Your marketing, if you’re doing it correctly, you need to know absolutely everything about your prospects. Without that information, how can you possibly target who is most likely to need your help?
That means you need demographic data in order to get your job done. Up until recently, getting that information was costly and time-consuming. Fortunately, the Internet makes all things possible (well, many things).
Check out Social Explorer. Developed at Queens College of the City University of New York, the site’s objective is “to help visually analyze and understand the demography of the U.S. through the use of interactive maps and data reports.” It includes a series of interactive census maps using U.S. census data back to 1940. These maps provide visual displays of census data for the entire country or any location within it for dozens of categories and subcategories. Use it, for example, to find out how many single-parent homeowners are concentrated in specific zip codes in your area.
Oh, and one more thing . . . use of the site’s basic functions is free.
Thanks to Robert Ambrogi’s LawSites for pointing out this valuable tool.
So, how do you propose to use this information to market a bankruptcy practice? The world is full of information, more and more of it accessible. But what use can we economically make of it?
Cathy
So, how do you propose to use this information to market a bankruptcy practice? The world is full of information, more and more of it accessible. But what use can we economically make of it?
Cathy
An excellent question. The first step is to know who your clients are: where do they live, how old are they, what is their racial make-up, how many children do they have, etc.? Once you’ve done all this work (which you can probably get from your old files just by reading them) you can “model” your client.
Modeling allows you to know exactly who your client is, to visualize those people most likely to need your help, and to know everything about them. The more you know about your ideal client, the easier it is to find more of them.
For example, let’s say my ideal client is a single mother between the ages of 34-42, two grade school children, renting an apartment in zip code 10038. She doesn’t own a home or a car, gets no child support for her children, and sends money to her family in the Caribbean.
If I want more of that client to walk through my doors, I can contact a mailing list broker and let them know who I’m looking for. Think of it as, “Where’s Waldo” for bankruptcy cases. A good list broker will tell me where my prospects congregate – what they read, what they watch on TV, all that good information. With that information, I can know where and how to market.
An excellent question. The first step is to know who your clients are: where do they live, how old are they, what is their racial make-up, how many children do they have, etc.? Once you've done all this work (which you can probably get from your old files just by reading them) you can "model" your client.
Modeling allows you to know exactly who your client is, to visualize those people most likely to need your help, and to know everything about them. The more you know about your ideal client, the easier it is to find more of them.
For example, let's say my ideal client is a single mother between the ages of 34-42, two grade school children, renting an apartment in zip code 10038. She doesn't own a home or a car, gets no child support for her children, and sends money to her family in the Caribbean.
If I want more of that client to walk through my doors, I can contact a mailing list broker and let them know who I'm looking for. Think of it as, "Where's Waldo" for bankruptcy cases. A good list broker will tell me where my prospects congregate – what they read, what they watch on TV, all that good information. With that information, I can know where and how to market.