McKinsey & Co. recently posted an article on their Insights page about something we’ve known for a long time:  email works better than social media when it comes to getting new clients:

Of course it does.  Email, done right, is you having a one-to-one opportunity with your prospects.  And when I say done right, I mean you have a good list of people who want to hear what you have to say and you have segmented that list down to the gnat’s eyebrow when it comes to what they need from you.

Oh yes, it’s work.  It’s always easier to send out a mass email blast and hope that someone bites.  But you are doing your marketing efforts a disservice – and, worse, inconveniencing your prospects – by sending messages that have no relevance to them.

In their research, McKinsey found that having customized landing pages for your email offers can increase conversion rates by more than 25%.  What is a customized landing page?  Say you are offering your prospects a free report in your monthly e-newsletter.  When they click on the link, they are taken to a web page that goes into a little more detail about what is in the free report, and has a few boxes to capture their name and email address. 

McKinsey also noted 2013 eMarketer.com research that found nearly 45% of all marketing emails are now opened on a mobile device.  If your landing page is not optimized for mobile, you have lost an opportunity to engage your prospect (maybe forever, as Google reports 61% of users who can’t access a mobile page will not return – and 40% visit a competitor’s website instead!).

So don’t neglect your email marketing as you integrate other tactics like social media into your legal marketing program.  Email still has a lot to give when you do it right.