for attorneys

Make Sure You Provide the Right Message at the Right Time

Step two of The Marketing Formula states, Whether you are running an ad in a magazine or designing a website, you will best capture your audience’s attention by prominently displaying a well-conceived headline at the top of your ad or homepage. Your headline must contain one or more of the biggest emotional hot buttons your potential clients have. Emotional hot buttons include the desires, importances, fears, frustrations, difficulties, pain and annoyances people possess concerning purchasing the type of service you offer. But, how do you know which emotional hot buttons to use?

The emotional hot buttons you choose depend on where the bulk of your potential clients lie in the buying cycle, which we call The Buying Decision Progression. Are most prospects just beginning to contemplate purchasing the type of service you offer? Have they been researching the type of law services they need for a while? Or, are they ready to move forward but have yet to choose a law firm?

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Buying Decision Progression

Prospect first decides he wants the type of legal services you offer ➡ prospect searchs for information ➡ prospect asks others about the type of legal services you offer ➡ prospect gets satisfactory answers to questions and objections ➡ prospect selects a firm ➡ prospect waits for the right time to make an appointment ➡ prospect makes the appointment and becomes a client

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Getting People Hooked on Choosing Your Firm
Before They Are Ready to Take Action

The Buying Decision Progression presents the entire practice selection process from the first thought a prospect has to buying what you offer to actually making the purchase. The job of marketing is to drive prospects onto The Buying Decision Progression, cause prospects to decide, when appropriate, to make the purchase, and then select your firm over their other options. To succeed, you need to have something great to say, communicate it well and repeat your message frequently. By repetitively communicating your message, you will move your prospects from wherever they lie on the Progression to buying from you, and speed their actions. The secret to gaining market share is to continually communicate until prospective clients actually purchase from you. Or, if they are receiving services from another firm and could change providers if dissatisfied, getting them to switch to your practice. This is called call accelerated discontentment.

How Long Will It Take Prospects
to Make Their Decisions to Move Forward?

The time span it takes for prospects to make a decision and carry through with it depends mainly on three factors: where prospects lie on the Buying Decision Progression, their sense of urgency, and how much attention and effort they must exert to make a choice. This observation alone dictates what strategic approach to initiate and how to determine the nature of the emotional hot buttons of your target markets. If a given audience sits at the beginning of the Progression, implement a benefits of purchasing strategy. If they lie in the middle, concentrate on an objections to purchasing strategy. On the other hand, develop a strategy that will separate what you provide from your competitors, if a significant percentage are nearing the last three steps of the Progression. Usually, you will need to implement each strategy. However, one may take clear precedence over the others.

Let us say the research you conduct determines 50 percent of your target market lies in the center of the Progression, 25 percent near the beginning and 25 percent near the end. What should you do? Have 50 percent of your budget concentrate on handling prospects’ questions and objections, 25 percent address benefits and 25 percent stress vendor selection. Thus, you would have three distinct messages.

The media you select will also be dependent on where your audience lies on the Progression. For example, if a sizeable portion of your audience is searching for a provider, you will want to gear your promotion toward media that attract prospects who are ready to buy, such as the yellow pages (on or off line), websites and online directories (i.e., findlaw.com).

If many are just beginning to consider buying the type of service you deliver, select media that enables you to educate prospects on the benefits of purchasing your type of legal services (i.e., social media, reports, videos, presentations, and webinars). For prospective buyers who lie in the middle, interrupt marketing such as direct mail, local magazine ads and television commercials are among those to consider.

Understanding the Buying Decision Progression and implementing it properly can mean the difference between market invisibility and market domination.

Article written by Marc Aronson. Copyright © 2011, Business Builders. All rights reserved. No portion of this report may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means (including e-mail or fax), without written permission from Business Builders.