual clients.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
If you're not sure who your ideal clients are and
what they look like, don't justguess at it.
A simple exercise is print outa list of all the clients that
you've worked with over the lasttwo years or so and just run
through that list and highlightthe five of your favorite right.
(00:22):
Always best to go straight tothe source rather than guess.
I've done this once or twiceand it's often kind of
eye-opening because a lot of usmake assumptions that aren't
always true.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Welcome to the Law Firm Marketing Minute, the go-to
podcast for solo and small lawfirms who want to level up.
We're excited for you to joinus this episode and remember, if
your law firm needs moreclients and better clients, be
sure to go togrowmylawfirmfastcom.
That's growmylawfirmfastcom.
All right, let's get right intothe episode.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Here's what I would like to sort of start the
conversation around is what areyour goals over the next 12
months?
And there are, you know, plentyof valid formats for a goal.
Right, a lot, of, a lot ofbusinesses, you know, set a
specific revenue target.
We want to, you know, maybebreak seven, the seven figure
barrier in the next 12 months.
Or, you know you know, grow byby, by a hundred thousand
(01:19):
dollars a year, right, like what?
Whatever that number is,there's plenty of formats that
right, you could have a revenuegoal.
You may have a goal which Ihonestly love this goal.
I was just talking to a clienta couple of days ago and their
goal was less about more newclients and more about
increasing their average casevalue, right, which actually
speaks to profitability, more,more so than even than bringing
(01:42):
new clients in the door.
Maybe you're launching a newpractice area, maybe you're
moving into a new market.
Hopefully you've got some goalsright, and maybe it's as
undeveloped as just hey, youknow we need more clients, gary,
that's awesome.
Developing your brand andimproving quality of potential
(02:04):
new clients Really, really greatgoal.
Um, listen, I would love it ifyou drop your goal in the chat
again, if it is, if it is notsuper refined and it's just like
hey, I know we need moreclients, that's fine.
Um, if it's hey, we need theright type of clients, that's
great too.
If you've got some specificnumerical goals, drop that in
(02:26):
the chat as well and listen.
The reason why I'm spending aminute on this is because, at
the end of the day, marketing isabout helping you hit your
growth goals.
You shouldn't market just forthe sake of marketing.
You should have a definedgrowth goal, right?
Why are you doing this?
(02:47):
Why are you spending money onmarketing?
Why are you spending time onmarketing?
What are you trying toaccomplish?
Either drop it in the chat or,at the very least, I need
everybody to have an idea ofwhat this answer is for
themselves.
Right, jot it down on a notepad, think about it, but listen.
Bottom line setting a growthgoal is how you then reverse,
(03:11):
engineer and create a marketingplan.
Again, I was talking to aclient just a couple of weeks
ago and they honestly weren't ina place where they needed to
focus on new client acquisition.
What they really wanted tofocus on was deepening
relationships with theirexisting clients and increasing
that case value, not so muchgoing out and attracting new
(03:31):
clients, diva, increasedretention awesome goal and Gary,
by the way, that is somethingwe're going to touch on in the
next 50 minutes.
We've got together, so listen,bottom line, what I want your
takeaway to be here is yourgoals dictate all of this.
So if you haven't taken the timeto sit down and really think
through, you know what do youwant the second half of 2025 to
(03:53):
look like?
What do you want 2026 to looklike from a revenue standpoint,
from a client acquisitionstandpoint?
You got to do that.
First you have to answer thosequestions and then you can build
a marketing plan to help youget there right.
Otherwise you know I use this alot it's it's getting into a
plane, but you don't know wherethe plane's going.
Right.
We would never do that.
Um marketing without a plan andwith defined, without defined
(04:16):
goals is kind of the same thing.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
There are two things that go into legal marketing
that you really need to know.
The first one you probablyalready know if you've been a
long time listener of the Lawfor Marketing Minute which is
that there are so many thingsthat go into marketing.
You know there's so manychannels, there's so many
strategies it can be a headache.
I get it.
The second thing you need toknow is that our listeners
(04:38):
actually have access to anexclusive offer.
It's one free month of ourmarketing services, completely
free, just for being a listener.
How cool is that?
So what you got to do to claimthis offer basically is to go
into the podcast description.
There's a link.
You can click that link andsign up, get your booking and
pick a time that works for you,or you can go to
(05:00):
growmylawfirmfastcom.
That's growmylawfirmfastcom toget started.
All right, let's get right backto the episode.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Once you know what your goals are.
There's really a pretty simplefour-step formula and I'm going
to run you through it and thenI'm going to show you some
examples.
Number one you need to getcrystal clear on what your ideal
client looks like.
Who are the clients that youwant to attract to your law firm
(05:29):
?
Gary, you talked about one ofyour goals is to attract the
right types of clients, betterclients.
First step is to clearly definewhat that looks like.
There's no right or wrong here,but there is right for your
front.
We'll talk in a minute.
We actually have a resourceI'll share in just a minute to
(05:52):
kind of help you do that, butwe're in overview mode.
Step one is to get crystalclear on what your looks like.
Two create content that isattractive to those clients.
In other words, give theminformation, give them resources
(06:14):
that help them and speak totheir needs, their goals, their
concerns right.
Create content that attractsyour ideal clients.
Create content that attractsyour ideal clients.
Three is, once you've got thiscontent created, you are now
going to use ad channels to putthat content in front of the
(06:35):
right people.
Okay, very simple.
And then four, once you've gotleads coming in the door, which
is going to happen by the timeyou get to step three.
Then there are some reallygreat tools email marketing,
retargeting, ads, social mediathat you're going to use to do
them through their buying cycleand get them to sign on the
(06:58):
dotted line.
And you also want to nurturethese referral sources, and one
of you said I believe who was itSomebody said a goal is to
(07:20):
increase retention and repeatbusiness, and nurturing past
clients and current clients ishow you do that.
All right.
So nurturing your leads,nurturing your list, helps you
in a bunch of different ways.
It helps you convert leads.
It also helps you get morereferrals.
It also helps you deepenrelationships with past and
(07:43):
current clients.
So that's the formula right.
This is stupid, simple and,honestly, anybody that really
overcomplicates it, you knowthat makes it a lot more
complicated than this, likethey're overcomplicating it
right.
One, you got to be clear on whoyour ideal clients are.
Two, you need to create contentand messaging that is
attractive to them.
Three, you use ads to put thatcontent in front of those people
(08:08):
.
And four, as the leads come in,you nurture the leads, right,
and you also nurture yourreferral sources and you nurture
your past clients and younurture your current clients,
because that's how you createreferral opportunities.
Give me a one if you're with me.
So far, awesome, all right.
(08:29):
So let's break this down andtalk about what this actually
looks like.
Step one getting clear on whoyour ideal clients are Would
love your input.
Give me a yes in the chat if youhave thought this through and
I'm not going to do this, but ifI were to put you on the spot,
(08:49):
put you on the hot seat wouldyou tell me what a perfect
client looks like for your lawfirm, yes or no?
Drop it in the chat.
Can you tell me right now whata perfect client looks like for
your law firm, yes or no?
Not asking if you know how toattract them, that's later.
(09:09):
I just want to have an idea ofif you know what you're looking
for.
Got a, yes, we got a sort ofgot a maybe.
All right, so great.
There's a little bit of workthat needs to happen there, mike
, if you could drop in the chat.
Mike is on our team.
You're one step ahead of me.
I like it.
The totally free resource forall of you.
(09:31):
Um, no down, no, uh.
No landing page or formrequired here.
This is just a checklist thatwe've created that is, um, just
sort of helpful to help youvisualize this.
All right, um, cause there's afew steps that have to happen.
One is you want to get clear onyour client avatar.
Who are they from a demographicperspective, like, where do
they live?
(09:52):
Are they married?
Do they have kids?
Are they a business owner?
Like from a demographicstandpoint, who are they?
And then also from apsychographic standpoint, which
is just kind of the you knowit's a fancy word for you know
values, hobbies, right, thethings that don't show up in the
demographics, right.
Where do your ideal clientslike to spend their time?
(10:14):
You know?
Do they go to church on theweekends?
Are they out hiking?
You know, where are theypolitically, if that matters?
Right, an idea of not just thehard demographics but also the
values, hobbies, affinities,that type of thing.
This checklist, by the way,will help you at least sort of
start that process.
All right, so step one is kindof being clear on who those
(10:36):
folks are, but then two and thisis where people will often kind
of fall off the rail becausethey don't go this far is the
next thing you need to do hereis think through what are the
trigger points that make yourideal clients, like, enter the
buying cycle right, because youmay have a, let's say, you're a
family law attorney and you'vegot, you know, a hundred
(11:00):
thousand ideal clients you knowin your city from a demographic
standpoint, from a psychographicstandpoint, but the problem is
they're all happily married,right.
So, okay, they're not idealclients yet until something
happens to trigger and create asituation.
You know, whatever thatsituation may be, you know
something happens in order toput them in the market right In
(11:22):
the personal injury world, ifsomebody's in a car accident,
like instantly, they haveentered the market for your
services.
So you need to be clear on whatare the trigger points, and
every practice area is different.
You know we work a lot.
I mentioned family law, Imentioned PI, you know estate
planning.
A good example is you know youmay have a young married couple
(11:42):
who don't have kids and they'renot really thinking about estate
planning and all of a suddenthey have you know that first
kid and now, at the very least,they're starting to think about
things like life insurance and awill and things like that.
So having a first child is anexample of a trigger point, okay
.
So third thing is you want tohave an idea of how they feel
(12:04):
once the trigger point happens.
Okay, I know, as attorneys,like this isn't territory we
walk into all that often.
You know how do people feel.
Like this isn't territory wewalk into all that often.
You know how do people feel,what are their emotions.
But you need to understand thatif somebody is, you know, has
been married for 15 years andthey find out that their spouse
(12:24):
just filed for divorce, you knowthat you can probably imagine,
you know, shock, anger, fear,just uncertainty about what
happens next.
Right, all these really strongemotions are created.
And part of creating goodmessaging, which is we're going
to talk about in a second, isunderstanding that stuff.
Okay, because if you justapproach very emotional human
(12:47):
beings with a logical you know,just a 100% logic conversation,
it's really just not going toland most of the time.
So you want to understand howthey feel.
And then, how do they want tofeel?
Right?
So they're unhappy, they'rescared, they're confused.
What do they want to feel likewhen they get to the other end?
(13:10):
Right, what is the?
You know, the successfulresolution, confident, moving
forward with clarity, peace ofmind, simple stuff.
But you really do need tounderstand this.
They're at point A.
They want to get to point B.
How do they feel at point A andhow do they want to feel at
point B?
(13:30):
Give me a one, please in thechat if this is making sense.
You with me?
Also, again, feel free todownload that free resource.
It'll help you sort of start toorganize your thoughts here.
All right, I'm going to take aquick pause here.
Any questions?
Is this not making sense toanybody?
Gary, you're at a 0.75.
(13:53):
Do you have a question?
Throw it in the chat, if you do, and we can talk about it.
Also, resource that I'llrecommend to you guys there's a
book called Story Brand Maybeyou've heard of of.
It is basically all aboutreally getting into the head,
the emotions, the subconsciousof your ideal clients, and I
(14:15):
really do recommend it.
It's StoryBrand and it's byDonald Miller.
All right, going to keeprolling.
I don't think we've gotquestions, although I do see.
Okay, gary, you're using theQ&A as well.
Awesome, I've got that tab up.
Psychographics Gary says what ispsychographics?
It's just, it's sort of thelike soft, less definable piece
(14:38):
of this right.
So demographics are like zipcode income, family status,
everything that shows up in acensus.
And then psychographics arevalues, hobbies, right.
What do these people thinkabout?
Who do they like to affiliatewith, how do they spend their
time on the weekends, that typeof thing.
(14:59):
Again, the ideal clientchecklist, I think, will kind of
help out with that.
But the bottom line is youdon't just want census data, you
also want to understand, like,who your people are, you know
from a value standpoint and ahobby standpoint and all of that
.
But great question, all right,we've done step one and this is
(15:22):
really important.
Most law firms that I talk to,believe it or not, have not
actually taken the time to dothis.
One little cheat that I'll throwout at you before I move on to
step two is if you're not surewho your ideal clients are and
what they look like, don't justguess at it.
(15:44):
A simple exercise is print outa list of all the clients that
you've worked with over the lasttwo years or so and just run
through that list and, like,highlight the five of your
favorite, right, these are theclients that if you could clone
them and bring them back overand over again, you'd be really
(16:07):
excited.
And then pull those five namesand really drill into, like,
what makes them such greatclients, and you can even take
the next step of actually askingthem if they'll spend 15
minutes on the phone with youand you can kind of ask them
some questions about you knowtheir motivations, their hobbies
, where do they spend their timeon the weekend, that type of
(16:27):
thing.
It's always best to go straightto the source rather than guess
.
So there's a little bonusexercise.
I've done this once or twiceand I've run boot camps where
I've taken lawyers through thisprocess and it's often kind of
eye-opening because a lot of uslawyers and business owners and
just people in general makeassumptions that aren't always
(16:49):
true.
So I highly recommend takingthat step of actually talking to
some of your ideal clients andreally getting to know them.
But all right, you got yourideal clients defined.
What next?
Now it's time to create contentthat is going to be attractive
to them.
(17:09):
Here's how to go about that.
And let's start here.
When we talk about content andI'll break this down in a minute
, but like it's a buzzword, butall I'm talking about is, you
know, it could be writtencontent, like blogs or social
media posts.
It could be video.
It's just information thatyou're sharing right Written
form.
It's just information thatyou're sharing, right?
Written form, video form, audioform.
(17:30):
You know, whatever the bottomline is, you're just using some
sort of medium to communicateinformation.
We happen to be big fans ofblogging and social media
content and video content,because that works really well
in our current environment.
But, you know, a teleseminarcan be a form of content too,
right?
So the question is, how do youbuild your content strategy?
(17:53):
And here is where you start,and this, again, is really
important.
And if you use this as a prismfor your marketing moving
forward, if you take nothingelse away from this webinar, I
promise this will make a bigdifference.
The content does not start withwhat do you want to tell people.
The content should start withwhat do they want and need to
(18:16):
hear?
And so the question I want youto ask yourself is what are the
top five questions?
Fears, concerns, opportunitiesthat keep your clients up at
night.
What are they worried about?
And you know this.
You know this because when yousit down and have a consultation
with them, it's the first thingthey ask you right In.
(18:40):
You know, in the family lawworld, you know, a really common
one we see is like what's goingto happen to my kids during
divorce.
One we see is like what's goingto happen to my kids during
divorce?
Who's going to get the houseafter divorce is complete?
You know, how does alimony work?
Right?
These are the questions thatyou know family law, potential
(19:02):
family law clients are usuallythinking about.
So let me, let me let me putthis question to you Do you feel
like, right off the top of yourhead, you could rattle off at
least one or two maybe not five,but at least one or two of
these burning questions thatkeep your clients up at night?
(19:22):
Give me a yes if you feel likeyou've got your finger on the
pulse and you kind of know whatthese questions are, and give me
a no if you're not there yet.
And either one is fine.
Gary, you got it.
Yes, awesome, awesome.
Can't pronounce your name,paraskevi.
Awesome, if anybody wants to.
(19:45):
Gary Alfonso Paraskevi, if youwant to drop in the chat.
What one of those questions arelike?
What are your clients worriedabout?
What are your clients wondering?
That would be awesome.
I'd love for some people to seesome examples.
I threw out a few around familylaw, but would love to see a
few more examples.
Leonard says what about whenyou have multiple areas of
(20:06):
practice.
Most people are shopping basedon price.
We'll get to the ad piece ofthat in a minute, leonard.
The multiple areas of practiceis a great question.
It's a great question, and theway to approach it is a
different avatar for each areaof practice, right?
I realize that makes things alittle more complicated, but
(20:29):
when you are marketing, the moreyou can laser focus your
messaging to the right clients,the more effective it's going to
be.
And so if that means you've gotmultiple client avatars in the
same practice area, so be it.
If that means you have threedifferent practice areas and so
(20:50):
you then need to complete thisexercise three times, do it
Start with one and then move tothe next one?
How do I protect my family whenI'm not here?
Great question.
Is my non-compete enforceable?
Great question how fast willthis all resolve?
Is it a great question?
Perfect.
So you guys have a sense ofthis and, like I said, you know
(21:13):
this isn't rocket science.
These are probably thequestions that you get all the
time when you have aconsultation.
So awesome.
But now what I'm saying is we'regoing to take those questions
and we're going to frame themand create a content strategy
out of it, right, blogs, video,social media.
There are some other formats aswell webinars, white papers but
(21:36):
the bottom line is don't leadwith what you think, what you
want to tell people.
Lead with what are they asking.
Matt, your example is mynon-compete.
Enforceable would be aphenomenal blog topic.
Right, it would be a phenomenalvideo topic.
It's short, it's simple.
This is the type of contentthat is attractive to people
(21:59):
when they're looking for anattorney.
Like I said, blogs, video,social it's great for lead
magnets.
This is a filter for yourwebsite messaging right?
This is really important.
I'm going to give you a coupleexamples of what this can look
like.
Okay, blogging is a great tool.
Okay, like I said, you want touse your blog to answer the
(22:19):
questions your PNCs are asking.
You want to demonstrate empathyas well as authority.
Like I talked about, it's notjust about logic, it's also with
connecting to the emotions,right?
What are the emotions beingstirred up by these trigger
points?
You want to create your contentso that it speaks to the
emotions as well.
Little bonus here, as you arecreating blog content.
(22:41):
One of the things likeobviously not a surprise.
You want to create blog contentin a way that search engines
can index it right.
But one of the trends we'reseeing and I'm curious.
Let me actually just ask thisquestion how many of you in this
webinar right now know thatpeople are contacting your firm
because they found you onChatGPT or Gemini or one of
(23:06):
these AI platforms?
Give me a yes if you know forsure, because they've told you
that they found you through chat, gpt or something like that.
I'm curious.
I'm seeing mostly no's.
We are diving deep into thisbecause it is changing really,
really fast.
Potential clients aren't goingto Google nearly as much as they
(23:30):
used to.
Instead, they're going toChatGPT or Grok or even when
they're using Google, they'relooking at Gemini the AI
response, rather than the actualsearch listings.
We're starting to hear that weactually have people contacting
our agency because they found usthrough ChatGPT.
So here's the thing Over thenext few years, this trend is
(23:51):
100% happening.
The horse has already left thebarn on this.
So, as you're creating content,you want to keep that in mind.
How do you create content thatChatGPT is going to find?
Because that's then going toget you found when somebody is
looking for a business attorneyin your city.
So I'm going to give you threereal quick cheats on that.
(24:12):
We were really diving into thisover the last quarter or so as
an internal team.
So here's a few quick tips.
You may want to write thesedown, because I didn't even put
them on slides.
I'm literally just pulling upmy notebook because I was
working on this yesterday.
So one is you want to put yourblog titles in Q&A format.
Okay, so some of the topics youguys threw out there how do I
(24:35):
protect my family when I'm nothere?
That's a great blog titleFormat as a question.
That's going to make ChatGPTmore likely to index it.
Then, when you're writing yourblog, start with a real short
summary, give like the twosentence executive summary,
answer the question and then goahead and write the full, you
(24:56):
know, 400 words or whatever.
It's going to be.
Google, not Google, chatgpt,grok, gemini are all looking for
that short summary.
And then the third thing is andthis is getting a little
technical, I'll actually dropthis in the chat there's a tool
called Schema which many of yourwebsites might already have.
It's basically a tool that sortof optimizes the data and
(25:20):
structures it in such a way thatyou're going to get seen, your
content's going to get seen andrecognized by these generative
AI platforms like ChatGPT.
So you want to have schema, dowhat's called markup your data.
If you have questions aboutthis.
It's kind of outside the scopeof this webinar, but my team
would be more than happy to kindof have a conversation around
(25:41):
this.
You can email just me directly,because this is kind of a pet
project of mine right now I'mgoing to just drop my email
directly in the chat.
But anyways, blogging is agreat way to kind of meet your
clients where they are.
It's also a great way to getsome visibility on ChatGPT and
other tools.
(26:02):
Last piece on the blog is youalways want to include a call to
action Like yes, this blog isfocused on answering their
questions, but it is also.
You always want to include acall to action Like yes, this
blog is focused on answeringtheir questions, but it is also.
You always want to include ahere's what to do when you're
ready to take the next step,whether that's your phone number
or a link to book a call orwhatever.
Always give them the next step.
(26:22):
Okay, so that's your blog.
That's number one.
Two video FAQs.
I'm going to move a littlefaster here because I do have a
lot of info I want to get to youguys.
Video FAQs we're a big fan ofbasic talk to the camera.
Doesn't have to be super highlyproduced video content where
you're just answering kind ofthe same questions we just
(26:43):
talked about.
What are those five top fiveconcerns that your clients have?
Create a video and answer eachone of those questions, one at a
time.
Make the title of the video thequestion and then answer it,
and then you're gonna get thatcontent indexed by the search
engines and indexed by ChatGPTas well.
Video FAQs you can do theseyourselves, guys.
(27:03):
You can pick up your phone andpress record and do it yourself.
Three organic social media.
We are big believers in sort ofyou know the more established
social networks like Facebook,instagram, linkedin.
There's also room forexperimenting with TikTok and
other places.
(27:24):
Bottom line is you're usingsocial media to take not just
random content right, not justmemes, but you're using social
media to answer the questionsthat we just identified.
Top five questions your clientshave that keep them up at night
.
Use social media to answerthose questions.
Last one I'm going to throw uphere again just to kind of make
(27:47):
sure you understand what I meanwhen we're talking about content
marketing.
Your website is a big part ofthe equation, right, and your
website should do a few things.
Specifically One you want tohelp your visitors recognize
either I'm in the right place orI'm not, and you do that with a
strong headline.
This example helpingentrepreneurs start, grow,
(28:07):
protect their businesses Cool.
If I'm an entrepreneur, I knowI'm in the right place.
If I'm not an entrepreneur,no-transcript.
If you're not sure who your ideal clients are and
what they look like, don't justguess at it.
A simple exercise is print outa list of all the clients that
you've worked with over the lasttwo years or so and just run
through that list and highlightthe five of your favorite right.
(00:22):
Always best to go straight tothe source rather than guess.
I've done this once or twiceand it's often kind of
eye-opening because a lot of usmake assumptions that aren't
always true.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Welcome to the Law Firm Marketing Minute, the go-to
podcast for solo and small lawfirms who want to level up.
We're excited for you to joinus this episode and remember, if
your law firm needs moreclients and better clients, be
sure to go togrowmylawfirmfastcom.
That's growmylawfirmfastcom.
All right, let's get right intothe episode.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Here's what I would like to sort of start the
conversation around is what areyour goals over the next 12
months?
And there are, you know, plentyof valid formats for a goal.
Right, a lot, of, a lot ofbusinesses, you know, set a
specific revenue target.
We want to, you know, maybebreak seven, the seven figure
barrier in the next 12 months.
Or, you know you know, grow byby, by a hundred thousand
(01:19):
dollars a year, right, like what?
Whatever that number is,there's plenty of formats that
right, you could have a revenuegoal.
You may have a goal which Ihonestly love this goal.
I was just talking to a clienta couple of days ago and their
goal was less about more newclients and more about
increasing their average casevalue, right, which actually
speaks to profitability, more,more so than even than bringing
(01:42):
new clients in the door.
Maybe you're launching a newpractice area, maybe you're
moving into a new market.
Hopefully you've got some goalsright, and maybe it's as
undeveloped as just hey, youknow we need more clients, gary,
that's awesome.
Developing your brand andimproving quality of potential
(02:04):
new clients Really, really greatgoal.
Um, listen, I would love it ifyou drop your goal in the chat
again, if it is, if it is notsuper refined and it's just like
hey, I know we need moreclients, that's fine.
Um, if it's hey, we need theright type of clients, that's
great too.
If you've got some specificnumerical goals, drop that in
(02:26):
the chat as well and listen.
The reason why I'm spending aminute on this is because, at
the end of the day, marketing isabout helping you hit your
growth goals.
You shouldn't market just forthe sake of marketing.
You should have a definedgrowth goal, right?
Why are you doing this?
(02:47):
Why are you spending money onmarketing?
Why are you spending time onmarketing?
What are you trying toaccomplish?
Either drop it in the chat or,at the very least, I need
everybody to have an idea ofwhat this answer is for
themselves.
Right, jot it down on a notepad, think about it, but listen.
Bottom line setting a growthgoal is how you then reverse,
(03:11):
engineer and create a marketingplan.
Again, I was talking to aclient just a couple of weeks
ago and they honestly weren't ina place where they needed to
focus on new client acquisition.
What they really wanted tofocus on was deepening
relationships with theirexisting clients and increasing
that case value, not so muchgoing out and attracting new
(03:31):
clients, diva, increasedretention awesome goal and Gary,
by the way, that is somethingwe're going to touch on in the
next 50 minutes.
We've got together, so listen,bottom line, what I want your
takeaway to be here is yourgoals dictate all of this.
So if you haven't taken the timeto sit down and really think
through, you know what do youwant the second half of 2025 to
(03:53):
look like?
What do you want 2026 to looklike from a revenue standpoint,
from a client acquisitionstandpoint?
You got to do that.
First you have to answer thosequestions and then you can build
a marketing plan to help youget there right.
Otherwise you know I use this alot it's it's getting into a
plane, but you don't know wherethe plane's going.
Right.
We would never do that.
Um marketing without a plan andwith defined, without defined
(04:16):
goals is kind of the same thing.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
There are two things that go into legal marketing
that you really need to know.
The first one you probablyalready know if you've been a
long time listener of the Lawfor Marketing Minute which is
that there are so many thingsthat go into marketing.
You know there's so manychannels, there's so many
strategies it can be a headache.
I get it.
The second thing you need toknow is that our listeners
(04:38):
actually have access to anexclusive offer.
It's one free month of ourmarketing services, completely
free, just for being a listener.
How cool is that?
So what you got to do to claimthis offer basically is to go
into the podcast description.
There's a link.
You can click that link andsign up, get your booking and
pick a time that works for you,or you can go to
(05:00):
growmylawfirmfastcom.
That's growmylawfirmfastcom toget started.
All right, let's get right backto the episode.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Once you know what your goals are.
There's really a pretty simplefour-step formula and I'm going
to run you through it and thenI'm going to show you some
examples.
Number one you need to getcrystal clear on what your ideal
client looks like.
Who are the clients that youwant to attract to your law firm
(05:29):
?
Gary, you talked about one ofyour goals is to attract the
right types of clients, betterclients.
First step is to clearly definewhat that looks like.
There's no right or wrong here,but there is right for your
front.
We'll talk in a minute.
We actually have a resourceI'll share in just a minute to
(05:52):
kind of help you do that, butwe're in overview mode.
Step one is to get crystalclear on what your looks like.
Two create content that isattractive to those clients.
In other words, give theminformation, give them resources
(06:14):
that help them and speak totheir needs, their goals, their
concerns right.
Create content that attractsyour ideal clients.
Create content that attractsyour ideal clients.
Three is, once you've got thiscontent created, you are now
going to use ad channels to putthat content in front of the
(06:35):
right people.
Okay, very simple.
And then four, once you've gotleads coming in the door, which
is going to happen by the timeyou get to step three.
Then there are some reallygreat tools email marketing,
retargeting, ads, social mediathat you're going to use to do
them through their buying cycleand get them to sign on the
(06:58):
dotted line.
And you also want to nurturethese referral sources, and one
of you said I believe who was itSomebody said a goal is to
(07:20):
increase retention and repeatbusiness, and nurturing past
clients and current clients ishow you do that.
All right.
So nurturing your leads,nurturing your list, helps you
in a bunch of different ways.
It helps you convert leads.
It also helps you get morereferrals.
It also helps you deepenrelationships with past and
(07:43):
current clients.
So that's the formula right.
This is stupid, simple and,honestly, anybody that really
overcomplicates it, you knowthat makes it a lot more
complicated than this, likethey're overcomplicating it
right.
One, you got to be clear on whoyour ideal clients are.
Two, you need to create contentand messaging that is
attractive to them.
Three, you use ads to put thatcontent in front of those people
(08:08):
.
And four, as the leads come in,you nurture the leads, right,
and you also nurture yourreferral sources and you nurture
your past clients and younurture your current clients,
because that's how you createreferral opportunities.
Give me a one if you're with me.
So far, awesome, all right.
(08:29):
So let's break this down andtalk about what this actually
looks like.
Step one getting clear on whoyour ideal clients are Would
love your input.
Give me a yes in the chat if youhave thought this through and
I'm not going to do this, but ifI were to put you on the spot,
(08:49):
put you on the hot seat wouldyou tell me what a perfect
client looks like for your lawfirm, yes or no?
Drop it in the chat.
Can you tell me right now whata perfect client looks like for
your law firm, yes or no?
Not asking if you know how toattract them, that's later.
(09:09):
I just want to have an idea ofif you know what you're looking
for.
Got a, yes, we got a sort ofgot a maybe.
All right, so great.
There's a little bit of workthat needs to happen there, mike
, if you could drop in the chat.
Mike is on our team.
You're one step ahead of me.
I like it.
The totally free resource forall of you.
(09:31):
Um, no down, no, uh.
No landing page or formrequired here.
This is just a checklist thatwe've created that is, um, just
sort of helpful to help youvisualize this.
All right, um, cause there's afew steps that have to happen.
One is you want to get clear onyour client avatar.
Who are they from a demographicperspective, like, where do
they live?
(09:52):
Are they married?
Do they have kids?
Are they a business owner?
Like from a demographicstandpoint, who are they?
And then also from apsychographic standpoint, which
is just kind of the you knowit's a fancy word for you know
values, hobbies, right, thethings that don't show up in the
demographics, right.
Where do your ideal clientslike to spend their time?
(10:14):
You know?
Do they go to church on theweekends?
Are they out hiking?
You know, where are theypolitically, if that matters?
Right, an idea of not just thehard demographics but also the
values, hobbies, affinities,that type of thing.
This checklist, by the way,will help you at least sort of
start that process.
All right, so step one is kindof being clear on who those
(10:36):
folks are, but then two and thisis where people will often kind
of fall off the rail becausethey don't go this far is the
next thing you need to do hereis think through what are the
trigger points that make yourideal clients, like, enter the
buying cycle right, because youmay have a, let's say, you're a
family law attorney and you'vegot, you know, a hundred
(11:00):
thousand ideal clients you knowin your city from a demographic
standpoint, from a psychographicstandpoint, but the problem is
they're all happily married,right.
So, okay, they're not idealclients yet until something
happens to trigger and create asituation.
You know, whatever thatsituation may be, you know
something happens in order toput them in the market right In
(11:22):
the personal injury world, ifsomebody's in a car accident,
like instantly, they haveentered the market for your
services.
So you need to be clear on whatare the trigger points, and
every practice area is different.
You know we work a lot.
I mentioned family law, Imentioned PI, you know estate
planning.
A good example is you know youmay have a young married couple
(11:42):
who don't have kids and they'renot really thinking about estate
planning and all of a suddenthey have you know that first
kid and now, at the very least,they're starting to think about
things like life insurance and awill and things like that.
So having a first child is anexample of a trigger point, okay
.
So third thing is you want tohave an idea of how they feel
(12:04):
once the trigger point happens.
Okay, I know, as attorneys,like this isn't territory we
walk into all that often.
You know how do people feel.
Like this isn't territory wewalk into all that often.
You know how do people feel,what are their emotions.
But you need to understand thatif somebody is, you know, has
been married for 15 years andthey find out that their spouse
(12:24):
just filed for divorce, you knowthat you can probably imagine,
you know, shock, anger, fear,just uncertainty about what
happens next.
Right, all these really strongemotions are created.
And part of creating goodmessaging, which is we're going
to talk about in a second, isunderstanding that stuff.
Okay, because if you justapproach very emotional human
(12:47):
beings with a logical you know,just a 100% logic conversation,
it's really just not going toland most of the time.
So you want to understand howthey feel.
And then, how do they want tofeel?
Right?
So they're unhappy, they'rescared, they're confused.
What do they want to feel likewhen they get to the other end?
(13:10):
Right, what is the?
You know, the successfulresolution, confident, moving
forward with clarity, peace ofmind, simple stuff.
But you really do need tounderstand this.
They're at point A.
They want to get to point B.
How do they feel at point A andhow do they want to feel at
point B?
(13:30):
Give me a one, please in thechat if this is making sense.
You with me?
Also, again, feel free todownload that free resource.
It'll help you sort of start toorganize your thoughts here.
All right, I'm going to take aquick pause here.
Any questions?
Is this not making sense toanybody?
Gary, you're at a 0.75.
(13:53):
Do you have a question?
Throw it in the chat, if you do, and we can talk about it.
Also, resource that I'llrecommend to you guys there's a
book called Story Brand Maybeyou've heard of of.
It is basically all aboutreally getting into the head,
the emotions, the subconsciousof your ideal clients, and I
(14:15):
really do recommend it.
It's StoryBrand and it's byDonald Miller.
All right, going to keeprolling.
I don't think we've gotquestions, although I do see.
Okay, gary, you're using theQ&A as well.
Awesome, I've got that tab up.
Psychographics Gary says what ispsychographics?
It's just, it's sort of thelike soft, less definable piece
(14:38):
of this right.
So demographics are like zipcode income, family status,
everything that shows up in acensus.
And then psychographics arevalues, hobbies, right.
What do these people thinkabout?
Who do they like to affiliatewith, how do they spend their
time on the weekends, that typeof thing.
(14:59):
Again, the ideal clientchecklist, I think, will kind of
help out with that.
But the bottom line is youdon't just want census data, you
also want to understand, like,who your people are, you know
from a value standpoint and ahobby standpoint and all of that
.
But great question, all right,we've done step one and this is
(15:22):
really important.
Most law firms that I talk to,believe it or not, have not
actually taken the time to dothis.
One little cheat that I'll throwout at you before I move on to
step two is if you're not surewho your ideal clients are and
what they look like, don't justguess at it.
(15:44):
A simple exercise is print outa list of all the clients that
you've worked with over the lasttwo years or so and just run
through that list and, like,highlight the five of your
favorite, right, these are theclients that if you could clone
them and bring them back overand over again, you'd be really
(16:07):
excited.
And then pull those five namesand really drill into, like,
what makes them such greatclients, and you can even take
the next step of actually askingthem if they'll spend 15
minutes on the phone with youand you can kind of ask them
some questions about you knowtheir motivations, their hobbies
, where do they spend their timeon the weekend, that type of
(16:27):
thing.
It's always best to go straightto the source rather than guess
.
So there's a little bonusexercise.
I've done this once or twiceand I've run boot camps where
I've taken lawyers through thisprocess and it's often kind of
eye-opening because a lot of uslawyers and business owners and
just people in general makeassumptions that aren't always
(16:49):
true.
So I highly recommend takingthat step of actually talking to
some of your ideal clients andreally getting to know them.
But all right, you got yourideal clients defined.
What next?
Now it's time to create contentthat is going to be attractive
to them.
(17:09):
Here's how to go about that.
And let's start here.
When we talk about content andI'll break this down in a minute
, but like it's a buzzword, butall I'm talking about is, you
know, it could be writtencontent, like blogs or social
media posts.
It could be video.
It's just information thatyou're sharing right Written
form.
It's just information thatyou're sharing, right?
Written form, video form, audioform.
(17:30):
You know, whatever the bottomline is, you're just using some
sort of medium to communicateinformation.
We happen to be big fans ofblogging and social media
content and video content,because that works really well
in our current environment.
But, you know, a teleseminarcan be a form of content too,
right?
So the question is, how do youbuild your content strategy?
(17:53):
And here is where you start,and this, again, is really
important.
And if you use this as a prismfor your marketing moving
forward, if you take nothingelse away from this webinar, I
promise this will make a bigdifference.
The content does not start withwhat do you want to tell people.
The content should start withwhat do they want and need to
(18:16):
hear?
And so the question I want youto ask yourself is what are the
top five questions?
Fears, concerns, opportunitiesthat keep your clients up at
night.
What are they worried about?
And you know this.
You know this because when yousit down and have a consultation
with them, it's the first thingthey ask you right In.
(18:40):
You know, in the family lawworld, you know, a really common
one we see is like what's goingto happen to my kids during
divorce.
One we see is like what's goingto happen to my kids during
divorce?
Who's going to get the houseafter divorce is complete?
You know, how does alimony work?
Right?
These are the questions thatyou know family law, potential
(19:02):
family law clients are usuallythinking about.
So let me, let me let me putthis question to you Do you feel
like, right off the top of yourhead, you could rattle off at
least one or two maybe not five,but at least one or two of
these burning questions thatkeep your clients up at night?
(19:22):
Give me a yes if you feel likeyou've got your finger on the
pulse and you kind of know whatthese questions are, and give me
a no if you're not there yet.
And either one is fine.
Gary, you got it.
Yes, awesome, awesome.
Can't pronounce your name,paraskevi.
Awesome, if anybody wants to.
(19:45):
Gary Alfonso Paraskevi, if youwant to drop in the chat.
What one of those questions arelike?
What are your clients worriedabout?
What are your clients wondering?
That would be awesome.
I'd love for some people to seesome examples.
I threw out a few around familylaw, but would love to see a
few more examples.
Leonard says what about whenyou have multiple areas of
(20:06):
practice.
Most people are shopping basedon price.
We'll get to the ad piece ofthat in a minute, leonard.
The multiple areas of practiceis a great question.
It's a great question, and theway to approach it is a
different avatar for each areaof practice, right?
I realize that makes things alittle more complicated, but
(20:29):
when you are marketing, the moreyou can laser focus your
messaging to the right clients,the more effective it's going to
be.
And so if that means you've gotmultiple client avatars in the
same practice area, so be it.
If that means you have threedifferent practice areas and so
(20:50):
you then need to complete thisexercise three times, do it
Start with one and then move tothe next one?
How do I protect my family whenI'm not here?
Great question.
Is my non-compete enforceable?
Great question how fast willthis all resolve?
Is it a great question?
Perfect.
So you guys have a sense ofthis and, like I said, you know
(21:13):
this isn't rocket science.
These are probably thequestions that you get all the
time when you have aconsultation.
So awesome.
But now what I'm saying is we'regoing to take those questions
and we're going to frame themand create a content strategy
out of it, right, blogs, video,social media.
There are some other formats aswell webinars, white papers but
(21:36):
the bottom line is don't leadwith what you think, what you
want to tell people.
Lead with what are they asking.
Matt, your example is mynon-compete.
Enforceable would be aphenomenal blog topic.
Right, it would be a phenomenalvideo topic.
It's short, it's simple.
This is the type of contentthat is attractive to people
(21:59):
when they're looking for anattorney.
Like I said, blogs, video,social it's great for lead
magnets.
This is a filter for yourwebsite messaging right?
This is really important.
I'm going to give you a coupleexamples of what this can look
like.
Okay, blogging is a great tool.
Okay, like I said, you want touse your blog to answer the
(22:19):
questions your PNCs are asking.
You want to demonstrate empathyas well as authority.
Like I talked about, it's notjust about logic, it's also with
connecting to the emotions,right?
What are the emotions beingstirred up by these trigger
points?
You want to create your contentso that it speaks to the
emotions as well.
Little bonus here, as you arecreating blog content.
(22:41):
One of the things likeobviously not a surprise.
You want to create blog contentin a way that search engines
can index it right.
But one of the trends we'reseeing and I'm curious.
Let me actually just ask thisquestion how many of you in this
webinar right now know thatpeople are contacting your firm
because they found you onChatGPT or Gemini or one of
(23:06):
these AI platforms?
Give me a yes if you know forsure, because they've told you
that they found you through chat, gpt or something like that.
I'm curious.
I'm seeing mostly no's.
We are diving deep into thisbecause it is changing really,
really fast.
Potential clients aren't goingto Google nearly as much as they
(23:30):
used to.
Instead, they're going toChatGPT or Grok or even when
they're using Google, they'relooking at Gemini the AI
response, rather than the actualsearch listings.
We're starting to hear that weactually have people contacting
our agency because they found usthrough ChatGPT.
So here's the thing Over thenext few years, this trend is
(23:51):
100% happening.
The horse has already left thebarn on this.
So, as you're creating content,you want to keep that in mind.
How do you create content thatChatGPT is going to find?
Because that's then going toget you found when somebody is
looking for a business attorneyin your city.
So I'm going to give you threereal quick cheats on that.
(24:12):
We were really diving into thisover the last quarter or so as
an internal team.
So here's a few quick tips.
You may want to write thesedown, because I didn't even put
them on slides.
I'm literally just pulling upmy notebook because I was
working on this yesterday.
So one is you want to put yourblog titles in Q&A format.
Okay, so some of the topics youguys threw out there how do I
(24:35):
protect my family when I'm nothere?
That's a great blog titleFormat as a question.
That's going to make ChatGPTmore likely to index it.
Then, when you're writing yourblog, start with a real short
summary, give like the twosentence executive summary,
answer the question and then goahead and write the full, you
(24:56):
know, 400 words or whatever.
It's going to be.
Google, not Google, chatgpt,grok, gemini are all looking for
that short summary.
And then the third thing is andthis is getting a little
technical, I'll actually dropthis in the chat there's a tool
called Schema which many of yourwebsites might already have.
It's basically a tool that sortof optimizes the data and
(25:20):
structures it in such a way thatyou're going to get seen, your
content's going to get seen andrecognized by these generative
AI platforms like ChatGPT.
So you want to have schema, dowhat's called markup your data.
If you have questions aboutthis.
It's kind of outside the scopeof this webinar, but my team
would be more than happy to kindof have a conversation around
(25:41):
this.
You can email just me directly,because this is kind of a pet
project of mine right now I'mgoing to just drop my email
directly in the chat.
But anyways, blogging is agreat way to kind of meet your
clients where they are.
It's also a great way to getsome visibility on ChatGPT and
other tools.
(26:02):
Last piece on the blog is youalways want to include a call to
action Like yes, this blog isfocused on answering their
questions, but it is also.
You always want to include acall to action Like yes, this
blog is focused on answeringtheir questions, but it is also.
You always want to include ahere's what to do when you're
ready to take the next step,whether that's your phone number
or a link to book a call orwhatever.
Always give them the next step.
(26:22):
Okay, so that's your blog.
That's number one.
Two video FAQs.
I'm going to move a littlefaster here because I do have a
lot of info I want to get to youguys.
Video FAQs we're a big fan ofbasic talk to the camera.
Doesn't have to be super highlyproduced video content where
you're just answering kind ofthe same questions we just
(26:43):
talked about.
What are those five top fiveconcerns that your clients have?
Create a video and answer eachone of those questions, one at a
time.
Make the title of the video thequestion and then answer it,
and then you're gonna get thatcontent indexed by the search
engines and indexed by ChatGPTas well.
Video FAQs you can do theseyourselves, guys.
(27:03):
You can pick up your phone andpress record and do it yourself.
Three organic social media.
We are big believers in sort ofyou know the more established
social networks like Facebook,instagram, linkedin.
There's also room forexperimenting with TikTok and
other places.
(27:24):
Bottom line is you're usingsocial media to take not just
random content right, not justmemes, but you're using social
media to answer the questionsthat we just identified.
Top five questions your clientshave that keep them up at night
.
Use social media to answerthose questions.
Last one I'm going to throw uphere again just to kind of make
(27:47):
sure you understand what I meanwhen we're talking about content
marketing.
Your website is a big part ofthe equation, right, and your
website should do a few things.
Specifically One you want tohelp your visitors recognize
either I'm in the right place orI'm not, and you do that with a
strong headline.
This example helpingentrepreneurs start, grow,
(28:07):
protect their businesses Cool.
If I'm an entrepreneur, I knowI'm in the right place.
If I'm not an entrepreneur,no-transcript.
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