In recent years, the cost of acquiring new customers has increased by 60 percent. Marketing is getting more expensive, yet consumers are becoming less trustworthy of businesses and marketing tactics.
All businesses, from retailers to service-based companies, need new clients or customers to grow and thrive in a competitive environment. Client acquisition plans are vital to ensuring that there’s a steady flow of new clientele.
But how can service-based companies, such as law firms, ensure that their marketing strategy fosters trust and credibility to attract new clients? The answer is a client acquisition strategy.
Understanding the Client Acquisition Funnel
Like a sales funnel, the client acquisition funnel is the foundation of the client acquisition strategy and guides clients through the process.
Without a well-designed process, some prospects will fall away from the funnel. A tight client acquisition funnel can bring more clients through each stage, converting leads into clients and maximizing the marketing budget.
- Awareness: The client recognizes a need and explores options. Targeted marketing boosts brand awareness to bring them to your company.
- Interest: The client is searching for solutions to pain points. Marketing at this stage focuses on educating prospects about the benefits of a product.
- Consideration: The client is evaluating the options. Marketing at this stage focuses on accessible content that provides in-depth information about the product or company to inform their decision.
- Intent: The client has intent to purchase and can book consultation calls to learn more about what’s on the offer.
- Evaluation: The client is in the decision stage and can be enticed to purchase. Clients should be encouraged using discounts, free trials, or other incentives.
- Purchase: The client is ready to make a purchase or sign up.
Each stage of this funnel connects to a strategic aspect of the marketing strategy and client acquisition.
Elements of a Client Acquisition Plan
A Well-Defined Audience
Even with stellar marketing, the best campaigns won’t be successful if they’re not directed at the right target audience. For service-based companies, defining this audience can be challenging. The audience tends to be broad and vague, making targeted marketing more difficult.
In this case, it’s best to have multiple audiences that are grouped by similarities. For example, a law firm may practice in a few different areas, all of which should be approached differently in marketing.
If a law firm practices Social Security law, criminal law, family law, and immigration law, those audiences should be segmented according to legal area. From there, you may need to segment the audiences further to personalize the messaging.
SMART Goals
Goals are necessary for any strategy or plan. Otherwise, you have no way to determine if you’re accomplishing what you set out to.
Sure, the goal of client acquisition is to acquire clients, but it’s more specific than that. Your client acquisition plan needs smaller SMART goals that can be tested, tracked, and measured to fine-tune your campaigns.
What are SMART goals?
- Specific: It’s not enough to say “get more clients.” How many clients? In what time period? Are the clients specific to a department or in general?
- Measurable: In order to see if you’re on track to reach your goals, you have to be able to track and monitor them. Your goals should be measurable and validated by data.
- Achievable: Saying you want to bring on 100 new clients by next week is probably not going to happen. Your goals should be realistic and achievable. If they’re too difficult, you won’t succeed. If they’re too easy, they’re not serving your larger organizational goals.
- Relevant: Your goals should be relevant to the overarching organizational goals. In the case of client acquisition, the overarching goal is to bring on more clients. Other business or marketing goals aren’t relevant to the client acquisition strategy.
- Time-Bound: Your goals can’t be open-ended – set a timeframe in which you can achieve your goals, and make sure that the timeframe is realistic.
Effective Digital Content
Content is a huge aspect of client acquisition, since it establishes your business as an authority and drives organic traffic to your website.
Content for client acquisition is different than general content, however. The goal of client acquisition content is to convert the lead to an actual client, not just drive more awareness or leads. It needs to be targeted for this purpose and measurable.
This content can be used across platforms and media, including:
- Video marketing
- Social media platforms
- Clickable call-to-action statements
- Email sequences
- SEO
- In-person marketing
Chosen Marketing Channels
Marketing can encompass a lot of channels and outlets. For service-based businesses, trying to execute a broad marketing technique pulls time away from mission-critical tasks, such as practicing child support law in a law firm.
But marketing is vital to the success of a business. Most service-based businesses benefit from a combination of inbound and outbound marketing.
Inbound marketing: This includes digital marketing, content marketing, and paid advertising, all intended to attract prospects and direct them toward a conversion.
Outbound marketing: This includes cold pitching, networking, and other methods of seeking out new clients.
Of course, it’s unrealistic for most businesses to devote equal time and effort into every possible marketing channel. It’s important to determine the best channels for your marketing efforts.
Where are most of your prospects spending time? What channels are your competitors using? How did your current clients find you (social, paid ads, email, etc.)?
Analytics
As mentioned, all strategies need goals and tracking, monitoring, and evaluating to be successful. When you develop your strategy, set milestones to track progress and see what’s working, what isn’t, and what can be improved.
Then, tweak your campaigns as needed. It may take some experimentation to find the right messaging, channels, and content, but it’s worth the effort when you see results.
Client Acquisition for Long-Term Success
Client acquisition may not be the strong suit of many service-based businesses, including law firms, but it’s a necessary part of business revenue and growth. With these tips, you have the tools to convert prospects into clients and set up your business for success.
Maxwell Hills is the founder of Hills Law Group, a premier Orange County family law firm with a concentration on high net worth divorces. Max’s entrepreneurial career stretches back to his teenage days when he had his music used in Grey’s Anatomy and ESPN. Today, Max has used that experience to build Hills Law Group with 0 customers and $0 in revenue to a respected firm in the industry.