Episode 188 – How To Target Clients That Can Actually Pay Your Fees

Wouldn’t you like to have the higher quality clients who are far more willing to pay your retainer fees and not price-shop you or look at you as commodity, instead have more respect for what you do. To find these kind of clients you need to change the way you market yourself as an attorney or as a law firm. To find more about how ‘specific’ targeting can get you more quality clients, listen to the audio and follow the strategies. Make sure you subscribe to the podcast and post a review.

 

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Today, I want to give you a way to find higher quality clients that are far more willing to pay your retainer fee and not price-shop you and not look at you as a commodity and have more respect for what you do, wouldn’t you like to have those kind of clients? Well, how can you find them? Well, the best way to find them is to attract them and to attract them, you are going to have to make some changes in how you do your marketing. So the best kind of clients I am talking about, this comes from an article from the American Marketing Association of which I am a member.

So they just talked about baby-boomers. Baby-boomers are people right now that are approximately 50 to 70 years old. This could even extend down to people on their 40s, mid 40s and up. These are the people now and in 2017 which is just right around the corner that are projected to have 70% of all the spending power in the United States. Would you rather go with people that have 30% or 70%, people that have the money? I would rather go to people that have money because they are able to pay my fees just like these kinds of people would be able to pay your fees. So having said that, how do you attract them? I am going to give you a couple of ways.

So remember, if someone is of a certain age, they want to see other people of their age that have had a similar situation to them. So what kind of pictures do you have on your website? And this goes across all practice areas. If you are in estate planning, those guys are pretty good, those guys and gals, they know their target market is adult children of aging parents or the elderly themselves or baby-boomers. So they’ll typically have people, pictures with grey hair, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, great, they ride on. But what if you do criminal defense? What if you do family law or auto accidents? What kind of pictures do you have on your website? Well, I would say you want to not have pictures of kids because if you want to attract those kinds of people, 18 to 34 year olds, they are much less likely to have money. Sure, maybe their parents will pay for their case but unless you are in juvenile law and you specifically want to work with those people, I wouldn’t have pictures of them. I’d have pictures of people 40, 50, 60 years old, some grey hair or a lot of it. That’s what I’d have on your site because why, it’s going to attract people from that same age group. How about testimonials? Hopefully, you are getting testimonials from clients but either you’re referencing the age of the people that you’ve helped.

So if I am 50 years old, let’s say, and I get a DUI or I’m facing divorce and I go on your site or I look at Avvo or Yelp or Google+ and I look at your reviews, are they going to be from young guys and young gals or are they going to be from people of my age? I’d be far more comfortable if you help people of my age versus youngsters and I am sure you would feel the same way. Think about it. What if you went to someone, what if you went to a doctor and you are 50 years old and the doctor is a young kid that’s 25, would you trust him? No, no way. They don’t have your life experience. What if you went to a financial planner and they are a some 30-year old girl, would you trust them? No. So just like your clients are looking for someone of their age, you are looking for someone that’s your age to help you with your marketing, to help you do a financial plan, whatever it may be.

So pictures are very important, testimonials are also very important. Now, what are the issues that an older person would have within your practice area? So let’s take family law, for instance. So younger people might be looking for annulments, they might not have children at all, they might be in a marriage that is going to be an uncontested divorce and the division of assets is puny, they have nothing accumulated. It’s typically not a long-term marriage. There is no business that’s owned most likely. Older people, long term marriage, possibility for a perpetual alimony, perpetual spousal maintenance, much longer term of alimony and spousal maintenance, they may be self-employed, they may have older children or grown children in the mix, they may be substantial assets, very, very different creature than the young person that you don’t want to attract. So, in your marketing, in the content you put on your website, in what you say on the phone, in the whole appearance and status and stature of your website and all your marketing, you want to appeal to older people. So for family law, there is a hint of how you do it.

How about for a DUI/DWI? Well, underage drinking, sure, maybe parents will help you out but I wouldn’t go there if you want to get better cases. For DUI and DWI, what would lead someone to having that at 40, 50 or 60 years of age. Well, it’s more of a life event, maybe a spouse dies, maybe they are facing divorce, maybe they lost a long-term job. These are more of the kind of people that will tend to act out and have a lot more at stake. They may have families, kids, a home and all that, they have a lot more at stake if they get a DUI conviction. So different targeting, again different species of clients.

How about even criminal defense? Well, drug cases probably would be younger people. Domestic violence maybe older, white collar crime, probably definitely older. These are people more established in positions. Wage and hour discrimination. That may be an area. Embezzlement, those kinds of crimes that older people would commit versus younger ones, and that should be your focus if you are doing criminal defense, for instance. How about auto accidents where it’s kind of impossible to know who will get into an accident? Well, there are certain ways you can target. What kind of cars will older people drive versus younger people if they get into an accident? Older people are likely to have more car insurance, therefore it’s the higher possibility that you could get a better settlement for them. Or if your client is involved in an accident with an older person, what kind of cars do they drive, where do they tend to get into accidents versus younger people, what areas of town, what time of day etc.

There are ways that you can target people even that have no idea themselves that they are going to have troubles such as an auto accident and target older people. You may want to target areas where older people live, maybe there are old age communities that you can target geographically using Google Pay per Click or Facebook etc. So again, regardless of your practice area, there are ways that you can put out the message that you are looking for older folks, not the young guys and the young gals that have no money. And I heartedly suggest you do because as studies have shown, like the AMA says, they are holding the purse strings and they are the ones that are going to be able to pay your retainer fees and not look at you just as a commodity. They are the ones that are less likely to look up 10 attorneys on the internet and just shop by price and look at a few reviews and make a decision. They having grown up with the internet, like younger people have, and they have a very different perspective on it. So I hope this helps. If you need any help with your marketing, your targeting and you want to change the focus of the type of clients you are attracting, give us a call 888-225-8594, or email Richard.Jacobs@speakeasymarketinginc.com

 

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