Successful Marketing For Law Firms
A Guide To Building Your Client List
Marketing for law firms is extremely competitive. Like many other professional service businesses, it’s critical to constantly build your clientele. It’s even more important for law firms because repeat business from existing clients doesn’t happen as quickly as say an accounting firm. For some reason many law firms are still slow to adopt a digital marketing strategy. Over 50% of law firms don’t have an annual marketing budget. This is very surprising in the legal industry. An effective digital marketing strategy for law firms is critical to building a successful law practice.
Of course traditional networking methods of promoting a law practice are still valuable in generating revenue. Cocktails and golf are necessary to close deals in many industries, and it’s fun. But any law firm wanting to seriously grow their clientele will need to diversify their approach. A new generation of business leaders that have grown up with Google turn to digital channels first for their research and judgement well before any contact is made. Savvy law firms understand that a poorly conceived and maintained digital presence will seriously slow new client growth.
Based on our experience handling marketing for law firms, we will share some effective strategies to help you position you law practice for growth & success. Buckle up!
1. Define Your Brand
Many successful businesses adopt the old saying “stay in your lane” when considering new revenue streams. But how can you stay in your lane when you don’t know what your lane is? Devising a successful marketing strategy for a law firm involves determining your lane. What makes your law firm unique? What is your law firm good at? and What can your law firm absolutely deliver every day and night to your customers? Branding is a promise to your clients, it should be iron clad and permeate through your team, your services and everything you present to clients.
Brand consistency is key and should be reflected in design elements on your website, social media, and all other forms of digital marketing and advertising.
2. Give Your Website a Makeover
I always tell our clients that you cant invite people to your party unless you clean your house. The same holds true for marketing law firms. We don’t start inviting visitors via digital marketing, social media and PPC advertising unless our website is in top top shape.
We work so hard to drive targeted leads to our website we can’t drop the ball on the goal line. We can’t have a website that takes 10 seconds to load. We can’t have a website that does not display well on mobile devices. We can’t have a website that does not present qualifying information in an organized and easy to navigate manner. An astonishing 68% of law firms say their website is mobile-friendly. That means almost one third of law firm websites are not mobile friendly. This presents an easy opportunity to gain a competitive advantage.
We previously wrote an article about the modern role of a website. All of those things are true and should be taken into consideration when designing a law firm website. Your website’s purpose is to generate leads, it’s no longer a digital business card. You must stand out from your competitors and capture the contact information from the visitors on your site.
3. Curate Your Contact List
Running a successful law firm is much like any other professional services business, you must maintain relationships. One way to keep your law firm top off mind with your clientele is to send them an email each month. Email marketing is a critical piece of any successful digital marketing strategy for law firms.
Email marketing can be a powerful means of bringing in new and repeat business. Compared to other digital marketing strategies, email marketing is low-cost and typically has the highest engagement rate. The reach of Facebook posts has drastically decreased over the past few years, down to 2-3%. This means if you have 1000 followers, Facebook will show your post to 20-30 followers of their choice. Why wouldn’t you cut out the middle man and communicate directly with your clients.
4. Optimize Your GMB Account
Google My Business (GMB) is the portal that allows you to control your Google Maps business listing. They will create a generic listing from the information they can scrape off the web but it’s up to you to take ownership of this listing and add information.
Google will always show three map listings when you are searching for professional services, (e.g., Lawyer in Los Angeles). It’s here in your GMB account where you add your services, contact information, team photos, manage reviews & more. Having a current and well managed GMB account will also increase you
5. Create Effective Social Media Channels
Before you start driving traffic to your law firm website it’s a good idea to set up your social media channels. As we mentioned, email marketing is a much more effective digital marketing channel but that doesn’t mean we ignore social media. With over 53% of the worlds population on social media, your law firm will certainly get some exposure on these channels.
Setting up a Facebook, LinkedIn & YouTube account gives your website and law firm additional credibility. Google will see backlinks from these extremely reputable sites and will add that to your overall domain authority which can give you a boost in rankings.
Additionally many people use social media channels as an additional qualifier for businesses, similar to Yelp. According to one study, over 70% of respondents indicated social media influences their purchasing decisions. Having an active social media account is critical to a successful digital marketing strategy for law firms. In my opinion you should concentrate on Facebook, LinkedIn & YouTube & ignore the rest. Joining some Facebook & LinkedIn groups devoted to your industry is a good way to keeping current in your industry and an eye on your competition.
6. Set Up Your Blog Properly
This is one of the most important aspects of law firm marketing. A new generation of adults that grew up with Google is now firmly rooted in the workplace. A quality law firm website needs to cater to their needs and provide information regarding the law firm, case history & general legal advice. It’s estimated that 57% of people look for a lawyer on their own. Creating a well organized blog with proper SEO and great content might land these people on your website.
Additionally its well known in the digital marketing industry that constantly adding new content to your website is something that Google favors when determining search rankings & results. All law firms should be publishing new content on a weekly or monthly basis.
7. Create Effective Advertising Campaigns
Having completed steps 1-6, you are now ready to start advertising. The house is clean, beverages are chilling and appetizers are on the table. It’s now time to start inviting people to your website. You do this by creating highly targeted and effective PPC Campaigns primarily on Google & Facebook but you might also consider LinkedIn.
Running advertising campaigns for your law firm on Google is not something you should try yourself. Google’s ad platform has become incredibly complicated the last several years and simply checking the wrong box can inflate your spend and result in a negative ROI. It’s best to hire a law firm marketing agency who has many years experience creating and optimizing ppc advertising campaigns.
Conclusion
As you can see there is a ton of work in marketing a law firm. Our advice is to align yourself with a quality digital marketing agency Los Angeles. The competition amongst law firms to secure new clients is fierce. A top notch digital agency can create a winning strategy and execute it each month to keep generating new clients.
If you would like to discuss a custom marketing strategy for your law firm, please give us a call or send a note by clicking one of the buttons below.
Thanks For Reading!
