How to Craft an Engaging Law Firm Newsletter

Advantages of a Law Firm Newsletter

A law firm newsletter is an invaluable tool when it comes to fostering and maintaining a relationship with clients. In fact, a quality newsletter will likely be one of the few ways a firm will maintain direct contact with a client and provide helpful information on a regular basis. Additionally, a newsletter is a great way to help a firm demonstrate its expertise to current and potential clients. If a firm publishes a monthly newsletter with informative articles relating to its practice areas, those materials will be viewed as an important resource by clients . Over time, a client may come to rely on these informational materials as part of his or her everyday experiences and this will build loyalty toward the firm. Clients are likely to see a firm’s newsletter as an asset in and of itself. When they have a question about something in that firm’s practice area, they will see that firm as the logical choice for assistance. Also, newsletters can help firms increase their "word of mouth" referrals because people act as both pursuers and purveyors of information. A newsletter puts the firm in a position to meet this need and get the word out about its services so that others can refer clients.

Key Elements

To create a newsletter that engages clients and prospects, consider including these essential components:
Legal Insights
Your clients have many questions. Remember that it’s imperative that you stay on their minds to be the lawyer they think of when they have legal issues.
News Updates
News posted to your website is not up-to-date until it is delivered to your audience in a newsletter. You want to continue to show them that you are on top of the current happenings in the law. Help them to see your firm as forward-thinking and proactive.
Case Studies
Clients and prospects can now come to your website and sign up to view the webinar or access the case studies you’ve written. They will read about similar problems and see how you came up with solutions for your clients that worked.
Call-To-Action Elements
The call-to-action elements almost always guarantee leads are captured because they are designed to get your clients to open up emails, visit your website, request follow-up information, attend your webinars, watch your videos, come to your seminar, and download your reports, case studies, and podcasts.

Design and Layout Considerations

Your law firm newsletter is not only an important marketing tool, but it also speaks volumes about your firm’s attention to detail. That’s why a professional design is essential. Whether your newsletter is printed or sent electronically, you want it to be visually appealing and seamlessly display your brand. Here are a few design and layout tips:
Keep it Simple
The best newsletter designs are crisp and clean, with ample white space for easy reading. And while full color can work to emphasize your brand and break up your content, it can be visually overwhelming when overutilized. Use color strategically and with purpose to draw your reader’s eye to the most important elements of your newsletter. For example, when using color to select a header, be sure to reinforce the color in your logo to maintain strong brand consistency.
Use Clear, Professional Fonts
You don’t need to turn your firm’s newsletter into a piece of art. A clear sans serif font for the body complemented by serif font for headers will do just fine. While an easy-to-read font is always important, you’ll also want to consider how well it converts to digital. Have you ever struggled to zoom in on a newletter that was too small to read? Keep that frustration top of mind when selecting a font to ensure the readability of your newsletter on any size device.
Stay Consistent
From newsletter to newsletter, it’s vital that your readers come to recognize and expect the same level of quality design that your firm has worked so hard to achieve in other areas (e.g., your website, brochure, business card, etc.). This consistency goes for the fonts, layout, colors, and images used throughout your law firm’s marketing materials as well.

Content Suggestions

When constructing a newsletter for a law firm, you should strive to produce a newsletter that will not only be informative to the reader, but will also serve as a mechanism to bring in new clients and increase client retention. Here are some suggestions:
Expert Commentary
Put together commentary segments that present an expert opinion on particular trends, regulations or laws. Not only will this put you in the position of an authority on the subject, but you will also be able to provide something that is not usually available. Commentary pieces tend to be viewed as opinion pieces, therefore they can be used as a way to provide attorneys with a voice and bring them away from the typical dry newsletter content.
FAQ Section
An FAQ (frequently asked questions) section can be a great addition to your newsletter . What better way to find out what your clients want to know about than to ask them? If you have a website, you can also put up a short form that will allow readers to submit questions directly to you. By answering a few questions every newsletter, you can give your reader a chance to learn something new while giving yourself a good idea of what you regularly get asked by current or prospective clients. This is also a great way to subtly set yourself apart from your competitors.
Legal Advice Column
A legal advice column is another popular feature that your readers are likely to find both interesting and helpful. Put out a submission form on the same place as your FAQ and let them submit questions directly to an attorney. This advice should be general, so you do not give specific legal advice to specific people. A legal advice column is another way to show that you are knowledgeable in your field and ready to help them when the need arises.

Distribution and Timing Optimization

Creating an Effective Law Firm Newsletter
The distribution of your law firm newsletter is a fundamental component to its effectiveness. Digital delivery through email has all but supplanted paper newsletters, so that’s where we’ll begin. The best email marketing platforms allow you, for a small fee, to send bulk emails to customers with no sending limit, and they include features to measure results. The downside is that most email marketing platforms require you to pay a monthly fee, no matter how large or small your subscriber list. If you’re going to send out monthly newsletters, this adds up, even if you have few subscribers. However, most of the law firm marketing companies offer unlimited sending, and some will charge only per email sent. List size shouldn’t be an issue, but only you can decide what’s right for you. Don’t send too many newsletters. Start with once or twice a month and see how your subscribers react. If your unsubscribe rate is low and the open rate and click-through rates are decent, you could decide to raise the frequency to weekly, or even daily. Some research from HubSpot suggests that the best day to send email newsletters is Tuesday. It’s possible that this is due to overkill on Sundays and Mondays, with email reactors recovering on both those days. But HubSpot claims their research shows that sending email newsletters on Monday is actually okay. You don’t have to send your email newsletters at the same time every week, but they should be sent on the same day. Studies have shown that people expect them this way, with Monday being the second most popular, along with Sunday. Regardless of your day, you should send them on the same day each week to start; once you’ve established a pattern, you can change the day and see what happens. To increase your subscriber list, make it easy for people to sign up. Your website – especially your blog page – is one of the first places you should put the subscriber link. Use a pop-up that invites readers to sign up for your newsletter and offers them the first look at your new blog posts, plus other special deals and tips. This doesn’t have to be annoying, either. Set it to appear on a delay so that it doesn’t open when someone lands on your page, and allow them to exit as soon as they choose, so they don’t feel pressured to sign up. Too many law firms have used obnoxious pop-ups to collect email addresses with far too many questions that discourage visitors from signing up. Keep it simple. Two questions: name and email. That’s it.

Analytics and Performance Monitoring

Just as you must measure the success of any marketing strategy by trackable results, so too should you measure the success of your law firm newsletter. Most email marketing platforms like Mailchimp, Constant Contact, or Pardot, for instance, have great analytic tools that can help you measure open rate, click through rate, and bounce rates.
Open Rate
The first thing to look at is open rate. How many of the emails you sent out were opened by your subscribers? Generally speaking, a 20 to 25 percent open rate is normal in the industry. If your open rate is above, great; if under 20 percent, then something might be wrong. One reason your open rate might be low is that your subject line is not working. Many people will tell you that your subject line is the single most important element of the newsletter and it absolutely is in that you need to get your subscribers to open your email. Your subject line should be a concise teaser that gives readers a reason to check it out. It takes a little skill to come up with and does take time. Read more here about subject line importance and getting the most out of your subject line.
Click Through Rate
The second measure of your newsletter success is your click through rate. How many clicks on links did you get in your newsletter? Clicks are trackable through the analytics and the former two platforms , and your web site is the best place to add trackers to all of your links. Non-tracking links can be found in the "settings" portion of your tracking dashboard and the tracking comes in a variety of forms: UTM codes, bitly, campaign codes, etc. Bitly is a free platform that will track how many times a link has been clicked on.
Bounce Rate
The third item to measure is bounce rate. A bounce is simply an email that could not be delivered to the recipient’s mailbox. A hard bounce is an email that was permanently rejected by the recipient email address. A soft bounce is a temporary rejection due to a problem with the email server, such as a full inbox or a problem with the recipient email server. A hard bounce can occur, for example, if someone’s email address has been shut down.
Subscriber Feedback
Last, but not least, is feedback. You should be soliciting feedback from your subscribers (those who opened and read your newsletter). You should include a small sentence soliciting feedback with a link where your subscribers can provide you feedback – "Did you find this content interesting and helpful? If not, why not?" (with link to survey). You should also put a link to unsubscribe. The unsubscribe link will provide the people who do not want to receive your newsletter with an easy process to "opt out."