Email marketing has been around for a while, but don’t underestimate its value. It is still a cost-effective and direct way to nurture your active estate planning clients, promote niche services, and bring in new business for your law firm.
However, for all the benefits, a lot of law firms end up frustrated with email marketing. They feel like they put a lot of time and effort into crafting and launching email campaigns, only to be disappointed by the results. If you’ve ever labored over creating a newsletter, campaign, or outreach email that didn’t perform as well as planned, you know what we’re talking about.
It’s enough to make you want to give up on email entirely! But don’t give up just yet.
Instead, let’s spend some time today talking about 5 of the biggest reasons your email marketing campaigns may not be working as well as they should. With the right information and a little adjustment, you can turn your underperforming email campaigns into an incredible lead-generation tool for your business.
1. Your Emails Aren’t Landing in Inboxes
Of all the kinds of problems you can have with email marketing, this is one of the most bewildering. Email providers go to great lengths to keep spam out of their users’ inboxes. And, sometimes, even well-meaning law firms get caught in the filters.
If you aren’t careful about email security, opt-in standards, and how you present your email offers, you could face consequences that range from temporarily landing in spam folders to permanent damage to your email reputation.
And don’t expect email providers to loosen their standards anytime soon. In fact, in April 2024, Google and Yahoo started enforcing even more stringent requirements for email senders.
Don’t let that scare you away from email marketing, though.
The standards you need to meet are fairly clear and straightforward to achieve if you know what you need to watch out for. You can actually even avoid a lot of trouble just by managing your emails with CRM software that already keeps the technical end of those standards in mind!
Once you get everything in place, it becomes much easier to manage your emails and adjust to new shifts in the industry. You can rest assured that your emails will land safely in your recipient’s inboxes, and you’ll get much better returns on your email marketing investment.
2. You Aren’t Segmenting Your Email Contact List
Another big issue we see with estate planning email marketing has to do with segmentation and targeting. If you want to avoid spam filters and encourage recipients to engage with you, you can’t bombard everyone on your list with emails that aren’t really relevant to them. Instead, you want to tag and segment your email list into demographics and areas of interest.
Once your list is tagged effectively, you can choose to send emails only to contacts in a particular geographic region or only to contacts that have expressed interest in a specific practice area. It’s a lot more effective than sending out generalized emails to everyone because you’re sending out information that is tailored to your recipients and can speak more directly to their individual needs. You’re also a lot less likely to get marked as “spam” or rack up complaints that tarnish your email reputation as a sender.
3. Your Marketing Emails Aren’t Optimized for Mobile Viewing
These days, most people check their email from a phone or tablet at least some of the time. If your emails are only optimized for desktop users, it’s no surprise that they’re underperforming.
To keep your emails mobile-friendly, avoid large images or overcomplicated formatting. Break up longer chunks of text, and leave a little whitespace to make it easier to read. You might also include button links that are easy to tap on smaller screens. And don’t skip sending yourself a test email before you send it out to your list! That’s your opportunity to pull it up on different devices, check for any problems, and make sure it’s good to go.
Ultimately, if you can design emails that look great regardless of device, you’ll boost all your email metrics, from open rates to click-throughs.
4. Your Email Subject Lines Get Lost in the Crowd
The subject line of your email is what gets people to open your email in the first place. If your open rates are suffering on a well-segmented list, this is exactly the place you need to investigate.
Your subject line should use compelling language to describe what recipients will find inside. You don’t want to use misleading or “clickbait” subject lines that sound spammy or don’t deliver on their promises! You also want to keep it short and sweet. You should aim for around four to seven words or about 50 characters overall. Otherwise, your subject line may be truncated when displayed, lessening the impact.
If you aren’t sure what kinds of subject lines work best for your audience, we recommend brainstorming a few options and then using A/B split testing to home in on what’s most effective. After a few test runs, you should have a pretty good idea of what works well and what doesn’t.
5. You Aren’t Telling Recipients What You Want Them to Do Next
If you see lots of people opening your emails, but very few people actually clicking through to your offer or landing page, you need to take a look at the content of your email. And, in particular, you need to take a look at your “call to action.” That’s the part that gets people to actually click and engage!
So, don’t be afraid to be clear about what you want people to do after they’ve read your email. Focus on one clear goal per email. Provide the link or button they should click. Let them know what to expect and why they should take the next step.
No matter how compelling your email content is, you won’t get leads if you leave them hanging. Give them a call to action that points them in the right direction, and you should see a boost in click-through rates and captured leads.
Get More Estate Planning Clients With an Email Strategy Designed for Your Success
Getting a great email strategy going is the hard part. Once you have the right system, strategy, and software in place, it becomes easy and quick to engage with your list and get positive results from your campaigns.
Curious about how you can master the art of email marketing for your practice? You can call Foster Web Marketing at 888.886.0939 or book an appointment to speak with our team. We use cutting-edge technology and time-proven practices to pinpoint emails problems, strategize sustainable solutions, and position you for the leads and clients you want for your estate planning practice.
RELATED EDUCATION
If you found this article interesting, here are some other educational programs that you might find helpful:
- Generating Business from the Internet: Best Practices for Estate Planning Professionals
- The 6 Ways to Grow Revenue in Any Business
- How to Develop a More Consistent and Steady Stream of Revenue from Your Existing Clients!
- How to Use Online Reviews to Get More Business!
- How to Set Your Fees: For Estate Planning Attorneys with a Living Trust-Centered Practice
- Convert Prospects with Other Attorneys’ Trusts Into Clients!
ABOUT FOSTER WEB MARKETING
Since 1998, Foster Web Marketing has provided boutique website design and digital marketing services to lawyers, doctors, and other professionals across the U.S. and around the world. We use our in-house website design, content writing, search engine optimization, and coaching teams to strategize more effective marketing plans for our clients. We also provide powerful marketing software that supports businesses in attracting their “perfect clients” and achieving consistent success online.
Foster Web Marketing is the current web designer of nationally renowned estate planning attorney and Ultimate Estate Planner’s President, Philip Kavesh’s, law firm’s website. Take a look at www.kaveshlaw.com.
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