The act of luring new potential clients to your law company is known as law firm marketing. A marketing strategy for a legal practise can include a combination of internet marketing, SEO, blogging, print, and digital ads. Your marketing strategy may also involve a variety of additional strategies, such as utilising marketing technology for law firms to automate specific duties. However, promoting your business can quickly take up a lot of your time and effort, regardless of how you go about it.
Everything you need to know about effectively marketing your law business, from SEO to networking and everything in between, is covered in this guide. This manual will explain fundamental words related to law firm marketing, the procedures you should follow to create a marketing plan, and how to track your progress. Additionally, you’ll discover useful statistics to guide your marketing decisions, industry best practises and insights, and the top technologies and tools for marketing law firms.
marketing words for law firms
Before beginning the strategy and execution phase, it is crucial to comprehend the fundamentals of law firm marketing. We’ve compiled a simple glossary of the key marketing terminology you should be familiar with.
Even though there are obviously a tonne more marketing jargon you can learn about, this concise list is a wonderful place to start, particularly if you’re new to law firm marketing.
market potential
A potential client for your business is a marketing lead. There is more involved than just a website visitor. Once someone takes an action that indicates they are interested in communicating with you, they are considered a marketing lead.
Rate of conversion
Your conversion rate is the proportion of visitors to a particular webpage or advertisement to those who ultimately “convert” to leads. You may monitor the conversion rate for your entire website or just one specific page. You can also assess how effectively your intake procedure converts prospects into paying customers.
a “call to action”
An explicit appeal for a website visitor or lead to take the next step towards becoming a paying customer is known as a call-to-action, or CTA. This may, for instance, be a button in a paid advertisement that links to your website’s “Contact Us” form.
Page landings
A landing page is a web page designed to persuade site visitors to perform a certain action, such as clicking a link, completing a form, scheduling an appointment, or dialling a number. See the article Should Lawyers Use Landing Pages for additional details on landing pages.
SEO (search engine optimisation)
The process of optimising websites so they show up near the top of search results for pertinent keywords is known as search engine optimisation, or SEO.
Words or phrases that describe the subjects you base your pages on are known as keywords (sometimes referred to as keyword phrases). If you’re a divorce lawyer in Manhattan, for instance, you can choose to target a keyword phrase like “NYC Divorce Attorney.”
These are the queries that internet users type into Google or other search engines, to put it simply. Your keyword—and/or versions of it that are semantically close to it—should appear prominently on your website to let search engines know that it is relevant to the issue at hand. Yoast SEO is a feature-rich SEO solution that you can add to your WordPress website with ease. Read about WordPress Law to find out more about Yoast SEO and other WordPress plugins.
Investment return (ROI)
ROI is a performance statistic that is utilised in many business sectors, but marketing is one where it is particularly crucial. Make sure you’re generating high returns on your investments if you want to expand your legal practise and maintain it profitable.
PPC (pay-per-click)
Pay-per-click, or PPC, is a form of paid online advertising where advertisers are charged a predetermined sum each time a site visitor clicks on their advertisement.
Read our post on Google Advertising 101 for Lawyers to get the fundamentals of Google ads.
10 actions to market your law firm
A marketing strategy for a law firm of any size may be developed and carried out with ease if you take the proper approach. Whether you wish to build a long-lasting solo practise or quickly expand your company, you can use the following stages to assist you in achieving your objective.
When developing a marketing plan for your law practise, take into account the following nine factors:
1. Make a marketing budget
A solid marketing budget is a crucial part of any business plan for a law company. You must set your objectives and calculate the amount of income required to make them a reality in order to calculate the amount you will need to invest in your law firm marketing campaigns. You must next consider how many cases you must bill annually in order to reach that income target. Depending on your field of practise, this will change.
Don’t forget to account for those prospective charges in the budget because law firm marketing technology can be a component of your total marketing strategy. You might utilise content marketing tools like HubSpot or specific apps for SEO, social media scheduling, or email marketing, as examples of law firm technology.
It’s crucial to adhere to your marketing budget’s constraints once you’ve established one for your law practise. Ultimately, if you aren’t keeping an eye on your bottom line, taking on more cases won’t help your firm develop.
2. Establish a professional legal company website.
Your legal firm’s website is frequently a potential client’s first impression of you in the digital era. You have the opportunity to leave a lasting impression on website visitors who are considering hiring a lawyer.
Use reputable images and a standout law company logo to start. Next, succinctly describe the services you offer and the practise areas you cover. Make sure your contact information is prominently displayed and draw attention to any honours, accolades, or noteworthy experiences you have.
Check out our checklist for developing a law firm website if you currently have one or are considering doing so. It includes every essential element of a top-notch, highly effective law office website.
3. Ensure your website is optimised for search engines.
Will prospective clients ever learn about you if you build a law firm website to sell your business but no one can discover it online?
You must make sure your website adheres to SEO best practises if you want to get the most out of it for your law firm. It’s crucial to make sure your website is well-designed. Having high-quality, valuable material is a part of this. This is what users of search engines like Google are trying to find.
Additionally, you should make sure your content is aimed at long-tail keywords. Use your city’s name in place of merely the term “lawyer,” for instance. The best chance of outranking rival pages and being found by potential customers is to use long tail keywords.
Make sure to create a Google Business listing as well if you need to draw in customers in a certain region. Make sure to include your contact information as well as a concise, helpful explanation of your services.
4. Take control of your free online profiles.
Potential clients can find you in a few different places outside just on your law practise website. There are several options to claim internet profiles for free, from review websites like Yelp to your local state bar listing.
Here are 10 free online advertising options for lawyers. Check this list to make sure you’re utilising every option accessible.
5. Ensure that your law practise is active on social media.
By using online advertising, you may reach new customers by going to where they are. This refers to social media in the digital era. You’ll need to determine which social media sites are suitable for your legal company and practise area since there are several to select from. Social media advertising can have a huge positive impact on the expansion of your legal practise with some careful planning.
You can market your legal business using social media in the following ways:
- Join in on meaningful conversations by following legal thought leaders on Twitter.
- Create a LinkedIn page for your law company. Make sure it’s distinct from your personal
- LinkedIn page, which you ought to optimise to assist you stand out among colleagues and possible clients.
To establish yourself as an authority in your field and draw in more customers, launch a Facebook advertising campaign. Read about how to obtain clients as a lawyer to understand the procedure for acquiring new clients.
6. Effectively handle online reviews for your law practise
Customers may start leaving you reviews if your law company has several active web profiles. It is essential to control these. The 2021 Legal Trends Report indicated that 82% of customers who were looking for legal advice sought for client reviews and 81% of consumers looked for referrals. A few unfavourable reviews won’t hurt, but a steady stream of them could scare away potential customers.
Lastly, confirm that you are abiding by the ethical and advertising laws applicable to your law practise. For instance, refrain from referring to yourself as a specialist or expert unless you have received official certification in this regard.
Make it a habit to request online reviews at the conclusion of every case, especially when a client is ecstatic. Check your state bar’s advertising regulations again to make sure your request complies. Don’t overlook a bad review if you come across one. When it comes to directly answering your clients’ comments, adhere to recommended practises for managing lawyers’ internet reputations.
7. Experiment with content marketing
Use your writing prowess, which you already possess, to expand your law practise. Building your brand and authority through blogging and content marketing in general is a terrific strategy.
You can utilise material to highlight your subject-matter expertise. You will gain the trust and confidence of potential clients if you can respond to their common inquiries in a useful manner. It’s more probable that they’ll hire you if you can show that you’re an authority in that field.
If you choose to launch a blog, be strategic and look for legal-related evergreen content marketing subjects. Maintain a consistent tempo, give your material a defined emphasis, and make sure it offers good, useful information.
8. Commit time to business development and networking.
Make sure you’re gaining anything out of the interactions with other legal professionals if you’re going to spend time networking with them. Plan out your time and effort for the conversation by developing a strategy. Be ready to participate in relevant discussions that enhance your brand and generate referrals.
Lawyer referrals are a crucial part of every legal firm’s expansion of business and increase in revenue. Therefore, learning how to develop referral connections with other lawyers is a worthy investment to ensure a law firm’s sustainability.
9. Recognise your target market. To whom are you marketing?
You can generate quality content that prospective customers will actually want to engage with by knowing who your target audience is. For instance, if you work as a divorce lawyer, you probably already know how old your typical client is. Which social media platforms you should utilise to interact with them may depend on this.
Everything you produce and distribute should benefit your potential customers. Every time you update your website, send an email, or write a blog post, keep them in mind.
10. Track the marketing activities for your law practise
It’s crucial to gauge the effectiveness of your marketing efforts, regardless of the strategy you choose to use for your law practise. Without measurement, you won’t know which campaigns are succeeding and which are failing at generating new revenue. Your marketing plan will be successful if you can identify the marketing tactic that isn’t working well. This will allow you to stop spending money on the ineffective strategies and increase your spending on the ones that do.
Perhaps you want to create a new website to assist you attract more customers. Or perhaps you’ve developed a great deal of goodwill over time and are receiving a lot of nice feedback from previous customers. You can only learn this by looking at the numbers.
Start by finding out how customers learned about you. Although only anecdotal evidence is produced by this somewhat low-tech method, it’s an excellent place to start. To really understand how your marketing is performing, you’ll need to conduct a more thorough review.
Google Analytics will assist you in locating beneficial indicators, such as which website visitors visited before arriving at your site (also known as a “referring domain”), how long a certain visitor spent on your site, and of course, conversion rates.
Four excellent practises for solicitors in law firm marketing
Consider what will determine your success before spending thousands of dollars on a new website, an SEO expert, or social media advertisements. All the marketing money in the world won’t help your law practise develop if you aren’t adhering to a few key guidelines.
As you continue your efforts to advertise your law business, keep these four recommendations in mind:
1. Make your marketing efforts centred on your customers.
The customer experience is king in the era of almost instantaneous Amazon deliveries and on-demand transportation from firms like Lyft. It is crucial at every point of the client’s journey, from the moment they first learn about a service until the moment they decide to hire it.
Clients now want their experiences with their lawyers to be on par with those they have with businesses like Amazon since law firms are businesses just like any other. Competitive law firms will be better positioned to stand out and be successful if they concentrate on offering a client-centered experience in their operations and marketing.
What does this seem like in terms of marketing for legal firms? When creating messaging for your website, take your clients’ problems into account. Instead of just emphasising the services you provide, concentrate on demonstrating empathy and resolving those points of pain.
Make prompt contact with leads to let potential customers know you’re interested in working with them. A website that is well-designed also helps to focus on the needs of the customer. A user-friendly website demonstrates to customers that you have given consideration to their needs and how they will use your website.
In all of your marketing endeavours, prioritise your customers. Not only will you increase credibility and goodwill, but you’ll also be in a better position to draw in more prospective customers and swiftly convert leads into paying ones.
2. Make wise investments in marketing initiatives
There’s no need to go overboard when it comes to marketing for legal firms. In fact, sticking to a few concentrated tactics will probably yield greater results than attempting to implement everything.
Don’t attempt to maintain a presence on every social network, for instance, if you’re going to engage in social media marketing. Consider your objectives and your practise area carefully. Choose one or two networks to concentrate on, and develop strategies that take into account the resources you can devote to each.
3. Invest additional funds if necessary.
It might be worthwhile to outsource legal procedures or to hire a law firm marketing consultant, site designer, SEO professional, or other form of marketing service to assist with your business’s needs, depending on your goals and marketing budget.
Although you are a skilled lawyer, you still need to manage a business. Therefore, hiring help might be a good idea if marketing isn’t a skill you have much experience in (or a skill you have time to master).
4. Monitor the effectiveness of your campaigns
Making sure that all of your hard work genuinely contributes to the growth of your law business requires measuring the effectiveness of your marketing initiatives. Make sure you are aware of the client referral sources. How many visitors to your website become leads or paying customers? How many people click on the ads you run on social media? Take into account every metric that is pertinent to the marketing efforts you have run. While we’re talking about tracking, remember to keep an eye out for digital marketing news because you never know what you might discover!
Conclusion
The best strategy for marketing a law practise is to just get started. Spend a little money, try something new, evaluate your results, and use what you learn to get better. Instead of trying to do everything, concentrate on a few crucial marketing areas. Use law firm marketing technologies and resources to bolster your efforts, and make sure to keep to your marketing budget.