Speaker 0: 0:06

Fear sells using scarcity in legal marketing. Welcome to Legal Marketing 101. I'm Toby Rosen. Today we are diving into how scarcity can drive your legal marketing strategy and help you connect with more clients. So let's start with the concept itself. This is as old as marketing more clients.

Speaker 0: 0:26

So let's start with the concept itself. This is as old as marketing scarcity. At its core, scarcity is the idea that when something feels limited whether it's the time, availability or the resources it becomes more desirable. Think about the last time you saw a limited time offer or a while supplies last ad, or even how many items were left on an online store. It probably caught your attention right. That's because our brains are wired to place higher value on things that seem rare or fleeting or just difficult to attain. It's the psychology of you don't know what you've got till it's almost gone. In other industries, scarcity is everywhere. Airline companies show only three seats left at this price to nudge you into booking. Retail brands thrive on seasonal sales with countdown clocks, and even tech companies like Apple lean into scarcity when they're launching new products, often creating buzz around limited pre-orders. These strategies are simple, but they're incredibly effective and they can work just as well in legal marketing.

Speaker 0: 1:24

But now let's talk about fear, specifically the fear of missing out, or FOMO. It's a powerful motivator, especially in situations where the stakes feel high. In the legal industry, this usually translates to fear of loss, missing a crucial deadline, forfeiting compensation or failing to take action when it matters the most. So, for example, think about how potential clients might read a message like act now to file your claim before the statute of limitations expires. You're not just informing them, you're motivating them to act quickly because the window to protect their rights is closing. This is the truth. By combining this scarcity and fear strategically, you can create urgency in our marketing, and this positions us as a trusted guide who helps clients avoid risks. We're showing them the risks and then pulling them back from the ledge. It's not just about selling. It's really about empowering people to take action when it actually does matter the most. So now that we've unpacked the psychology of scarcity and fear-based marketing, let's get practical. How can you, as a lawyer, as a marketer in the legal sphere, how can you use these strategies to connect with potential clients and actually inspire action, both in an ethical and an effective way? So here are a couple of strategies that we're going to talk about First is highlighting time-sensitive offers.

Speaker 0: 2:47

So the statute of limitations thing works well, but we can also create urgency by emphasizing some kind of time limit, and this is a really proven way to capture attention and motivate action. And instead of doing something like we have this many items remaining, we can offer limited time offers for free consultations in a particular month. We could say limited slots available for free consultations this month, reserve yours today. And the reality is we can say a specific month, or we can just say this month, and it ends up being true all the time and it ends up being true all the time. Obviously, there are ethics rules to look at for this, but this approach works really well for firms that are looking to attract new clients, whether they're doing a specific marketing campaign or whether they're trying to build something that generates more consults. It adds a little bit more exclusivity than just book a free consult and it pushes potential clients to prioritize reaching out to you before the offer goes away.

Speaker 0: 3:44

But number two is leveraging the case-specific deadlines. This is something that really works better with the statute of limitations kind of stuff, but every legal case has some kind of built-in time constraint, whether it's a filing deadline, statute of limitations or something else. These are natural opportunities to emphasize urgency in our marketing. So we can say, let's say it's immigration and there's a deadline for getting a certain type of application in. You know, act now to file your application before the deadline passes. Don't risk your chance at losing out on this visa. Or if there's a class action suit, or if there's some kind of claim, a worker's comp type of claim, that's not going to be eligible in the new year, act now to file your claim before the deadline passes. Don't risk losing your chance for compensation. This doesn't just create urgency, but it also demonstrates your expertise by showing that you understand the specific needs and timelines of the person that's seeing this ad. That's your audience.

Speaker 0: 4:40

But the other thing we want to do is showcase demand. People want to work with firms that others trust and respect. It's like the social proof thing, and if we highlight that there is demand for our services, that can instill confidence while also creating this subtle sense of scarcity. So, for instance, we can say something like Join the hundreds of clients who trust us every year, secure your consultation today, because this approach leverages a little bit more social proof and it validates your reputation, your firm's reputation while encouraging these PNCs, these potential prospective clients, to act quickly before the slots fill up. Secure your consultation. I've secured it, I'm good to go.

Speaker 0: 5:18

Number four is to promote limited services, and if your firm offers specialized services for a particular case type, something that no one else is doing, use that as the opportunity to emphasize scarcity. We can use ad tech, something like limited openings for personal injury cases this quarter, schedule a consultation before it's too late. Or if we work on a specific type of PI, we can advertise that we're the only ones who handle that, but that starts to get into a slightly different arena. So we're going to move on the right technology when it comes to these scarcity driven campaigns. It can make things a lot more impactful and really make the client experience a lot more seamless. So there are a couple things I want to mention here.

Speaker 0: 5:57

We've talked about these a lot. I won't spend time on them, but first is automated emails, because setting up automated email sequences. This creates even more urgencies. So if you have someone who is subscribing to something or sending in their information, we can immediately follow up with them, and in those follow-ups, if they haven't scheduled yet, we can add countdown timers or limited time offer banners. Things like this make it really easy to demonstrate to the client that, hey, you know you need to act quickly on this. And it's really easy to do these kinds of things with MailChimp or HubSpot or ActiveCampaign Really easy to design and then schedule these campaigns to go out immediately or to stagger them so that you can actually build that timeline that you said. Hey, there's only so many days left, you can send that to the user to build that.

Speaker 0: 6:44

And then there are dynamic website banners. Your website is probably one of the most, if not the, most, visible touchpoint for potential new clients. So adding dynamic banners whether they're specific to the client that is visiting the website or dynamic based on time these can highlight limited time offers, service availability, and all of this is great at driving immediate action. So it's something that we typically will put in a contact button or have it up in the header. But if you add an entire banner for this, only five consultation slots left for the whole month book. Now you're going to get all those five slots filled.

Speaker 0: 7:19

But here's the thing. The key is to strike the right balance. We want to create urgency without overwhelming or, more importantly, misleading our audience when it's done well. Scarcity-driven marketing doesn't just sell services. It positions your firm as the reliable, action-oriented partner that clients actually need and can turn to when the stakes are high. But here's the thing about all of this when you're applying scarcity and fear-based marketing in the legal field, you really need to understand your ethics, because having this balance between the urgency and the ethical responsibility that you guys have is important, and the other reality is that building trust with our audience this is the main priority. We have to build this trust, and if we're being misleading, if we're not being ethical, we are not going to be able to do that. So there are a couple of specific things we can do that will help us remain professional and effective, and really you can do whatever you want and just not do these things most of the time and you'll be okay.

Speaker 0: 8:16

Number one is avoiding fear mongering. While fear itself can motivate pretty significant action, you can't exaggerate or manipulate the facts. I know that's something that feels like it could work, but you really don't want to. Potential clients are already going to feel overwhelmed by their legal challenges, so your messaging should be clear and it should be reassuring, but you don't want to bring them into an unnecessary panic situation. For instance, instead of saying you're running out of time and you're going to lose everything, we could say something a little bit more constructive and frame that urgency in a slightly friendlier way. Taking action today can help secure your rights and protect your future.

Speaker 0: 8:59

Maintaining this professionalism and trustworthiness this is the key to establishing that long-term reputation that clients can rely on and will continue coming back to. We don't want to just scare people for no reason, but we want to give them a little bit to establishing that long-term reputation that clients can rely on and will continue coming back to. So we don't want to just scare people for no reason, but we want to give them a little bit of hey. If you don't do this, something might not go well, but at the same time, you should do this because we can make things go well for you. And obviously, throughout this, we need to make sure we're staying compliant with the regulations in your jurisdiction, whether it's the Bar Association rules on advertising from the state mostly the Bar Associations but we really just need to make sure that we're avoiding misleading statements, providing accurate disclaimers whenever required and really just being transparent.

Speaker 0: 9:40

This is the easiest thing to do in marketing is to be transparent, because it's kind of like dating If you just are yourself, you're going to find the right people for you. Because it's kind of like dating If you just are yourself, you're going to find the right people for you. So make sure you're reviewing your content, though, or consult with somebody who's an expert, let's say, in compliance, so that we don't violate any, have any issues, don't get reported by any other attorneys or you know, it's just a headache we don't want to deal with. But the other thing we need to keep in mind is that scarcity works best when paired with empowerment. So it's not just that this is hard to get, so it's not just the deadline right. We need to show how acting quickly, how making sure you get this done or filing this thing, will lead to positive outcomes. Something like filing your claim on time ensures you get the compensation you deserve. By emphasizing the solution, by emphasizing how this is going to go positively for someone on the other side, we position ourselves as the source of both guidance and reassurance. This fosters trust and, ultimately, it drives action, and, at the end of the day, that's what drives revenue, and, and that's what we're all about.

Speaker 0: 10:44

Now I will say if you haven't subscribed to the first episode of every month, make sure you're subscribed to the premium episodes of the Legal 101 Marketing Podcast, because if you haven't, you are missing out. There's stuff in there that you're just not getting in the other episodes each month. So make sure you subscribe. It's only $10 a month and you get that extra episode every month where you pack a little bit more in to those. So that's my scarcity for you for today. I recommend you take a moment. Figure out how you can inject a little bit more scarcity, maybe a little bit more fear, into your marketing, and how you can use these tools to make the phones light up. But if you yourself are afraid, don't worry, because we'll be back next week with more from Legal Marketing 101. That's it for Legal Marketing 101. Check out RosenAdvertisingcom for more.