Why Details Matter
in Online Lead Generation
The famous sayings “God is in the details” and “Art is all in the details” both mean that when attention is paid to the small things, it can have the biggest rewards. In other words, whatever one does should be done thoroughly – details matter. So what does all this have to do with online lead generation and lead providers? Simply put, not all lead providers are created equal. Law firms can no longer take for granted that all lead providers are working in the firm’s best interest. They can’t assume that all lead providers use comprehensive systems to continuously get them better and better leads and calls. Before a law firm can truly leverage the growth potential of web and live call leads, it must partner with a provider that delivers on the details.
Why is online lead generation essential?
As more consumers have gone online to look for legal help, more law firms have shifted toward digital marketing. Consequently, legal lead providers have emerged as a vital resource for law firms looking to connect with potential clients. Law firms realized they could devote more time to their clients while an online lead provider routed new leads to their Inbox, their CRM, or live on the phone. Moreover, online lead generation holds the potential for expanding both geographic coverage and areas of practice.
Not surprisingly, the market has reacted with a huge increase in the number of lead providers competing for law firm business. However, the quality of lead generation companies can be highly variable. Many lead companies spread themselves thin operating in multiple verticals (home services, education, financing, etc.). In fact, Legal is only a small subset of what they do. In contrast, firms like 4LegalLeads.com specialize in Legal, focusing 100% of their efforts on you and what you do. With new online lead providers constantly emerging, law firms cannot afford to view providers as interchangeable commodities. A law firm must partner with a provider that offers flexibility, control and sustained growth.
How do you maintain flexibility and control?
No contracts
A lead provider confident in the quality of their leads can offer law firms the ultimate in flexibility and control. A surprising number of lead providers attempt to lock in lawyers with long-term contracts and monthly minimums. These lead generation companies, often new to the market or with a lack of proven reviews, demand long-term contracts upfront. This drastically reduces a law firm’s ability to re-allocate resources in the constantly changing legal industry. 4LegalLeads.com has spent more than 20 years innovating and setting new industry standards for quality and customer support. Consequently, 4LegalLeads.com is able to confidently offer pay per lead with no contracts and no monthly minimums. Unlike those other firms, 4LegalLeads.com earns your trust and business every day. We focus on building long-term partnerships with our attorneys. This results in both sides working towards the same goal of finding new clients online.
Funding systems
Whether you are paying per lead or locked into a long-term contract, your lead provider should offer you ways to optimize your funding strategy and maximize your ROI. Funding bonuses and auto-funding are two key funding options available that help you establish an effective and efficient funding strategy. In turn, you can take a broad view and understand that while not every lead converts, overall conversions lead to growth.
Funding Bonuses
First, funding bonuses allow you to stretch your funding dollar. At 4LegalLeads.com, every time you fund your account you could automatically receive up to a 7% funding bonus. We add these bonus funds directly to your account, so you can get more Exclusive, Real-Time Leads and Prequalified Calls.
Auto-Funding
Second, auto-funding, also known as auto-billing, keeps your account automatically funded. Although this may seem like a routine feature, it is extremely important in online lead generation. Why? If the lead provider has set it up correctly, your account stays funded. This means you remain a priority in campaign efforts. As a result you keep your spot in the rotation to get leads and never miss out on potential clients. At 4LegalLeads.com, we allow you to do this at any level you choose with no monthly minimums, no interruptions, and you can turn it off any time you want. Additionally, 4LegalLeads.com accounts with auto-funding receive an extra 2% funding bonus, every time the account is auto-funded.
Small margins can go along way for your law firm’s profitability, but why do we give up this margin? Encouraging best practices, such as keeping your account funded and your campaigns planned out, leads to higher growth, better conversion rates, and scalability for both parties.
Returns and refunds
One of the ways to measure the strength of your relationship with your lead provider is by the types of refunds and returns they offer. Trust and good faith are key in forging a long-term partnership. While refunds and returns may seem like a given, not all lead providers offer them. Why are these policies important? They reflect the provider’s eagerness to keep campaigns improving with your feedback. They also reflect the lead provider’s confidence in the quality of their leads. Credits for invalid leads contribute to your overall ROI. As well, they give your lead provider the opportunity to improve lead quality for the future.
4LegalLeads.com is probably one of the most fair and risk-free lead providers in the legal industry. In fact, 4LegalLeads.com guarantees prorated refunds of your account balance. This refund policy empowers you to go big for the highest bonuses and access more prospective clients. Moreover, 4LegalLeads.com offers extremely fair returns for invalid leads. In fact, we make this an easy and painless process! All you have to do is login to your Interactive Partner Portal. Our verification department will call on your invalid leads, confirm, and grant a credit to your account balance. You can then use this credit toward the next exclusive, real-time leads and calls that come in.
What drives sustained growth?
Delivery systems
An important part of determining the growth potential with online lead generation is the delivery system – does the lead provider guarantee exclusivity and real-time delivery? Having both exclusivity and the ability to respond immediately increases the odds of converting a lead into a client. Lawyers should ensure that their lead provider actually delivers on these terms, if promised. Sadly, some providers will throw these terms around and put lawyers into a multi-share model where they’re forced into a race to see who can contact the consumer first. At 4LegalLeads.com, we guarantee that exclusivity always means a one lead per lawyer connection delivered in real-time.
Lead providers who are committed to a partnership approach will also ensure they integrate with the law firm’s CRM or lead intake systems. A fast response is critical when responding to leads, so it’s important to feed leads directly into a firm’s software platform. That way, it can make automated responses and ping representatives to reach out right away, yielding the best chance to convert leads into clients. 4LegalLeads.com is fully integrated with client intake software, such as Clio Grow, Filevine, and any other CRM or intake platform with an open API. 4LegalLeads.com is also able to deliver leads simply to an attorney’s email inbox, as well as deliver text notifications.
Quality control systems
Law firms have a much greater chance of closing a high-quality lead than a low-quality lead. Nobody wants to pay for low intent or unqualified inquiries, disconnected numbers, or those who cannot pay legal fees. A provider who has the systems, tools and experience filtering and qualifying leads and calls can save your firm valuable time and money, and generate sustained growth.
4LegalLeads.com employs the most successful detection methods from other verticals and blazes the trail in the legal vertical to push this innovation across multiple stages of the consumer’s journey. 4LegalLeads.com does more than just confirm TCPA compliance and simple email and phone validation. In fact, 4LegalLeads.com uses hundreds of touchpoints at the advertising, point of request, and conversational journey levels to confirm leads are real-time, valid, and of high intent. Additionally, we have rolled out TrustedForm across the legal vertical to support further compliance and assist in the highest quality of lead generation verification. Simply put, we provide real-time, exclusive leads that are non-incentivized, and free of bots, duplicates, and stale requests. The result? Law firms can better allocate valuable resources on prospects that can convert into clients.
Screening live calls
The automated phone screening system that most lead providers use for live call screening does not take into consideration that consumers can miscategorize their legal problem. Too often, consumers reach the wrong attorney with the wrong press of a button. Consumer confusion wastes time and money, so lead providers must take steps to reduce it in the conversion path.
4LegalLeads.com was not satisfied with the automated (IVR) screening status quo so we rebuilt our live call infrastructure. Now we route leads through our internal live call center to screen the leads personally. In the live conversations provided by our prequalified live calls, it is much easier to resolve a lead’s confusion and match them with the appropriate firm. 4LegalLeads.com created Quality Screening Criteria, and we transfer only callers who meet all the criteria for a specific legal category. In fact, we discard the majority of calls that would normally waste your time and money.
Disposition systems
A successful marketing campaign is not only about removing what’s not working, but also about doubling down on what is working. Consequently, one of the most critical aspects of online lead generation is lead disposition – marking the status of your leads as “closed as a sale” or “dead or disqualified. The key to success in lead disposition lies in optimizing the feedback loop between the law firm and the lead provider. However, the effort is only worth it if your lead provider has set up systems to use that feedback to get you better and better leads. A lead company with state-of-the-art attribution tools is able to analyze the clients that you mark as signed and get you more of them.
4LegalLeads.com believes that 100% attribution combined with law firm feedback is the key to optimizing your marketing dollars over the long term. Consequently, we make it as easy as possible to communicate dispositions. Our Interactive Partner Portal allows you to update the status of any lead with a simple click of a button. Not only can you return invalid leads, but you can communicate which leads are retained, in processing, in follow up, dead, or still waiting to connect. You can even send a list of leads that closed or failed to retain to our award winning support team for white glove service to help do these updates for you. The result? We optimize your campaigns daily by moving marketing budgets to campaigns that yield leads that close for your firm. Continuously fine-turning campaigns improves your closing rate, saves you time, and boosts your ROI. In 2024, our planned integrations with several case management software companies will make lead disposition even more convenient.
Customer service
Customer service is the secret sauce that synergizes all the system tools and technological advances in online lead generation. A positive, strategic relationship with a lead provider is an often overlooked component that is imperative for success with leads and calls. Every law firm has unique needs that change over time. When the lead provider is invested in the long-term success of the law firm, the two can build a rewarding partnership that drives growth for years. Reaching beyond a transactional relationship to a true partnership is what sets providers like 4LegalLeads.com apart.
A lead provider like 4LegalLeads.com that delivers white glove customer service can help ensure each law firm is poised for success. More than just 24/7 availability, your lead provider should have a dedicated account team devoted to your success. Specifically, they must be open to feedback and use that feedback to constantly fine-tune your campaigns to optimize your budget. Moreover, they should be invested in educating you in best practices for connecting with leads and calls to maximize conversion rates. Understanding that each firm has different needs and then delivering on those needs is the hallmark of a trusted lead provider. Given our focus on customer service, it is not surprising that 4LegalLeads.com has a 5-Star Excellent Rating on Trustpilot, with outstanding reviews of customer service experiences.
Not all lead providers are created equal
As law firms increasingly rely on online lead providers to connect with potential clients, the crucial lesson is that not all providers are created equal. The success of a law firm in leveraging leads and live calls hinges on partnering with a provider that goes beyond the ordinary and excels in the details. At 4LegalLeads.com, we deliver on the details in all aspects of online lead generation. Our commitment to Exclusive, Real-Time Leads & Prequalified Live Calls and 5-star customer service cements 4LegalLeads.com as a trusted partner dedicated to the long-term success of law firms.