In addition to being a legal marketing expert, I have been a divorce lawyer in South Carolina for 29 years. If you are a family lawyer like me, you already understand the complexities of attracting and winning over new clients. Persons seeking a divorce lawyer frequently search online for helpful legal information or when looking for the best family law attorneys near them. This article shares some key strategies that can help you build a stronger brand and attract more divorce and family law clients.
Defining Your Family Law Firm’s Target Audience
Before developing a marketing strategy for your family law firm, it is essential to define your “target audience” by discerning the following about your potential clients:
- Demographics – location, gender, employment, education, income, etc.
- Family Law Legal Services Needed
- Common Concerns and Questions
- Typical Goals and Expectations
Create a Unique Value Proposition for Your Family Law Firm
After you have identified the characteristics of your potential divorce and family law clients, the next step is to develop your unique value proposition (UVP). Many of the lawyers I work with either don’t have a UVP, don’t see a reason to establish their UVP., or don’t understand what is meant by UVP. A UVP isn’t just some marketing buzzphrase. With so many other divorce lawyers competing for potential clients, you must give your website’s visitors reasons why they should choose your law firm instead of your competitors. The questions you need to ask yourself are, for example:
What ARE NOT Unique Value Propositions for Your Family Law Firm?
To develop your UVP, you need to understand what isn’t UVP. UVP is NOT:
- How long you have practiced family law – Although your years of experience may matter to potential clients, some competitors have been practicing law as long as you have.
- Statements on your website that you are “experienced” – Albeit there is nothing wrong with stating this on your website, there is nothing unique about that statement since that term is used on nearly every lawyers’ website.
- Awards & Accolades – Again, there is nothing wrong with promoting things such as an AV rating from Martin-Dale Hubbell, but other family lawyers have the same awards and accolades on their websites.
- Law school, bar admissions, and memberships – Your resume is not a UVP.
- I do a better job than my competitors – Self-laudatory statements are not UVP’s.
What ARE Unique Value Propositions for a Divorce and Family Lawyer?
There are many potential UVPs for any given family law firm. Here are several examples to get you pointed in the right direction:
Firm Size – The size of your family law practice team can be a UVP. If you are a small firm, your UVP can be the promise of working one-on-one with your client instead of passing them off to legal staff. If you are a large firm, you can emphasize that you have the resources to take on a complicated divorce scenario.
Key Strengths – Key strengths can be things such as:
- A clerkship for a family court judge demonstrating your knowledge of the judiciary and the court system
- Your work on or contributions to family law legislation in your jurisdiction
- Any books and articles you published on family law that emphasize your knowledge and expertise
- Any landmark appellate cases you worked on
- How many divorce cases you have successfully handled
How You Can Help Your Family Law Clients – Describe precisely how you can help your divorce and family law clients.
Your Story – For example, perhaps you have gone through a difficult divorce, or your parents fought for custody of you. You can connect with potential clients by sharing your personal experiences.
Legal Fees – As family lawyers, we all know that legal fees are a HUGE consideration for any potential client. I recommend that you emphasize the reasonableness of your fees and, importantly, precisely what you will do to keep their fees to a minimum.
Your Reputation Online (Reviews) – What your clients say about your family law services is much more important to potential clients than what you say about yourself. If you have a large number of positive online reviews, then display these reviews to let your former clients share your values!
How Should You Present Your Unique Value Propositions on Your Family Law Website?
People only read about 20% of the content on any given webpage. Typically, they glance over headlines such as the larger subheadings in this article. Moreover, you only have seconds to convince your website visitors to stick around before moving on to the next family law website. Therefore, your UVP must grab a website visitor’s attention IMMEDIATELY by:
- Displaying a strong headline
- Including a short, concise, and precise description with language and bullet points illustrating your UVP’s
- Displaying your UVP prominently (“above the fold”) on your homepage
- Showing your UVP at the start of content on the other top-level landing pages on your website, such as pages focused on custody, alimony, equitable division of property, etc.
Create Informative Content for Online Family Law Research
Many potential divorce clients go through a “research phase” to learn about divorce and family laws in their jurisdiction. For example, my law firm’s website gets approximately 25,000 visitors a month to our South Carolina Law Blog. The most popular posts that visitors read are my law firm’s blogs on family law. If you want to be found for these “informational” searches by prospective clients, then you need to have well-written legal content (preferably 1,500 words per blog) on your website that provides specific answers to frequently asked questions such as:
- How do you file for divorce in [your state]?
- How long does it take to get a divorce in [your state]?
- What are the grounds for divorce in [your state]?
- How is child support calculated in [your state]?
- How is property divided in [your state]?
- How is alimony calculated in [your state]?
- What are [your state’s] custody laws?
- What is adultery in [your state]?
When you post this information to your law firm’s blog, share those posts across your social media channels to get more exposure online.
Real-World Examples of How Content Drives Traffic and New Leads to Law Firms
Not convinced that blogging and legal content doesn’t make a difference? Here are some real-world examples of how effective researchable content can bring in new site visitors and clients. Here is a screenshot of my law firm’s Google Analytics taken on the afternoon of October 8, 2021, showing 25,000 visitors for the previous 30 days and, at the moment I captured the screen, seven users on my law firm’s website.
In the following screenshot, you can see that the seven visitors were reading our blog posts on family law, including terminating parental rights in South Carolina, what to do if a child doesn’t want to visit with the other parent, divorcing a spouse who lives outside of the state, how to fill out a financial declaration form for family court, and an article on adultery. My point is – CONTENT DRIVES TRAFFIC, AND TRAFFIC DRIVES LEADS.
Get Online Reviews for Your Family Law Firm
Online reviews play a crucial role in marketing a family law practice. The right online reviews strategy can build your firm’s credibility and distinguish you from your competitors. Out of several major websites that users rely on for reviews, Google Is the most used and relied upon by consumers. Contact us if you help set up a system to solicit, monitor, share, and respond to your law firm’s online reviews.
Video Marketing for Divorce Lawyers
Videos are the most consumed form of content online, and you should include videos in your family law marketing strategy. Videos improve user experience, increase your leads, and build trust. Some of the common ideas for your video marketing content include:
- Attorney Introductions
- Video Reviews
- Law firm Overviews
- Answers to frequently asked questions about family law issues in your jurisdiction.
As with the blog content you create, you should share your videos across social media and upload them to a YouTube channel for your law firm.
Optimize Your Family Law Website
Your law firm’s website is the foundation upon which your digital marketing efforts will be built upon. Whether your marketing efforts include SEO (search engine optimization), content marketing, social media marketing, or Google Ads, all your marketing efforts will revolve around driving more targeted traffic to your website. Make sure your website is optimized to rank higher in your search engine results pages (SERPs). Your family law firm should take on-page optimization steps, including:
- Researching and adding the most relevant keywords. These are words and phrases your target audience uses to find your family law practice.
- Optimizing metadata, landing pages, and URLs with the keywords.
- Creating simple navigation systems that enhance the user experience.
- Optimizing with local keywords to help people find your practice near them.
- Optimizing your website to load QUICKLY.
- Optimizing your website for both mobile and desktop.
Final Thoughts on Marketing Strategies for Divorce and Family Law Attorneys
The strategies I have mentioned are by no means an exhaustive list of all of the possible ways of promoting your law firm. For example, some techniques involve Google Ads and social media marketing that may suit your needs depending on your goals and marketing budget. However, the strategies that I have mentioned are the core essentials for success and, if you are doing it yourself, will only cost you time. If you don’t have the time or the skillset to implement these strategies, please get in touch with JustLegal Marketing. Our family law marketing experts can come up with the perfect plan for you so that you can focus on what you do best – helping all the new clients that come through your door!
