Originally published in ColoradoBiz Magazine.
A monthly newsletter is a wonderful way to share tips about how your legal services can help your client base and connect your clients with your law firm’s more personable sides, such as your community involvement and altruistic efforts.
But there are some pitfalls that the best legal newsletters should avoid that have been outlined below to help make sure you don’t annoy your readers or inadvertently turn away their business.
Ready? Let’s get started with the basics.
What is a newsletter?
A monthly newsletter is simply a way to stay connected with your clients in a more personable way in between the times that they may need your services.
Your newsletter’s main goal is to provide helpful information and education to your client base with an opportunity to bring in organic sales (which we’ll talk about a little later on in this article).
Always aim to keep it simple when it comes to your legal newsletter ideas. You can choose a theme each month to educate your client base on while also including an update on firm news and activities. The emphasis is on helping your client base first and providing subtle ways to drive sales of your services.
So now that we know what a newsletter is let’s talk about how to go about writing one.
How to write a newsletter
Picking a topic to focus on each month is the best way to approach writing your newsletter.
You can include images within your newsletter, but make sure you balance the ratio of images and text, influencing your newsletter open and click rates.
What are open and click rates?
These terms refer to the percentage of people within your email list that opened your newsletter and clicked any links from within your newsletter.
A goal for healthy open rates is between 15 and 25%. With unique click rates, you will want to aim to land at 1.5% and above.
Your email platform will be able to provide you with these analytics for each newsletter.
Writing your newsletter
Your newsletter’s goal is to find a healthy balance of content with 90% information/education and 10% sales focused.
Where possible, write in plain English. While you’re a law firm, that doesn’t mean you need to overwhelm your clients and potential clients with legalese. You’ll have more people opening your newsletters if you keep your writing simple.
A great tool to help you achieve this is The Hemingway App or Grammarly. These web-based editing app will help you make sure that you’re writing is simple and free of unnecessary words.
Developing the best law firm newsletter content
When writing your newsletter, keep in mind whom you’re writing the newsletter to. Most of your client base isn’t going to really care about the nuances of the latest court rulings in your area of practice.
Read the full article at ColoradoBiz Magazine.
