Last week we discussed a few of the ways in which attorneys can – and must – market themselves and their law firms today if they wish to attract more high-asset clients. One of the most important ways you can do this is by using your CFL Designation for Divorce Practitioners as one of your primary marketing tools.
The high-asset clients you want to attract need to know that you possess the advanced financial knowledge and expertise necessary to best serve their needs. Only with such expertise can you show them that you, rather than your competitors, are best qualified to advise and counsel them with regard to their options and then achieve their goals. Let these potential clients know by way of your CFL credential that you are exactly the divorce practitioner they are looking for.
Personal Marketing
You already know that your business cards are an effective marketing tool or you would not hand them out to the people with whom you talk at the courthouse, restaurants, or business and social events you attend. You know from experience how often you get a call from someone you met months, or even years, ago who says, “I’m about to get divorced and I found your card in my wallet.” Or purse.
Instead of putting the stereotypical bland scales of justice logo on your card that the vast majority of attorneys put on theirs, use the enhanced AACFL scales of justice logo instead. It immediately identifies you as a Certified Financial Litigator. Likewise consider adding it to your office stationery. This logo not only tells potential high-asset clients that you possess the knowledge and skill they are seeking, but also that you fight for your clients in court.
Mass Marketing
If you don’t think that potential high-asset clients care about the design and functionality of your law firm’s website, think again. Given that approximately 96 percent of today’s consumers begin their search for an attorney online, how your website is designed and how user-friendly it is makes all the difference in the world. This assumes, of course, that those potential clients find your website in the first place. Unfortunately, yours is competing with thousands of others.
Here we have to talk about some acronyms with which you may be unfamiliar:
- SEO – search engine optimization
- SEM – search engine marketing
- SERP – search engine results page
SEO and SEM are methodologies and techniques, often complex and some seemingly nit-picky, by which you make your website show up in a favorable position on the results page when a potential high-asset client enters a search string into his or her search engine of choice such as Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc. If your website fails to make good use of SEO and SEM, your site has no chance of favorable positioning, and “your” potential clients will choose someone else instead, never even knowing that you exist.
Setting Your Priorities
You chose to become a family law attorney because you wanted to practice family law, particularly high-asset divorce law. You did not become an attorney so you could also be a website guru knowledgeable in the ways of attracting more of the clients you and your firm want and need. Practicing law and designing and maintaining an effective website take two entirely different skill sets which few people possess. You therefore may wish to consider hiring a digital marketing agency that caters to attorneys and law firms.
We will continue our attorney marketing discussion in upcoming weeks. In the meantime, for more information on financial issues you need to be aware of, how gaining your CFL Designation for Divorce Practitioners will give you the financial knowledge and skills you need to attract additional high-asset clients, and the other benefits of AACFL membership, please visit this page of our website.
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