Why Selling Services to Lawyers Is So Hard (and How to Make It Easier)

For legal service providers, one of the most important buyers is an attorney. So, you know how difficult it is to find, close, and win new business with them.

In fact, marketing forensics and other technical expertise services and selling them to lawyers is probably one of the hardest customers to sell.

The difficulty of selling to lawyers is mainly due to the following five factors:

• Lawyers are very busy.
• Lawyers have gatekeepers/assistants who perform sales and marketing screening.
• Today, lawyers are highly digitized and prefer to do their own research when necessary before speaking to sales.
• Lawyers only buy when the need arises.
• Lawyers are discerning and don't trust anything that isn't technically accurate or accurate.

Many of these factors apply to any business that sells to other businesses. What makes selling to an attorney particularly difficult, however, is that all five of these factors combine in a unique way.

Fortunately, overcoming these challenges is quite possible. We need a deep understanding of these unique behaviors and the right ways to overcome them.

This blog post explains exactly how to mitigate each of these factors. If you can do this, you can be confident that your professional services business will get at least one high-paying attorney client every month.

1. Lawyers are very busy.

Of all kinds of clients I've dealt with in my career, few were as difficult to get in touch with as my lawyer. Legal professionals are famous for their long hours. Also, when customers are very busy, they may feel like they can't get in touch.

If you don't get implementation results even after posting ads, attending trade shows, or making cold calls, this probably explains why. Lawyers spend less time focusing their attention on your brand than anyone else.

This is where inbound marketing comes into play. Inbound marketing is a business methodology that attracts customers by creating valuable content and experiences tailored to them. Meanwhile,

“Outbound marketing is a traditional marketing method that aims to push a message to potential customers. Outbound marketing includes activities such as trade shows, seminar series, and cold calls. It's costly, and the ROI is much lower than inbound marketing.” -HubSpot

Instead of putting all your effort into imposing a message on lawyers (outbound), you need to position your business to attract lawyers and gain their trust (inbound). And in fact, this... It is backed up by

2. Lawyers have gatekeepers/assistants who perform sales and marketing screening.

Lawyers hire assistants, secretaries, and paralegals to manage their busyness. Other than the smallest companies, these companies will always exist.

And of course, there are plenty of companies that want to sell their services to lawyers and their firms. So, you'd better believe these assistants are good at gatekeeping. If what you're offering doesn't solve an immediate challenge, then you won't be able to overcome it.

cold calling? “Sorry, Mr. Schwartz is unable to respond right now.” cold email? The assistant presses the “spam” button. ads? The assistant does not display ads and has direct access to only the information required by the attorney at that time.

In other words, if all of your efforts were outbound, you'd be sending thousands of emails and making hundreds of phone calls to speak to one attorney.

That's why implementing marketing that earns the trust of these prospects is extremely important. And just as importantly, this is why it's important to have a successful referral marketing program. If you can identify the most satisfied customers and get referral business from those customers, you can avoid gatekeepers and contact lawyers directly.

3. Currently, lawyers are highly digitized and prefer to do their own research as needed before speaking to sales.

Of all B2B buyers, 67% of surveys are conducted digitally. In other words, I don't want to talk to sales people. In my experience, this figure is even higher for lawyers! After all, lawyers are smart, well-educated people who prefer to solve tasks on their own.

That's why having a strong online marketing presence is absolutely essential. If your website isn't found when an attorney is doing that investigation, there's little chance of winning their business.

But getting found is one thing, and that's not enough. Without content and materials to help lawyers conduct their research, you probably won't win the attorney's business.

For example, consider a lawyer looking for law-related graphics. Perhaps you wake up one day and not only decide to buy from Vendor A, but also ask, “What kinds of legal visuals are there?” You'll start by wondering. Like many people these days, they might Google that very question. And if you find a vendor that can answer that question, you'll gain some level of trust (and increase the chances that an attorney will buy from them when the time comes).

After hearing the answer, the lawyer asked, “How can I confirm that my animation is acceptable?” You might be wondering. , or “How much does animation cost?” Once you've found a reliable resource that answers your initial question, you'll probably use that same resource to answer more questions. And if that vendor/resource can answer all of your questions, the chances of buying from the same vendor are pretty high.

This explains why content marketing is so important. From blog posts that help answer simple questions like these to preparing in-depth e-books and white papers to address more complex questions. If your website has useful content, you can assist your attorney throughout the investigation. That way, lawyers are more likely to choose to buy from you.

Additionally, if content is strategically created, SEO value will increase, and potential customers will find your business on Google.

4. Lawyers only buy when needed.

This is one of the hardest parts about selling to lawyers. According to B2B Institute research, we found that 95% of buyers aren't always looking for the products you sell.

And going back to point #1, if an attorney isn't looking for what you're selling, they're probably too busy to care. Even worse, if you keep trying to sell to an attorney (or his assistant) when you don't need it, your attorney (or his assistant) may start ignoring your company. That track record of implementation makes it much less likely that you'll be able to sell to them when they finally need your product.

This is why investing in CRM and marketing automation solutions is so important. You need to identify where your prospects are in the research process and deliver “the right message, in the right place, at the right time.” Also, you should always keep in mind so that when buyers are ready to buy, you're the brand they think of.

For example, if you have prospects who are just starting to research the future, you should consider directing them to some kind of nurturing stream where you regularly send educational and helpful emails.

On the other hand, if a prospective attorney spends a lot of time on your website, you should know that too. If you do that, you can work more actively. Still, content marketing will also be important. Sending case studies proving what you can do would be far more effective than cold emails trying to convince them to buy from you.

5. Lawyers are discerning and don't trust anything that isn't technically accurate or accurate.

This explains why many companies that sell to lawyers do not have a track record of implementation even if they invest in marketing. In some industries, creating content, sending emails, and publishing on social media is pretty easy. However, if you have a lawyer, you cannot publish half-hearted materials.

Marketing teams must be able to speak and understand sensitive legal terms, such as the differences between mediation and litigation (and how different solutions each attorney requires). The content they write and publish needs to be extremely accurate and accurate. In other words, it must be a great first step for your company.

In short, everything a marketing team does must be rooted in understanding customers and their expectations. To do that, start by building a strong buyer persona and involving all key stakeholders (not just marketing) in the process. And going forward, we need marketers who can create accurate and relevant content while simultaneously becoming marketing experts.

Selling to lawyers is difficult, but not impossible

These five factors make marketing and selling to lawyers particularly difficult. Many B2B customers embody three or four of these, but all five of these elements are so strong that lawyers are challenged like no other.

The key to overcoming these is building an inbound marketing engine that captures lawyers' interest and provides useful and useful information throughout the investigation process. Once you've done that, the next step is making sure you know what stage of the survey all of your prospects are in and be able to customize your marketing based on that. And to achieve all of this, you need a marketing team that understands customers and knows how to sell to them.

Does everything still feel a little overwhelming? That's when Aspire can help! Our team has experience specializing in marketing to legal professionals in complex and expensive industries like forensic services. Using a proven forensic framework, we develop a marketing plan to approach target attorneys, and a dedicated team will execute the plan on your behalf.

Schedule a free marketing assessment and talk to one of our experts who can give you practical suggestions you can implement right away.