Blog
Why direct mail takes time to work?
One mistake we see attorneys frequently make is expecting direct mail advertising to be an instant success. They start mailing and the flood of calls they were expecting does not happen. They want to pull the plug on the campaign just two or three weeks after starting. What these attorneys don’t understand is that direct mail takes time to work.
The biggest reason why has to do with when the law firm sends out the flyer or postcard and the long period of time before the court dates arrive. When a person is charged or cited or arrested, Direct Legal Mail collects that data. Sometimes we rely on Government feeds to obtain the data. Other times we rely on websites maintained by the local Clerk of Court or Jail. Usually, when the officer cites/arrests/charges someone, that record gets into the jail, clerk of court, or central administrative office of the courts system quickly, often the same day. We collect the data the same day, with a lot of the data being collected between 5pm and midnight. We supply our clients with the data the next morning.
Our law firm clients then use the data to mail off their advertisements to these potential clients. But remember, this is all happening within 1-3 days of when the defendant was arrested/cited/charged. The court dates for these defendants are still 4—6 weeks away! And people procrastinate. And criminal defendants are even more likely to procrastinate. Therefore, most of the direct mail pieces that you mail off now will only generate calls 4-6 weeks from now. But if you get discouraged and give up after 2-3 weeks, you will miss out on these calls.
When we get a new client here at Direct Legal Mail, we let that client know that direct mail takes time to work. The hardest month will be the first month, because in the first month you are spending a lot on postage, envelopes, paper, ink, labor, and everything else that it takes to get a direct mail advertising regime up and running in your law firm. But the paying clients only start to arrive 4-6 weeks later. As the months go by though, results in improve. You can expect a considerable improvement month-over-month until about 5 months in. After about 5 months, results start to plateau because you are now saturating the market and generating paying clients today from the mail pieces that you mailed 4-6 weeks ago.
Even after 5 months though, you can still see a serious improvement in performance if you are doing a good job for your clients. This is because of referrals. After you have been mailing for at least 5 months, you would have built up a nice sized database of former clients. And these former clients will get in additional trouble and will become repeat clients. Also, your former clients will refer their work colleagues, family members, and friends to you. And the cases will start to pour in. And the best part is that you don’t have to spend any money getting these additional cases. Referrals are free!