Community Table: Keys to an Effective Landing Page

Episode Notes

Transcript

Speaker 1:

The Un-billable Hour community table where real lawyers from all around the country with real issues they’re dealing with right now meet together virtually to present their questions to Christopher T. Anderson lawyer and law firm management consultant. New questions every episode and none of it scripted. The real conversations happen here. Our first segment is a discussion about how to structure an effective landing page for one’s firm.

Speaker 2:

So I was able to review my current landing page from my current PPC vendor, and this is simultaneous with me taking some other webinar that I got a solicitation for about PPC landing pages and a little bit more direct response marketing, more about getting into their head. And I looked at my landing page and my not so great per se results from my PPC vendor and what these people on the webinar were saying and my landing page from what I learned, which is by no means the expert sucks and Doesn doesn’t do anything to get people’s, I’m not going to say anything that’s too broad of a stroke, but it’s not what the webinar was promoting.

Christopher T. Anderson:

Can you put your landing page URL into the chat? I don’t want to put it on the show. I don’t want a hundred people. Go to your landing page.

Speaker 2:

Oh yeah, that would be bad then I’d pay for all that. Okay, go ahead.

Christopher T. Anderson:

Got It. Alright, so I’m looking at it. So what you have on your page is you’ve got a call to action up the top with a phone number, and I’m going to presume that’s a tracking number.

Speaker 2:

Do you want to show it? Do you want to share your screen?

Christopher T. Anderson:

I can share it, yeah. The show is audio only, but I can show it for the people that are here. So I’m still going to describe it out loud because we’re radio show. So the top right, we do have a call to action with your phone number. It says report a request, sorry, a case evaluation with a phone number that is a tracking number, like a CallRail number. Good. And then you’ve got another call to action right above the fold called request a consultation where they can put in their first name, last name, phone, and email.

Speaker 2:

I need to change that wording.

Christopher T. Anderson:

Yeah. Followed by some bullet points about your firm, some bullet points, your experience, your award-winning legal representation. We understand you and empowering and empathetic. I think those are terrible. So we can talk about those bullet points. And then you’ve got a rolling Google social proof with some Google five star Google reviews. Then you’ve got some copy and then a repeat of the request to case evaluation, call to action phone number, then some badges, some authority and credibility, and then more client reviews below. And then you’ve got photos of your attorneys. So for me, I mean you’re good on call to action, your bullet points and speaking to basically your value prop is what’s missing here. You don’t really have much here about why they should call you versus someone else and you’re not driving the action. That being said, they’ve probably come here from an ad, so they may be inclined to go ahead and call or request. But why don’t you share with us a little bit about, so compared to what you just learned, what do you feel is missing here?

Speaker 2:

Maybe it should say something like, we know you want this case over.

Christopher T. Anderson:

Right. No, that’s what I’m saying. That’s where this page is sucking, is that there’s no value prop right here above the fold and that’s what you need. So I totally agree with that. The calls to action to me are quite, are adequate.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I don’t have a problem with that. I mean they missed a badge. That’s actually probably the most important badge, which I’ll get into. And Doug, obviously just consistency on consultation versus case evaluation. That’s important. Yeah, just a little bit more of a hook I guess. We know you’re frustrated. Let us help this get this done for you. Right. And quickly, something like that or overwhelmed. I mean just getting it, what are people thinking about? Right? This sucks. I would even write a call. I would actually do a landing page and said, this sucks. We know that. We know it’s okay. You can say it out loud, this sucks. Call us.

Christopher T. Anderson:

But I think our producers have reminded me that I don’t need to be so careful that they would edit out any personally identifying information. So thank you producers. But I agree. So something polarizing but also something

Speaker 2:

Real

Christopher T. Anderson:

That again, the word value proposition, why should ask yourself the question, why should a client call you and not someone else? Probably not because of 60 years of combined legal experience. Nobody gives a shit. Probably not because of award-winning legal representation on your side. They don’t even know what that means. Probably not because you understand their situation, because are you differentiating yourself from the other family lawyers that don’t understand their situation and empowering and empathetic. I think that’s the closest one. But if that’s really the thing that you want to do, I would say a little bit more your comment like this sucks. We know how bad it sucks and we can make it better. But what are your other key value props? What makes your firm different?

Speaker 2:

We are big strategy people. I actually think I know every attorney is going to say that, but our brain hurts after we sit down and try to strategize both the short-term and long-term game plans and try to figure out, yes, you have to pivot as the case goes on, but coming out of the gate, we’re not just in it for the six feet in front of us. We put the time in on the front end.

Christopher T. Anderson:

We have the strategies you’ve never thought of and we’ll will run strategic circles around your spouse. So that’s missing here. There’s nothing. This is just plain vanilla, not differentiating stuff. And I’ve played with this for a while and we found the more we call out our key value props, the better our pages do.

Speaker 2:

And then this leads to the same end result that always happens. I learn this stuff, I go back to the vendor and I say, I need your help to retool and rework this. And they sit there dumbfounded going, well, what exactly are you thinking? So I need to remind myself that these vendors are just implementing, but they are not creative directors.

Christopher T. Anderson:

That is right. And that’s for the most part, it’s very, very hard to find a team that is both technically amazing and really great with copy and content.

Speaker 2:

So now I need to go on a hunt to find someone with copy and content to work with my people to do this. So they’re going to have to be two different people. I wish I could find that one unicorn.

Christopher T. Anderson:

So Seth Godin, I believe it was Seth Godin who wrote in an article that director of marketing or CMO is the last job an entrepreneur gives up because no matter you can go hunt far and wide and nobody is going to be as passionate or as focused on your core value props as you and even more able to pivot as you learn and as you grow. And so quite honestly, for me, it’s find the amazing technician, find the people who know how SEO works, who know how the backend works, who are staying on top of the Google algorithms and who will watch your pages performance and call out to you. This one’s performing better than that one. Or, Hey, I’ve noticed that your landing pages are starting to do worse. And then quite honestly, you’re the one with the copy. You’re the one who can write, you’re the one who can do this. Until you’re approaching that close to eight figures where you really can have a professional team that has captured your brand, you are in charge of your brand because nobody else will. Of all the things I’m always telling you, delegate that, stop doing that. Don’t do that. Get rid of that. And I’m relentless about trying to delegate stuff. This is the one where I’m like, you know what?

Speaker 2:

Keep it.

Christopher T. Anderson:

If you looked at this page, you go like, this isn’t good. No. And it’s good to reach out to others for ideas about what the copy should be, but at the end of the day, the answers are in your head, and you might talk to me or to someone else who’ll help to tease those answers out of your head by asking you questions. What does make your firm different so that you can kind of get outside yourself and start thinking about it. But at the end of the day, I know those words are in your head and then nobody else’s. And you’ll, yeah,

Speaker 2:

And then the vendor can AB test it. But again, the vendors love to say, no, no, no, my way is way better. I know this page gets results because we’ve done this for other people.

Christopher T. Anderson:

And again, don’t get rid of the need to be right. Remember what I’ve said that I learned way back when I learned about product marketing when I was with LexisNexis? Your opinion while interesting is not relevant and mine isn’t relevant, yours isn’t relevant, your marketing team isn’t relevant. The only relevance is the market. So you could just look at them and say, listen, I really appreciate that input. Here’s what I want to change the copy to. Let’s run the AB test. And maybe I’m right, maybe I’m wrong.

Speaker 2:

Got it.

Christopher T. Anderson:

And if I’m right, you’ve learned something too. But that to me is how it’s done. Just like if you think it sucks, write some new copy, put it back out there. The only caution I would have is keep your ab tests limited so that you know what you’re testing. If you change too much at once, then you don’t know what moved the ball. I think the big block of copy could use some help too. But the truth is nobody really reads below the fold anyway. But if you’re highly mobile, you just want to see how it’s looking and how it’s working on mobile as most of our firms are now, most of the viewers views that you’ll get are mobile. So yeah, I would implement those change, write some alternative copy and let’s get it posted in tested. The beautiful thing about this, we could launch it tomorrow.

Speaker 2:

That’s right. Okay.

Speaker 1:

In our next segment, Christopher explains the correct way to use referrals to help grow your business

Speaker 4:

Still in that same cash crunch, but I think we’re going to climb ourselves out of it very soon. Last time we were talking about my leads and I went back and looked at the leads. It’s not 300 leads a month. It’s roughly 115 leads a month, which still aren’t being converted as far as that criminal defense attorney goes. Had a mediation that did not settle yesterday. The mediation where the fees are now would’ve gotten us out of the hole. We have another mediation scheduled for tomorrow and I’m hoping that one will settle and it would definitely get us out of the hole if I can get a team in place or a better team in place, I think we’ll climb out of that cash crunch and be a little bit more efficient.

Christopher T. Anderson:

So let’s go through a little bit here. The 115 leads though, you said those are all for the criminal defense business? No,

Speaker 4:

Those are variety, but the majority of the leads had been for criminal since I’ve dialed back the criminal for LSA, we don’t get as many calls for criminal now, but even though we’re forwarding or referring those out, that person still isn’t really converting them. So that’s been an issue. I’m debating if I want to just take criminal off altogether because I was hoping that we could convert and that could be kind of like that cashflow coming in because we have an agreement on how much she’ll be paying me for these leads. So if she was converting then I’d be getting money from that,

Christopher T. Anderson:

But she’s not. And so let’s stick to that one. So of the one 15, how many are criminal?

Speaker 4:

Well, it depends on the month. So maybe last month I’ll say maybe 25. May was the high. We had like 74 criminal leads in May.

Christopher T. Anderson:

But you’ve dialed back the spend, so now you’re at 15.

Speaker 4:

Yes.

Christopher T. Anderson:

Or 25. Okay, so listen, one of the best paths for your growth and the least expensive for getting new clients is going to be working your referral network.

And as long as you’re out there advertising for criminal, you’re basically telling a very, very good pool of referral source not to send you any business because you’re a competitor or they will perceive you as one. I wouldn’t, but they would. And so they’ll perceive that you’re a competitor and if they send you their social security business, if they send you their PI business, well you might just take the criminal business too and you might not, might promise that you won’t. But listen, they’ve got a lot of people that they can refer business to. Why send it to someone who might be a risk? Secondly, you’re not sending them criminal business because you’ve got one referral source that you’re sending to who’s not converting and instead you could be, because even if we dial the criminal marketing all the way back, you’re still going to through your, I mean I know the business through your PI people, through your SSDI people, you’re going to be getting criminal bycatch and you can still refer that out and that’s why you’ll be referring it out.

And for every referral you make, you’re top of mind for a referral back. So if it’s not producing cashflow for you, I don’t even think that’s a good excuse even if it were producing cashflow, but particularly since it’s not, just abandon that and then reach out to everybody that’s in criminal defense in your area that could refer you business and let them know, Hey, just wanted to let you know we’re really growing in the social security business. We’re really growing in our PI business, and so we’ve decided to start referring out any criminal cases that come our way and wanted to ask you if you’d be willing to be one of the places we can send that business. You’re not asking for their referrals, you’re telling them a nice story, a good story, a true story about growing your business and so they know so you don’t have to ask.

And then you’re asking whether it’s okay for you to send them business. That would be an amazing communication when you can follow up with a phone call, when you can follow up with an invite to coffee or to check out to come sit with you in your firm and you can bat around how their business going, whatever, but you’re putting yourself front of mind to get their referrals. Yeah, cheapest market you’ll ever do and then save your money on the LSA or repurpose that money whenever you’re paying for digital search for criminal and repurpose it into either PI or social security or both, depending on which one you’re really looking to grow the most. Now let’s talk about your cash crunch. Obviously we all hate them and I appreciate that you’ve got your eye on Well, there’s this revenue event that we were hoping for. I forgot if you said today or yesterday, the mediation. And there’s this revenue event that we hope for tomorrow that will help, but depending on individual revenue events for cashflow will grow you old really fast because you’re constantly waiting for that and you’re probably letting some bills get old while that happens and you’re stressing and sweating payroll. Am I getting it right?

Speaker 4:

Yes, absolutely.

Christopher T. Anderson:

So we need to balance, this is kind of the cool thing of you have the SSDI practice, you have the personal injury. If we don’t do criminal, are those the two practices only that we’ve got?

Speaker 4:

Those are the only two that we have. So we were looking at maybe I’ve done estate planning before, simple wills, powers of attorney and things of that nature, put up some organic posts on social media and I have two scheduled appointments next week for simple wills and power of attorney.

Christopher T. Anderson:

So with your social security practice, you already know what your revenue’s going to be for the next six months, right?

Speaker 4:

Well, social security didn’t pay out in 16 to 24 months.

Christopher T. Anderson:

Right. So that’s why I say so for the next six months, you know what it is?

Speaker 4:

Yes, yes I do.

Christopher T. Anderson:

Okay, that’s all baked. You earned that a year ago. And then pi, it’s hard to tell. What are your revenues expected for personal injury alone for the next 12 months?

Speaker 4:

Yes. So let me say this, it’s not updated. I’m two weeks behind as of right now. The next 12 months is 400,000.

Christopher T. Anderson:

Okay, what is your nut? What do you need to make all your payments that you have to make including your own salary for the same 12 months?

Speaker 4:

So I need 60,000 every month. So 60,000 to 12 months?

Christopher T. Anderson:

Yeah, seven 20. Alright, so you’ve got three in addition to pi, you’ve got three 20 that’s got to come in. What do you expect to come in from social security over that 12 months?

Speaker 4:

Next 12 months for social security is 350,000.

Christopher T. Anderson:

Boom, we cracked your nut with the PI and the social security. So the only problem is that PI doesn’t come in nice. And even it comes into this drip and that drab and this nice hit there and there. But so overall that’s a good picture, which gives you the liberty and the power really to make a decision here, which is do you go through the expense of add and to time suck of adding another practice area like estate planning which doesn’t fit with your other two practice areas or which it is a potential and you could probably get cash coming in within a month or do you take the savings of the spend that you’re going to remove from criminal and put that into PI and augment what’s coming in there and try to get a steadier flow so you’re not waiting on the big hits all the time.

I know what my choice would be and I know what I would advise you if you were asking, but I think I’ve already kind of showed my hand a little bit. You two very distinct practice areas at a level of revenue that’s not above what I would say you need to be opening a third one. Quite honestly, I think you need to knuckle down and say, alright, I’m going to grow, probably PI has the shorter lead, so I want to push some more resources into PI right now. And then as that starts bringing in more profits, start to grow the social security because I could show you how to market social security to double that business tomorrow, but that might kill you because you’ve got to pay for all that for a year before you serve more 16 months you say before you see anything on that.

And with PI work, you could probably start seeing cash in three to four months on the easier cases and then the average, I don’t know what your average is, but probably eight to nine months is your average return on spend. Yeah. Yeah. So I would caution you, I mean it is so easy to think about, oh, if I just market here in estate planning, I could have some cash coming in a month or two, but you’re so close to making your nut with the two things you’ve got. What you really need to do is start enhancing those so that you could start increasing the profitability, which then you could roll into it. That’s would be where I come from that

Speaker 5:

In terms of analysis, so you said about 400 K over the next 12 months for PI in terms of revenue, about 350 K for SSI would also think about what resources it’s taking to produce that revenue and where are people working? Do you have more time and effort focused on the PI or the social security? That’s the other side of the equation more in terms of profitability. It’s not just how much revenue we’re getting out of each practice area. It’s what you’re putting in and I would start to analyze that as well as you’re making these decisions.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, that’s another thing that I’m trying to do because I need my Paralegal to really work those billable hours that we’ve set to see what if it is actually profitable. So that’s another thing. We’re having a meeting next week regarding our efficiency and them being able to present to me every Friday what they’ve done and the amount of time that they’ve done and I have the capability to pull the reports with my software. I just got to get figured out.

Christopher T. Anderson:

The associate that wants to move from part-time to full-time is doing which practice?

Speaker 4:

Personal injury.

Christopher T. Anderson:

Okay, good. So yeah, so to me very much with what Rob was saying, I think we need to just decide that personal injury is going to move to 600. We’re going to require it to produce $50,000 a month for the short term and that will help bring your associate to full-time. And so we’ve got to repurpose that marketing to bring in enough business to move that to 600 to $50,000 a month and that’s got to be your target starting in August.

Speaker 4:

Okay, thank you.

Speaker 1:

Our last segment is a short but fun conversation involving everyone who take turns offering advice to one participant who is considering starting her own practice.

Speaker 6:

I’ve been a practicing lawyer in a law firm before. I have been a law professor for the past 13 years and I am

Christopher T. Anderson:

What subject going

Speaker 6:

Entrepreneurship. So my background is in representing startup companies and the purpose of me being here is actually to consider whether I want to spin up my own law firm. And so I want to hear about what are the reasons why I shouldn’t, what are the reasons why I should, maybe this is actually a question for everybody in the room.

Christopher T. Anderson:

You know what, I’m going to give everybody a crack at it. I think that’s a great point. So where are you in the world

Speaker 6:

Physically?

Christopher T. Anderson:

Yeah, where would the law firm, where would the law firm be? The

Speaker 6:

Law firm would be in North Carolina, although I also have admission in Massachusetts and Texas.

Christopher T. Anderson:

Okay, and where in North Carolina would it be?

Speaker 6:

Durham.

Christopher T. Anderson:

And what would your practice area be?

Speaker 6:

So probably startup companies.

Christopher T. Anderson:

Oh, perfect. So business law for startups, I think that could be, I mean, come on in the triangle, you could catch fire with this and you’ve got 16 years of students who refer you business, right? So I think it is a great idea. And so everybody on the team here gets one minute a crack at you whether you should go or no go.

Speaker 4:

So should you start your own business if you’re ready for a lot of hard work, but a lot of reward. I would say yes, it’s so much hard work, sleepless nights. But yes, if you want to make your own hours, do what you do across wherever I say go for it. It’s very rewarding. And once I get some stability and profitability, I think I’ll be in a much better head. Always remember you change your mind, you change your life, keep your mindset on point because you’re going to need it.

Christopher T. Anderson:

Yeah, I mean on this group, I’m not sure you’re going to get a negative.

Speaker 7:

I would say a hundred percent start your own business if you could bring in business. So someone wants to ask me if they should start their own business and I said it’s great to control the checkbook if there’s money in the checkbook, but if there’s no money in the checkbook, it’s a hard place to be. So the question is, do you have people who are going to give you retainers? If you’re going to have money in the checkbook, definitely go for it.

Speaker 4:

First of all, if you’re already going down that pathway, it seems to me that you’re already part way down the road. But the one thing I’ll tell you about opening your business is when I talk about personal growth, man, you really have to examine who you are because opening your own business really makes you question almost everything you knew before you did. I mean at least personally. So I think it’s not just an opportunity to make money, but opportunity to grow as a person and mature overall emotionally. So I would say go for it, but again, if you’re already thinking about it, there’s something that’s peaking that interest about whether or not you want to step the foot forward, right? And that’s the main thing. Make sure this is truly what you want to do, but if you do it, I just think there’s tons of reward.

Speaker 8:

What’s that motivating factor driving you to do this at this point? If you’ve been a professor for, I think you said 13 or 16 years, a pretty long time to want to step back into the public arena. So is there a passion driving you to want to get in and help? Specifically, are you looking at a specific type of startup, maybe tech startups or general businesses or even crypto or something like that that is lowering you to come back in and then what value would you be bringing?

Speaker 5:

I just wanted to mention one thing. So you start out by saying, I’m thinking about opening my own law firm and I’m posing the questions in a group. Maybe we’ll all just get some input. I was thinking perhaps that’s not the right question at this point in the analysis, I would really say, what do you want? What are your goals personally, financially, and other? And I would write it down, I’d make a bullet list, what do you want? Then we can determine if you opening up a practice will support your goals. Keeping in mind you have to give equal time to the pros and the cons of opening your own law office. A lot of people only look at the pros. They open up their own law office and then realize they can’t stand operating their own business and it becomes a huge problem because they can’t just practice law and focus on what they want to do. They’re pulled in a million other directions. So that’d be my recommendation. Literally write down a list of what you want in the end. Then we’ll see how we can support that and if opening a law firm on your own would be good for that. That’s it. Awesome. Thank you.

Christopher T. Anderson:

Thank you, thank you. I want to thank everybody for their, this ended up being a really great show and I really appreciate everybody’s input and questions and feedback. Great, great group. I will remind everybody, because I like to say this at the end of the show. First of all, don’t miss the Un-billable Hour every month on the Legal Talk Network or on your favorite Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever else we are. We’re all over the place, but new episodes every month of the Un-billable Hour. We’ve got great guests already in the can. We’ve already got two, so I already know what’s coming. It’s good stuff. And then always the third, this show is the third Thursday at three live. But for now, I just want to thank everybody. I am very grateful for your attendance and participation today and wish you the best. See you next month. Take care.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for listening. This has been The Un-billable Hour Community Table on the Legal Talk Network.

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