How Introverted Lawyers Can Still Achieve Marketing Success

If you’re a lawyer with a somewhat introverted personality, there’s a good chance marketing isn’t your favorite task. Fortunately, in the digital age, attorneys have a wide-range of ways to go about marketing their services and connecting with potential new clients, many of which avoid in-person interaction.

In a recent episode of our “Everything Except The Law” podcast, we welcomed Allison Williams, Owner of Law Firm Mentor. She talked about her experience with marketing, and shared advice on what attorneys can do if they don't like in-person networking.

Check out the clip below to see her top marketing tips for introverted lawyers.

You can also check out a transcript of the conversation below:

Host Nick Werker:

Can you tell us a little bit about how your firm has approached marketing over the years, and if your approach has evolved at all as the years go on? Or like, what are your favorite marketing strategies? I would love to hear it.

Allison Williams:

Well I mean we're now in a day and age where I think there are so many different marketing strategies, and a one-and-done approach is never appropriate, nor is it required. Most people that meet me are surprised to learn that I'm very much an introvert and that I don't like networking. I'm not a person that likes to go out to functions to shake hands, to kiss babies, to meet people.

For me, starting the process of marketing was really overwhelming. It was triggering. I always felt this question of am I good enough, or I don't like to be evaluated, what are people going to say about me. That was kind of always running in the back of my mind. So I couldn't go out and do the traditional go into a room and meet people at a bar function. There are some people that that's great for. Wasn't for me.

But, one day someone invited me to speak on a panel and I found that I loved it. And you can now stick me on a stage in front of thousands of people and I light up and that makes me happy, as opposed to the one-to-one networking. So you have to find what works for you. That's kind of the poster of what I tell lawyers about marketing all the time.

But there are some things that I think are necessary that even if you are not expert, you need to be doing it just to have a comprehensive marketing plan that has a lot of different funnels of marketing through which you're driving your leads. So that needs to include a digital marketing strategy.

You need to have a company that is not just putting your website up and putting pretty pictures on it, but you need to have somebody monitoring what is the state of the art regarding the conversion touch points. Where should the call to action be on the web page? Should it float down as people are scrolling or should it be stationary? What colors are most likely to keep eyes on screen longer?

Those questions are expert questions. They are not dabbler questions. And when we start dabbling as lawyers trying to figure it out, we give ourselves a great disservice. You can actually make a lot more money a lot faster when you hire a fully competent digital marketing company to manage that.

Together with that of course you need to be doing video. Now, the American attention span, the human attention span has really gone down a lot because of social media. So just putting up some stationary pictures you're going to get more traction than flat words. But, video is going to engage people more and it's going to start to increase that relational point that ultimately gets people, especially when they are hiring a lawyer, to the point of saying “yeah I trust that person."

And there are a lot of people that feel very vulnerable when they're coming in talking about problems that are embarrassing to them, that are going to cost them money, that are going to be challenges for their life. You want to have a relationship with that person who wants to connect with you sooner rather than later, from the moment they walk in. And if you've already created that relationship, it is much easier to get them over the finish line.They already feel they know you and that happens through video.

And then finally what I always tell people is you can't do everything online. You do need to be doing some things in-person. And there are strategies you can use to create relationships that will yield more relationships. So instead of networking being I go to a party, I shake hands, I kiss babies and I leave, or I hand out my proverbial business card or even my vCard, now we're doing it electronically, you really should be thinking about how to create relationships with people that are most likely to be in front of the people that are most in need of your service.

So who is the person that is best suited to you? Lawyers to other lawyers may be appropriate, but many times you need to go to ancillary professionals. You need to go to the mental health community, you need to go to financial professionals, you need to go to people completely outside of professional services, you need to go to contractors, you need to go to artists, you need to go to your local business people.

But find those people and then create a win-win for them. What can you give them of value so that they will be more favorable towards you? And hunt for that person that is as entrepreneurial as you are so that they don't just see a value in giving you referrals, but they actually will intentionally seek a way to do that.