In 2023, marketing any business in the digital world is made up of so many elements it can seem an almost impossible feat. Law firm marketing and legal marketing are no different. For example, did you know that 70% of law firms have landed new cases as a direct result of their website? That should be a jolting thought for the 13 law-practicing individuals and firms that don’t have any form of a website at all! Knowing organic search conversion rates, SEO metrics and performance checks, video marketing, and PPC are but a fraction of what your attorney marketing needs to include. The law industry is extremely competitive and your marketing strategy needs to help you stand out so keep reading to find out how you can achieve that with your law firm marketing strategy.
Digital Marketing
The technique of advertising items or services through digital devices and technology is known as digital marketing. In simple terms, digital marketing refers to any type of marketing that takes place online via a mobile device, a laptop, or the internet. Aside from digital signage and technology that isn’t always connected to the internet. It might be as complicated as automated email marketing campaigns or as simple as the content choices on your website’s blog.
What Does Digital Marketing Include?
You’ve probably encountered digital marketing if you own a computer or a smartphone. As you can see, internet marketing is a broad field with numerous subspecialties. However, the following are the most common types of digital marketing.
1. SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
Simply put, SEO is meticulously designing and optimizing your website’s pages in order to reach the greatest possible position on search engine result pages (SERPs) when internet users conduct a related search on a search engine like Google. SEO is a list of tactics that when put together start to work like a well-oiled, traffic-generating machine. Your SEO tactics will work as a checklist at first but then need to be adapted as time goes on. So SEO measurements are key.
2. Paid Search Advertising and Social Media Marketing
Paid social advertisements appear on social media, and all ads that display on the SERPs when you type a query are paid search ads. Advertisers generate these paid adverts and compete with others for placement on their preferred social network or on the search engine’s first page of results.
3. Email Marketing Campaigns For Law Firms
Email marketing refers to any type of marketing that takes place via email, not just newsletters and coupons. This category includes all marketing-related email interactions.
4. Content Marketing For Attorneys
Content marketing refers to any endeavor to advertise using online content (and often employs SEO, paid search, and paid social advertising). Things like blog posts, articles, videos and infographics, and basically any content that you can create for your brand and publish on the internet.
Creating Your Law Firm Marketing Strategy
The basis for any successful marketing campaign is the strategy that drives it. This means that your law firm’s marketing strategy needs to have strong, well-researched foundations to build upon. Also, the key is knowing how to create your law firm’s marketing strategy so that you don’t miss anything.
1. What’s Your Niche?
Generally speaking, when people go in search of a lawyer it’s because they know exactly what problem they need help with. It could be divorce proceedings or it could be a traffic violation or it could be criminal. Identifying the niche for your law firm is key to how you’re going to market it.
2. Identify The Target Market
This is one of the most fundamental building blocks of a successful marketing plan. Your marketing strategy will be much more successful if you have a clear picture of your target audience, including their qualities, purchase habits, and pain areas.
3. Know Your Market And Competition
The people, businesses, and organizations who are your current and potential clients are referred to as “the market.” Consider the magnitude of your law firm’s industry opportunity, depending on your practice area, geographic location, target audience, and other factors. A smart marketing strategy will help you stand out from the crowd and attract the clients your legal practice requires. However, you must first learn how and what your competitors are doing. What distinguishes you from your competitors? What percentage of the market do they control? How do they attempt to set themselves apart from other legal firms?
4. Define Your Core Message
Every business, whether it’s lawyer marketing or attorney marketing, or any other type of marketing, needs to have a core message that they take to the market. This is the fundamental message about your law practice that you want your target audience to understand, it’s what ultimately sets your business apart from the rest. Your main message should go beyond simply informing your potential clients about the services you provide; it should directly address their legal and personal pain points, it should assure them that you are the law firm they have been searching for. This message should be at the core of your marketing efforts.
5. Move Onto Your Marketing Plan
Your marketing plan is different from your law firm’s marketing strategy. This is because your marketing plan details the tactics to be used to achieve your marketing goals which are driven by your marketing strategy. Make sure to take the time to write and implement a detailed marketing plan for your law firm. This will give you a map to follow all year long. A well-thought-out marketing plan can also save you time, effort, and money in the long run, so it’s worth making one. With a well-thought-out plan, you can see who on your team is in charge of what. In this way, you can keep track of all the tasks you need to do for your law firm’s marketing and make sure they get all the tasks done.
Tips For Marketing Your Law Firm Online
In today’s technology-driven world, law firms must use digital marketing to get their name out there. It’s now standard for law firms to have a well-maintained website, active social media profiles, and interesting online ads if they want to attract clients who do a lot of their research online. In fact, on any given day, 76% of smartphone users who search for nearby businesses visit them.
1. Content Needs To Be Great
Content marketing falls part and parcel of almost every single digital marketing strategy. That being said, content marketing is nothing if the content being published is not high-quality. High-quality, well-written, relevant content will help you increase readership and increase the reach of your content online with minimal effort. This is because relevant, useful content will do a lot of the work for you since your audience is already searching for those answers.
2. Strong Social Media Presence
Make powerful social media profiles. When it comes to establishing your online presence, social media is a must-have tool. Maintaining active profiles on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn requires a significant amount of time and effort. Decide on your purpose and then select the appropriate platform for your law firm. Special tools can assist you in creating ideal posting schedules and monitoring the flow of followers if you need help with managing profiles and content creation. Strong social media profiles will also aid your SEO because they have a positive overall impact on your law firm’s rating. Clients may also share content with their followers, increasing the visibility of your company and thereby increasing brand awareness.
3. Consider Paid Advertising
It will take a lot of time and work to create a keyword list that accurately defines your business, but it will be highly beneficial to your campaign. Relevant, well-researched keywords should be used. Keep in mind that as your campaign expands, you’ll want to keep an eye on your keyword list so you can make effective changes like adding more keywords and adding negative keywords to maintain relevance in searches and to your desired target audience. The great thing about paid advertising is that you can start to see results almost immediately and thereby measure ROI from the beginning which could make it easier for you if you’re looking for quick results.
4. Optimize Your Website
The foundation of establishing a strong online presence is website optimization. Technically, it’s a sort of controlled testing aimed at improving your website’s performance in Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). Planning how much care these sections of your website require is an organized method to get started with total website optimization:
- SEO stands for “search engine optimization” (SEO)
- Analytical Data (Visitor Behavior)
- Performance of a Website (Backend Processes)
- The content (Copywriting & Visual)
- User Interaction (Frontend Design)
- Optimization of Conversion Rates (CRO)
Working on all of the above points concurrently will help in optimizing your website. For example, ensuring that your website is responsive to different devices is a must-do, your audience should be able to view your website on a smartphone, tablet, or desktop computer without any frustration. Optimizing your website also means that you should be working continuously on the loading speed of all your pages. A slow-loading website can chase away potential law customers faster than other issues, so focusing on that is key to successfully generating leads.
5. Measure Your Performance
Another key to successful law firm marketing is being able to measure your performance in different campaigns and through different tactics. The way to do this is to ensure that you are set up for this before you press the green light on your marketing efforts. In order to accurately measure your performance, you should put things in place to track analytics like Google Analytics on your website. Measuring should be done regularly so that you know where your marketing strategy and plan need to be adapted. Also, regular reports will tell you what is working well so that you can continue efforts in that area or even increase them if the results are positive and generate quality leads for the law firm. Your performance measuring should also take into account your marketing goals as depending on what these are, you may need to track different metrics.
Solid SEO Is Everything
Which firm’s websites will appear first in the search results is determined by successful SEO. How many pages do clients open when searching for specific information on the internet? If people locate what they’re looking for within the first few pages, they’ll almost certainly stop clicking on further links. Effective SEO is what gets you to the top of the first page of Google and allows new clients to find you. If SEO is effective, search engines will include your website in relevant searches, propelling it to the top of the rankings. Keep in mind that search engine results can bring in the most qualified clients because they are already interested in the services you offer. In fact, 70% of law firms receive new cases as a direct result of people finding their websites. In any business, a website serves as the core center for search engine optimization. However, you should not expect fast benefits while investing in SEO, results are usually only visible over time. Your SEO strategy and tactics need to be solid and built upon an unwavering foundation, like well-researched keywords and great branding.
Lawyer Marketing Is Magic
Law firm marketing can be easy to achieve if you approach it methodically and you stay true to your brand. It’s important that your brand voice and identity are consistent no matter where the audience interacts with it, so consistent branding throughout your marketing mix is absolutely key. With your law website being at the core of your business, then you might be considering that it needs a redesign. Hiring a web design agency can be beneficial if you hire one that specializes in law firms, contact us to get the ball rolling and start bringing in those leads.
