You provided a free cheat sheet download for law firms. Now you are asking if it is right to give them all a phone call in a few days? That feels like harvesting their email as an excuse to call them, and I do not think that is a good way to begin a relationship with them. Of course, we know your guide and your follow-up is all in-house, but to the customer, it may not be received as such.
The law firm may see it as one of the oldest marketing tricks in the book. We have come to expect a simple free quote or a sample of a new coffee will send us an avalanche of email.
This is an interesting question, and it opens some interesting options. When you offer a cheat sheet download, you are going to get their email. Typically, you will ask for their name and email for this type of download. When we have asked for a phone number, we have offered to text them a pocket guide. We will then follow up with an email that is automatically generated but looks personal. People who buy my book get this email. It gets me a lot of responses. It is a short and effective email.
When someone buys my book, they get an email that is clearly an auto-generated email. It is written that way intentionally. About an hour later, another email comes that looks like I wrote it personally. It is worded like, Hey Bill. Thanks for buying my book. What practice area do you cover? It just asks something along those lines. It is like, what area of law do you practice? It is casually signed, Andy.
What is great about this, is we have now started a dialog. The person believes they are speaking to me. I have asked them a question and they are answering the question. This is important. They do not feel like I am playing games with them. They are not disrespected or insulted because they feel tricked into giving up their information. I asked them a question and they were happy to respond. I get that response at least 50% of the time. The door is opened a bit for conversation and sometimes they will actually contact me. Some will even hire me.
In my opinion, this will get you a lot more traction than calling someone just because they took advantage of your free guide. That strategy could probably annoy them. But if you reach out to them in an automated way and ask them a relative question, you can get the dialog started. Play around with the question and see what gets you the best responses. Just make sure it is a question that is related to whatever problem they have.
Nobody wants to feel like they were tricked into a sales gimmick. Let them have something of value and give them the assurance that you are for real. Treat them like you would want to be treated. That’s how you get the best clients.
