Generating Powerful Law Office Newsletters

The Relevance of A Law Office Newsletter

The benefits that you receive from creating a law office newsletter go far beyond the knowledge and information that you gain while writing it. By creating and sending a newsletter, you will create a greater bond with your clients and prospective clients. You will remind clients that you are there when they have legal needs and are searching for guidance.
A law office newsletter is a great way to show clients your expertise in your particular area of practice or to keep them informed about what is going on in your law firm. Most clients never go looking for information about your practices, preferring to rely on you to supply the information as they need it.
A newsletter lets you plant the seeds of knowledge for your clients . They may not have a legal need at the moment, but the diligence you show by creating a newsletter will show clients that you care about more than just getting your legal fees paid. If clients know that you value them as more than just customers, they will be more likely to contact you when they do have a legal need or refer you to someone with a need for an attorney.
Your newsletter can also be a place to talk about how your practices differ from other law firms in town. Is your firm heavier on criminal law than family law? Does your firm have a star attorney that you want to highlight for prospective clients? These are some ways that your newsletter can be used to highlight your business and build your firm’s reputation.

Essentials of An Effective Newsletter

The key elements of an effective newsletter: Content, design, audience targeting and readability/legibility are critical to creating a newsletter that people will look forward to receiving
Content planning
But what sort of content goes into a newsletter? The answer is any information that is valuable to your clients and potential clients. At the same time, it shouldn’t feel like a solicitation. Remember, you want your readers to look forward to receiving your newsletter and not consider it as just "junk mail." Thus, its content should be something they can use, or at least find interesting or informative. Of course, the more information you can put in the communication without making it seem too long, the better. You can include a few simple legal tips about common problems, a spotlight on one of your lawyers or staff members, a column on new laws or a short article about something else that is relevant to your prospective clients, such as talking points for your next holiday party. When writing for a client newsletter, always remember who you are talking to – your prospective clients. This will help you pick the right topics and make sure the content is relevant. You also want to avoid legalese or jargon, as most clients likely won’t understand it and will tune out as a result.
Design
We’ve all received newsletters that were so visually distracting that it made it hard to read them. This is not what you are trying to accomplish. Thus, newsletter design is critical. Along with readable type or fonts, good spacing, well-placed images and other design elements, you should also be aware of other key elements to effective design, including: If you follow these basic design elements, you’ll have a newsletter that is visually appealing and easy to read.
Who is your audience?
Also be aware of your audience. This is important because how you approach using each of the components discussed above should reflect how you believe your target demographic will respond. For instance, along with employing a level of professionalism befitting a law office, the tone of your newsletter should also match your demographic. If you largely service the senior citizen demographic, you will want to avoid being overly hip or cute, as they likely won’t respond well to that. But if you don’t mind trying to appeal to that demographic, inject some much-needed fun into your newsletter. A big part of targeting is having a good idea of your target audience. There is no way to describe your demographic in exhaustive detail, but you should know the following: This information is key in determining how best to approach your newsletter and its layout, design, writing style and tone.

Topics for Law Firm Newsletters

The content should be helpful, informative, and of course educational. When you sit down with colleagues and have discussions about what’s happening in your area of law, it should give you some ideas about what to write about in your newsletter. You might be talking about a case that you lost, a case that you won, or a case that loads of companies are losing. If a lot of people are losing these cases, it’s important that you write up a case study so that if anyone finds themselves in that position they can go back to your newsletter and know exactly how to handle it.
You can also include lawyer profiles. This could be an area where you highlight an attorney in your law firm. You highlight their profile with their biography. It is a way of getting to know your staff. It also allows the attorneys to compliment each other for the work that they have done, and what they are doing. It allows them to share why they work there, share their passion, their drive, and what they love about the law.
You could include an "Ask the Expert" section and ask clients or potential clients to submit questions that they might have. This is a really good way to make your newsletter interactive. You could even put a disclaimer on the whole page that says "This is not specific legal advice, and only conveys information that is known in general."
You could include current events. Some people like to write about things that are going on in politics. They might like to discuss whether there will be any changes in the law. They might make predictions about the economy, about the market, or about industry trends.
You could write about tips, hints, and tricks. You could write a "Top Five" list or a "Top Ten" list. You could write a tutorial on a topic. You could write about some common myths and misconceptions. With that tutorial, a "how to" article, or a "how to" video, you can make it an evergreen piece. Something that won’t necessarily go out of date tomorrow.

How To Get The Most Benefit

Chances are if you are communicating with clients via email, you are competing with a number of other businesses for readers attention. So how do you make sure your law office newsletter is opening and seeing your message? Start with the subject line. From inbox to inbox, the subject line is the only thing you have to get your reader to open the email. Subject lines should be short (less than 50 characters) and must include under 40 characters of text to be fully mobile friendly, so keep that in mind when writing. Also, consider including special symbols that your reader can see on any device. Emoji, for example, can catch attention, without taking up a lot of important character space.
Interactive elements, like infographics, maps, quizzes or videos, may also help engage your reader. Would something outside of your practice area be beneficial to your audience, if so, feature it! You may want to consider evaluating your law office newsletter strategy regularly to see what works and tailor future newsletters accordingly. Consider using an analytics tool to monitor open rates and clicks for each email you send.

Using Digital Solutions For Distribution

In the digital age, simply mailing out printed newsletters is no longer a viable option for most law firms. However, there are a number of effective digital tools and platforms that can help you reach a wider audience. First and foremost, email marketing services allow you to send beautiful, targeted newsletters directly to your subscribers. Cost-effective and straightforward to use, these platforms are beneficial for any law firm seeking to expand their client base . On the other hand, if you’re a family law attorney seeking to connect with a younger demographic, consider using your social media channels to get the word out about your newsletter. It’s one thing to post a link on your Facebook page, but it’s another to create an attractive image that drives traffic to your content. Since images are processed by our brain 60,000 times faster than text, pulling them into your promotions can mean a dramatic difference in how your clients interact with your content.

Evaluating Newsletters Effectiveness

To determine the success of your newsletter, you need to measure outcomes and effectiveness. The best way to do that is through good, old-fashioned tracking. Virtually all email newsletter programs offer some form of tracking, but the most valuable metrics include open rates, click-through rates and responses. Your open rate tells you the percentage of your mailing list who opened an email, which provides insight into whether your subject lines are encouraging people to open them. It also tells you about the overall deliverability of your emails: a high bounce rate (when an email isn’t deliverable) can often drag down your open rate. Click-through rates tell you how many people clicked on one or more of the links in your email, and should tell you what types of content your audience found interesting enough to click on and learn more about. Such data can inform your future newsletter content and the placement of links. Among the most useful types of links to include are: Reporting on responses and ROI can also help you prove the value of your newsletter program both internally to your stakeholders and externally to your prospects and clients. It is important to understand the value of every dollar of your marketing spend and find a way to attribute ROI to every dollar as a means of determining and proving success.

Legal And Ethical Implications

The contents of your newsletter must take client confidentiality into account. Caution is the best practice when dealing with any information that may have been gained through your representation of a client. Your client’s identity may not be revealed even if you are able to relate a true story regarding a case handled on your practice. The same applies for information learned through the representation of present and former clients.
The ABA Model Rule 7.1 states, for example , "A lawyer shall not make a false or misleading communication about the lawyer or the lawyer’s services…" ABA Model Rule 2.4 says, "Lawyer as third party neutral." This is one of the more restrictive rules of professional conduct on law firm newsletters in the U.S. and Canadian Bar Association Model Code of Professional Conduct does not have a rule equivalent to the advertising rules. This is because calendar-driven publication will lead to communications that inadvertently include false or misleading communication that must then be retracted.