Jul 14, 2020
5 min read
Effective marketing is one of the key differences between firms that scale and firms that struggle. With new digital inbound and social media marketing strategies emerging every day, it's important to stay ahead.
The good news is that, with the right strategies, marketing your firm can be easy and even fun.
In a recent webinar, we were lucky to host two experts in marketing immigration law firms - John Q. Khosravi and Roman Zelichenko. Hundreds of immigration lawyers registered to benefit from Roman and John’s unique expertise. They didn’t disappoint.
The webinar covered:
Here are some key highlights.
Marketing isn’t always about bringing in more clients. In fact, it can actually be directed toward bringing in fewer clients, and spending more time with your family or doing what you love.
A large funnel of potential clients gives you the option to pick and choose only the best ones
A large funnel of potential clients gives you the option to pick and choose only the best ones, whether that means the most interesting cases or the highest paying clients, so you can focus on quality over quantity.
As John pointed out, “[A good marketing system] allowed me to have a low volume immigration practice where I only handle a handful of cases each month, and it gives me time to do the things that I want to do.”
It’s critical to take a step back and devise a system or strategy before pushing ahead with marketing.
John refers to his strategy as a “triangle system”. The head of his system is Education and Legal Knowledge. This means maintaining a deep knowledge of immigration and then sharing that knowledge publicly.
The second and third legs of John’s triangle system are Service and Positive Feedback from clients.
He describes a positive feedback loop wherein the better the service he provides to his clients the more clients he gets, through positive reviews and social media. The resulting increase in business furthers his Education and Legal Knowledge, perpetuating the loop.
If you have niche expertise that will draw a particular clientele, generate content that reflects that.
Roman, on the other hand, emphasizes the importance of first considering your niche expertise and your lifestyle goals as the pillars of a good marketing strategy. Build your marketing content and strategy on those pillars.
“First, why are people going to come to you,” he asks. If you have niche expertise that will draw a particular clientele, generate content that reflects that.
Roman explains that the income that niche generates will provide the leverage to expand into other areas further on.
There are seemingly endless tools and strategies for marketing your firm. Rather than becoming a jack of all trades, pick a channel and specialize in it.
John spends much of his time on YouTube and, increasingly, TickTock. Roman has become a widely recognized expert at LinkedIn marketing, generating viral posts with amazing regularity.
Roman provided some valuable LinkedIn strategies and tips.
Here’s the thing about social media: it’s social. If you want to leverage it effectively, it’s not a place for you to advertise and walk away
He advises that you “utilize what you know and what you do to educate people about your expertise and draw them in via your content”.
For example, if you’re a former Worker’s Compensation lawyer transitioning into immigration law, write posts about the intersect between Immigration and Workers Compensation. Don’t write about yourself, but rather focus on the value that you can offer your readers.
On top of that, he stresses how important it is that your profile clearly demonstrates your expertise. “Clearly articulate your value,” Roman says. Returning to the previous example, if you’re an immigration lawyer with a prior specialty in Workers Compensation, start with that description in your profile: “Former Workers Compensation attorney helping immigrants file for X”.
Lastly, it’s critically important to respond to anyone that takes the time to engage with your content.
Roman explains:
“Here’s the thing about social media: it’s social. If you want to leverage it effectively, it’s not a place for you to advertise and walk away. It is not a billboard. It’s a community.”
For that reason, and also because it’s important to customize content for different social media sites, he cautions against relying too heavily on aggregators like Hootesuite, which enable you to post to multiple media simultaneously.
“Don’t always think it’s business-to-consumer,” advises John. “Focus on business-to-business relationships as well.”
Focus on business-to-business relationships as well.
John says that he spends time every week networking with new immigration attorneys across the country to see what kinds of cases he can refer to them. In the future, they’ll refer cases to him. These kinds of informal business-to-business referral networks can be highly effective marketing tools.
We’re all busy and it never feels like the right time to fully overhaul your marketing strategy and launch an ambitious all encompassing campaign.
So start small, and build.
“If you’re doing nothing, [getting started with marketing] is really easy because any small step is incrementally massive,” explains Roman. He continues, “You want to lead with what your brand is because that gives you the lens through which your content comes out.”
Roman describes how putting out a small amount of targeted content each day builds traction and snowballs as that traction increases your confidence and social media following.
“Videos are like real estate,” says John. He describes how a naturalization video that he put out five years ago still “pays dividends” by generating an average of $1,000 per month in new revenue.
A high quantity strategy of putting out large amounts of content can pay off if one in a hundred posts or videos strikes the right chord.
Although not every video or post will generate this level of success, a high quantity strategy of putting out large amounts of content can pay off if one in a hundred posts or videos strikes the right chord. “Some videos get a hundred views, some get twenty thousand views… you never know which one it’s going to be,” he says.
John Q. Khosravi is the Managing Attorney of JQK Immigration Law Firm, focusing solely on marriage Green Cards, immigrant investors, and applicants with extraordinary abilities. John has also taught Immigration Law at Pepperdine and Loyola Law Schools. John also trains immigration lawyers through the “Immigration Lawyers Toolbox” and is the host of the “Immigration Lawyers Podcast.”
Roman Zelichenko is an immigration lawyer, the co-founder and CEO of immigration tech startup LaborLess, and the founder of Zelichenko Creative, a marketing and consulting agency that helps immigration firms and businesses grow through branding, original content and LinkedIn coaching. Roman's theory is that good marketing is requires a good story, whether on your website, your LinkedIn profile or during client conversations. Roman leverages a decade of improv theater experience to tell his own story every day and help others do the same.
