Feature

posted 29 Jan 2010 in Volume 15 Issue 2

MARKETING TO ELDERLY CLIENTS

We are an ageing population, fast approaching a staggering 65 million people in the UK, and demographically we will have more elderly clients to look after than ever before. If we are to believe statistics, we are, as a nation, 65 per cent intestate, and this presents a huge market opportunity for the preparation of wills and also the more potentially lucrative probate that inevitably follows.

Assuming that your firm has not specialised in elderly client care in the past, there is no doubt that it will become an ever-increasing opportunity to market legal services in the future. Let’s not kid ourselves – elderly clients demand a very high level of client care and you will have to devote considerable time to their needs to ensure that your service is not only acceptable, but so is the considerable after care involved.

Don’t assume that, just because you acted for a married couple several years ago when they purchased their home, they consider you still to be their law firm of choice:

Have you been in regular contact with them?
Have you encouraged them to have wills written or reviewed?
Did you inform them about the changes in enduring powers of attorney becoming lasting powers?

In other words, have you been proactive in marketing to your aging clients in the past, keeping them informed of changes or opportunities to help them with their forthcoming retirement or helping and advising those who wished to release equity from their properties?

Probably not, as the majority of law firms have never considered the essential aspect of marketing to this very niche and specialised market.

There are of course, two specific markets – the high net worth elderly and the ever-growing, ageing population without pensions or any provisions for retirement.

Let’s explore the opportunities in reverse order – if you are dealing with publicly funded work, there is a desperate, ever-increasing need to help the elderly with legal services. From Care in the Community to Help the Aged, organisations will need the support of local law firms to assist with care of our aging communities. Taking your will and probate specialists into care homes and offering advice clinics, not generally run as a seminar but as a clinic, will encourage those ageing clients that do not have a will to do so.

Alternatively, providing a local speaker with an interesting talk sponsored by your firm will encourage a good attendance. I have known some firms to provide a musical evening with local musicians, followed by an open clinic for general legal enquiries. In other words, trying to run a seminar about why we all need a will does not work.

How good is your website?

The internet is used as much by the ‘silver surfers’ if not more than any other generation – do you have a specific section on your site dedicated to both the ageing population and the potentially elderly client? Are you using search engine optimisation to develop your proposition?

Having a specialised niche website completely separate from your main site has huge opportunities if you can devise simple products to market. If you can productise some of these services you should not restrict your market by your geographical location. We will cover some specific productising of services later in this article.

Growth of SAGA and other related services (is 60 the new 50?), those high net worth individuals that have purchased their own home and whose children have left further education are an exciting opportunity for the progressive thinking law firm. These ‘free spirits’ remember the feeling that they enjoyed in their youth during the freedom of the 1960s and 1970s – what are their expectations in 2010 and beyond?

There are four key aspects to a firm’s website that must be right. These are:

Consistent design and presentation – a good website will be consistent with the off-line brand, for example, the firm’s logo, colours and so on. Getting a letter with a boring square blue logo on and then going to a firm’s website only to find a modern, multi-coloured design sends a confused mixed message to clients;
Current legal news content – it is no longer good enough to have a few pages of description on what the firm does and a contact page with a map (albeit this is still very important). A good website will have up-to-date content. It is often possible to buy this content in so that time is not distracted from fee-earning;
Staff biographies – research has shown that the staff pages of a firm’s website are likely to be one of the areas of the site that people look at most. After all, ours is a people business and people like to read about people – it’s why the tabloid newspapers continue to thrive! Many firms will list ALL staff, not just fee- earners. Your elderly clients greatly value the opportunity to see and meet with a face they recognise; and,
Website statistics – it is sensible to have some kind of web statistics package to monitor activity on the website particularly for those products targeting the elderly clients, for example, using products such as Google Analytics.

Going forward, any website must be kept current. If a member of staff leaves, ensure their profile is promptly removed from the site and, likewise, add new ones.

The easiest way to update a website is to have it built initially using a content management system (CMS) – such changes could include a change of text on the homepage, the addition of a news story and so on.

Search engine optimisation

Although most law firms’ business comes from repeat clients, referrals and recommendations, new firms may not have a large pool of clients to support this. In such circumstances, it will be key to ensure that the firm’s website can be found easily by people who do happen to search Google for ‘solicitor, Bristol’, for example.

Research across 200 websites has shown that over 90 per cent of people seeking a law firm are using Google to do their searching. So, for this reason, most search engine optimisation (SEO) techniques focus on what Google is looking for.

SEO is a very broad subject, but there are four key aspects that firms will need to concentrate on to ensure that their websites will be well indexed by Google:

Correct coding – the website needs to be built using the latest programming techniques to help ensure that it is fully indexed by Google;
Meta tags – this is a field that is coded into each page of the website. Each page should have a different meta <title> and main keywords need to be in the meta <title> of the home page of the website; and,
Page structure – pages must be structured correctly with the correct use of heading tags (H1, H2, etc.). Just like in a Word document, the heading styles define the importance of various sections, for example, H1 is more important than H2. Keywords need to appear in the headings.

So, what does your website say about you?

Your firm’s printed and published image

Elderly clients, and more importantly prospective elderly clients, will form their first impression of a law firm from its letterhead, business card or brochure. While we need to be ‘different’ from all the other law firms, we still need to project our firms in the correct manner when marketing to this niche sector.

On the one hand, we will need to demonstrate integrity, precision, experience, thoroughness and so on. On the other hand, it will be desirable to show progressiveness, ingenuity, forward-thinking, an aggressive approach, high technology and so on.

Law firms need to develop an appearance that maintains all of the above and keeps the chosen theme consistent throughout all printed materials.

It is also vitally important to have a website that maintains the same image. Many of a law firms’ clients may view its website on a regular basis; therefore it is imperative that this website is kept topical and up-to-date, with all the latest news stories.

Websites are the new ‘brochure’ and many a potential new client will view a law firm’s website prior to an initial meeting, so a consistent image is essential.

The importance of wealth management and your local independent financial adviser

Children grown up, no mortgage – surplus cash, wealth management will be high on their agenda and therefore working closely with independent financial advisers (IFAs) will be an essential relationship for any law firm to develop that wish to grow their elderly client portfolio.

The 360 Legal Group has evolved a national arrangement with Positive Solutions, the largest independent IFA group in the UK with 1,700 highly qualified IFA, many of whom specialise with elderly clients. The work flow they could generate will be passed through a get work gateway for our members.

On condition you comply with the regulatory requirements and have a well-worded rule 2 letter, it is estimated you can produce an additional five per cent profitability of your total income from elderly clients.

Any local relationship with an IFA who understands the opportunity with elderly clients is worth encouraging.

Alternative business structures (ABSs) are less than two years away and a joint venture with an IFA or group of IFAs would be a natural progression towards marketing legal services to the elderly.

Funeral homes, hospices and other avenues need to be explored, and talks (rather than seminars) at various meeting places for the elderly client – afternoon dances, teas and other social gathering are a great way to educate and build trust.

Client care will have to be exceptional and this part of your market will be very demanding. Is it necessary to use qualified lawyers for this exercise or people that genuinely care? These could be paralegals or other unqualified staff that can demonstrate patience and have a sympathetic view towards these essentially demanding clients.

One lawyer used to offer a service that would collect elderly clients from nursing homes and deliver them to hospitals and so on, even collecting shopping and taking them to dentists/doctors is offered as an additional service. Needless to say, they would charge their standard hourly rate for providing this service.

While I am not advocating this as a regular service provided by lawyers, there is obviously a demand and therefore either finding such a supplier or even creating a new business offering such a service should not be ignored as an opportunity.

Creating a marketing specific programme for the various stages of ageing 65 per cent of the nation is allegedly intestate – how do you establish the need for a will with the obvious intention of a lucrative probate?

Seminars in conjunction with IFAs/SAGA and other organisations should be held at the relevant venue. Providing a speaker for an evening event at a nursing home about a relevant subject can prove extremely practical and useful.

It is essential you allow time for consultation with the potential clients. New legislation will mean that any new instructions taken in the elderly client’s home will need a ‘cooling off’ period.

Influencers

Children themselves in their 40s and 50s will have a significant influence over their ageing parents/grand parents’ decision-making. It is essential to take a pro-active approach towards the packaging and marketing of services. Funeral plans, wills and probate, executor appointments and equity release are some of the opportunities that will arise.

Marketing to existing elderly clients

Research has shown that it costs six times as much to obtain a new client as it does to market a service to an existing one. We also know that it costs nothing to ask our clients to refer and recommend us to others. Yet, most of us never ask our clients for referral business and generally take our clients for granted.

How many opportunities exist to increase revenue from satisfied clients? In our recent client surveys of over 100 law firms, over 96 per cent of clients, when asked, said they would recommend or refer the law firm to others. Yet over 99 per cent said they had never been asked!

Are all members of staff, including partners, fee-earners and support staff, aware of potential opportunities to cross-sell services? How many of them can identify the opportunity to offer an elderly client an additional service?

The classic example of this is the client who has used a rival firm for a service and when asked why they didn’t use you for that service responds: ‘I didn’t know you did that.’

This happens all too often. Consider that if each client brought an additional service from you this year, you would likely double your income. If each client introduced you to one new client of a similar value, this would have a similar effect.

The key areas that have greatest impact on the success of a legal practice and are thus of key importance are pro-activity, cross-selling, skills training, client referrals and the knowledge required to turn these ideas into profits.

When considering their marketing plan, law firms should ensure that the following three areas are included:

Being proactive and cross-selling, including:
Understanding the profile of your elderly clients;
Finding services that clients want, rather than need;
Using direct mail and telephone follow-up to communicate;
Websites and internet marketing;
Generating 100 per cent leads from seminars by disciplined follow up;
Using reception to cross-sell on your behalf;
Providing client help sheets;
Maximising simple lead generation to increase client enquiries;
Getting all staff involved in marketing; and,
Value pricing – training staff to understand that even if we know the answer to a client’s query, it does not mean that the answer is worthless!

Client referrals, including:

Asking for referrals without sounding like a salesman;
Successful networking;
Ensuring marketing materials work for the firm;
Using marketing materials to generate referrals;
Organising a regular contact by direct mail to create the most leads;
Using a successful telesales campaign to increase business;
Providing real client care;
Motivating partners, fee-earners and staff;
Introducing a successful evaluation and reward system; and,
Measuring and managing the firm’s success by client referrals.

Turning marketing ideas into profit, including:

Having the right practice structure and staff to partner ratios;
Delivering services optimising leverage and charge-out rates;
Staffing levels and recruitment;
Introducing a partner development programme;
In-house training and communication;
Obtaining a truly competitive advantage;
Using the internet efficiently to differentiate the firm;
Selecting and delivering niche services; and,
Re-designing existing services to maximise profits.

Packaging and productisation of legal services

Funeral plans are readily available and are marketed by national operations such as the Co-operative Funeral service. Finding local funeral care homes and encouraging a close working relationship will help market your legal services to elderly clients.

Wills with probate insurance (life cover by another name) can be easily packaged into a regular monthly payment plan and with subtle marketing will encourage new clients.

Finally, loyalty cards for elderly clients providing a series of benefits, for instance, discounts on a number of services that the elderly would require – local opticians, local dentists, clothing outlets, stair lifts, escorted holidays and so on – in fact, anything that an elderly client may require. Creating this loyalty system will not only provide loyalty with your client, but also generate new business from your suppliers that are prepared to give a discount for their products and services. The card could be given free by invitation only.

Viv Williams is the chief executive officer of the 360 Legal Group Ltd.He can be contacted at viv.williams@360legalgroup.co.uk