PI Reforms – Will they affect conveyancers?

30th November 2015

The decision many high street firms took to move away from personal injury claimant work would appear to be a sound strategy in light of the proposed reforms announced last week, but this could still impact on conveyancers says Paul Coombes, Sales & Marketing Director at ETSOS.

The large PI marketing collectives have already diversified their areas of law with the likes of First4Lawyers offering full range of personal and commercial legal services and we can expect smaller competitors to review their options if they are not already doing so. Lead generation in conveyancing, Wills and probate is already here and growing.

It’s easy to say that ‘your’ clients would never use a service like this, but someone’s clients already are! Marketing intermediaries took a huge slice of the personal injury market and will certainly take a share in other areas of law. These businesses are marketing wise, particularly online, with bigger budgets than most individual firms. So what simple steps can you take to defend your business?

• Database, database database

You need to communicate with your clients when they don’t need you. When they do need assistance you’ll be top of their mind rather than searching on Google. Don’t wait until you’ve cleaned your old data, start collecting email addresses today and start using them next week. No debate here, do this right and you’ll see a return.

• Pay per click advertising

Big budgets these companies may have, but you can be highly targeted in your local area. Send clients to a web page that reflects the search term they entered, have a strong call to action on that page and measure the cost per enquiry.

• Easy PR

Every firm that does any litigation should have drafted a press release on the PI reforms sent it to the local paper and radio station. They don’t need to be war and peace but a good starting point is to answer the question “How will this change affect people in your town?” Yes that will be about PI but your firms gets mentioned or interviewed.

• Conversion

Generating an enquiry is only the start, what really counts is the ability to convert these into clients. We have several great articles on enquiry conversion here.

We’ve not touched on referrals, networks, content marketing, social media or paid advertising but the point is that threat of new entrants isn’t over, it’s just beginning, so start planning your marketing activity for 2016 now.

 

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