Legal Niche Marketing Tips: Differentiate Yourself From Your Competition
Any lawyer who follows the niche marketing tips in this web page will have a
good chance at catapulting their practice to the next level. Most lawyers
and law firms either don't understand what niche marketing is, don't care, or
don't feel the need to market their practice to a specific niche. I'm here
to tell you that:
- If you don't know what niche marketing is, you should learn;
- If you don't care what niche marketing is, you most definitely should;
and,
- If you don't feel the need to market your practice to a specific niche,
you should change your mindset immediately.
Of all the marketing strategies that I've seen, niche marketing is probably
one of the most powerful and underused strategies available to lawyers and law
firms. So when we are talking about niche marketing tips, lets start with
the basics:
What is a niche marketing
strategy?
In its simplest terms, legal niche marketing is the process of
finding profitable, underserved, and under-targeted clients, and then designing
custom-made legal services just for them.
I know that this sounds a lot easier on paper than it actually
is. You are really going to have to think outside the box. So here
are some niche marketing tips on how you can get started:
-
Find an underserved market - Are there any consumers
in need of legal services who can't find a lawyer to help them? Think
specifically about new or novel areas of law. Or, perhaps there are
areas of law that other lawyers don't like to practice - You may be able to
quickly jump into and capture that market.
Example: I live in Orlando, where the real estate market is
beginning to crash. I have an attorney friend who started seeing
clients that wanted out of real estate contracts for condominiums downtown.
For some reason, his client's had contracts that are unenforceable, and
therefore void. This is a new niche market that no other lawyers are
servicing.
-
Go narrow before going broad - Lots of solo
practitioners or other lawyers that are just starting out make the mistake
of practicing "threshold law". For those of you that
don't know, this means that they sign up anyone who crosses the threshold
into their office. It doesn't matter whether they can pay or what
their problem is. If they have a heartbeat, they are a client.
This is a terrible legal marketing strategy. Not only could it get you
in trouble with the bar or subject you to malpractice for practicing in an
area that you are not competent to practice in, but it also leads to all
sorts of economic inefficiencies in your office. You will be
scrambling to find forms to assist you in the case, you will wasting a lot
of non-billable time researching issues that you don't know, and you will
not be able to put forth a definitive and legitimate marketing message to
the public. People won't know what you do, and the only clients you
will attract will be the ones that can't afford anyone else - not a good
position to be in.
So start by narrowing your practice to one specialty niche, and then
broadening your practice as it grows.
Example: There is a law firm in Orlando that handles divorce
cases. However, to stand out from all the other divorce lawyers, they
advertise as the "Men's Divorce Law Firm". They have differentiated
themselves from all the other divorce lawyers by targeting men as their
niche market.
-
Price your services differently - By focusing your
practice, and your marketing message, in one specific legal area, you will
be able to quickly and easily establish yourself as the expert in that area.
The great thing about being an expert? You can charge a premium.
What very few attorneys realize, and this is one of the best niche marketing
tips, is that to be a successful lawyer, you cannot compete on price.
You Must Compete on Something
other than Price to be successful.
-
Package your legal services differently - Lets be
honest, lawyers that do things the same as all other lawyers are boring.
You need to do something different that will make you stand out from a
crowd. Here are a few ideas:
Example #1:
This divorce
attorney has changed the way he handles the "Free Consultation," by
offering a value-based "Matrimonial Assessment" for upwards of $2,500 per
assessment - and the clients pay!
Example #2:
This small business attorney has built a recurring
stream of income into his practice by implementing an annual fee that
generates hundreds of thousands of dollars, per year, in renewable and
predictable revenue.
These are just a few niche marketing tips that can help
jumpstart your law firm.
Click here for more legal niche marketing tactics that will help differentiate
your practice from your competitors. Check back frequently for other ideas that may be
helpful to building your practice.
Return from Niche Marketing Tips to the Legal Marketing Center homepage
|
