The first couple of groups of IPW members have now ‘graduated’ from the marketing planning workshops offered in partnership with Solve Legal Marketing. The idea is to help members to create a marketing strategy – and follow it through with a planned series of marketing activities – that will deliver new enquiries and ultimately help in building successful, sustainable, profitable will writing businesses.
One of the main questions that crops up in every session is ‘How can I position myself as the ‘go to’ person for will writing in my area’?
The answer to this lies, in part, in adopting a content marketing strategy that works for your business. We’d all accept that in life, people buy from people. And nowhere is this more true than in professional services. Your clients need to share personal information with you that is sometimes complex and even painful. You’ll be party to warring siblings, family scandals and in-depth financial information and personal details that you’ll need in order to carry out their work.
As such, you need both your clients and your potential clients to feel like they know and can trust you in order for them to buy from you. It helps if you can also convey a warm and personable approach – after all, the end goal is for the client to invite you in for a cuppa and a piece of cake – all the more likely if you seem like a nice person to spend an hour with in the kitchen.
Find the common ground
Basing your marketing around content can help you to find a common ground with your potential clients. By writing an article, making a video, producing an infographic or posting on social media, you’re giving yourself multiple opportunities to explain and prove to your potential clients why they should come to you for help with their estate planning.
Remember, you are offering advice and expertise – not just a product. Demonstrating that expertise is going to be crucial to building trust with your audience, which in turn, leads to inbound inquiries.
Be relevant, engaging and useful
So how do you know what to say? The key here is understanding your target audience – and by that, we mean really understanding them. What bothers them? What common issues so they have? Where do they live? What do they read? The more information you have on your target market, then the more likely you are to be able to create copy which they can relate to, and will engage with.
How do I start?
If this all sounds good but you’re thinking ‘I just don’t have time for this’, you have a few options. Firstly you can make it someone else’s job. Outsource to Solve Legal Marketing for instance and they’ll produce and promote content on your behalf.
Or, you can do it yourself. Some tips to help you get started include:
Forward plan – don’t be completely reactive. Having a forward plan for content will reduce the amount of time you have to spend thinking up things to talk about. You can even schedule posts, blogs etc in advance – taking care of your content without you even having to think about it.
Check the calendar – linking content to events that are coming up or other major milestones in the calendar can instantly boost relevance. You can buy media diaries (or talk to Solve) or simply create your own. Do this every quarter and again the time saving will mount up. You can even reuse the calendar year on year.
Be nimble – reacting to the news agenda is a gift for content writers. Keep up with current affairs and use events as your ‘hook’ for content. It shows you’re knowledgeable in your sector, keep up to speed with relevant events, and are generally ‘on your game’.
Mix it up – include different types of content such as tips and advice, ‘how to’ guides, comment on recent developments / current affairs, opinion pieces, maybe even the odd video. Publishing a mix of content types will keep your offering fresh and relevant and provide a handy boost to your search engine rankings as well.
If you’d like help with your content marketing, email info@solvelegal.co.uk, or call 0800 133 7127.
This article was submitted to be published by Solve Legal Marketing as part of their advertising agreement with Today’s Wills and Probate. The views expressed in this article are those of the submitter and not those of Today’s Wills and Probate.
