Digital Marketing

Here’s a question I just got:

Have you ever worked with an attorney who has a non-legal day job but is trying to increase side legal income?

I have not, but that does not mean that it’s not possible. What type of law are you trying to practice? Let me know what you’re trying to do and then I’ll give you suggestions on how to do it.

A Freelance Attorney

I was just talking to another attorney not too long ago, and she has a really interesting practice. She’s actually a freelance attorney. I had never really heard of such a thing, but it’s a really innovative way to have a law firm. And basically what she does is she works with other lawyers.

Adoption Law

I’m assuming that adoption law is going to be one of two things. It’s either going to stepparent adoption or it’s going to be my wife and I can’t get pregnant and we want to have a kid. Both of those are very good and very easy to target.
If it’s your side income, then you’re probably not trying to get a ton of cases. It’s the same strategy I give everyone. Anyone that wants to have kids and can’t have kids, what do they want?

What Do People Who Are Interested In Adoption Want?

They want to be a parent. They want to play catch with their son. They want to walk their daughter down the aisle. All of these things that they want are emotional triggers. It’s a hugely emotional field of law because people want to have kids very badly and they can’t.

Talk To Former Clients

So you need to create some sort of content that basically talks about how to get the thing that they want. So I would go to some of the past people that you’ve already talked to or that you’ve already helped. And I would say, I’m putting together some free resources for people that are in the same situation that you were in before you came to my law firm for help.

And I want to make sure that I don’t miss anything because I want the guide to be really valuable. I think there are a lot of people out there that are looking for information and can’t find it.

So then you want to figure out what was their number one question they had about adoption. What was their biggest goal? What was their desire? What was the thing that they wanted the most? For most people, it’s how to get a kid.

What Are Their Fears?

What is their biggest fear? There are tons of fears that they could have. The fear could be that they go through an entire process, and they find someone who’s going to give their child up for adoption. Then, in month eight, the mother changes her mind and wants to keep the kid.

My brother actually went through a situation where he and his wife adopted twins, and what happened was they ended up in a foster situation. So, they fostered these two newborns and then for two years they were battling with the mother who was addicted to drugs. Luckily they were finally able to adopt.

Create A Free Cheat Sheet

There are all these concerns that they have. So what you should do is create a piece of content, a free download, free cheat sheet, free video series, whatever it is, that teaches them. So here’s what you want. If you’re struggling to have children and you’ve tried everything, you tried the fertility clinics, you tried the doctors and you’re finished with the disappointment, then here’s another option.

Here’s how to be a parent, even if you can’t have kids. And then you start talking about adoption. Or maybe it’s people that already know they want adoption. This is why you do the ask campaign where you ask people what their questions are.

Because maybe it’s people that already know that they want adoption, but they’re concerned about the process. Their concern is that it can be expensive. They’re concerned about the home study, or they’re concerned about the financial element of it.

That’s not so much about the fact that it’s going to be expensive, but about what the state will look for in finances. So you answer all of these questions and you put all this free content out there and do it in a free guide or free videos or whatever it is.

Follow Up With More Content

And then you just keep following up with content for these people. And the nice thing is, especially if you use videos, you only have to film videos one time and then what happens is that you have this content out there that lives forever and continues to get your clients.

The nice part about it is that you have this video, and since you said you’re only doing it for side income, you’ll have more clients than you need. As I said, that’s what happened to me. We have a waiting list because we can’t handle as many clients as are coming to us.

So that’s what you do. You just create free content and focus on providing value in solving problems and answering the questions that they have. And then people will hire you. It works every single time.

So that would be my suggestion to you. It’s the same thing I tell everyone: value, value, value.

What Else Could You Target On Facebook?

Evan said he boosted a few posts before and targeted them toward motherhood and Christian. Would I have any other suggestions on targeting? When you’re targeting on Facebook, I don’t know why you would target Christian. It doesn’t really make any sense. Would that mean that Jewish people aren’t allowed to adopt? That’s not really related.

Instead, I would look for things like fertility and In vitro fertilization, and I would also target the interest of adoption.
Now here’s another thing that you could do for adoption. Go to Google and see if there are any adoption magazines or adoption organizations or anything like that, and see if you can target those as well. You’d be a lot better off.

I mean, motherhood is our right, but not everyone who’s interested in motherhood is necessarily interested in adoption. So I would target interests that are more likely to be liked and followed by people that are interested in adoption.

For example, what are the steps before adoption? Probably fertility clinics and, egg transplants. I don’t know what the procedures are, but you’ve got to figure out all those things that people would be interested in. Look for any organizations, any magazines, and any famous doctors that have had really amazing results. That’s what I would focus on.

The question

“I’m looking for a service that can call leads and connect them with my firm immediately after they fill out a lead form online. Does a service like this exist?”

My answer

I think there are a few of them. We personally use LeadOwl for my clients. We run Facebook ads for a lot of different law firms, and we run ads for car accidents, for bike accidents, for divorce, and… We’re doing so many different ones. We’ve also been generating really cheap cases for PI.

LeadOwl

Here’s what we do: we run Facebook lead ads directly to a service called LeadOwl. That’s LeadOwl — it’s Lead and then Owl, like the bird. It goes on your phone and it ties directly into Facebook ads.

So the second a lead comes in, you get a notification on your phone that says you’ve got a lead. And then what you can do is you can touch it on your phone, and then it’ll open up the lead and with the touch of a button, you can hit “Call” or “Text Message” or “Email.”

The importance of speed

Now, the reason this is important is that if you’re running Facebook ads and you’re running direct lead ads, it’s absolutely essential that you get back to them as quickly as possible.

Because you have to remember, when somebody’s on Facebook, they’re scrolling through, they see your post, they watch your video, and they read your ad. They click “Contact me,” they fill out the form, and then they move back on with their life.

So you’ve got to make sure that you get in touch with them in 5 minutes. You got to get in touch with them fast. So what’s cool about LeadOwl is that you can install the software on an unlimited number of phones. That way, you can have it on your phone, your partner’s phone, your secretary’s phone, your assistant’s phone, and you can have it on whoever’s phone. So whenever a lead comes in, you can make sure that somebody answers it.

The benefits of canned text messages

Or you can text them and start a text conversation if you want. And what’s cool is that you can save canned text messages. If you’re in court, you’re obviously not going to pick up the phone, but you can pull out your phone and you can hit “Text Message” real quick.

You can use that canned text message, so you don’t actually have to type out a text message, and it will still contact that lead. It’s super important that you get in touch with leads really fast.

More about LeadOwl

I don’t know what other services are out there. The one that we use is LeadOwl. All of our clients are on it. Everyone seems to like it. I don’t have any affiliation with it. But I do know the guy that runs it. Dan Henry is the one that owns it.

If there’s any other lead service out there, let me know. Leave it in the comments below. I’d love to check them out because LeadOwl is all I’ve ever seen, and it works great.

The question is, do you recommend repurposing your videos to places like AVVO and other places like that, and the answer is yes, absolutely.

My Repurposing Strategy

I repurpose my videos everywhere because you’re creating the content one time, and then there’s no point in doing it over and over again. It’s important to basically get that content one time and then put it in a lot of different places.

And this is actually something that I coach. I don’t know if anyone knows this, but I actually do coaching for lawyers. If you go to call.andrewstickel.com, you can set up a time to talk to me about coaching if you’re interested in that.

Here’s How It Works

So what I do is this: I record a video and then I send it out to my team, and my team syndicates it to Facebook and YouTube and LinkedIn. It goes to my email list, and it goes to all these different places.

But we also upload it to rev.com, and we get the transcript, and then we send it to a writer and we have the writer turn it into a blog post. So, then we can put it on a blog, and we can put it in all these different places. So yes, I’m using this one piece of content and I’m putting it in a lot of different places.

My Upcoming Podcast

Another thing you’re going to see very soon is that I’m actually about to launch a podcast and a part of it is going to be repurposing the audio from this Q&A. This lawyer marketing Q&A is going to turn into a weekly podcast that I do. It would be a law firm marketing question and answer podcast.

Of course, there’s no point in answering the same thing over and over again.  I’ve got to be as efficient as possible with my time, so that’s why I recommend repurposing everything. I get it transcribed and I turn it into a blog post. I probably could do even more than what I’m doing with it.

What You Should Do

Upload it anywhere you can. AVVO is a good place for it, but here’s another thing. AVVO has all those questions and answers, just like Quora. Quora has a ton of questions and answers. What you can do is you can answer questions there and then repurpose that content in other places.  

Basically, anything you do for one platform, you should also do for a lot of different platforms. Make sure to get as many legs or as much mileage as possible.

The question

What is the best way to retarget potential clients after they’ve visited my site? 

My answer

All right, so it depends on what type of ad you have. If you have a Google ad, it will not allow you to retarget for things like criminal defense or family law. At least that used to be the case. I don’t know if that’s true anymore. 

The problem with retargeting

But basically, they’re not going to allow you to retarget for categories that you wouldn’t be comfortable searching for at work. 

So if you got arrested for DUI, you probably wouldn’t be comfortable searching for that while you’re sitting at work. So Google AdWords is a good way to do it. You don’t have to spend a lot of money. You can spend 5 or 10 bucks a day.

Consider display ads

And even just running display ads, I don’t think I would run a search network or whatever it’s called, the search ads as remarketing. But display ads for sure, because now you’re going to get really cheap eyeballs on you, for pennies, and they’re going to keep seeing you over and over again.

Facebook and social proof

On Facebook… definitely, do retarget on Facebook. And Facebook’s a little more lenient. You can do the DUI stuff and family law stuff on Facebook. But what I typically do with remarketing is that I try to run a lot of social proof because they already know who you are. 

How social proof helps

So if I have video testimonials, I’ll run video testimonials. I’m talking about what a great job the attorney did. Or I use other types of social proof. That usually works really well. 

Social proof works because they already know who you are. They’re sitting on the fence and you just have to keep throwing rocks at them to get them to fall off the fence and hire you. So just use social proof.

 

Here’s The Question:

They’re asking, when they promote YouTube content on Facebook, so they take a video and they want to promote it on Facebook, is it better to upload the video directly to Facebook or is it better to just paste a YouTube link in?

Upload Directly To Facebook

The answer is to upload the video to Facebook and the reason why is because Facebook wants to keep people on their platform. So they’re more likely to share a video that is actually on Facebook that actually can stream in the newsfeed than they are to share a link to a competitor’s website.

They also asked about running an ad. I upload all of my content to YouTube and if you look at my lawyer marketing channel, you see that I don’t ever post a YouTube link. I always post the video directly on Facebook.

And I’ve had some assistants that have posted YouTube links so that would be the only time that you would ever see me post a YouTube link. And then I tell them “Hey, don’t do that.”

Think About What The Platform Wants

You always want to make sure that you think about what does the platform want.  The platform wants you to stay on Facebook. They don’t want to promote something that’s going to take you to their competitor. So you’re going to get the best reach and the best results if you upload directly to Facebook.

The Question I Received:

Is there a way to target people on Facebook that you’ve been around, meaning that if my phone is within a certain distance of people, will Facebook push my ads to them?

My Answer

No, I don’t know how to do that. I don’t think that Facebook can.

How to Target People Who’ve Been to Specific Locations

But here’s something that you can do: you can drop a pin on a certain location, for example, you can include anyone that’s been to my office. With your Facebook ads, you can select people who were recently in this location and then you can choose people within one mile of that location.

A One-Mile Radius Includes Too Many People

So if your location is in the middle here, let’s say this is your address here, then Facebook is going to basically say okay your office is here. And we’re going to give a one-mile radius, so we’re going to one mile this way, one mile this way, one mile this way, one mile this way.

So, this is actually a really big radius. The problem is that if you want someone who’s been right there, you’re getting people that have been right here and right here and right here and right here, so there’s never a really great way to fix this.

How To Narrow Down The Area And Make It More Precise

But I actually just saw a genius way that people fix this and I’m testing it and it’s working okay. I haven’t really tested it too much yet but basically what you do is you drop pins. You drop a pin right here and then you drop a pin in all of these locations here and set it to a one-mile radius but you exclude those radiuses.

You’ll see it once I draw it. What happens is that all these circles here are now excluded locations, so the only thing included is this location right here.

Now, when you actually do it, you can make it so that it’s very precise. So, we’re doing this with a hospital in Miami right now and we were able to get it close enough that everything except for the hospital campus itself is excluded. So, that’s one way that you can do that for Facebook targeting.

More Possibilities with Google Beacon

I don’t think you can target people that have been near you though I believe that you can do that type of thing with Google beacon. I haven’t really played around with it a lot yet. It’s a little big brother-ish and people might find it really creepy, but I believe that that’s something you can do with Google beacon.