The activity of acquiring new clients to your law business is known as "law firm marketing." Digital marketing, SEO, blogging, print and digital commercials, and other forms of advertising may be included in a law firm's marketing strategy. Many more strategies, such as the use of law firm marketing technology to automate certain duties, may be included in your marketing strategy. You may spend a great deal of time and effort promoting your business, no matter how you do it.
As a legal business owner, it can be difficult deciding where to spend your time, money, and resources in order to keep your practice and firm going smoothly. Knowing where to begin is essential to determining which strategies are most beneficial for your marketing goals.
To effectively promote your law practice, you'll find all the information you need here—from SEO to networking to everything else. This book will help you grasp essential law firm marketing vocabulary, how to begin constructing your marketing strategy, and how to assess your efforts. In addition, you'll get knowledge about marketing statistics, best practices, and insights into the legal sector, as well as the most effective technologies and tools for marketing a law office.
Law Firm Marketing Terms
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Before tackling the strategy and implementation phase, it's critical to grasp the fundamentals of law firm marketing. We've compiled a list of the most significant marketing words you should be familiar with.
Many more marketing terminology may be learned, but this list is a fantastic place to start, especially if you're just getting started in law firm marketing.
Call-to-action (CTA)
If you want a potential customer to take the next step toward becoming a paying customer, you need a call-to-action, or CTA. Your "Contact Us" form, for example, or a button in a sponsored advertisement that goes back to your website are two examples of this.
Conversion Rate
People who visit a certain website or ad are counted as "leads" if they later become customers. Either a single page on your website or the entirety of it may have its conversion rate monitored. You may also examine how successfully your intake process is turning leads into paying customers.
Landing Page
It is common practice to use landing pages to compel visitors to take some sort of action, such as clicking on a link, completing an online form, scheduling an appointment, etc.
Marketing Lead
The term "marketing lead" refers to a prospective customer for your business. It's not just a random person that comes to your website for a quick look. When a potential customer takes an action that indicates they are interested in communicating with you, they become a marketing lead. They might, for example, use a "Contact Us" form on your website, phone your business, or offer their information in another manner.
Pay-per-click (PPC)
In the PPC advertising model, marketers pay a specific amount each time a site visitor clicks on their ad, which is a kind of paid internet advertising.
Return on Investment (ROI)
Return on investment (ROI), a common corporate performance statistic, is particularly essential in marketing. If you want to expand your law company and keep it lucrative, you need to be sure that your marketing efforts are paying off.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
If you want your website to show up high in search results for relevant keywords, SEO is the technique of optimizing your site.
A keyword phrase is a term or phrase that represents the subject matter around which your web pages are organized. For example, if you're a Manhattan divorce attorney, you may target "NYC Divorce Attorney" as a search term.
To put it another way, these are the key phrases that people use to find information on the internet. To help search engines understand your website's relevance to a specific issue, you should include your keyword (and/or semantically comparable versions of it) in prominent locations on your page. Adding Yoast SEO to your WordPress site is a simple and effective SEO tool.
10 Steps to Marketing Your Law Firm
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A marketing strategy for a law business, no matter how big or little can be put together quickly and effectively with the appropriate approach. Whether your objective is to build a long-term solo practice or a fast-expanding corporation, the methods listed below can help you get there.
Marketing your legal practice is a complex process that requires careful consideration of these nine areas:
Create a budget for marketing purposes.
As part of any legal firm's long-term business strategy, an effective marketing budget is essential. It's important to set your goals and figure out how much income you'll need to make them a reality before you can calculate how much money you'll need to invest in your law firm's marketing activities So how many cases per year will you need to bill in order to fulfill your income goal? Depending on your specialty, this may or may not apply to you.
You'll be able to determine your entire marketing budget for your law practice once you've completed the first steps. Take note of your legal firm's current status, i.e., are you just getting started or has your company been around for a while? It's also a good idea to take into account the competition in your area. In a metropolis like New York, where the competition is fierce, are you a commercial attorney attempting to create a clientele? Or are you the only family lawyer in a small town?
Don't forget to account for the possible costs of law firm marketing technologies in your entire marketing plan. Examples of law firm technology include content marketing platforms like HubSpot or separate applications for SEO, social media scheduling, or email campaigns.
Your law firm's marketing budget should be strictly adhered to after you've established it. Even if you obtain more cases, growing your company won't be possible if you don't keep an eye on the bottom line.
2. Create a user-friendly website for your legal company.
A prospective client's initial image of your law company is typically shaped by the business's website in today's digital era. When a potential client visits your website, this is your time to make a good first impression.
Use high-quality images as an excellent starting point. Finally, list the services and practice areas you specialize in. Any honors, commendations, and noteworthy experiences should be prominently highlighted on your resume, as should all of your relevant contact information.
3. Make sure your website is search engine friendly.
If no one can locate your legal firm's website when they do an internet search, would prospective customers ever learn about you?
To get the most out of your law firm's website, make sure it adheres to SEO best practices. Having a well-designed website is essential. Quality material is an important part of this. What search engines like Google and the individuals who use them are searching for is this type of information.
Long-tail keywords should also be a focus of your content. For example, instead of just referring to yourself as a "lawyer," mention your city's name. This will offer you a better chance of competing with other websites and attracting new customers.
Setting up a Google Business listing is a must if you want to reach customers in a certain location. If you're offering a service, be sure to include a detailed explanation of what you do and how to get in touch with you.
4. Claim your free online profiles
The website of your legal company might be a source of new clients, but it is not the only one. There are several free options to claim web profiles, from Yelp to your local state bar page.
5. Maintain an active social media presence for your law firm's clients and colleagues.
Go where your potential customers are if you want to attract new customers through internet advertising In today's digital world, this involves using social media. For your legal firm and practice area, you'll need to choose which social media channels best suit your needs. Social media advertising may have a major influence on your law firm's development if you put in the effort.
Marketing your legal practice using social media has several benefits, including the following:
Become a part of the discourse by following legal luminaries on Twitter.
Make sure your legal firm's LinkedIn profile is well-organized. Make sure it's different from your personal LinkedIn page, which you should also enhance in order to stand out among your colleagues and possible clients.
Advertise on Facebook to establish yourself as an expert in your field and gain new customers. As a lawyer, it is important to learn about the process of attracting new clients.
If you're a lawyer, be sure you're adhering to local ethics and advertising regulations. You should avoid using the term "specialist" or "expert," for example, without being certified as such, and you should avoid forming improper lawyer-client relationships.
6. Effectively manage the internet evaluations of your legal company.
Clients may start writing evaluations of your legal business after you have several internet profiles up and running. These must be kept under control. 82% of customers searched for reviews and 81% looked for recommendations when seeking legal help, according to the 2021 Legal Trends Report. Even if a few bad reviews won't hurt, an onslaught of them might scare away potential customers.
If a customer is particularly pleased, ask for an online evaluation as part of the closing procedure for each instance. Double-check the advertising laws of your state bar, however, to confirm that your request is compliant. Don't be afraid to respond to a poor review. Make sure you adhere to the best practices for online reputation management for attorneys when responding to your client's criticism.
7. Try out content marketing.
If you're already good with words, put them to good use in expanding your legal practice. There are several benefits to blogging and content marketing in general. You may utilize material to demonstrate that you are an expert in a specific field. You'll create trust and confidence with potential clients if you can answer their most often asked inquiries. Showing that you're an expert in a certain field increases your chances of being hired.
Identify legal-related evergreen content marketing subjects if you're going to create a blog. Maintain a consistent tempo and ensure that you're presenting great, relevant content to your readers (without offering specific legal advice, of course).
8. Make time for networking and expanding your business.
Be sure to make the most of your networking and bar events if you're going to spend time there. Make a plan for how and where you'll invest your time and energy in the conversation. Have a plan for engaging in meaningful discussions that will help you establish and grow your business through word-of-mouth
A legal firm's business development and income growth is constantly dependent on referrals from other attorneys. As a result, developing referral connections with other attorneys is an investment that will help your law practice grow and prosper.
Networking does not, however, have to be limited to simply shaking hands with other attorneys. In order to meet more potential customers, you could wish to give a speech in front of an audience or attend community activities.
9. Then there's traditional advertising.
Traditional marketing (i.e., offline marketing) may be a good fit for your law business depending on your region and practice area. People still respond to billboard advertisements, even in the digital era.
In any case, it is crucial to keep in mind that no matter how your clients hear about you, they are almost certainly going to undertake internet research before making any hiring choice. In today's marketplace, consumers have more authority than ever to weigh their alternatives. Make sure to keep your website up-to-date, and don't forget to ask satisfied customers for positive feedback.
10. Your legal firm's marketing initiatives should be measured.
No matter what strategy you use to promote your law business, it's critical to track the return on your marketing expenditures. You won't know whether efforts are bringing in new business or failing if you don't measure them. If you can figure out which of your marketing tactics aren't working, you can stop investing in them and focus on the ones that are. This will help your marketing plan flourish.
Creating a new website may help you attract more customers. Or perhaps you've been in business for a long time and have a long list of satisfied customers. Look at the numbers to get the answer.
Start by finding out how your clients found out about you. Anecdotal evidence may be all we get from this low-tech approach, but it is a decent start. For the most accurate results, you'll need to do a more in-depth examination.
Implementing website monitoring is the greatest approach to keeping track of your law firm's digital marketing activities. An excellent option for the majority of law firms is the free version of Google Analytics, which is an analytics tool that provides information on website visitors.
If you're interested in determining which websites visitors came from before coming to your site (also known as a "referring domain"), how long each visitor spent on your site, and how many visits you had, Google Analytics can help.
Conclusion
Simply getting started is the simplest way to promote a legal practice. Be willing to put in the time and money to attempt something new; assess your progress, and then use what you've learned to improve. Focus on a few essential marketing areas instead of trying to do too much at once. To help you succeed in your marketing efforts, set a realistic budget (and stick to it) and make use of the legal marketing technologies and resources available to you.
The greatest decisions for your company may be made by keeping your objectives in mind and adopting a practical approach.
Remember to always put your clients (and future clients) in the forefront of your thoughts when implementing any marketing strategy or technology for your law company. In order to provide outstanding service and increase the number of referrals they receive, law firms that excel at putting their clients first must always strive to improve how they conduct business in order to do so.
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Salty Red Dog Marketing, LLC is a marketing agency in Red Bank, NJ, Westport, CT, and everywhere in between. We service businesses with marketing strategies, digital marketing, social media, and consultations.
Contact: info@saltyreddogmarketing.com
Phone: NJ: (732) 802-6205 // CT: (203) 429-9671