Is your law firm’s email marketing delivering the results you expect? Do you even know what to expect? As of May 2019, the benchmarks for the Legal Services industry category according to Constant Contact are as follows:
- Open rate: 19.52%
- Click-through rate: 5.93%
- Bounce rate: 12.46%
- Unsubscribe rate: 0.02%
Here are 10 tips that can help you beat these average rates so your marketing messages will get through to clients and prospects:
Tip #1: Deploy the double opens strategy
If you are meeting the benchmark for opens in the legal industry — around 20% — that means that 8 out of 10 people are not opening your emails. Change the subject line and re-send the same email to those on your list who did not open the first email. You should wait 2-3 days before you re-send and be sure that your pre-header text is different from the first email as well.
Tip #2: Pique their curiosity.
Entice your list with a subject line that piques their curiosity enough to open your email by using cliffhangers.
Tip #3: Focus on your pre-header.
Your pre-header text is just as important as your subject line when it comes to enticing people to open your email. Use it to complement or supplement your subject line.
Tip #4: Create can’t-miss CTAs.
Every email should have one compelling call-to-action (CTA), something that will hook your readers into taking an action like downloading a free report, signing up for a webinar, etc. Your CTA should be descriptive, catchy, easy to act on, and hard to miss.
Tip #5: Prioritize engagement.
Obviously you are using email marketing to attract new business, but focusing on sales alone will not get you the results you want. You need to prioritize relationship building, since engagement is critical for creating trust.
Tip #6: Keep it short.
More than half of emails are opened on mobile devices, which means you need to be mindful of the limited real estate you have to make a good impression. Your subject line should be concise since space is an issue on mobile. Consider using emojis, numbers and symbols to capture attention.
Tip #7: Pace yourself.
If you abuse your readers’ inbox hospitality by emailing too much, your emails are likely to be flagged as spam and your unsubscribe rate could also soar.
Tip #8: Keep your list clean.
Every email marketing service (Constant Contact, MailChimp, etc.) allows people to easily opt out of receiving messages. Their dashboards also tell you how people are engaging with your emails. If you have lists with low engagement rates, then stop sending to them. We all get emails we’re not interested in and find it annoying to have to keep deleting them. Don’t annoy people; if they have not shown any interest in your emails in the past year, cull them from your list.
Tip #9: Use personalization.
It’s been said that the sweetest sound is the sound of our own name. Perhaps this is why personalizing emails with a recipient’s first name consistently delivers higher click-through rates. Also — be sure the emails you are sending are coming from a real person, not a “noreply@” or “info@” address.
Tip #10: Be creative with your images.
There are so many good free stock photo sites out there that you can’t get by anymore with boring (or worse, no) images. Since people process images much faster than text, compelling imagery can drive home your points and get them to take action.
