In this week’s episode Grace and Liel finally get to have a conversation about data mining and marketing automation. But before that, they check in on how the economy’s reopening has influenced their marketing activities and operations.
On data mining, Grace explains that you have to leverage automation to maximize your database and stay engaged with all your existing clients and new leads in an organized and timely manner.
The conversation explores what sequences are, how to automate them, and why it’s critical to determine the next step depending on the actions users are taking.
If the term lead scoring is new to you, this episode is a must for you.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
You can connect with us by visiting our website: incamerapodcast.com
Send us your questions at ask@incamerapodcast.com
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Transcript
Liel: [00:00:00] According to Marketo, effective marketing needs to be trustworthy, relevant, conversational, coordinated and strategic. I’m Liel Levy co-founder of Nanato Media, and this is In Camera podcast where we use marketing automation to build effective strategies.
Liel: [00:00:47] Welcome to In Camera podcast private legal marketing conversations. Grace, welcome back. How are you today?
Grace: [00:00:53] I’m doing pretty good. Actually, back in the office Liel. How are you doing today?
Liel: [00:00:58] Back in the office?Grace: [00:00:58] Oh, yeah.
Liel: [00:00:59] I see you. Yes, Grace thanks for asking. I’m doing well. And just like in Florida, things here in Texas are starting to settle back into, I guess, a new reality. But I must say that it’s a new reality that in many ways feels a lot like the way reality was before the pandemic started. Right. And I say so in a good way, in a sense that I see more activity in general for our clients that we run campaigns for, particularly here in Texas, which is a good thing for people to feel reassured that they’ve reached a time where they are comfortable reaching out and seeking out for legal representation. Right. And so that’s the good side of it. Now, I’m no authority to comment whether re-opening states and reopening the economy, the pace and in the way that we’re doing it right now is the right thing to do or not. But I can certainly do speak for the impact that it has had in the marketing efforts that we’ve been running for our clients. And I’ll tell you something else, Grace, and you may see it also in your marketing efforts. Those who stayed throughout the worst of the pandemic, those who actually continued advertising and continue reinforcing their message and shifted to a new tone with a new voice, with a new messaging right now, I think those are the ones who are starting to see some of that yield back results.
Liel: [00:02:38] And I certainly think that it’s only gonna get better for them as things continue to normalize. Right. And that’s providing that the trend is for things to continue to normalize because we can never, if one thing we’ve learned coming out or as we are transitioning out of these, is that we can at any moment in a split second fall back into it. Right. And so we need to always have that in the back of our minds and always have a way to fast and effectively shift our strategies biking to a mode where we can continue promoting, supporting our communities, sending a positive message if things were to fall back to where they were. Right. So that’s just kind of like a brief insight into how do I experience this reopening in some of the markets that we are. But in a personal way, Grace, I think like Texas by Friday, which is tomorrow, it’s going to pretty much feel in many ways a lot like it felt two or three months ago, which brings hope, but also a little bit of anxiety.
Grace: [00:03:51] Yes.
Liel: [00:03:52] How about you in Florida?
Grace: [00:03:53] I definitely agree. I mean, it’s it’s hard, right? Because you have a group of your employees in general. You have a group of people that have a bunch of different situations in their lives. I mean, you know, me included, you know you know, we have people that, you know, they’re single parents or they have elder parents and they live with them and they take care of their whole family. So, you know, in my opinion, if you can and this is what we’re doing and we’ve been doing this even since the beginning, honestly, we’re very flexible in terms of allowing our employees to work from home. I mean, it’s worked so far for us. So we’ve allowed some of them to continue if they’re not able to for, you know, X, Y, Z reason. There’s so many legitimate extreme reasons why they can’t come back physically. I mean, you have kids at home that are six and seven years old. So, you know, for me personally in Florida, you know, I am still, you know, cautious. I am going out, you know, to the 25 percent restaurants. You know, when I did go, I actually went out this past weekend to Boca, which was open the week before. And when I went there, you know, there was only a couple of people in the restaurant, literally three tables in a giant restaurant of probably 20 tables. Everyone had masks. Everything was paper or throw away, you know. So there I feel like we can adhere to a lot of these things, but those that can’t. In other words, those who cannot expose themselves for whatever reason, I say that there’s nothing wrong with continuing to protect yourself. And so that’s kind of how I’ve taken that whole thing. You know, I operate in a very closed group of people, as I think most of us do, honestly.
[00:05:41] Yeah Grace. I think you’re actually bringing something up that it’s so relevant, right, because for a lot of, well, for a few months now, we’ve been talking about adjusting to working remotely how to manage your team while you’re remote. How can you continue staying efficient and productive and engage with your clients while you are under these circumstances? But right now, it’s a new conversation, right. Is like, how do you transition back? How do you bring everybody back to their offices if like bringing them back is your game plan, because it may not necessarily be like, look at Twitter. Twitter just decided we don’t need you back. As far as we know, like these past few months, showed us that we can continue performing and working and doing everything that we do, potentially even better than we were doing it when we were all in an office. So you can all plan on staying remote if you wish to do so. Right. And we see that happening also with Facebook, with Google. Like there’s a lot of tech companies are not setting up return to office dates, at least nothing earlier than 2021. And so I think, you know, going back to some of the other conversations we had in previous weeks, some of the people that we’ve talked like this model for some of their team members has worked well. They’re actually happier or working from home. They no longer have to commute for long periods of time. They’re more efficient. They had they found a better work life balance. Right. So this is something that we should right now rather than just say, OK, things are over, let’s, you know, reset and go back to where we where and throw away everything that we’ve learned over these two months.
Liel: [00:07:27] This is actually a great opportunity to really reassess the entire game plan. Right. And those who have been very strategical, of course, they’ve been actually working on this already for the past two or three weeks. They’ve already started having these conversations internally with their management team, like, do we want to go back when we go back exactly as we were, what things do we want to adopt that we’ve learned now? And I think that’s going to lead to some really interesting conversations in the next coming weeks and months with different legal professionals about how they’ve adapted and what’s changed in their structure, in their operational structure altogether. After the lockdown period of COVID. And I think, again, very important for us to mention, as you were saying, Grace, like the lockdown period is what’s over. Right. The pandemic’s not gone entirely. So people still need to be cautious. You still need to be mindful about your operations in your office if you have clients coming in, meeting you. And so making sure that you’re actually sending out a message that you’re taking every single precaution that you can to make it safe for everyone. Your team, your clients, your vendor partners, everyone who is in touch with your business needs to get that feeling that you care and that you’re doing everything in your in your hands to really make it safe for everyone. So, Grace. Anything else that you think or you would experience or you have noticed?
Grace: [00:08:56] No. I mean, I think, you know, we’ve been talking about this constantly. Just like everyone else. Right. I mean, we see a million COVID webinars, podcasts, how to work from home, how to do this, how to do that. You know, I think it is. I’ve heard it plenty of times and I agree with this statement. It’s not a one size fits all. I think that we just need to listen. Right. And it’s not passive listening. It’s active listening to everybody around us that affect each other. And we all affect each other, as we’ve learned with this pandemic. So it’s active listening to your employees, to your clients. And just by listening to them, you will be able to come up with a good solution for you, your team and your clients.
Grace: [00:09:42] And you know what that means. Like in our case, you know, I’m part of a software company persist software in Fort Lauderdale. You know, we have decent sized office where we have tape every six feet, you know, keeping people away from each other. There’s literally only five of us physically in the office. We all have our own offices. So we were sort of set up for that before this happened. Right now, we have PRL on every literally every couple feet on the wall. The hand pump ones we all have masks. If you don’t have one, one will be provided for you. And anything else is basically by appointment only if you want to physically come in. We are still letting you. But we’re requiring appointments. So that’s what I’m saying. I think that if, like you said, reassess what you’re doing right now. Do fix things that don’t work. Add things that do. And then, you know, just kind of go from there. But there is a way forward. You know, it’s you can’t be stuck. Yeah, that’s the most important thing, in my opinion. Don’t be stuck.
Liel: [00:10:44] Absolutely Grace. I totally agree. I love how you’re describing all of the measures that you’re taking in your organization to make sure that you’re sending that message and following up on that, that you’re saying he’s also, you know, give the option. You cannot assume that because you’re back in your office and you can actually see and meet with clients in your office that everyone’s going to want to come. Right. There are still going to be those who are going to prefer to continue having their consultation over Zoom or over a phone call or e-mail, whatever kind of consultations that you can provide them with. But give them the options, Grace. So the time has finally come. Right. I know. I woke up this morning and I was really kind of like, am I still dreaming or is this finally the day that we’re going to be talking about data mining and automation in our podcast, In Camera?
Liel: [00:11:41] So, Grace, why don’t you introduce the topic for us and just get us through it? Because this is something I’m excited about. As you’ve rightly said last episode, I actually heard this presentation live, when we first met at PILMMA 2019, and I really liked it. It was very, very insightful. And so ever since then I’ve been going back to it whenever I wanted to get myself some direction when it comes down to different ways in which we can generate leads to find leads for Mass Torts. And also how to guide them through the conversion. So before I over complicate here the subject for everyone listening, I’ll let you explain what data mining is and then how automation follows right through to that. Okay?
Grace: [00:12:35] All right. So, yes, we have been talking about this forever. And the funniest part is I was just on a podcast with Ryan Kline from Market My Market. As you know, we’re gonna have him, I think, next week. Right on.
Liel: [00:12:49] Yes. Next, week.
Grace: [00:12:50] I mentioned to him at the end of the podcast that I will be talking about data mining. And apparently you’re not the only one waiting for this. He said the same thing. He’s like, when you do that, please make sure you send it to me. So this is for you, Ryan. This is for you, Liel. This is for you guys that have been waiting for the data mining conversation.
Grace: [00:13:09] Let’s start. Right. So I think it’s important to mention first what marketing automation is and why am I going to mention that? Because you cannot really, truly do what I call data mining or mining for clients out of your current client list without automation. Because if you do this in a manual way, I’m sorry, it’s you’ll never get through it. Just think about thousands of people that you’re trying to contact or email or, there’s a lot of ors involved. So I cannot talk about data mining without talking about marketing automation. So I’ll start with what marketing automation is. I think a lot of people misunderstand what it is as a concept, and they think it’s just like a piece of software maybe, or it’s just MailChimp or something.
Liel: [00:14:00] Yeah Grace, it’s such a hot term right now. Marketing automation and most of people know it through how they’ve experienced that as shoppers, users, whatever. Right. I think it would be very beneficial for everyone if you would actually explain what is marketing automation from the legal marketing standpoint. Right. Because I think that’s where people sometimes fail to translate how marketing automation can be implemented for a legal marketing strategy.
Grace: [00:14:35] Most definitely. And so that is definitely where we need to start. Liel, thank you for prompting me on it. Marketing automation is technology, OK, that manages the marketing process and multi functional campaigns. So Liel and I have spoken about different lifecycle campaigns, different types of marketing processes that you should be implementing right. From intake to follow up to retained to so on. Right. So marketing automation is using the technology to automate those processes. That is what it is. There is. It’s as simple as that, I promise you. It is just using technology to automate the things that you do on a regular basis that can be automated. So what do I mean? I’ll give you a perfect example if you have a lead that lands on your Web site. What response do they get when they land on your Web site? Do they have a click to call option? Where does that click to call go? Do they have a form fill option? Where does that form go? Do they get a response afterwards? Is it an automated response? So just let’s look at that one and look at that piece in particular. Marketing automation is when they fill out that form, if they have an automatic response, telling them thank you for submitting your response, someone will get back to you within 24 hours. Whatever your response is. That is automation. Does that make sense, Liel?
Liel: [00:16:03] Grace, it does make sense. And I appreciate a lot of the example that you’re giving us for Web site visit experience. And how can that trigger a sequence of events that a user gets enrolled to the moment by they complete an action. So, Grace, that’s something that example that you’re sharing with us. It’s something that would happen if a new visitor connects with you through your Web site. That would actually trigger an event. And then basically what you’re saying here is that if they submit a web form, that could then make them receive an email acknowledging that the form’s been receiving, that he’s going to be contacted within the next hour or so. Right. And then something sends another signal to your telephone system that initiates an automated call to this user. Right. Or puts them on a queue for connecting him with a live agent representative. And so after that call gets connected and they actually had a conversation. When the agent finishes up the conversation, then messages get sent out. I don’t know, maybe a text message with a link so the person can go and sign up a contract or a retainer or something around those lines. Is that it? Am I kind of like illustrating how the funnel may look like?
Grace: [00:17:27] That’s perfect. Actually, yes.
Liel: [00:17:32] Good. Ok. I just wanted it for those who need a little bit more of handholding through the process, what exactly that does. Right. But I’m also wanting to hear from you about how can you also automate a sequence of events for people who are already in your lists? Right. Because that’s really sometimes the value that a lot of people don’t acknowledge. Right. Like Harlan says, he wants to focus on what’s left on the plate. What are those things that we leave behind? And we never really squeezed to really get additional benefit from it. So that’s the part that I am particularly very interested. But I let you guide us through it.
Grace: [00:18:18] I mean, that’s exactly right. Right. So now that I’ve defined what marketing automation is, is using technology to automate processes. Right. Yeah. Marketing processes that you might be doing. Like your example of a web lead in to intake all the way down to retainer. Right. Automating that whole portion of it will help you with the data mining. So let’s talk about that kind of component of kind of that process, then, how that leads to being able to data mine. We call it a lifecycle marketing campaign that is literally taking care of your client by keeping them updated, which is what you and I have spoken about many, many times on all of our podcasts. You do that through automation, and that is what persist communications does. As a matter of fact, and that’s what Liel, when he was mentioning about the initial opportunity coming in, that’s what we do. We have an initial opportunity from the Web site. As soon as they click and they fill out a form or they click to call, it automatically gets assigned to a queue, exactly like he said. And within five minutes, they will get a phone call. If it’s during certain hours, you know, like 8a.m. to 8p.m. after hours, it may go to a voicemail or it may go to an answering service if you have a 24 hour answering service, which we do. And so once it hits that, it goes in that system into persist system. And the persist system, again, calls them adds him to a queue. Now, once that action is done and taken, whatever happens from there is all automated within the CRM or case management software. So let’s say let’s use smart advocate or Zoho or Salesforce or leadify. You can use any of them in terms of what I’m talking about. As soon as the action is taken, the call’s made you’re connected. Now you’re done with that call. There’s a set of automations that can happen right after that.
Grace: [00:20:14] And this is where you’re going to build out your lifecycle marketing campaign. This is where you’re going to start talking to your current clients. Right. They’ve already signed the retainer agreement. They’ve already signed up with you.
Grace: [00:20:26] They are clients. You maybe got medical records. Now, what do you do with them? It costs more money to acquire new customers than it does to retain existing customers. I have said this time and again, I know Liel has mentioned it at least once or twice, and I know him and I have talked about a thousand times. It’s super important to remember this costs more money to acquire new customers than it does to retain existing. So this is where data mining comes in, guys. I’m going to drop a huge, beautiful bomb on you in a positive way. Mind your current database by informing them and keeping them informed with updates. How do you do that? Well, guess what? You just tell them this is what’s going on. I see that you know, you were a client of ours about this. Just checking in on you, making sure you’re OK. And then right in this same email, text or landing page, you’re going to have all the different things that you do. You’re going to focus on the ones that in this case, it’s called, you know, focusing on the business practice area free for legal. That makes you the most money. OK. What does that mean? So obviously, MVAs are not making people money right now. There’s no motor vehicle accidents out on the road. So I wouldn’t put MVAs that you are a personal injury attorney that handles motor vehicle accidents at the top. I might include that at the bottom as a side note, but what am I gonna tell people right on the sidebar, in an e-mail or on my landing page in this nurture campaign that I’m doing with them as part of the lifecycle marketing?
Grace: [00:22:02] You’re going to include information about the Mass Torts you do you’re gonna include information that’s relevant right now. Let’s say you’re dealing with COVID Legal. Well, you’re going to put that right at the top, that you’re handling COVID cases right now. Meaning COVID, you know, cases against whomever. So if you’re corporate, you know, give me an example Liel, you know, because I’m trying to think of like a COVID, you know, related injury.
Liel: [00:22:28] What we are seeing is, for instance, workers compensation cases that relate to COVID are something that are starting to emerge. For instance, here would be in the case of front liners that were not given the adequate equipment to protect themselves and ended up contracting COVID or another disease. Right. But primarily COVID as a consequence to that is something that can lead to a worker’s compensation claim. Right. And so I think that’s just the scratching the surface. I mean, the amount of things, the amount of negligence, particularly now like as things starting to reopen. Right. As we are entering that grey area where, you know, there are guidelines, but who are enforcing them? Like, will people going to be able to at some point file a lawsuit because they you know, I don’t want to predict things, but a restaurant that can potentially protect itself could potentially become an area where a lot of people got infected, gets blamed for not having taken the right steps to ensure that their capacity and distancing and protection for their employees got put into place. Those are potentially claims that could happen. So, I mean, that’s another conversation altogether. And we probably do want to have legal attorneys to join us for that.
Grace: [00:23:53] Yes, I know. To speak on that completely.
Liel: [00:23:55] Yeah. But based on what we are seeing from a marketing standpoint, those are all very likely events that could lead to campaigns, new kinds of campaign.
Grace: [00:24:06] Exactly. So from our perspective, guys that are listening, everybody, you know, girls and guys that are listening from our side of it, you know, obviously we’re talking from the marketing perspective. You know, you’re an attorney. You know, you are the attorney that is doing these campaigns. You know what practice areas. And then, you know, from your revenue, what practice areas basically get you the most right now.
Grace: [00:24:31] But obviously, there is a coloring, a change in how you’re even going to be doing data mining right now. And that’s basically is going to be based off of science anyway. Right. Trends, data. Liel’s been giving you guys the best information possible. OK. He’s been talking about, you know, MVAs declining. He’s talking about, you know, workers comp increasing. So if you’re a worker’s comp or a family law attorney, you should be listening. You should be doing these things. And you should be data mining your current list for these types of cases now. You know, if anybody has a question about this, you know, you can contact Liel or myself at anytime and ask@incamerapodcast.com. I know this is going to be extremely important for people, particularly right now.
Grace: [00:25:14] You know, those who adapted, those who are doing what we’re telling you to do or what we’re suggesting you do are going to survive this and maybe even come out further ahead rather than those who are not trying to do things to adjust, to focus their energies and their messaging on the right track and actually mind their current database of clients. They’re going to be left behind and maybe even potentially shut. And so it’s very important that you take care of your current clients that you have, and that includes informing them of other things that they could use you for. They already know like and trust you. So as part of the messaging, whether it be through email, your web messaging, your social messaging, text messaging, that’s all different ways of communication to mine near database for what you’re doing right now and what you have on offer. So I’ll go back to practice areas and I’m going to use one that just about everybody is used to. Actually, I’ll use family law because we all kind of know what’s going on right now with unfortunately, you know, people being stuck together that shouldn’t. People trying to have divorces. Couldn’t you know, those types of things. So with a very sensitive message, obviously. Your current database of Family law, you know, or even if you have a database that you can refer out. I’m not talking about referring your database out. I’m talking about if you get a client in that you don’t. You can’t offer something to. But they know, they like and trust you. Guess what? You can now get cocounsel fees on that. So I don’t know if you want me to explain that a little bit more, because I know some attorneys may or may not know cold counseling or how that works or anything about that perse, but that’s another option for getting cases into your firm just because you don’t necessarily do that. You have a client that know you and trusts you, who likes you and is going to come to you because you’ve been their attorney for however long and you took care of them. So they’re going to come to you, say, hey, you know, I have this case. Can you please take it for me? You can tell them, you know, I may not be able to handle that case directly, but I will work on it, you know, and I will give you to the best attorney. And there you go. Now you have a case that you’re going to make money on. You know, you’re going to help your client because you care for your client. And now another attorney is going to get the benefit of handling this and you still get referral fees. So data mining is not just it’s a concept kind of like marketing, automation. You mine your database, your current list of clients and potential leads. That even what we call unconverted leads. These people landed on a page on your Web site for a reason. They called you for a reason. So they had some level of interest in something. So you don’t know what that is necessarily. So if you do, you’re handling mass torts right now. Zantac, as an example, I would put Zantac messaging to my personal injury clients. I would put, you know, Talc messaging to my personal injury clients and just let everybody know in your database using lifecycle campaigns, you know, text messaging, e-mailing and web messaging, all automated, that you do these other things. And that is the key to data mining. I have other examples and specifics that you can do to continue to mine your database, and I’ll go over those specifics. But I wanted Liel to kind of say a few things or ask a couple of questions.
Liel: [00:28:59] I really like everything that you’re saying. I like you call it Data mining. I think another way in which we know this, right, is nurturing your clients. It’s the moment that they’ve become a signed client. You’re obviously going to be handling now an active case that you have on them. And then at some point, hopefully, that’s going to come to a settlement or resolution. They’re going to get what they want. And that’s the period where they need to get enrolled into another series of activities that keeps them connected to you, aware of other opportunities that there could be for them or for people that they know about things happening. And you do so by sharing them relevant the information that may or may not necessarily be of impact to them, but you are offering them the insights and so they can then assess whether they can or they should seek for help with that. Right. So I think sometimes it’s just the terminology that we’re using that may throw off people. Like some people know these as nurturing. Some people know these as their newsletter. Right. Like, oh, yeah, we are actually doing so. We’re doing kind of like that thing through our newsletter because we were always sharing updates and new different kind of changes, in whatever legislation and stuff that may impact or may put them back in a place where they can reopen or for further representation on something else.
Liel: [00:30:35] Right. And so that’s one thing. Now, Grace, I’ve just mentioned here an example. So one way you do this is with your newsletter, which can actually be emailed out or you can send it to direct mail but that’s just one way that you can stay top of mind. You’ve said another thing, which is social media, right. You can use social media as a platform to keep connected, keep informed, and share information. How can you, Grace? Like, do you actually need to plan this out in a way that you can say, well, the first step is we’re going to send out a newsletter informing everyone about it. Then we’re going to follow up with a sequence of social media posts reinforcing, then we’re going to send out text messages asking directly for people that we’ve seen that have actually, I don’t know, engaged under social media post or clicked on the full article presenting on the newsletter. Just introduce things in a newsletter and then guiding them to read the rest of the article on the Web site. Right.
Liel: [00:31:43] So do you actually create sequences that narrow down your list for you based on behavior, based on the actions that they’ve taken throughout this process? How can you monitor it? Because as you very rightly said many times, if you’ve being you know, if you’ve been active for many years, you probably and hopefully have hundreds or maybe thousands of clients in your database. Right. And so how can you actually follow up on, like, how can you stay in control of all of these, then measure levels of interest so that you can follow up with different levels of interest accordingly? Do you have any suggestions about that? Any tools that you can recommend? Like how can we actually make sure that those who are actually showing more interest are getting more attention? And then those were kind of like just opening, but not necessarily engaging back with you. Continue to get your nurtured the cycle in expectation that potentially they may switch to different stage. At some point.
Grace: [00:32:46] So, you know, I’m a big proponent of automation. And that is the whole point of this conversation. So as part of that vein, I think personally and this is how we do it again. I’m going to go back to the fact that we use persist communication for the automation component and for the messaging, because together with Infusionsoft, as a matter of fact, on our Web site, we have a life cycle. And I keep talking about lifecycle marketing. That is the entire sequence of events. And when we talk about events, guys, we’re not talking about obviously trade shows or conferences or any of that. Other marketing people understand what we talk about when we say events. An event is an action taken. Okay. So we’re not talking about events as in any other way, but an action that’s being taken. So with a sequence of actions that are occurring that are being taken by the client or lead on your Web site on social and however it is that they actually contact you, that you need to have an answer, whether that actually means an answer via email, an answer via social post, an answer via a text message. You need to have an answer to their requests, inquiries and needs. What does that mean exactly like Liel said, that means building them into a campaign or a sequence of actions that are going to happen and contact them in the method that they prefer.
Grace: [00:34:14] So we have what we call lead scoring. I know that a lot of lawyers and a lot of law firms don’t think about lead scoring. I do. I think about lead scoring because I come from a retail background for a long time and I come from a digital background. So when I think of a lead, I think of, you know, a prospect, as they call them in legal. I think of that lead as this person that is interested or not interested and into what level. OK, well, obviously, if they land on your home page, they bounce right off meaning bounce rates are high. That means that they weren’t that interested. But that doesn’t mean you should not still try to contact that person. They landed on your Web site. They somehow filled out a form or clicked you to call you or did something or even engage with you on your social media by putting a simple, like any engagement, you need to have an automated response and include them in part of that entire lifecycle nurturing campaign as part of your firm’s messaging and as part of that messaging. That is what I talk about data mining when I’m talking about data mining. I mean, you need to have a strategy built out with exactly what I’m talking about. So, yes, you do need a sequence of events to be planned out. You need to think of all the channels that you are on.
Grace: [00:35:35] So have an omnichannel strategy for handling and nurturing the people along the lifecycle with your firm. And so let’s use an actual example. Right. So, again, persist communications. I’m going to use that because that’s what we use a Gacovino and Lake. It hits the Web site. It comes in there is sort of a little bit of triage in Infusionsoft. It knows if it’s a duplicate. It knows if it’s this or that or not. Then it goes through to persist, it hits, persist calls within five minutes. If that person is qualified as an actual client, then they get the retainer and then they have a whole sequence of actions that are going out. If they didn’t fill out, it didn’t finish intake, then they’ll get an email about that. They’ll get a text message they’ll get a phone call with a voicemail if they don’t pick up. And so on and so on. And then once they do become a client, if they land on our social media, then they get Facebook has this guys, by the way, there’s a Facebook pixel that everybody should be using. If you’re not using it already, you should have a pixel on your Web site. So, you know, when people are interacting with you and having to do with Facebook, because there’s a lot of things in Facebook that are very useful for you that have automation and there is auto responders in Facebook besides the systems like Buffer or HootSuite that let you track, post and auto respond to messages on Facebook and other places. Right. Twitter, Instagram. Depending on where you, you know, kind of where you are in social media. But you need a strategy for every where you are. If it’s TV, if it’s radio, if it’s advertising, any way, PPC, you need to have a way to track all of it and to respond to everybody and to mine your database by letting them know you have all these other things on offer.
Liel: [00:37:30] Yeah.
Grace: [00:37:31] So, again, you can have things listed on your Web site articles. Right. Drugs that are listed on there, but everything you do needs to be connected as part of the life cycle of your client or lead in your database. If they’re interested, they get this series of emails. If they’re not interested, they get emails, but probably less. Right. I’d say, you know, less often. You may not contact them as often, but you still want to keep them nurtured and stay top of mind as much as you possibly can. Whether it’s by text message or social media, however it is that they interact with you. You need to have a solution for answering that inquiry and keeping them interested along the way. So that’s when I talk about Life-cycle marketing. That’s what I mean. And that’s how you set it up.
Liel: [00:38:20] Yeah, I really like that you touched on lead scoring Grace because I think many times we are very used to kind of like assuming that if people are not calling you or you’ve set up, you’ve send out our communication, whether it was a social media post where you’ve sent out an email marketing campaign or something and you did not receive a call right away, that none of your recipients were interested. Right. Or no one in your audience is interested. But again, here you’re dealing with a different kind of buyer, one that has not yet shown much intent because you’re raising awareness, right? You’re raising awareness. So it’s going to take some time for them to go through that journey of becoming no intent, to low intent, to high intent. And having a lead scoring infrastructure in place will help you identify who is where in that journey. And so you can send a more relevant and specific message to those who are actually shifting from no intent to low intent and drive them to high intent. Right. Get them to high intent with the right messaging. And so that’s why I think it’s so important that you don’t continue just the cycle of nurturing everyone with the exact same message when you’ve already identified that some people are actually showing more interest on over others.
Liel: [00:39:49] And I think, you know, I love e-mail marketing because of that. Right. I mean, you can see, if you’re running e-mail marketing, you know very well in your reporting that you can see obviously who opened and then who clicked, who took actions from your e-mails. And that’s already a big tell as to whether they are interested or not. And then again, based out of what automation software you’re using, you can automatically trigger for those who actually went and visited an article or something. A follow up email asking them, hey, we hope you found the information in that blog post useful. Here are some additional articles that you may find also interesting. Right. And so you continue nurturing them. You continue giving them the information that you think will help them identify whether they can actually seek full representation with you. They could qualify for it. But as you very well said, Grace, I mean, you need to plan out that journey upfront and you need to understand what’s happening whenever they are behaving in certain ways. So for those who are showing no intent for how long, you’re going to keep them in that cycle before you say, you know what, like let’s not necessarily continue engaging them with this campaign and let’s just shift them back into a more general one and see whether at some point they will respond to something different.
Liel: [00:41:09] But they’re not responding for the Zantac one. You know, it’s not something that’s generating interest. But those who are actually are showing some level of interest, like what’s the next steps that are going to follow? What’s going to be the next things when there is having low intent, when they’re showing high intent. Right. Grace, I really like this. This is a very interesting and actionable. I mean, I get it. It’s not easy. Like there is a lot of components that here come to play. And hopefully over the next series of conversations we can start focusing on different tools and different solutions that are out there that could help you do so. But why don’t you? I mean, since we’re already talking about these and you’ve mentioned the way that, for instance, persist can integrate with some of these tools. What’s the role that persist could actually help you or the actions that persist can help you organize and solve in this entire process?
Grace: [00:42:06] So persist. What it can do is particularly with that initial contact. Right. Because most people forget that if you don’t respond within the first five minutes, you’re gonna have a problem. They’re going to shop around and they’re going to go somewhere else. So what persist solves is that in particular, it’s capturing that person at the moment that they’re asking to be captured and in the way they want to be captured? So when they fill out information, you have to get them on the phone. You’re a law firm. That is your major requirement is to get them on that phone. And to do that intake or to take that action that you need to take, whether whatever it is. Right. So if you’re trying to get them for medical records, you’re trying to get them to sign the retainer agreement because they haven’t, you need them to send it back because they mailed it out, whatever it is that you need to do.
Grace: [00:42:53] That is what process solves. It solves the communication issue of manually dialing people and manually texting or manually emailing because it creates the entire sequence at once. So there is the appropriate messaging from day one to day 16. And it tells them we’re trying to contact you because of X, Y, Z. And the second one, we’ve been trying to contact you. And then the last one on day 16, we found that the last messages we have been trying to contact you, if you’re still interested, please call us back. Please email us back or please, text us back. Right. So that is the component of the lifecycle that persist kind of fits into. When I talk about lead scoring, we use Infusionsoft. I used to use a system called Sales Fusion at the import export law firm I used to work at. I loved that system. But you can’t always use the systems that you love or want because you have other things that you have to think about, right.
Grace: [00:43:54] So to me, the most important thing about that whole question of lead scoring, and I know I keep going back to that, I think we could have a whole conversation on lead scoring. But anyway, I keep going back to that because that is such an important component. And I know you’ve mentioned it in terms of don’t send them information if you know as often or the wrong information if they’re not interested. That’s part of lead scoring because they landed on this page. They downloaded this e-book. They social media messaged you on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and all of that is part of lead scoring. If they did this, they get two points. If they did that, they did get five points. That’s how you’ll be able to determine intent. You’ll know if that person is a hot lead. And I know lawyers hate thinking about it like that, which is why I tend to kind of try to connect the two. And Liel helps me kind of clarify it for legal, because I know I talk more about like business as a whole and professional services rather than legal specifically. But lead scoring is applicable to everybody. And you absolutely need a strategy, an omnichannel strategy. You need to think about all the processes, the entire journey that your customer, client or lead is going to take with you and fit the tools that you need in at that point.
Grace: [00:45:15] And that’s persist at the beginning. You know, CRM system for everything in between. And auto responders like, you know, even MailChimp in constant contact. That will help you kind of keep that whole information line going. And nurturing everybody.
Liel: [00:45:32] Yeah.
Grace: [00:45:33] And one very important thing I need to know, I do keep up with ABA handbook. You know this, the American Bar Association’s handbook on marketing. It’s important to do this because if you stop texting, e-mailing or contacting your clients, guess what? You don’t after a certain amount of time, depending on your state. You no longer have the right to it is we considered solicitation. So I know I’m not a lawyer, but I do know a lot about the marketing laws. And just keep them on your life-cycle, keep them informed, keep them happy, know, like and trust you. They already do. So just keep talking to your clients. It’s not that hard. Even if you cannot do all of these things. You don’t have the bandwidth. You don’t have the wherewithal. You don’t know how. At least put in an auto responder like constant contact or, you know, use your CRM or case management software. Most of them have at least some kind of component of email campaigns or texting campaigns or something. So do something. But you have to keep them informed. Keep talking to them, keep e-mailing them and keep posting so that they are getting the information they need. And you can keep talking to them and you keep top of my head. Does that make sense?
Liel: [00:46:51] It does, Grace. It’s really good. Very self-explanatory. I appreciate you answering my question about persist. And so it pretty much sounds like persist is a very powerful tool for whenever that critical moment has passed, when they show the transition from low intent to high intent. There are now seeking for more direct one on one communications with you. And so with a tool like this, you can pretty much seize that moment and make sure that you’re not wasting very valuable time to get in front of that person while they’re hot and they’re willing to have a conversation with you. Minimizing all of the chances of things falling through the cracks and then realizing five days after. Oh, but this guy sent us a Web form and nobody saw it. And then you try reaching out and they’re like, you know, not answering or they’ve already found the answers through somebody else who potentially sign them or they’ve just, you know, got the wrong information and therefore decided to drop altogether the whole thing. You really don’t know. But you lose control. And like we’ve talked in these podcasts so many times about the importance of timeliness when it comes down to responding back to leads. And so I cannot emphasize enough how valuable is having a tool that is helping you stay one step ahead of yourself. Right. Like, really letting you make sure that you’re not making the mistake of not being available for when your clients are hot. Grace, I think we are ready for some takeaways. And so I’ll tell you something. I’ll start with the first one. Okay.
Liel: [00:48:38] I think my first takeaway after hearing this very insightful conversation that you’ve shared with us is that don’t ignore your database. Right? Don’t ignore it. Don’t ignore it. Your clients are not just something that has a limited lifecycle. They may have a limited lifecycle as an active case for you, but there are going to be your clients for as long as you’re willing to keep them as clients. And so in order to make that transition from when the case closes on to them staying your clients, you need to have a strategy in place. What do you think, Grace?
Grace: [00:49:17] That’s great. It’s funny that you said that because I was going to ask you. I’m like, you know how sometimes it’s hard to think of your own takeaways when you’re the one having the conversation. Right. So I appreciate that.
Liel: [00:49:27] I mean, here is like a little behind the scenes. These are for all of you. Usually when we have a conversation with somebody else that joins those. Grace and I have a moment. From the moment we actually finish the conversation with our guests and we start with the takeaways where we kind of like agree what are going to be our takeaways, but we don’t have that now. So what you’re hearing is real stuff, he says coming up with takeaways as we feel that they fit best. Right?
Grace: [00:49:56] Yes.
Liel: [00:49:57] I don’t know why we get so excited about it.
Grace: [00:50:01] No, you’re right, though. I mean, don’t ignore your database. That is number one. And front and center. You have a list of people that have interacted with you. And, you know, basically it’s lost money if you don’t. So don’t ignore your database. And, you know, if you want to think about it, as obviously a lot of lawyers do. You can’t ignore them because you helped them. So they are somebody that was in need at some point. So don’t ignore your database because you can continue to help, whatever that means.
Grace: [00:50:29] And that keeps keeping them informed. Consumer behavior is such a unique aspect. We are the most informed consumers than we’ve ever been. Right. So keep that message going. Keep talking to them and don’t ignore your database. I think that’s great.
Liel: [00:50:45] Grace, you know what? I’m ready for it. So I’m going to move on with my second take away. Right. Which is know very well the tools and software that you already having house and maximize it to the last of the capacities that you’re already paying for. Right.
Liel: [00:51:05] Because it’s very easy for us to now think. Right. Oh, Grace is mentioning Infusionsoft. I need to go and get myself subscribed to Infusionsoft and see if I can integrate that or not. Chances are that if you’re already using a CRM. You potentially can integrate it with your Web site in a way that you can track Web site visits from contacts in your CRM. Right. And the same could go with your social media platform and with your email marketing tools. So see already based on the tools and resources that you already have. How can you actually create an ecosystem that supports your strategy? Because if you go like there’s different ways that you can approach this, you can do blue sky thinking and say, I don’t care what I already have in terms of resources and tools. I want to draft my funnel to look like this. And then after you’ve created that, you need to now go and source all of the different tools that you will need to make it happen. And the reality is that things may get so complex that you’re going to end up dropping it. All right. But if you start drawing that funnel based on the tools and resources you already have in place and integrations that you can leverage, chances are that you’re going to be more agile at implementing something. Rather sooner than later. So that would be my take away. Right. And you know what? If you don’t have any of these, then yes. Set up how you would like things to look like. Don’t over complicate it. Guys like honestly be realistic. Right. But draw what you want to do and there is a lot of software out there that will help you do this. Right. And you know, the price range is tremendous. Like it’s never been so diverse. You have from very affordable platforms to platforms that are gonna run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. Right. So really be realistic about what is it that you need and keep things simple from the standpoint that if you already have some tools and software in place, maximize them to the very, very last of your capabilities so you can get all the extras you’re already for it. Or maybe you just need to do a small upgrade from the current version to the next one that you need in order to get something out, which is going to be definitely more affordable than just bringing in a whole new platform.
Grace: [00:53:40] A whole new system, yeah.
Liel: [00:53:40] Or getting something to integrate to what you already have. Right. So really take time to look into it. Seek professional help. If this is not something that you can navigate on your own. But the reality is that building up your funnel shouldn’t be something as complex as it sounds. So that would be my second takeaway. Grace, now, because this was your conversation and you were the one who shared all of the meat here. I’m going to give you the honor to give us our third and final takeaway.
Grace: [00:54:10] Oh, third and final takeaway. Do something after this podcast. Implement something, whatever that is. That’s exactly what he’s saying. Right. Look at what you currently have. I tell people this all the time. When they’re going to buy persist, our software. We become a partner. So I’ve been doing marketing and legal marketing for over 15 years, marketing for over 20 in multiple industries. So I have a very good understanding of the entire cycle, like 360 degrees of digital, traditional and every industry you can imagine. I tell people all the time, do not buy or use something that is going to break your process. You identify the bottlenecks in your process and you fit it in. And that’s what I tell people persist does. Do the same with any tool or system that you’re going to be using. If you already have software, if you already have a case management software, then use that and do something with it. Make sure to add the Facebook pixel to your Web site. Use constant contact if you don’t have an email system and your CRM can’t do it, but you got to take action. Please, please take action after this podcast. Do something. And if you have any questions about this, you can ask Liel or Myself, you know, ask@incamerapodcast.com. I keep saying that because this is such an important, not just an important concept, but it’s an important time right now that if you can do this right now, I’m telling you tomorrow, today, you will start reaping the benefits immediately.
Liel: [00:55:41] Yeah. Absolutely. And Grace, you’re very I mean, I love that you’re really making it as clear and simple as just take the first step. Everything that we’ve talked about today is not something that you’ll just figure it out on one day, on one meeting. Right. It takes several stages. So break it down. Just break it down into different steps and make sure that things that relate to these are always making it to your top five items that you need to address every single day, like at this point is no mystery that working out of To-Do list is potentially the best thing that you can do in order to keep yourself accountable to things that are important and that you really need to address. So just really give this the importance that it requires. Because, again, there’s so much value that you can gain out of things that you already have. If you have the capability and you’re in position to do data mining. So just set up that first task of what is it that you’re going to do? And potentially that first task is going to be like, OK, let’s take this project. Break it down into a series of tasks that need to happen over the next week or two weeks and then start setting it up and get involved with the other parties that need to be part of it. So I think that’s a great thing to do. A great place to start.
Liel: [00:56:57] Grace, thank you very much for making it so actionable. And again, thank you very much for sharing this with us. Hopefully we’ll be revisiting a follow up to this conversation sometime soon. Until then, have a great rest of the week. And thank you very much.
Grace: [00:57:12] Thank you, Liel.
Liel: [00:57:19] If you like our show, make sure you subscribe. Tell your co-workers. Leave us a review and send us your questions that ask@incamerapodcast.com We’ll see you next week.
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