Speaker 1: 0:05

What is personalization in email marketing? Welcome to Legal Marketing 101. I'm Toby Rosen. Today, we are diving into a topic I think we've touched on it before, but personalization in email marketing and we're going to go through this. I'm going to jump straight into it, because the reality of the importance of this is that it's very effective for client communication. It's very effective for lead generation from email marketing, and the reality of how you can use this to boost your open rates is just use it. So we're going to dive straight on into what personalization is, how we can use it. We're not going to spend a lot of the time on why, because we just want to get to work. So understanding personalization in email marketing.

Speaker 1: 0:50

Personalization in email marketing means tailoring our messages to resonate with individual recipients based on them specifically, so this could be specific characteristics, preferences, behaviors. It's a little bit more than just addressing someone by their name, but that is a really good start here. Don't get me wrong. True personalization, though, involves delivering specific content to a user that feels relevant and timely to them. So whether this is sharing an article that is addressing a legal issue that a specific client is going through, or offering some kind of insights that are specific to this person's area of interest. That's true personalization, but, again, there are various levels of this. They can range from basic to really highly sophisticated, like on HubSpot, but at the simplest level, personalization usually just involves using a client's name in a subject line of an email or a greeting. As we advance through the process, though, we can segment our audience into groups that are based on different factors things like case type, recent interactions, location of the user and this allows us to send content that speaks really directly to the unique circumstances of that person's situation directly to the unique circumstances of that person's situation. The most advanced approach then leverages data to customize content dynamically. We're not going to spend much time on this today, because it's pretty advanced, but this starts to get into things like recommending specific legal services based on previous website visits or automatically sending updates based on legislation changes or case changes, anything like that, and the benefits here are clear. The personalized emails tend to have much higher open rates because they grab attention and they provide real value. Recipients are more likely to engage with content that feels tailored specifically to them, and this leads to improved conversion rates. Plus, personalized communication helps us foster stronger relationships with clients. They'll already feel like you've been talking to them, because it shows them that you understand their needs, you're proactive in delivering solutions and you speak directly to them, and in a competitive field like the one we're in here in law, this connection can really be the thing that sets us apart and drives that.

Speaker 1: 3:08

One of the biggest challenges we face in engaging our customers, or engaging our clients, is dealing with the incredibly diverse range of cases and situations and individuals that we are actually dealing with every day. This diversity means that a one-size-fits-all approach to marketing, or email marketing specifically, is not going to cut it. Clients expect communications that address their needs specifically, and the thing is personalized emails. This is one of the first ways we can start to. Even if we can't address some of their needs with automated email, we can start to make them feel that they're being cared for more than they might if we just said hello in the beginning of the email. So let's get into some strategies that go a little bit beyond just using the client's first name. That is effective and, yes, it's something you should be doing, but I'm not going to explain to you how to do that. Use the name, use the variables in your email system and put those in the subjects or put them in the beginning of your emails. The goal of what we're going to talk about today is to create really tailored experiences that make each recipient feel understood, valued and taken care of. So let's dive into the strategies.

Speaker 1: 4:18

First is segmenting our audience, and really we've talked about this a little bit before, but this is one of the most crucial steps in delivering these personalized emails. We need to have segments so when we're working with legal clients, we can do a bunch of different criteria. If you're multi-practice, you can do this based on case type. If you're in a single practice area, you could do it based on engagement level, based on how active that particular lead is. We could do it based on geographic location, stage in the legal process. All of these different criteria are really good segments for us to deliver different types of content to. So, just as an example, if we have clients that are already involved in litigation, then what we might want to update them on is case law or relevant developments that are happening around their case. But people who are a little bit earlier in the stages of planning maybe they're doing estate planning and they're just trying to decide which lawyer to get to. They are probably going to benefit more from some more general educational content with a sales tint, let's say. But by creating these segments, what we're really trying to do is to ensure that our email content is really relevant to each group. This is going to lead to higher open rates, higher click-through rates all the good stuff and it also allows us to target specific needs or concerns. This helps us build trust and demonstrates expertise in a particular area of law, or maybe in multiple areas of law. The more refined our segments are, the more targeted our content can be.

Speaker 1: 5:49

Then we want to talk about customizing subject lines, because the reality is, the subject line is the first impression our email makes, so it's. It's really important, and it should grab our recipient's attention and have some sense of relevance, really. But personalized subject lines these are really effective Even if we're not changing anything but a name. These can significantly increase open rates. By addressing the client specifically, and if we can actually update the subject line of the email based on the information that's either contained in the email itself or that the client needs to know, these lead to significantly higher open rates as well. When we're crafting these subject lines, though, whether this is for an educational piece of content or for a template for a new email. What we really want to think about is what catches the reader's eye, based on their past interactions with us, or maybe even their past interactions with law firms in general. So if they've already interacted with us and they've downloaded a white paper on estate planning, then we can use a subject line that is naturally flowing from that white paper so we can talk about how to protect assets or the next steps after their download. And by matching this subject line to the previous behavior that the person has actually done, we make it much more likely that the recipient is going to find the email useful, worth opening, because they remember that they did that.

Speaker 1: 7:12

Next, we want to look at personalizing the content of the emails themselves. So once we've segmented our audience, we've got a really nice compelling subject line. We've personalized that. The next step is to get into personalizing the body of the email. This can involve including information that's directly relevant to the recipient's legal situation. So if you're going to do that, you want to make sure that you're managing that data effectively and safely. But most of the time, if we're just looking at the metadata, if we say no that a client is involved in a divorce action. We could just send articles or things about updates in family law, tips for managing child custody arrangements, tips for negotiations. The key here is to ensure that the content feels actually valuable to the situation and timely. So, first, we want to avoid sending generic updates to everyone on the list and instead focus on providing resources that are specific to the segment that we are sending to. We could also include some more client-specific data, but again, this is something that needs to be in line with your bar rules, in line with your state's privacy rules and all of that other mumbo-jumbo. But at the end of the day, even though these are for people that are already in your pipeline, these are incredibly effective at improving a client's experience. So, whether it's sending client-specific case updates or reminders about court dates or just other content from the case, we're adding a huge amount of value. This helps our clients stay informed and it really reinforces our firm's commitment to their specific situation.

Speaker 1: 8:46

Next, we have one that may make you cringe a little bit less, and it's one that actually should be considered more creepy, but it's. It's pretty easy to implement and it's not against any rules. So that's utilizing behavioral triggers. These are actions that our clients take or don't take that can then initiate an automated response. So, whether we do an email response, sms, any of those options, these kind of triggers can be really effective in maintaining client engagement and nurturing leads. So let's say, a client downloads a guide on personal injury law from our website, an automated email will follow up with more information, along with a call to action and scheduling a consultation, and then our behavioral triggers could follow that. So whether the person visits specific pages on the website, those could trigger new emails. Or even if they don't take any action, those after a specified period of time, could then trigger new emails to go out, and that, re-engagement, is one of the most powerful things here. So if they haven't even opened our emails in a while, a new re-engagement campaign could be triggered that offers relevant resources and is updated based on their previous activity, but also could specifically call them out for not engaging.

Speaker 1: 10:00

All of this is really going to be contingent on the systems you set up. A lot of this is going to to be contingent on the systems you set up. A lot of this is going to be difficult if you don't already have a customer relationship management system or a CRM already set up, because, look, we need to have these systems if we're going to do any of this kind of stuff at scale. They allow us the CRM systems. They allow us to collect and analyze client data, ranging from just the contact details, case history, all of that stuff, all the way down to every individual interaction, email engagement, metrics, every kind of piece of data that we could ever imagine, and with this information we can create some really highly personalized campaigns that are super aligned with our clients' needs personalized campaigns that are super aligned with our clients' needs. So if we integrate our email marketing platform with our CRM or, better yet, they're just the same thing this helps us set up automated workflows that adapt based on the client behavior. So if a client visits your website a whole bunch and they focus on a particular section, our CRM can trigger that behavioral email offering a consultation, sharing a relevant case study or just sort of expanding on what that person was reading about. This type of data-driven personalization not only keeps you engaged and makes the client like you, but it demonstrates your attentiveness to the specific interests of the client and continues to position you as a trusted advisor.

Speaker 1: 11:22

Okay, before we go, we do need to talk about some best practices for this, because I kind of feel like I've just given a kid a taser. So we want to make sure that we're all doing this from you know, compliant with all the legal and ethical guidelines. This is really fundamental, but we also don't want to be creepy. So when it comes to the legal and ethical side of things, you want to be checking whatever's relevant to your jurisdiction. So, whether that's GDPR, ccpa, specific state privacy laws, bar rules, whatever it is, these are going to be our first cues of what we can and can't use in this kind of personalization, and we also are under some significant confidentiality obligations as law firms and with you guys as lawyers significant confidentiality obligations as law firms and with you guys as lawyers. So we always need to make sure we're obtaining explicit consent before using any client data for marketing purposes. So for sending anything internal out to a client who hasn't retained or hasn't entered an agreement, we need to make sure we're anonymizing any sensitive information and we also just need to be really transparent about the data use policies that we have and make sure we have those posted and to avoid the creepy factor.

Speaker 1: 12:27

What we really want to focus on is the value and relevance, rather than overly personal details. So clients are going to quickly feel uneasy and potential clients will totally back off if the emails feel like they know too much about them or even if they're just too quick. So instead of diving way too deep into their personal information, we can use insights that are a little bit more broadly applicable but still very relevant to the person. So, for an example, let's say we have someone who has just come to a seminar on corporate compliance. We could send them an email or an ebook about changes in local business law and that would feel really appropriate and useful, and that's a lot better than maybe referencing the specific financial performance of their company. That's going to feel really intrusive.

Speaker 1: 13:13

The key to personalization because I think you guys understand where the line is here is to find a way to demonstrate attentiveness to the client's interests without overstepping and feeling like you're hanging out over their shoulder. And another really important part of the compliance here. It's something that a lot of lawyers forget, but we want to make sure that clients have really easy ways to update their preferences so this can help them control what type of content they receive, and usually this will increase the likelihood that they find your emails valuable. If they're getting way too many and they want to just receive less, give them that option. So we always want to allow clients to select the areas of interest that they have, the frequency of communications that they receive, or turn on and off specific legal updates that they wish or do not wish to receive. Providing these options enhances the user experience, enhances the client experience and it helps us a lot when it comes to data privacy regulations. So the key here is to prioritize compliance, respect your boundaries and give clients some real control.

Speaker 1: 14:14

Law firms can do this and still effectively personalize their email marketing and be professional and ethical all at the same time. At the end of the day, what we want to do is make sure that our personalization efforts are actually appreciated by the recipients and contribute to this positive relationship with our firm where, ultimately, these clients give us money. So if you haven't started implementing personalization in your own email marketing campaigns, I strongly urge you to go right now and do it this week. You need to at least have some names in there, you need to have some segments in your email marketing systems and just get started with those little pieces. You can move on to the rest as time goes on, but I strongly, strongly urge you to implement these strategies because they're an immediate boost in your open rates and your click rates. That's it for Legal Marketing 101. Check out RosenAdvertisingcom for more Thanks.