10 steps for marketing your law firm
The practice of attracting new potential clients to your law firm is known as law firm marketing. A law firm’s marketing strategy may include a combination of digital marketing, SEO, blogging, print, and digital advertisements. Your marketing strategy may also include a variety of other tactics, such as utilizing law firm marketing technology to automate various tasks. However, no matter how you approach it, marketing your company can quickly consume a significant amount of your time and energy.
Choosing where to invest your resources, money, and time in law firm marketing so that you can focus on practising law and running your firm can be a difficult balancing act. The goal is to determine which methods are most effective based on your marketing objectives—and knowing where to begin is critical.
A marketing plan for a large or small law firm can be easily developed and implemented with the right approach. You can use the steps below to help you achieve your goal, whether it is to establish a sustainable solo practice or to rapidly expand your firm.
Here are nine things to think about when developing a marketing strategy for your law firm:
1. Develop a marketing budget.
A well-planned marketing budget is an essential component of any law firm’s business plan. To determine how much you’ll need to invest in your law firm’s marketing initiatives, first identify your goals and how much revenue you’ll need to make them a reality. Then you must consider how many cases per year you must bill in order to meet your revenue target. This will differ depending on your field of practice. After you’ve done your homework, you’ll be able to calculate your overall law firm marketing budget. Take note of your law firm’s stage, i.e., have you just started your practice or is it well-established? Consider how competitive your market is as well. For example, are you a business lawyer attempting to establish a client base in a competitive city like New York, or are you the sole family lawyer in a small town?
Because law firm marketing technology may be a component of your overall marketing strategy, don’t forget to budget for those potential costs. Examples of law firm technology include content marketing solutions such as HubSpot, as well as individual apps for SEO, social media scheduling, and email campaigns. Once you’ve established your law firm marketing budget, it’s critical to stick to it. Getting more cases won’t help your firm grow if you’re not keeping an eye on the bottom line.
2. Create a professional-looking law firm website.
Your law firm’s website is often a potential client’s first impression of you in the digital age. It’s your chance to make a good first impression on website visitors looking for a lawyer.
Use high-quality photographs as a starting point. Then, state your services and practice areas in a clear and concise manner. Make a point of emphasizing any awards, recognitions, or significant experiences you have, and make sure your contact information is prominently displayed.
If you already have a website or are thinking about creating one, make sure you’ve gone over our law firm website checklist. It covers all of the essential elements of a high-quality, high-converting website for law firms.
If you’re looking for someone to help you create or maintain your website, check out our post on the 11 questions to ask when hiring a law firm website designer. These pointers will provide you with the knowledge you require before signing any contracts.
3. Make certain that your website is search engine optimized.
Will potential clients ever be aware of you if you create a law firm website to market your firm but no one finds it when they search online?
To get the most out of your law firm website, make sure it adheres to SEO best practices. It is critical to ensure that your website is well-designed. This includes having relevant, high-quality content. This is what search engines, such as Google, and their users, are looking for.
You should also ensure that your content targets long-tail keywords. Instead of just using the word “lawyer,” include the name of your city as well. Using long tail keywords increases your chances of competing with other pages and being found by potential clients.
Set up a Google Business listing if you need to attract potential clients in a specific geographical area. Make sure to include contact information as well as a clear, useful description of your services.
The Quick Guide to Law Firm SEO contains more information on effective keyword research, local SEO, and best practices for law firm SEO.
If you want to learn even more, AttorneySync’s Gyi Tsakalakis is an expert on the subject, and we highly recommend his content.
4. Register for your free online profiles
Your law firm website is one place where potential clients can find you, but it is not the only place they can find you. There are numerous opportunities to claim online profiles for free, ranging from review sites like Yelp to your local state bar listing.
Here are ten free ways for lawyers to advertise online. Examine this list to ensure that you’re taking advantage of all available options.
5. Establish a social media presence for your law firm.
If you want to attract new clients through online advertising, you must go where they are. This means social media in the digital age. There are numerous social networks to choose from, so you’ll need to determine which ones are best for your law firm and practice area. Social media advertising, with some forethought, can have a significant impact on the growth of your law firm.
Here are a few ideas for using social media in law firm marketing:
Follow legal leaders on Twitter and join in on the discussion.
Create an effective LinkedIn page for your law firm. Make sure it’s distinct from your personal LinkedIn profile, which you should also optimize in order to stand out among peers and potential clients.
Create a Facebook advertising campaign to establish yourself as an expert in your field and attract new customers. Read about how to get clients as a lawyer to learn about the process of acquiring new clients
Finally, ensure that you are abiding by the ethics and advertising rules applicable to your law firm’s jurisdiction. For example, do not refer to yourself as a specialist or expert unless you have been formally certified as such, and avoid establishing inappropriate lawyer-client relationships.
6. Effectively manage your law firm’s online reviews.
Clients may begin to leave reviews once you have a number of online profiles for your law firm up and running. These are extremely important to manage. According to the 2021 Legal Trends Report, when seeking legal counsel, 82 percent of consumers looked for client reviews and 81 percent looked for referrals. While a few negative reviews won’t hurt, a steady stream of them may turn off potential customers.
Make requesting an online review at the end of each case a part of your process, especially if a client is extremely satisfied. However, you should double-check your state bar’s advertising rules to ensure that your request is legal. If you come across a negative review, don’t dismiss it. When it comes to responding directly to your client’s feedback, follow best practices for online reputation management for lawyers.
7. Experiment with content marketing.
You already have a talent for the written word; use it to help your law firm grow. Blogging, and, more broadly, content marketing, is an excellent way to establish your brand and authority. You can use content to demonstrate your expertise in a specific field. If you can provide helpful answers to general questions that potential clients may have, you will gain their trust and confidence. Demonstrating that you’re an expert in a particular field increases the likelihood that they’ll hire you.
If you decide to start a blog, take your time and look for legal-related evergreen content marketing topics. Make sure your content has a clear focus, that you stick to a consistent cadence, and that you’re providing quality, useful information (without offering specific legal advice, of course).
If you want to learn more about blogging for lawyers, check out our guides to starting a legal blog and powerful, persuasive legal writing.
8. Invest time in business development and networking.
If you’re going to spend time attending local networking and bar events, make the most of your time there. Create a conversation strategy for where and how you’ll spend your energy and time. Prepare to have meaningful conversations that will help your brand and lead to referrals.
Referrals from other attorneys are an important part of any law firm’s business development and revenue growth. So, learning how to build referral relationships with other attorneys is a worthwhile investment in ensuring a long-term law firm.
However, networking does not have to be limited to mingling and shaking hands with other lawyers. To connect with more potential clients, you may want to consider public speaking or attending community events.
Read our blog post, Top Attorney Networking Tips, for 11 ideas on how to network.
9. Think about traditional marketing (possibly).
Traditional marketing (i.e., offline marketing) may be appropriate for your law firm depending on its location and practice area. People still respond to billboard advertisements in the digital age.
However, keep in mind that no matter how your clients learn about you, they will most likely conduct online research before making a hiring decision. Consumers have more power than ever before to weigh their options. So, keep a relevant and professional website up to date, and continue to solicit positive feedback from satisfied customers.
10. Track the effectiveness of your law firm’s marketing efforts.
Whatever method you choose to market your law firm, it is critical to track the return on investment of your efforts. Without measurement, you won’t know which campaigns are bringing in new business and which aren’t. Identifying which marketing tactic isn’t working well will help your marketing strategy succeed by allowing you to stop investing in methods that don’t work and increase your investment in those that do.
Perhaps you’d like to create a new website to help you gain more clients. Or perhaps you’ve built up a lot of goodwill over the years and are getting a lot of positive feedback from previous customers. There’s only one way to find out: crunch the numbers.
Begin by asking clients how they found out about you. While this is a low-tech method with only anecdotal evidence, it’s a good place to start. However, in order to truly understand how your marketing is performing, you will need to conduct a more in-depth analysis.
Implementing website tracking is the best way to track your law firm’s digital marketing efforts. For most law firms, the free version of Google Analytics—an analytics tool that helps website owners gain insights into traffic to their sites—is a good solution. Here’s how to set it up on your site.
Google Analytics can assist you in identifying useful metrics such as which website people visited before coming to your site (also known as a “referring domain”), how long a given visitor stayed on your site, and, of course, the number of visitors to your site.
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