AI’s potential value in marketing personal injury law firms is inarguable, but getting the most out of AI tools requires thought, persistence, and high-quality data for the models to work with. In this article, we’ll discuss how the use of data enrichment gives those AI tools the higher-quality data they need, and how that, in turn, helps inform the prompts you use to generate results. The end result is less trial and error, creating a virtuous cycle of efficiency and improved ROI on your marketing efforts.
Law firms remain responsible for complying with all applicable advertising, solicitation, privacy, and professional conduct rules in their jurisdiction, including any restrictions on contacting represented parties or individuals involved in pending matters. Spokeo does not provide legal advice or determine whether a specific outreach method is permissible.
Cleaning Data Sets
Before we get into all the ways in which you can use AI as an extension of your marketing team, let’s focus on the basics: good, clean data and prompting.
Over time, almost any database holding consumer or client contact records will become less accurate and bloated with information that’s out of date or duplicated elsewhere in its files. That’s often called “data ROT,” with rot being an acronym for Redundant, Obsolete, or Trivial information.
In marketing, trivial information can still be useful, but redundant and obsolete data wastes resources and slows access to all of the database’s content. Performing “data hygiene” (data cleaning) periodically to identify duplicates and replace outdated information helps combat rot and ensures your AI tools will have the best data to work with when you go to use them. AI tools can help flag duplicate data, and data enrichment providers like Spokeo for Business can help you validate contact information data for vast swaths of leads and past clients efficiently.
Sample prompts for using AI to help with data hygiene and cleaning include…
- “Using a de-identified dataset (no names, phone numbers, emails, or addresses), identify duplicate record patterns and recommend deduplication rules.”
- “Create a data hygiene checklist for our CRM: field formats, validation rules, deduping logic, and a quarterly review process.”
- “Draft internal SOP language for validating and updating contact fields using enrichment results, including how to document changes and handle disputes.”
Identifying Under-Served Content Topics (Without Targeting Individuals)
It’s common for firms to look for patterns in the types of cases that appear in publicly available sources, such as aggregate court statistics, published opinions, or community safety reports. The goal should be to understand which case categories and questions are most common, so your firm can publish educational content that better serves prospective clients.
If you are analyzing any dataset that contains personal information, focus on aggregated trends rather than targeting individuals. Spokeo for Business can help validate and update contact data for people who have already opted into communication (for example, inbound leads and prior clients), improving data quality and reducing operational friction.
A sample set of prompts for this use case might include:
- “Summarize the most common personal injury questions from our inbound inquiries (de-identified) and propose 10 content topics.”
- “Using aggregated lead data by ZIP code (no personal identifiers), identify areas where we receive the most inquiries and propose localized content ideas.”
- “Draft a content calendar that aligns with the top 5 case categories we see, including blog, email, and short-form video concepts.”
Using Your Existing Client Base as a Template for New Marketing Efforts
As we’ve observed previously in this post, people who resemble your existing clients are among the very best prospects of all. This makes your existing client base a fruitful target for analysis and segmenting, to identify characteristics which can then provide a template for the ideal potential client your marketing efforts should target.
Before we get into a few ways to prompt AI for marketing purposes, you could use it to identify trends within your existing client base that may be applicable to future marketing strategy decisions. For example, you could ask your AI tool to…
Law firms remain responsible for ensuring that using AI in connection with client information does not waive attorney-client privilege
- Review the client data of cases where you’ve had successful outcomes, in search of trends and commonalities.
- Review the client data of cases where outcomes have been unfavorable, to a) learn how they differ from your successes, and b) identify characteristics you may wish to avoid in future marketing.
- Analyze your hours billed and settlement amounts in successful cases to understand which types of cases and clients are most profitable for your firm.
While your client files contain a certain level of data, much of the detail and nuance will be missing. If you use a batch search or Spokeo’s powerful application programming interface (API) to flesh out your client data in greater depth, your AI data analysis tools will be able to draw on that enriched data to uncover connections that might otherwise have remained hidden, and that could be extremely valuable to your future marketing efforts.
Potential prompts for this use-case might include…
- “Review the attached file of successful cases, and analyze them for any identifiable trends or points in common between the clients. Then, come up with 5-10 marketing campaign ideas that take advantage of those trends.”
- “Review the attached file of unsuccessful cases, and analyze the clients for points of similarity. Compare and contrast those cases and clients to identify characteristics that might lead to unsuccessful outcomes.”
- “Review the attached case files. Analyze the hours billed for each case, and the settlement amounts where applicable, to determine which types of injury cases are the most profitable for the firm.”
- “Analyze our personal-injury client files to identify and segment clients by areas of commonality, such as age, income, profession, or geographic location. Prepare a report naming those segments, and identifying what they have in common.”
On a related note, you can also ask the AI to perform a sentiment analysis of your communications with existing or past clients, to determine which of them might be receptive to a referral campaign. Potential clients with similar characteristics may, in turn, become a valuable source of referrals.
Editing Marketing Copy Based on Actual Client Data
Marketing copy is often crafted on a “best-guess” basis, with marketers or firms drawing on prior experience to decide what is important to potential clients, and how best to reach them.
Enriched data, which builds on the information contained in your client files, provided by lead generation services, or generated by inbound inquiries, can remove most of the guesswork from this process. Beginning with the data you have, and using Spokeo searches to flesh it out with deeper, more detailed information, enables you to check those assumptions against verifiable data.
Sample prompts for this purpose could include…
- “Analyze the attached marketing copy for assumptions about the clients’ demographics, financial status, and legal needs. Compare that to the information in the attached client data files, calling out any discrepancies between assumptions and reality.”
- “Using the attached marketing database, generate 5-10 messaging angles that will resonate deeply with different segments of potential clients.”
Identifying Trends Within Existing Leads
Your firm likely already has some level of inbound leads, and while those leads are valuable potential clients, they’re also valuable potential learning points for your marketing team. By enhancing your existing lead data with enriched contact information provided by a tool like Spokeo for Business, you can empower AI marketing tools with a treasure trove of data that can be used to identify trends and segments that your marketing team can tap into with highly specific campaigns.
A few sample prompts that you could use for this purpose include…
- “Analyze the attached enriched lead database and identify any trends in case types by geographic area. Generate a report detailing those trends that includes 3-5 ways to create marketing messaging and campaigns to better take advantage of them.”
- “Analyze the attached enriched lead database and segment customers into actionable sub-groups for retargeting marketing campaigns based on case type.”
- “Analyze the attached enriched lead database to identify the most common types of cases we receive inquiries about. Then, come up with ideas for a holistic marketing campaign that will help drive awareness for practice areas we receive fewer inquiries about.”
Improving Intake Call Guides for Inbound Leads
For most firms, the highest-quality conversations come from inbound inquiries (calls, form fills, chat). AI can help your team improve intake call guides by making them clearer, more empathetic, and more consistent—while staying aligned with your firm’s policies and applicable professional rules.
As with marketing copy more broadly, AI can quickly parse your current scripts and compare them to enriched client data you’ve generated with Spokeo for Business and other tools.
A sample prompt for this purpose might read…
- “Review the attached intake call guide (no client identifiers). Identify unclear language, missing compliance disclosures, and opportunities to improve empathy and clarity. Rewrite the guide while preserving structure.”
Repurposing Content Across Marketing Channels
The range of marketing channels currently available for firms to take advantage of is unprecedented. Targeted advertising on search engines and social media sites, blogs, social posts, and short-form videos, and even old-school direct-mail or email campaigns are all part of the mix. Each of those channels has its own quirks and challenges, and what works on one won’t necessarily work in another without adaptation.
Yet, creating new content from scratch for each marketing channel you use is time-consuming and wasteful of resources. It’s typically more efficient to task your marketing team with creating a smaller amount of high-value original content, and then use a marketing-specific AI like Jasper or Crayo (for copywriting and short-form videos, respectively) to repurpose your existing content so that it meets the needs of a new channel.
Sample prompts for this purpose might include…
- “Analyze the attached blog post. Extract three key points, and craft a 280-character summary of each point as a separate social media post, retaining the blog post’s original phrasing and tone whenever possible.”
- “Analyze the attached case study. Then, use it to create a series of three emails that summarize its key points, appeal to the needs of similar clients, and encourage prospective clients to book a call with us. Each should have A and B versions of the subject line to encourage readers to open it.”
Competitor Research and Analysis
One thing AIs excel at is the analysis of large volumes of documentation. It’s a level of reading speed and analysis that humans would struggle with, whereas it’s an area of strength for the AI. One way to harness that capability to your benefit is through analysis of your competitors’ marketing efforts.
The AI can rapidly parse as many of your competitors’ sites, blog posts, email campaigns, and other marketing initiatives as you can find. It should be able to identify recurring themes in their marketing and make deductions about the clients they’re targeting and what their goals are. Asking AI to compare and contrast with your own marketing will reveal areas that one firm targets, and the other doesn’t. Cross-referencing that information against any specific trends or areas of interest you’ve identified in the pool of potential clients gives you the option of either expanding your own marketing into niches you’ve overlooked or going head-to-head with your competitors in their own niches.
Prompts for this use case might include…
- “Review the attached files and screen captures of competitors’ marketing messages. Analyze them for trends, and identify positioning themes, service lines emphasized, and content formats used; summarize how their messaging differs from ours.”
- “Compare the style, tone, and target audience of [competitor]’s marketing, and explain how it compares and contrasts with our own.”
- “Identify specific market niches not currently targeted by our firm or our competitors.”
Better Data, Better Marketing
This post isn’t intended to be a complete guide but a discussion starter, pointing the way to more efficient and productive use of the AI tools you’re already using. While they’re powerful in their own right, they can only be as useful as the data they’re given.
Leaning into Spokeo’s powerful data-enrichment capabilities provides your AI tools with a higher level of information to work with. That helps them generate more nuanced and accurate insights, which in turn will provide your firm with better-quality information to serve as a foundation for your marketing plans.
To learn how Spokeo for Business can support data quality, information resolution, and CRM enrichment workflows, contact our team through the Spokeo for Business page.
Note: Spokeo Terms of Use prohibit sharing Spokeo data with third-party services that can make commercial use of the data. More broadly, law firms should avoid uploading client or lead personal data into general-purpose AI tools unless they have appropriate permissions, controls, and contractual protections in place. When using AI, prefer de-identified inputs and process-based prompts.
Sources
Iron Mountain: Digital Detox: Practical Ways to Clean up ROT