5 Reasons for Patent Attorneys to Email Clients

Whether you’re growing your patent practice or strengthening relationships with existing clients, a well-timed and informative email can not only provide value but give you a valuable opportunity to further develop your business. 

Here are five emails you can send to your clients now.

1. Talk about your competitors

This may seem counterintuitive, but talking to your clients about your competitors is an opportunity to highlight how you are a fit for their patent portfolio.

Send a side-by-side comparison report to compare the performance of your firm with that competitor. Using Juristat’s competitive intelligence reports, you can highlight where you top your competition on allowance rate, months to disposition, filing volume, OA response time, and more. You can even narrow this data down to specific technology centers or art units that matter most to your client.

With access to patent analytics tools like Juristat, you can pull the benchmark data and compare those numbers to the success rate of your firm, your competitors, or even the in-house team of your client’s company. 

2. You’re worth the investment; show them you’ve got the ROI data to prove it

With clients continuing to mind their budgets, firms need to demonstrate the cost savings and ROI they bring to the table. Communicating the exact dollar value of your work can lead to more trust in trust in client relationships and can persuade new clients to enlist your firm.

For example, using analytics, your firm can compare your (superior!) OA track record to that of your client’s in-house team or even competing outside counsel. Assuming that the cost for preparation and filing is the same, your average number of office actions could make a big difference in securing a faster and less expensive prosecution. Tying these analytics to true costs can help clients see, in a clear dollar format, the benefit of working with your firm. 

3. Highlight business opportunities with 102 Forward Citation Reports

Do your clients see your relationship as limited to patent filing and prosecution? Send them an email showing them you are a proactive partner.

With Juristat 102 Forward Citation Reports, you'll know each time an examiner forward cites an issued patent or patent application against competitors in 102 rejections.

That means you can protect your client from patent infringement with just a few easy clicks. You can also quickly identify your client’s most valuable patents and applications, discover licensing opportunities, catch potential infringement, and make data-driven decisions around maintenance fees.

4. What’s the news?

If there is a breaking update at the USPTO (let’s say they’re switching to DOCX filing…maybe), your clients shouldn’t hear it through the grapevine. They should hear it from you first.

Sending a regular newsletter educates your clients on what is happening in the world of patent prosecution, thereby helping you manage expectations. It also gives you the opportunity to become their thought leader and information authority. There should be no doubt in their minds that you are up to speed on the latest developments and initiatives that can help their business.

5. Ask for feedback

Your relationship with your clients is a key part of your business’s success. While using metrics to quantify their ROI with your firm is great, you can also use email communication to be proactive about their concerns.

Reaching out gives your clients an opportunity to provide you with feedback or ask any questions they may have lingering. It provides a safe, low-stakes way for them to weigh in informally on how the relationship is going. This means you’ve created a safe, low-stakes way to improve your standing with the client.

A quick check-in email also keeps you top of mind with your client. You may have a largely smooth and successful partnership with little need for back and forth. That is great! But it also means that they may have yet to develop a personal sense of loyalty to your firm, making it that much easier for a competitor to swoop in and sow doubt about your partnership, whether it is warranted or not.

Communication, email or otherwise, is key to keeping your client portfolio strong. Having the right data to back up that communication can take those business development efforts to the next level. See how Juristat can help.