Marketing your Process Service Business to Legal Association Members

The beginning process server business person referred to in my last blog also requested some guidance on marketing to Bar Associations. “Do I just hand out flyers or business cards introducing myself to the people that are there letting them know I’m offering a service? Is it okay for me to be marketing or promoting my business to these people in the association?”

That's a very good question, and one you always want to ask before promoting to any group you belong to. Do not just assume that it will be okay.

With regard to bar associations, as long as you are allowed to attend meetings, by all means, go and work on building relationships with other attendees. The key words in that last statement are “building relationships”. Networking is critical in most businesses, and the process service business is no different.  Networking requires the building of relationships; as in getting to "know, like and trust" one another. While you may not get any work right away, over time potential clients will get to know you. By building rapport, when they are looking for a server, they will already know you thus making your chances of being selected far greater than someone they would just have to pick out of a list of server companies.

I find networking events invaluable and attend them as often as I can find them. Do not be anxious to drop your business cards right away. If you have ever entered a room and had a stranger thrust their business card into your hand with hardly so much as a hello, you can understand why.  Do, however, take business cards with you. When, and only when, someone asks for a card, give them three; one card for them to keep and, the other two cards for them to share.

Remember, networking is not about the “hard sell”. It is a soft sell process achieved through the building of relationships over time where you discuss business as well as personal topics. Over time, by building rapport and trust, the potential client becomes a friend, or at the very least a good acquaintance, who in turn becomes a client or referral partner.

I hope these points have been helpful. For more helpful information such as this, read through my past blog posts or check out my book, “The Business End of Process, Running a Process Service Company From the Ground Up” available on Amazon.com. http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=%22The+Business+End+of+Process%22&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3A%22The+Business+End+of+Process%22&ajr=0.

Direct Mail Marketing for your Process Service Business

I recently received an email from a process server who recently started his own process serving business. He had read my book, “The Business End of Process Service” and had a few questions about marketing his business. I felt it might be helpful to others to share my response.

His first question was about direct mail and whether it mattered where or how his post cards were sent as long as they made it to the law office. He also wanted to know if there was a way to consolidate post card sending and gear it toward a specific target to increase chances of it being seen.

When it comes to direct mailing, the key is to go high volume to a specific target group. In this case your direct mail piece (post cards) would be targeted to law firms. It does not matter if the post cards are addressed to the attorney because the legal secretary will generally be the one to sort through the mail as it comes in. Post cards, or for that matter most any direct mail,  operates strictly by the numbers; the more you send the better your chances that someone who is in need of a process server will find your card in their mail box.

Typically, most established law firms will already be working with a process server. Sometimes, however, the server they are using may not be providing good service and the law firm may already be on the lookout for a replacement. If you are sending out high volume, chances are the very day they are thinking of replacing their server is the day they receive your post card.

By high volume send outs, I am referring to sending anywhere from 100 to 1000 per week. Once you have sent post cards to every attorney on your list, resend them to the entire list again, and again, and again. This is known as a marketing campaign, where you market to the same target over and over. You can use the same card or you may want to vary it a little to see which style of card brings about the best results.

The reason for being redundant and repetitive is that usually, from a marketing standpoint, a customer may not pay much attention to you the first time your postcard arrives. After they have seen it 4-5 times you are then, on a subconscious level, “on their radar”. High volume is more likely to equal having your post card land on someone’s desk at just the right time.

Next post, I’ll share my thoughts on attending association events to market your business. More information on this and other relevant topics to running a process server business are available in my book “The Business End of Process, Running a Process Service Company From the Ground Up” available on Amazon.com. http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=%22The+Business+End+of+Process%22&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3A%22The+Business+End+of+Process%22&ajr=0.