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Email Marketing in Clio Grow

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With Clio Grow, you can build and send high-quality email campaigns to engage with leads and clients. Once enabled, email marketing is accessible to all users in your firm who have access to Clio Grow. You can use email marketing campaigns to curate emails that help your firm stay top of mind, convert leads to clients, and secure repeat business. The reporting features for email marketing can also help you understand how well your campaign performed, how recipients interact with your campaigns, and how much revenue you drive from email campaigns.

Tip: Leverage information about your contacts—such as contact tags and contact types—to send emails that are relevant to them. If you also use Clio Manage, ensure that you enable shared contacts between Clio Manage and Clio Grow to receive help with premade campaigns.

Create an email marketing campaign

The email marketing campaign feature in Clio Grow guides you through every step of creating effective email campaigns. Depending on the nature of the campaign, you may need to return to the draft campaign more than once to modify and refine it. Clio Grow makes this easy by autosaving your campaign as you work. If you are working with other firm users on an email campaign, to minimize the risk of accidentally overwriting another user's work in the campaign builder, draft your email copy and brainstorm subject lines outside of the Clio Grow campaign builder.

Step 1: Create a new campaign
  1. In Clio Grow, click the main Marketing tab.
  2. Click Create campaign.

  3. Select from one of the existing campaign objectives or click Create a custom campaign.

    Tip: If you use Clio Manage in addition to Clio Grow, you can also explore the premade campaigns available to you. For each campaign, a relevant list of recipients and content has already been started for you. To get the most out of premade campaigns, make sure that you opt in to shared contacts.
Step 2: Define the campaign

  1. Optional: Click Edit name to update the campaign name.

    Note: The campaign name is for internal use and will not appear on any sent campaign emails. It is used as the marketing source label that is added to a matter. In turn, this marketing source can then be used to track metrics and matter revenue attributed to the campaign. Learn more about marketing sources here.
  2. Describe the campaign objective.
    • If you are using one of the ready-to-use campaigns, you will not be able to change the objective.
Step 3: Curate a list of recipients

You can curate your list of recipients to suit your needs by using appropriate filters, along with contact tags, contact types, and other recipient characteristics. Clio also helps you to protect your sender's reputation by automatically removing recipients who are more likely to report your emails as spam. Clio may remove recipients to whom previous emails bounced or recipients that your firm did not formally engage with, for example, those with Did not Hire statuses. Note that the latter scenario would not apply to certain campaign objectives that aim to revive lost opportunities. In addition, those who have unsubscribed from your emails on a previous campaign will also be removed from your list of recipients.

  1. Click the Recipients section to expand it.
  2. Click Add filters for the Include or Exclude options based on how you want to filter recipients based on their characteristics.
    1. For available filter options and their meanings, refer to Understand filter options to select your recipients.
  3. Select from the available options in the drop-down, then set the value(s) to filter upon.
    • The number of contacts that meet the criteria of your filters will update as you add and remove filters.
  4. Optional: Repeat the steps above to add additional filters. To remove a filter or value, click the X next to it.

  5. Optional: To manually remove a contact from the list of recipients, click View to see the list of your contacts, then click Remove in the row of the individual you want to remove.

    Note: In your Recipients list you can toggle between the Included and Removed options to see the individuals in their respective lists. You can also continue to Remove or Include previously removed individuals from their respective lists. If you apply additional filters or remove filters with your Recipients list open, click Refresh to apply the filter changes to the list of contacts. Some recipients may appear in your Removed
  6. When you are satisfied with your final list of contacts, click Next.
Important: If the number of contacts in your segment exceeds 5,000, you will be notified that only the newest 5,000 contacts will be included.

Ensure that your contacts’ email addresses are up to date to minimize the risk of email bouncing, which can occur when the email address is no longer valid or the inbox is full due to inactivity. Higher bounce rates may negatively impact your sender reputation and reduce the effectiveness of your campaign due to a lower delivery rate. You can refer to View campaign metrics to learn how to monitor relevant campaign metrics in the email marketing recipient report. Also, make sure that the content you plan to create is relevant to your list of contacts. Recipients may not find an email relevant if it is too broad, thereby increasing the risk of it being labeled as spam.

Step 4: Create your content
Tip: If you are unsure where to start, consider using the AI email feature for inspiration. To learn more, see Use AI to create your email copy.

  1. Add an email subject line.

    Tip: A short and meaningful subject line with appropriate capitalization and punctuation are less likely to be marked as spam, as is a subject line that avoids misleading or sensationalized statements. A curated subject line minimizes the risk of your email being marked as spam, thereby maintaining your sender reputation and ensuring a high deliverability rate.
  2. Create the body of the email. Provide information about how the email should address the contact.

    • Greeting format: Use the Contact name options dropdown to select how the recipient will be addressed. When you select an option, the text in brackets in the Greeting format represents your selection and serves as a placeholder for the recipient's details. You can edit text outside of the brackets. As an example, “Happy holidays, [First Name]!” would display as “Happy holidays, Gabriela!”

      Note: To comply with anti-spam laws, your firm’s name and address in Clio Grow will automatically be added to emails, along with the option for the recipient to unsubscribe from emails.
  3. When the subject line and content are ready, click Next.
Note: Campaigns autosave as you work. Find your draft campaigns in the Email campaigns table.
Step 5: Send the campaign

  1. Optional, but recommended: Click Send test email > Send test email to preview what your email will look like to recipients and to review the subject line, greeting, email body, sign off, and the firm signature (firm name and address) for any issues or errors.

    Note: Check your spam folder if you do not see the test email in your inbox.

  2. Once you are satisfied with the email, click Send email > Send email.

    Important: This action cannot be undone. Only send the email when you are certain all aspects of the campaign have been reviewed.

Your email campaign will be sent to recipients in sequential batches over a short period.

 

Edit or delete in-progress campaigns

Campaigns that have not yet been sent can be edited and/or deleted.

Edit Delete
Important: When editing an existing email campaign that other Clio Grow users are also contributing to, ensure you communicate with those collaborators. Clio Grow’s email campaign builder autosaves as you work to make sure no changes are lost, but this may cause work to be overwritten if two or more users are simultaneously working on the same campaign.
  1. In Clio Grow, go to the main Marketing tab.
  2. Click the name of the relevant campaign (with a Draft status), or click Actions > Edit.

 

Understand filter options to select your recipients

The following filter options are available to create a segment.

Contact tag is: Contact tags in Clio Grow allow you to add any identifier to your contacts. Learn more about creating Grow tags and adding them to contacts.

Contact type is: Contact types in Clio Grow allow you to distinguish between contacts who are leads, clients, or those who did not retain your services. Learn more about contact types.

Matter type is: Matter type in Clio Grow provides information about the practice area of the matter. Learn more about matter types in Clio Grow and how to create and manage matter types.

Matter status is: Matter status in Clio Grow provides a measure of the stage a matter is in, from its creation to its conclusion. You may recognize these as the statuses in the Pipeline columns. Learn more about how to create and manage matter statuses in Clio Grow.

Form is pending since: When you send a form to a Clio Grow contact and before the contact fills and submits the form, it will be in a pending state. You can view all pending forms in Forms > Pending. This field allows you to filter contacts with pending forms based on the date the form was sent.

Document is pending since: When you send a document to a Clio Grow contact and before the contact fills and submits the form, it will be in a pending state. You can view all pending forms in Forms > Pending. This field allows you to filter contacts with pending forms based on the date the form was sent.

Practice area is: Practice area is information synced from Clio Manage. It provides information about the practice area of the matter. Learn more about matter types in Clio Manage and how to create and manage practice areas.

Matter close date is between: This field allows you to filter contacts based on the date a matter status was set to 'Close'.

 

Use AI to create your email copy

If you are not sure where to start with creating clear and engaging content that follows best practices for email marketing campaigns, you can use the AI feature to help you create the subject line, greeting, and body of the email (i.e., step 4 in Create an Email marketing campaign). Ensure that your recipients are added before using the AI feature, so that the suggested content is tailored to them.

Note: In some instances the AI feature may not be able to generate content that is relevant to or appropriate for the list of recipients. When this happens, try adjusting your list of recipients to generate different content.
  1. In the Content block, click Draft email.
  2. Optional: If you are not satisfied with the draft and would like the AI to try again, click the regenerate icon (next to Drafted by AI).
  3. When you are generally satisfied with the AI-generated draft, click Insert email.
    • This will populate the various fields in the Content blocks with the AI-generated text.
  4. Make any required adjustments to the Subject, Greeting format, Contact name options, and Body, then click Next.
  5. Proceed as you usually would with sending the email.

 

Manage campaigns

In the main Marketing tab, your Email campaigns table will show the status and key results of your campaigns. The table provides the following information about each campaign:

  • Name: The campaign name.
    • You can click on the campaign name of in-progress campaigns to continue editing the campaign, and on the campaign name of sent campaigns to review campaign performance.
  • Status: The status of the campaign
    • For one of the campaigns, you can see statuses of Draft, Sending…, Sent, or Failed.
    • For ongoing campaigns, like birthday email campaigns, you can see statuses of Active and Pause.
  • Date launched: The date and time the campaign was sent.
  • Recipients: The number of contacts to whom the email was sent.
  • Opens: The percentage of recipients who opened an email.
  • Clicks: The percentage of delivered emails that were opened by the recipient.
  • Actions: You’ll be able to take different actions and/or view additional information about each campaign depending on the Status of the campaign. Campaigns with Draft status can be edited or deleted, and campaigns with a Sent status can be viewed or reviewed for their metrics. Click Actions for the relevant email campaign to access these options.
    • Draft: A campaign in Draft status can be edited or deleted.
    • Sending: A campaign is currently in the Sending status. You will have to wait for the sending to complete before taking any action.
    • Sent: You can review a summary about any campaign with a Sent status, using the View campaign option in the Actions dropdown. Your campaign page will display the following information about your campaign performance. Primary subscribers and those with Admin permissions will also be able to view more details about each Sent campaign, using the View recipient report option in the Actions dropdown. Learn more about this report below.
    • Active: Ongoing email campaigns that are active will have an option to Pause. You can also view metrics using the View campaign and View recipient report options.
    • Pause: Ongoing email campaigns that are paused will have an option to Activate. You can also view metrics using the View campaign and View recipient report options.

 

Activate automated campaigns

Note: The automated campaigns feature is available to firms with Clio Grow AI.

To help your firm stay top of mind year-round, you can create and activate automated campaigns that send emails to clients when certain conditions are met. For example, a birthday campaign will send congratulatory birthday emails to your contacts with dates of birth on file. Once you activate an automated email campaign, you cannot delete or edit it in order to preserve data about any emails that were already sent as part of the campaign. If you want to change an automated campaign you can pause your existing campaign and create a new one.

Note: Automated sending is available for all Premade campaigns.
CreatePauseReactivate
  1. In Clio Grow, click the main Marketing tab.
  2. In the Premade campaigns section click View campaign for one of the suggested campaigns, or click Explore more for additional options.
  3. Click Create campaign.
  4. Optional: Edit the campaign.
    1. Edit the campaign name. Refer to step 2 in Create an Email marketing campaign for details.

    2. Edit the automation rules. Depending on the type of campaign, the trigger for the automation can be

      • the date that the matter was closed or
      • the contact's date of birth (for birthday campaigns).

      Set the amount of time to wait after the trigger condition is met before the email should be sent to a contact.

    3. Modify the recipient list as needed. Refer to step 3 in Create an Email marketing campaign for details.
    4. Edit the email content. Refer to step 4 in Create an Email marketing campaign for details.
  5. Once you have completed all details, click Activate campaign, then confirm this action by clicking Activate campaign again.

Once activated, birthday campaigns will send emails to recipients at 9:00 AM PDT on their birthday, and other automated campaigns will send emails to recipients at 9:00 AM PDT on the first business day after the trigger condition is met and the amount of time to wait has lapsed. To review the emails sent with automatic campaigns, view the Email marketing recipient report for the campaign.

 

View campaign metrics

Primary subscribers and those with Admin permissions can view summary metrics and the email marketing recipient report for each sent campaign to glean insight into the email delivery and recipient engagement with the email campaign. The email marketing recipient report provides per-recipient information about the number of emails that were opened and unopened, how each recipient interacted with the email (e.g., clicking links in the email), which recipients unsubscribed, and per-recipient emails that bounced or failed to send.

 

View summary metrics

To view a summary of the email marketing campaign:

  1. In Clio Grow, go to the main Marketing tab.
  2. Click the name of the relevant (sent) campaign, or click Actions, then select View campaign.

This view provides a summary of the key metrics of the campaign. The summary provides information about the total number of email sent, the delivery rate, open rate, click rate, unsubscribe rate, and the rate at which the email was reported as spam. Values are prominently displayed as percentages with absolute counts provided as smaller text.

  • Total emails sent: The number of emails sent out in the campaign.
  • Delivery: This value indicates the percentage/number of sent messages that successfully reached the recipient’s inbox.
  • Opens: This value indicates the percentage/number of unique recipients who opened an email. If a recipient opens an email several times, this will only count as one open.
  • Clicks: This value is a measure of recipient interaction with your email campaign. A recipient that interacts with your email (e.g., by clicking a link in your campaign) is counted as a unique click. A recipient that has several interactions with the email will still be counted as one unique click.
  • Unsubscribes: This value indicates the percentage/number of recipients who unsubscribed.
  • Reported as spam: This value indicates the percentage/number of recipients who reported this email as spam.

 

View detailed metrics

You can also view more detailed metrics in the recipient report, which includes recipient-specific details for a particular campaign:

  1. In Clio Grow, go to the main Marketing tab.
  2. For the relevant (sent) campaign, click Actions, then select View recipient report.

This report includes information about each contact to whom the report was sent.

  • Contact: This column shows the name of the recipient. The table is sorted alphabetically by first name. You can click on a contact name to open a new tab with the contact’s details. Learn more about Clio Grow contacts here.
  • Email sent to: This column displays the primary email address associated with the contact.
  • Campaign source: This column shows the name of the campaign.
  • Delivery: This column shows if the email was Delivered or if it Bounced (i.e., it could not be delivered due to issues such as a full email inbox or an email address that does not exist).
  • Date sent: This columns shows the date that the email was sent.
  • Opened: This column shows if the email was opened by the recipient.
  • Clicked: This column shows if the recipient interacted with the email (e.g., by clicking on a link in the email).
  • Unsubscribed: This column shows if the recipient unsubscribed. If they did, the columns will display as Unsubscribed, Otherwise it will be empty (-).
  • Intake matters: The number of matters for the recipient that is in an intake state and where the matter’s most recent marketing source is the current email marketing campaign. Learn more about how marketing sources are assigned to matters.
  • Hired matters: The number of matters for the recipient that is in a hired state and where the matter’s most recent marketing source is the current email marketing campaign. Learn more about how marketing sources are assigned to matters.
  • Revenue: The revenue produced for this recipient as a result of the relevant email campaign.

 

Email campaigns as marketing sources

A set of rules determine if activities associated with a matter or revenue generated by a matter should be attributed to a particular email marketing campaign. If an email with a particular objective is opened by a recipient, and a particular event is logged in Clio Grow (e.g., a new matter is created for the recipient) within a set number of days of the email being opened, the email marketing campaign will be added to the matter as a marketing source. 

To view the email marketing sources for any matter:

  1. In Clio Grow, click the main Matters tab.
  2. In the Matter name column, click the relevant matter.

The Marketing section in the left information panel of the matter will display the first and most recent marketing sources associated with the matter, as well as the total number of marketing sources associated with the matter. Learn how to view the full list of marketing sources here.

The following information provides details about the unique cases that you may see and the rules that determine how email marketing campaigns are added to matters.

  • If you created a Hire prospective clients email campaign, generated revenue will be attributed to the email campaign if the following applies:
    • The recipient opened the email and their existing matter (with a status of Intake) was updated within 7 days of the email being opened.
  • If you created a Revive lost opportunities email campaign, generated revenue will be attributed to the email campaign if the following applies:
    • The recipient opened the email and their existing matter (with a status of Did not hire) was updated within 30 days of the email being opened.
  • If you created an Increase repeat business or Stay top of mind email campaign or you opted to Create a custom campaign, generated revenue will be attributed to the email campaign if the following applies:
    • The recipient opened the email and a new matter was created within 30 days of the email being opened.

Add email campaigns for attribution

The rules that determine how email marketing campaign labels are added as marketing sources to matters can provide an overview of how matter revenue can be attributed to various email campaigns. You can still manually add, edit, or delete email marketing campaigns associated with a matter.

 

View sent marketing emails by contact

An email sent to a contact as part of a marketing campaign will be logged in the contact’s communications, unless the email failed to send or bounced.

  1. Click Contacts.
  2. Click the name of the contact.

  3. Click Communications.

    Note: Emails sent via marketing campaign will appear in this tab and be labeled Marketing email.

 

Understand and manage consent

In Canada you must obtain consent before sending marketing emails. Clio Grow makes it easy to capture, track, and manage consent. You can capture consent to receive marketing emails directly from your clients by including a check box for them to check on your intake forms. Or, you can also select the consent check box on their behalf (after receiving your client's verbal consent) when you create a Quick Appointment or when you create a new contact and their matter via the Quick Intake form.

Important: Your firm remains responsible for capturing and managing consent in a way that complies with your region’s legal requirements.

Note: Capturing consent for email marketing is a new feature that affects the following Clio Grow intake methods:

A Subscribe to email marketing check box will be added to each of these intake methods where contacts can opt in to marketing emails from your firm. Make sure to review each of these intake methods if you do not want to include this field. You will still be required to adhere to capturing consent from your contacts if you want to send them marketing emails.

To carefully track the various scenarios of how consent is obtained, the following distinctions are used in Clio Grow. 

  • Explicit consent: Explicit consent refers to scenarios where the client actively opts into receiving marketing emails. Clients can opt verbally to a member of your firm in which case the firm member can log this information in Clio Grow when they create a Quick Appointment, create a new contact and their matter via the Quick Intake form, or edit a contact. Clients can also opt in themselves by checking the relevant check box on an intake form you send them. When explicit consent is given, the client is subscribed to email marketing and the method of consent (via firm member, intake form, appointment link, website form, or website chat) and the date and time is logged in the contact's details in Clio Grow.

  • Implicit consent: When a client enters a professional relationship with your firm, they can be said to have implicitly consented to receive marketing emails. Implied consent remains valid for two years after the business relationship concludes. 

    In Clio Grow, the business relationship starts—and implicit consent is assumed—when a contact's status is set to Hired. If no further activity occurs on the matter, this date is then also the date that the relationship "concludes". In this case where there is no further activity, the implicit consent will lapse two years after the contact's status changed to Hired. 

    However, if activity commences on the client's matter and the matter is synced to Clio Manage, the date that the business relationship concludes coincides with the date that you close the matter in Clio Manage.

    With implicit consent, the client is subscribed to email marketing, and you can view this information when you view their contact details in Clio Grow.

When either implicit or explicit consent applies, the contact is subscribed to email marketing. Your contact can also unsubscribe from email marketing by clicking Unsubscribe on a marketing email they received, or by asking a member at your firm to unsubscribe them.

Important: Your contact can also be "Not subscribed" for marketing emails. This differs from being "Unsubscribed" in that "Not subscribed means that the contact simply never indicated any preference to receiving or not receiving marketing emails.

 

Subscribe or unsubscribe a contact

Note: Only resubscribe a contact to mailing lists when the contact explicitly asks.
  1. In Clio Grow, click Contacts.
  2. Click the name of the contact.
  3. Click Edit contact.
  4. In the Email addresses section, toggle Subscribed to email marketing on or off as necessary.
Note: Email recipients can unsubscribe themselves from marketing communications by clicking Unsubscribe on any previously received marketing email. Email communications sent from the firms as part of legal services provided will not be affected by unsubscribing to marketing communications.

 

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