Get More Clients for

Your Law Firm with

Lead Tracking

1
Table of Contents

03 Introduction
12 Data & Software Caution

04 Identify Prime Engagements

Channels
14 In Conclusion

07 Customer Relationship
Management
15 About the Author

10 Tracking Parameters

Table of Contents | 2
Introduction

Like most businesses looking to grow, law firms spend a significant

amount of time and money to attract potential new clients (leads).
However, many firms lack systems to ensure the lead is tracked,
nurtured, and ultimately converted into a client. In fact, we still
regularly hear lawyers complain, “I know I need to do X but I
don’t really know how to measure or track the results of that.”
Understanding how to implement such systems can have a significant
impact on your ability to meet your firm’s growth objectives.

Introduction | 3
Identify Prime
Engagement Channels

When implementing a lead tracking system into our law firm, we

have to consider how our target audience prefers to engage our
firm. Do potential clients prefer phone calls, emails, forms, live chat,
something else? Pro tip: most are likely to prefer the phone for initial
conversations. While you should nudge potential clients to preferred
calls to action, don’t force them. Provide them options. Ask them how
they prefer to communicate.

The reason we start here is that the manner in which your potential
clients prefer to interact with your practice will play a significant role
in choosing your systems and tools. For example, if your next clients
prefer email, you want to design your system around making it easier
for them to engage you that way.

Identify Prime Engagement Channels | 4

 For our example, we’re going to build a system for a firm
for which the following is true:

The f irm ser ves local legal The target audience prefers to The f irm has a diverse marketing
ser vices consumers who are engage the f irm in a variet y of / adver tising por t folio that
likely to use the web to f ind ways including phone, live chat, includes organic search, paid
information about their legal and forms. search, social media, paid social
issues / needs. media, and email.

Identify Prime Engagement Channels | 5

 Now that we’ve examined how potential clients prefer to engage us,
the next step is to consider the tools we are going to use.

For our example, we’ll need tools for:

Call Tracking Website Chat Web Form

Preferably with key word Preferably answered by a Preferably that captures the
pool tracking, but at least human, but at least with a bot visitor ’s referring source /
dynamic number inser tion that can stop temporarily stop medium, landing page, and
by channel. the consumer ’s search and conversion page.
schedule a nex t step.

There are many options out there, and without knowing more about your specific firm, it’s
difficult to make an informed recommendation. If we’re talking call tracking, however, CallRail
stands out as a favorite among competitors for tracking any leads coming in via phone.

6 | Identify Prime Engagement Channels

6
Customer Relationship
Management

Once you’ve solved for providing the means by which potential clients
can engage your firm, the next step is to consider where these inquiries
are routed. This is the realm of client relationship management (CRM).

It’s worth noting that CRM is not always the same as practice
management. While some practice management solutions are moving
into the CRM space, many practice management solutions don’t have
sophisticated lead tracking and reporting features that will enable you
to track calls, forms, and chats down to, say, the keyword level for a
paid search media campaign.

Customer Relationship Management | 7

Furthermore, your CRM solution ought to include automation
features. Here are a few I encourage you to consider:

Abilit y to have leads pay Custom f ields that allow

consultation fees before you to track the data
star ting a case for them. most essential to your
prac tice.

Appointment automation Customizable pipelines

that integrates with your for various client
calendar s ystem (preferably journeys.
bi-direc tional s ync).

Customer Relationship Management | 8

 In my view, the most essential component of a CRM is marrying front-
end marketing data (i.e. channel, source, medium, campaign, etc) with
back-end client data (i.e. potential client status, and most importantly,
fee). Without this fundamental connection, it will prove extremely
difficult to accurately and granularly measure return on investment
and return on ad spend.

Perhaps the second most essential feature of a solid CRM solution is

reporting. I’ve vetted so many feature-rich CRM solutions that fail on
reporting. After all, if you aren’t an excel ninja, just having the data
in the system without usable reports with which to gain insights and
perform analysis, is just a shiny waste of money.

I like to say that you need dashboards and reports. A dashboard should
provide you with real-time data on how you are currently tracking
against your goals. Reports should contain insights and analysis as to
why you’re tracking that way. Both dashboards and reports should
have intuitive visualizations of your key performance metrics (i.e. cost
per lead vs. target cost per lead, cost per client vs. target cost per
client, ROI vs. target ROI, etc).

Ideally, all of your lead tracking tools have a native Google Analytics
(GA) integration. With proper configuration, you should be able to
analyze extremely detailed information about how potential clients
are finding you and which marketing and advertising expenditures are
delivering the most value defined in terms of income for your firm.

9 | Customer Relationship Management

9
 Tracking Parameters

UTMs are a powerful lead tracking tool that can help you get the
most out of your CRM. By adding parameters to your URLs, you’re
able to pass detailed information about your various advertising and
marketing campaigns. For example, one version of a paid search
landing page might be converting a lot of leads, while a different
version is converting less leads, but at a lower cost per lead. Another
example is comparing campaign performance on different channels
like email and YouTube ads. It is with this sophisticated approach to
tracking and analyzing campaign performance that your competitors
are able to deploy resources faster and more efficiently.

When a user clicks a parameter-modified link, that data can be passed

to GA and your CRM solution. Now that campaign data is married to
your lead and client records.

10 | Tracking Parameters
10
 There are five common parameters that you should
be adding to your URLs:

utm_source: Identify the advertiser, site, publication, etc. that is

sending traffic to your property, for example: google, newsletter4,
billboard.

utm_medium: The advertising or marketing medium, for example: cpc,

banner, email newsletter.

utm_campaign: The individual campaign name, slogan, promo code,

etc. for a product.

utm_term: Identify paid search keywords. If you’re manually tagging

paid keyword campaigns, you should also use utm_term to specify the
keyword.

utm_content: Used to differentiate similar content, or links within the

same ad. For example, if you have two call-to-action links within the
same email message, you can use utm_content and set different values
for each so you can tell which version is more effective.

11 | Tracking Parameters
11
Data & Software
Caution

Additionally, and this really applies to any vendor you work with, make
sure you own all of your data and it is easily exportable. I am
regularly shocked and dismayed to see just how many vendors license
a law firm’s data back to them. When the time comes for the firm to
make a change, the vendor holds the firm hostage and makes it much
more difficult for them to make a change. Ask questions and read the
terms of service. Demand that your vendors agree that your data is
yours and that you will be able to export it out their system if the need
may arise.

Finally, in order for your lead nurturing system to be an asset, and not
a liability, it needs to be invisible. In other words, any automation built
into the system must work seamlessly and authentically.

Data & Software Caution | 12

Once a potential client feels like they’ve entered an automated system,
the system has failed. In fact, most of the law firm lead nurturing
systems I review do more harm to the firm’s reputation than bring in
business. Even the best systems require some level of engagement
from the people operating them.

Converting more potential clients to paying clients is part art and part
science. The art of client service starts with listening and empathizing.
There is no software solution that can replace remarkable client
service. At least not yet. Eighty percent (yes, that’s an arbitrary
number) of your ability to earn your next client will depend on your
ability to create, nurture, and solidify professional relationships and
communicate how you are uniquely qualified to solve your clients life-
legal issues. But to me, even though so many firms fail so hard here,
that’s really table stakes.

Data & Software Caution | 13

 In Conclusion

The competitive advantage comes from a firm’s ability to scientifically

measure and adjust to feedback. It is only after building, measuring,
and learning that you can iterate toward better experiences that
motivate a larger percentage of your audience to inquire about your
services and hire you. That’s not to say that you’ll win more business
simply by a/b testing paid search landing pages. There are a seemingly
limitless number of factors that go into potential client’s hiring decision.
But if you aren’t measuring, you can’t improve those experiences.

14 | In Conclusion
14
About the Author

Gyi Tsakalakis helps lawyers earn meaningful attention online because

that’s where clients are looking for them. As a lawyer himself, Gyi is
familiar with the unique considerations of effectively marketing a law
practice online. In 2008, Gyi founded AttorneySync to build the most
trusted team in digital legal marketing. He serves as a Vice Chair on the
ABA’s Client Development & Marketing Committee. Gyi lives in Chicago
and loves coffee. He also misses coaching football and is happy to
discuss various strategies and techniques of defensive front seven play.
Have a question? Don’t hesitate to ask him.

About the Author | 15