Sometimes law firms and lawyers think that their skill and reputation are enough to keep a stable customer flow for their service. It may be true, but in most cases, the law business and profit can improve with a solid marketing plan. A law firm or lawyer should use all available marketing tools and technology to ensure maximum reach to their potential clients. A strong law firm marketing strategy can help set you or your firm apart from others and attract new clients. It can increase your search engine ranking as 99% of legal service clients are on the internet now, help to build a strong social media presence, and can also help to improve local community engagement to generate business leads for your law firm.
According to the American Bar Association, there are over 1.33 Million licensed lawyers in the United States in 2018. So, you may be realizing how competitive the market is and why you need a strong legal marketing plan for your law business.
Well, you may be thinking about how you can plan your legal marketing and what marketing strategies you can apply to win the race. Okay, let us help you. We have listed some creative law firm marketing strategies that can help your legal marketing be successful and attract more clients, but they are not difficult to apply.
01. Invest in SEO
In this digital era, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the goal-oriented marketing strategy that can rank your website higher on the search engine result page (SERPs) can generate organic leads to your business who are searching for your service on the internet. SEO will ensure your website follows the search engine quality guidelines and that content has the search keywords related to your legal service that potential clients are typing in a search engine. The search result may depend on your location and area of specialty. Also, it may include words or phrases like “semi-truck accident lawyers,” “asbestos exposure lawyers,” “injury lawyer Houston TX,” “mesothelioma attorneys California,” etc.
You can do the Search Engine Optimization yourself if you have time to learn the technical things on how to ready your website for search engine following the search engine quality guidelines and can create great content by adding your targeted keywords (keyword research required) to try acquiring backlinks organically from reader’s share. Get listed in major local business directories, including Google My Business to improve search engine local search ranking. Also, you can contribute other relevant high authority websites as a guest blogger/writer to get authority backlinks for your website. Creating useful videos and sharing them on popular video-sharing websites like YouTube may help increase online presence. Participating in question and answer website, legal forums to answer legal questions or give solutions related to your legal practice area can add additional value to your website and your firm which may also generate leads for your law business.
However, if you have no time to learn and do the things advised above, it is a good idea to hire an SEO expert who can do the jobs on your behalf. An SEO specialist can help you find the keywords your potential clients are using most and demonstrate how to include them in your online presence. A successful SEO campaign improves your organic search ranking and generates organic search traffic to your website, which brings more potential clients to you and can give a good return on investment.
02. Deliver Relevant, Newsworthy Content
Content marketing is closely related to SEO and demonstrates how expert you are in your law practice area. Regular blogging, creating videos, making infographics, or articles on specific topics related to your practice area may be of interest to your potential clients.
Particularly we can say infographics, and this simplest graphic format can be a powerful way to share information and data about any complex legal matters. You can find many free online infographic makers to help you create your own infographic for less than one hour.
You should keep in mind that the subject of your content may not always be directly related to law. Your potential client may be searching for subjects like “What to do in case of an injury,” “What should you know about slip & fall cases,” or “Things you can claim for personal injury compensation”.
Potential clients often search for information about their legal issues before making an appointment with a lawyer. Anticipating their inquiries and proactively responding to them can be helpful to your firm. Proving yourself as an expert enhances the chances clients will contact you when they are ready to make a decision.
03. Add Specialized Page for Each Service
Many law firms may have multiple specialties and offer different legal services to their clients. For Example, if you are a family law lawyer, you may also provide legal assistance for divorce, child custody, estate planning, and other related services under Family or Marriage law. However, these services are individually identifiable, and people search for the specific service terms to find the service quickly.
So, creating specific pages for each service and adding details on what you do and how you can help in your website will give the best result; it will not only improve the retention rate of your site but also generate more leads. Just make sure your service pages are clearly visible on your website either with a drop-down menu or in a clickable CTA menu. As a result, if you advertise yourself as a family lawyer someone who visits your website and needs legal assistance for child custody might have a chance to contact you. Also, it gives you more scope to optimize keywords for each specific legal area of practice.
04. Should Have a Strong Social Media presence
Today, we live in the age of social media. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Google Plus are the most active social media platforms. People spend a lot more time on social media, not only to socially connect with friends and family to share information and ideas but also to search for solutions/recommendations on different issues, including legal issues.
According to statista.com, there are 2.46 billion social network users worldwide in 2017 and 208.91 million social media users in the United States. You may be realizing the importance of social media presence to engage with this huge number of potential clients socially. Only a strong social media presence can play a vital role in growing your business successfully and supporting and communicating your personal brand.
As a lawyer or law firm, you should at least have a LinkedIn profile that shows your educational and career achievements. LinkedIn is a social network platform for professionals to manage their professional identity, build and engage with the professional network, and access knowledge, insights, and opportunities. According to LinkedIn’s third-quarter 2016 results, they had 467 million members in 2016.
Social media presence on other social media platforms like Facebook gives you more access to potential questions and referrals. Social media is the best way nowadays to connect personally with your current clients, friends, and colleagues. Your shared post can be reshared or tagged by people who may know someone looking for legal assistance.
You should be available to answer questions and respond to referrals you receive through social media. You may also want to maintain your professional social media page separately from your personal page.
05. Focus on Your Branding
Your law firm’s specialty can extend from environmental law to business law, but your branding may be completely different. This is often closely related to your mission statement and one of the most significant tools for you if you want to stand apart from your competitors.
Now the question is, what strategies you can try for your legal brand establishment. After researching different marketer opinions on law firm brand strategies, we identified some strategies that might work well,
- Design –Design your website and other items, such as letterhead, business cards, promotional items, and other items used for client communication, according to your industry. Change them if required, including your logo, color patterns, typefaces, and other elements that can help attract new clients and energize your existing client base.
- Sponsor—Sponsoring a local event or donating to any social welfare event can help your law firm establish its brand by showing your name as a donor or sponsor on its website or banner. It can also help your law firm grow social engagement.
- Consistency—Consistency is an important part of your legal brand establishment. The more consistent your messaging, the more consistent your branding. Consistency can be in any form, such as words, design, offers, or perspective. However, your brand should build awareness and develop trust and loyalty with clients.
- Build Trust – Having good consistency build trust and reliability, loyalty to clients can help to establish your legal brand referring your service by your existing clients or followers to someone who is also looking for your legal assistance.
Develop Affinity Marketing – This marketing concept consists of partnering with an organization that gathers people with similar interests, known as an affinity group , to increase their overall customer base.
Also, other activities like legal interviews with journalists can give additional brand value.
The true value of your brand depends on the view of your target audience. It reveals the client’s awareness about the existence of your brand in the market and repeated exposure of the brand identity will lead to immediate attention from people.
06. Create Short online videos
Creating short useful videos can catch the potential client’s attention and can generate business leads for your law firm. You don’t need any highly expensive audio and video equipment to shoot your videos, your laptop or cell phone is enough to make such types of videos. Make 2/3 minutes short videos on answering commonly asked legal questions and publish them through your YouTube channel.
Connect your channel with your website and social media to make the videos more accessible to build a fast relation with your potential clients. Keep the video production simple, use basic graphics like you are sitting in your office, answering the common questions frequently asked by your client over the telephone or online. Talk directly to the camera with a gentle smile.
This is an excellent opportunity to identify potential client’s common issues without repeatedly asking them over the telephone or online.
07. Invest in PPC Advertising
Organic marketing and brand building are great and should not be overlooked at any cost, but sometimes you may need additional effort to get a place at the top of the SERPs (search engine results pages). PPC (pay-per-click) advertising is the fastest law firm marketing strategy you can try for your law firm.
Google Ads is the best platform to run PPC advertising for a law firm. You can create ads according to the user search query will show only when the user searches for the specific keywords. For example, if your target search queries are “injury lawyer Houston TX” and “Houston motorcycle accident lawyer,” then your ads will trigger when someone searches for those specific terms on Google. This will allow you to appear top of the search result for a specific query. People are clicking the paid search ads more than before since Google removed the ads from the right side and added another ad up top. The first 4 results on the search page are Google ads.
You can improve your Google Ads PPC campaign result by hiring a certified Google ads manager who can manage your campaign by adding the most relevant search terms and creating relevant ad copy according to your service if you think that you can’t handle yourself.
You can run a Facebook retargeting advertising campaign. Run the campaign after setting up the Facebook tracking pixel and retargeting users who visited your website recently but did not reach out to contact you. This will help you give it a try to revert them to you.
08. Run PR Campaign
Let us clarify before you get confused. Here, PR means public relations, not a press release. Journalists stopped caring about the typical boring long-page press release a long time ago. So, plan for something that the media cares about, and if the media covers you, it may help you build awareness for your law firm.
The most important part of media outreach is to identify your target audience and create content suitable for them. Before making any decision on your topics, you should ask yourself “Who do I want to speak to?” So, you should clearly outline your law firm’s media goals and create strategies that have the best chance of fulfilling them. The most common PR goals are,
- Build the client’s awareness.
- Build investors awareness
- Brand image improvement
- Grow your company/brand
You can also hire a good PR company to help you plan your media goals based on your law firm’s service and execute them according to plan.
09. Ask Your Clients to Leave Reviews for Your Law Firm
People used to ask for a recommendation from family or friends before hiring a professional service like a law professional. Today, mostly they search online and seek online reviews. Anonymous testimonials have just as much credibility as personal recommendations today.
Client testimonials are most important for your law business to build trust and get potential clients’ attention faster. Try to connect with your past clients and ask them to leave a review for your law firm on Google or LinkedIn, or simply submit your website online review form. Publish client reviews on your website testimonial page, keeping the client’s privacy safe. Feature the most positive reviews prominently on your website.
10. Local Event participation
Participating in local community events can open new opportunities for building your network. You can be involved in many ways, like hosting a canopy at the county fair or participating in any special fundraising campaign.
There are many “movers and shakers” who are well connected and involved in many boards and community organizations. Participating in local events can help you connect with them and may open opportunities to provide legal assistance to them in terms of both manpower and knowledge.
Build your community participating resume without getting overloaded. Select the event and organization that interests you. Encourage any employees you may have to get involved. Consider joining one or two service clubs, but ensure any organization you join is in alignment with your core beliefs. This is important for building your brand and establishing a respected reputation.
Conclusion
Your law firm can stand apart from your competitors with the help of a combination of strong branding, SEO, and trust-building activities. Try these ten law firm marketing strategies not only to get more online traffic to your website and local engagement but also to be more persuasive once they arrive.
