You've probably outlined most of the things your law firm needs to grow, including online marketing, but still, you don't have what it takes to move ahead. Let's be honest. The legal field is quite saturated, and to stand out amid the fierce competition, you'll require proper positioning.
Whether it's on leveraging social media, perfecting your law firm website, or creating exceptional content, online marketing for law firms enables you to remain a step ahead of your competitors. Imagine being able to climb up the SERPs, attract steady clients, and enjoy massive profits and publicity—yes, that entirely possible.
While all that seems hectic, dedicating your time, energy, and planning well guarantees a successful law firm in the long run. But again, it's not a walk in the park. Guess what? It would help if you had professional guidance to draw a specific online marketing plan to get the best results.
Now, here is the best part. If you're starting or not much conversant about online marketing for law firms, worry no more. We've got you covered! In this blueprint, we help you develop and execute proven strategies when marketing your law firm online.
But before that, let's have a look at what online marketing for law firms means and the complementing statistics.
Online marketing for law firms is a method, strategy, or tool that law companies use to get known to the public. The approaches vary based on what works for a particular firm.
Simply put, it's everything that your firm does online to get attention and hopefully convert prospects.
According to Statista, more than 70% of marketing professionals believe that their brands stand out because of an effective online marketing strategy. Like other businesses, your law firm is not an exception, and it needs a well-thought plan.
It doesn't add up when you start marketing your firm right away without a clear definition of what you want. You'll have wasted your time, effort, and resources. Developing an ideal online marketing strategy for your law firm is a priority.
Having said that, here are some of the things you have to know and emphasize to be successful.
Remember that the big picture here is to actualize something—your goals. If you know what you're focusing on, everything flows smoothly. That doesn't mean you'll pen down your goals blindly and start your marketing journey, no, not at all. Online marketing for law firms is not a magic trick!
Your law marketing goals must be very specific, measurable, and time-bound. We understand that lawyers tend to aim higher, but focusing on what you know makes it possible to achieve your goals.
In the legal space, it's not all about you or your attorneys; your audience matters more. Whether it's creating law content or targeting a new niche in a particular area, you must deeply understand the prospects to solve their problems. That's where research comes in to help you know everything from psychographics, demographics to client challenges, and so on.
Armed with relevant data gathered, you get to know where your services add value. More so, it becomes easy to create a buyer persona and target specific platforms, enabling you to convert potential prospects into active clients.
If you want to deliver the best services that attract many clients, focus on being an expert in your field. Choose a path that you're sure of providing exceptional services. You've probably noticed that many people, when unwell, focus more on engaging specialist doctors than general physicians. The same applies in the legal space.
According to Harvard Law School, specialization in the legal industry is on the rise because clients view specialized lawyers as knowledgeable, loyal, and aggressive even when collaborating with others. Such lawyers have high convincing power and charge more for their services.
Once you've known your goals, target audience, and expertise to consider, go ahead, and continue building your legal marketing framework that complements the digital era marketplace. Let's keep rolling with law firm online marketing strategies to embrace now and in the future.
We all know that until recently, most law firms prioritized traditional marketing (billboards, print media, conferences, and so on). Things are changing pretty fast, and social networks and websites are taking center stage.
That tells you that you'll need to position and grow your law firm online presence extensively. Statistics indicate that there are over 4 billion internet users. Coupled with the fact that 90% of potential clients conduct an online search before contacting service providers, it's no longer a secret that almost everybody, including law clients, hires online.
Note that despite the transition from yellow pages to print magazines and now digital era marketing, we have to appreciate that word of mouth and referrals never go out of fashion. If your services are excellent, digital marketing only boosts your efforts scaling your law firm higher.
The main question remains: How do you market and grow your law firm in the versatile, busy, and crowded online marketplace? Here are some proven law firm digital marketing strategies to embrace.
Let's dig in.
Social media platforms work beyond making friends and following trends, giving your law firm an online presence and an opportunity to attract many clients and communicate with them at a personal level. That explains why social media marketing for law firms continues to get bigger and better.
Create your firm pages in the platforms, fill in the relevant details, and post content that converts. Go ahead and share your blog posts and YouTube Videos. Try and focus on a few platforms, and later spread your presence. With time, you'll have reached potential clients.
LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are common platforms that lawyers prefer. Facebook accommodates lengthy content, and it's quite personal. Twitter allows precise content, and it's less personal than Facebook. LinkedIn is entirely professional. Understanding how to use either platform enables you to enjoy the benefits to the maximum.
Although Facebook beats LinkedIn in popularity, LinkedIn continues to attract more B2B audiences, with 92% of users, like law firms, preferring it over other platforms.
Ready to maximize your law firm presence on LinkedIn? Here are the tricks:
A website tells your potential clients more about you, your services, and how you can be of help. It's an online asset law firms can't assume in the current era. Once the website is ready, perfect it to win more clients. But how is that possible? Read on!
Your site must be attractive and well responsive across all mobile devices. That helps you to accommodate mobile users, and also rank well in SERPs. 70% of mobile users contact attorneys whose site is readable with clear and immediate information.
Clients get annoyed when a website is hard to navigate. Be clear on your practice, specialty, cases handled, awards, case studies, and much more. Position your contacts strategically. 60% of your prospects are likely to revert when you include personal contact information.
Know how to get valuable information to increase your Google ranking. With proper keywords, it's easy to reach out to many clients across the web. Have your preferred keywords ready, keep discovering more, and check on the progress of competitor's keywords.
Google studies indicate that more than 50% of your website visitors ditch the site when it exceeds three seconds of loading time. Focus on making the site fast through compressing files and images, having appropriate themes, and boosting your server's performance.
You expect all clients to seek your services. Don't sound discriminatory because that will create a negative image out there. Being ADA and accessibility law compliant is safe for you and your clients.
While it has been there for quite some time, email marketing is among the most preferred online marketing strategies. 85 percent of law firms use email marketing to pass various messages across, with the number increasing over the years.
When directed to the appropriate audience, your emails get to convert because you communicate on a one on one basis ensuring personal engagement, convenience, and guaranteed value. But that doesn't mean you send emails blindly. A strategy will help you boost the open rate.
Remember that some law firms target the same audience as you, and you must address what the clients want to know. Keep them informed to ensure they're close at heart. With that, you build a long-lasting brand overwhelmed with clients' trust and loyalty.
If you deliver valuable content like legal tips, updates, informative newsletters, and everything interesting in the industry, prospects see the value in you, and it's easy to convert them.
Look at the big picture and create an outstanding brand. For instance, come up with webinars, courses, or digital services. You can either give them for free or at an affordable fee. Your audience will be happy to open such emails.
According to MailChimp, open rates for emails in the legal space averages at 22%. Your campaigns must go beyond the average rates to have confidence that your efforts are not futile. Surprisingly, the statistics don't deviate a lot from what's happening in other industries.
But where do you start your email marketing journey for your law firm? Here we go!
You'll need to implement the following to have a smooth and actionable email marketing journey.
The most significant way to build your brand in the legal industry is to embrace a strategy that depicts you as an authoritative and industry top player. That's where quality content comes in; to help attract clients and benefit other lawyers.
Informative legal content creates a loyal relationship with your audience. In case a prospect needs legal counsel or specialized clarification, they'll get back to you because they've established your legal prowess in solving their problems.
How do you then implement content marketing for law firms? Here are two significant ways you can incorporate content into your law firm. They include:
A survey report published in the American Bar Association shows that 49% of law firms reported having acquired clients through blogging. With exceptional and relevant content, clients notice the value in your firm.
Write down questions that your clients and others across the internet keep asking, then answer them in your blog. Again, look at the comments from legal posts trends and address them.
When drafting your content, use credible sources, have great titles, focus on easy to understand and well-optimized content, and end with a call to action. Include infographics, images, videos, and other content forms.
You must focus beyond the blog page. Other internal pages need relevant and SEO friendly content. Clients will browse your blog and link to these pages if they address their concerns; this boosts your website traffic. Note that you don't have to stuff keywords in website pages, write naturally.
It's no secret that your law firm reputation influences how clients view your services. Everybody wants to hire a law firm that satisfies them in all aspects, and anything that doesn't go well with them is a turn-off.
Your reputation can either make or break your firm, and you need to build it through seeking reviews from past clients. Here's how to do it.
We all seek reviews before purchasing our favorite gadgets. The same trend extends in the legal field. Multiple studies show that customers read, trust, and value reviews posted across the internet, which influences their purchase behavior.
In one study, it's evident that 90% of consumers check out reviews before making a step further to browse your business. From another study, stats show that 88% of consumers trust reviews and are ready to take them as recommendations.
Reviews give relief, and for a moment, clients get to have some hope that their fears and problems will get a solution. Firms with multiple reviews tend to attract many clients. That's why you need to seek reviews for your social media accounts, Google profile, client's website, and law-related websites.
You'll not get reviews by sitting down and doing nothing. Have a requesting plan and communicate nicely with satisfied clients, and they'll be happy to leave an excellent review. Follow up where necessary.
With such positioning, you'll know what you're doing best and where to improve. Reviews boost your website traffic by 10% and convert 58% of visitors on your page.
PPC for law firms helps to boost your SEO efforts while enjoying a prominent search on the top Google search. Clients get to see your firm the moment of need and act accordingly. Though competitive, it's worth it when done right.
Know the most searched keywords and those of competitors and customize your ads such that when clients in a particular location query your specific keyword, your ad appears.
PPC ads are easy to set up, quite effective, and affordable. There is no risk, and you pay based on clicks. Display ads, search ads, and remarketing ads work perfectly for law firms.
Social Law Firm Index studies meant to measure engagements, reach, and performance across social media show that many law firms adopting paid advertisements, tripled their effect from 10 to 30%, with LinkedIn being the lawyers' favorite platform. A trend projected to continue over the years.
With the random changes when executing online marketing for law firms, it's advisable to measure your success and know where you need maximum attention to encounter the particular action. That requires you to look at your online metrics.
Through marketing, keyword, and auditing tools like Google Analytics, you'll track, measure, and analyze your site's performance. Social media auditing tools will also give an insight into your platforms of choice.
You now know how to develop a marketing plan and how to market and grow your business online. These strategies, when implemented, assure crazy returns on investment. That's why we've answered in this guide what you need to do at each approach of choice.
That sums it up. But we have to let you know this!
We know how hectic things can get when juggling between meetings, consultations, and court sessions. Let's take you through online marketing for law firms today and enjoy conversions as you concentrate more on other aspects of your business.
