SMS/text messaging is one of the most effective ways of communicating with busy people. A short and ‘to the point’ message takes seconds to read and can generate a response just as quickly, whereas traditional means of marketing communications; emails and newspaper advertising, even a telephone campaign, take a great deal of time to organise and can prove to be very costly for a solicitors.

From around 4p per message, texting is a cost effective channel of communicating with claimants, which means a much greater proportion of the money you’ll make from an SMS campaign comes back into your business. And it could be easily be integrated into any traditional forms of advertising you currently run on TV, radio and print.

As well as alerting more people to your firm you can also use the Crowd Connect mobile solutions to interact with your clients via text messaging and even create a mobile presence on the web. The benefits of this are that you can educate consumers on their rights regarding personal injury, and you can help them through the legal process with regular updates of how their case is progressing.
SMS marketing can help you to:

• SMS your existing client database to see if they have any referral cases for you.
• Send occasional text messages with safety tips to help people avoid common injuries.
• Advertise your business on local radio stations where listeners can text in an injury claim to a shortcode number.

Improve your customer service

• SMS reminders to claimants of upcoming dates in their case.
• Generate feedback and measure service – give your client the opportunity to fill out a feedback card and leave their mobile number once the case has been decided. This will help you measure the service your solicitors provided and you could then offer some form of retail vouchers to those who may have experienced poor service. This creates positive word of mouth about your firm.

Knowing what to write
Text messages can only be 160 characters long (including spaces), so there’s no room for waffling. It’s important that you get to the point quickly and that claimants understand exactly what you’re offering them. As a rule, you should make sure that once you have created your message, it answers these three key questions;

1.   Why you are contacting them e.g. what message are you making to the potential   claimant?
2.   When should they act? e.g. is there a free consultation or no win/no fee incentive?
3.   What do they need to do next? e.g. Should they call or visit your firms website?

It’s important to keep the style of your messages friendly and chatty but at the same time, your message is clear and concise.

How do I use mobile to interact with my claimants?

Interactive text messaging enables you to engage with potential clients by encouraging them to text in a short-code to receive a variety of information. Imagine enhancing your current advertising by prompting customers to text in a keyword for example text ‘INJURY’ to 81059 and receive a call back from a solicitor within your firm. This is just one of the ways that businesses are taking advantage of the shift in consumer behaviour regarding the use of mobile phones as a way of life. It’s also a great way to build your mobile database and allows clients to opt-in to your mobile marketing campaigns.

Why should I have a mobile website?
80% of Smartphone owners regularly access the internet via their phone. Chances are, before long your customers may try and access your website via their mobile. If your website is not optimised for mobile, clients will receive a clumsy, unformatted experience. Research shows when claimants are faced with this, they simply click away to one that is formatted for mobile. With Crowd Connect, we can create an m-site for you in a matter of hours. It can include your branded logo, locations, details on your injury services and contact information. We’ll even reserve a mobile URL that will be recognised as an m-site on smartphones, which will give you a higher relevance listing on search engines!

If you do not have a web presence yet, we will guide you through the process to develop an m-site from start to finish. Solicitors today need to adapt to how claimants are using the web to make decisions of all kinds, so now is the time to get your firm found by people who have experienced a recent personal injury.

How much is too much?
People these days expect to receive information on their mobile devices, but they may not be so pleased to hear from you if your messages start to become too regular. We recommend contacting clients not more than once per month. For the majority of claimants, one per month is enough to remind them of your personal injury services.

Protecting your client data
The final thing to consider before you embark on an SMS campaign is: Who should manage your mobile marketing? Who in your firm should be given the responsibility of maintaining your client database and ensuring the right messages are sent to the right people? In truth, there is only really one answer to this question. Your client contact database, in particular the mobile numbers it contains should be highly protected. Only the firm’s manager should be able to access this and they should have the final say on the content of messages and when and who will receive them.

For a free consultation and trial of how mobile marketing can help your business, please go to http://www.crowd-connect.co.uk and get in touch.