5 Marketing Automation Practices to Grow Your Law Firm

Automation. It’s not just for garage door openers, self-driving cars, or gigantic industrial robots. It’s also for running—and growing—your law firm. 

Automation can play an important role in making your law firm’s operations more streamlined and less hands-on, but for many businesses, “automation” may sound like an intimidating, complex topic, one that’s too tech-y to touch. 

And when it comes to marketing automation? Two out of three companies find the process of implementing marketing automation to be difficult .  

But with the right software and support, marketing automation is a surprisingly easy way to enhance your law firm’s workflows and overall growth. As a lawyer, you want to spend your time and energy focusing on your clients and their cases—and the last thing you need is to lose valuable hours on non-billable administrative and marketing-related tasks.  

That said, to get a steady stream of clients and cases to work on in the first place, every law firm needs a well-honed marketing strategy. That’s where the automation software comes in. Legal marketing automation software helps you implement your strategy without getting bogged down in the daily marketing work.  

Looking to implement marketing automation software at your law firm? Look to the following best practices as you get started:  

1 .Set clear goals 

Behind every plan, you need clear goals and use cases for your marketing automation. Consider the pain points specific to your law firm. Maybe you’re losing leads because of slow response times. Maybe you’ve noticed clients aren’t scheduling or showing up for appointments. Maybe client retention has been dropping slowly.  

Next, determine how different automation features can be deployed to resolve those pain points. For example: 

• Slow response times ➡️ Automated text messages 
• Appointment no-shows ➡️ Automated appointment reminders 
• Poor client retention ➡️ Automated drip campaigns to stay top-of-mind with current clients 

Feel free to think creatively about how marketing automation could be used at your law firm. Marketing automation is all about finding ways to increase communication while saving you time. 

2. Tailor your automations for your legal practice 

Once you’ve defined how you want to use marketing automation to make progress toward your goals, you need to figure out exactly how to implement it. That means figuring out how marketing automation fits into your workflows.  

For example, if you are implementing text message marketing to decrease no-shows for appointments, you will need to make sure that your marketing automation tools correctly tie into your scheduling calendar, that legal support staff are trained on how to use it, and that you’ve dialed in the frequency of reminders to be just right.  

Pro tip: Make sure to thoroughly test your marketing automations before going live with them! Doing your due diligence here can avoid frustrating or embarrassing marketing missteps.  

You’ll also want to determine the right marketing campaigns for your automations. You can create detailed customer profiles based on the demographics, interests, behaviors, and pain points of the types of clients your law firm works with. This is especially important when it comes to creating impactful drip campaigns to nurture leads or engage current clients. 

Once it’s clear who you’re targeting, you can create personalized content within your automated marketing campaign that’s configured to your ideal client’s specific needs.  

3. Collect the right data 

Marketing automation software can be a valuable repository of actionable data about your leads, clients, and the impact of your marketing campaigns. You can gather information from:  

• Questions on your signup/contact forms 
• Client intake forms 
• Behavioral patterns (i.e., what steps do they take before signing on as a client? What answers are they looking for when they engage with your content?)  

For example, let’s say someone visits your website and clicks on your CTA (i.e., “Schedule a Consultation”). Depending on what information you request, they may provide data such as their name, contact information, and practice area they need help with. Once they submit that information, their details will be collected in your database.  

Using the information you’ve gathered, you can use it to:  

• Segment your audience based on shared qualities   
• Determine which potential leads are qualified—and which aren’t the right fit for your practice 
• Understand which practice areas are most in demand 
• Where your lead funnel needs attention 
• And more

 4. Create personalized content 

Who said “automated” has to mean “impersonal?” When you collect the right data, you can craft your content for your target audiences.  

Once you know what content goes to which audience segment, you can automate customized versions of your drip campaigns, text message marketing, and more. It’s essential to use strategies that respond to the individual needs of your leads. For example, if you’re automating client follow-ups to improve your response time, you can personalize them depending on: 

• How your lead contacted you (i.e., submitted a contact form, filled out a consult request, signed up for your newsletter) 
• What practice area they’re looking for services in 
• What the urgency of their request is 
• And more 

You can also create multi-channel experiences using the channels your leads prefer. Do some of your leads prefer text messaging reminders over email? If they’re more likely to respond to a text, then by all means, use automated SMS marketing to your advantage.  

The more you can personalize your content to your audience’s needs and preferences, the better.  

5. Track your performane

You’ve targeted the right audience. You’ve created compelling content personalized to multiple stages of the sales funnel and varying channel preferences. Now what?  

As much as you may want to sit back, relax, and enjoy all the time your automations saved you, you’re not entirely done yet. The only way to know whether your efforts were successful—and to ensure continued success—is to track your performance.  

Marketing automation software can help you analyze your law firm’s key performance indicators (KPIs). For example, if you’re using marketing automation to generate more leads, you would want to track information such as: 

• How many leads did you generate?  
• How many of those leads converted to clients?  
• What was your ROI?  
• Is your growth projected to continue, or are you starting to see a plateau?  

Figure out what went well and which areas need improvement, make tweaks, and repeat the process.  

Automate your workflows with Rocket Matter’s legal CRM software 

While there are many marketing automation tools out there, your best bet is to use one specifically designed for law firms. With Rocket Matter’s legal CRM software, you can build automated marketing campaigns to generate new leads, along with nurturing strong relationships with existing clients for long-term success.  

Key features include:  

• Personalized follow-up messages to contacts via text or email  
• Automated workflows and reporting 
• Text messaging and email drip campaigns  
• Streamlined client intake forms  
• Automated data entry 
• Document automation  

In addition to generating new leads, our legal marketing automation software can also increase client convenience with one-click eSignature and file-sharing tools—no more sending emails back and forth or scheduling times to meet in person.  

Ready to automate your marketing campaign, increase your billable hours, and grow your law firm? Schedule a demo with Rocket Matter today.