6 Great Tips For Law Firm Marketing

Some attorneys and law firms rack their brains trying to figure out how to get new clients and coveted case files. Long gone are the days of solely relying upon in-house “rain makers” and easy local referrals. Although, they still play an important role in business development activities.

Law firms continue to fixate on competing for the same clients of others, as the digital age has made finding the “right” attorney less of a chore. Some law firms attempt to increase their advertising dollars, while others overspend on fruitless ventures, such as a fancy new website that does little to bring in new clientele.

Spending Time in the Right Place

These types of activities are tactics that firm managers use to put out fires. It’s also the fastest way to shut down your business (or at least stunt its growth). If more law firms would pump the breaks, they would see that throwing precious money at something and hoping it sticks is wasteful and does not set you up to be seen as leader in your practice area.

Follow These 6 Tips for Legal Marketing Excellence

Over the next several paragraphs, we are going to examine exactly what types of marketing and advertising activities will ensure that you are headed in the right direction to generate new and cross-promoted revenue from clientele.

1. Generating High-Quality Content is Crucial.

High-quality content is great because it encourages people to inquire about your services. How does it do that? The content your firm creates offers your clients information for which they are in need of finding.

Plus, it will give you more leeway to rank for certain keyword phrases and bring relevant traffic to your website. For example, a person who searches for “how do I file an LLC” is most likely trying to find a business lawyer. Make sure your website is the one that ranks for relevant searches.

Content creation takes a little bit of time and should not be left on the backs of lawyers. Law firm marketing is a dish best shared with others. Working with a paralegal who has a background in marketing or a legal marketing company should be able to provide the best work.

2. Cultivate and Nurture Referral Sources

It’s no secret that lawyers receive most of their new business from referrals. However, it’s also important to remember that referrals do not happen on their own. New referrals and contacts are enjoyed by the lawyers and law firms that nurtured them with genuine interest over time.

Referral Source #1: Existing Clients

The first type of referral source is from existing clients. These referral sources are your most precious as they are best suited to provide honest feedback. The key to receiving these types of referrals is to simply ask for them in a tactful and genuine manner.

Referral Source #2: Colleagues and Contacts

The next type of referral source is from other lawyers and related industry members. Professionals that work in law, investments, accounting, banking, real estate, and insurance can send you highly-targeted leads.

Social media has made generating leads and contacts much easier. However, we will say that face-to-face contact should be the end goal of all online contacts. Mutual respect and appreciation towards the referral should be a slam dunk for new business.

3. Position Yourself as a Thought Leader

The coveted title of “thought leader” is earned, not claimed. In order to earn this title, you have to work for it by demonstrating your ability to be accepted as an authority in the legal field where your expertise is sought after and praised by others. As you can probably guess, this is a wonderful way to position your law firm marketing.

Attorneys and law firms achieve thought leader status by creating high-quality content for the web, appearing publicly on the type of issue at hand, and receiving endorsements from colleagues. Regular blog posts and opinion editorials in the newspaper will also strengthen that authority, as well.

4. Optimize Your Website for Local Search

It’s likely that you have already noticed that people use search engines to information locally. The largest search engine in the world claims that 97% of people search and research local firms online. It’s safe to say that local search isn’t perfect for ever law firm out there, but there are many ways that local firms can benefit from this technique.

There are 3 types of searches that you want to be associated with:

– Paid Ads/Pay-Per-Click (PPC)
– Organic/Natural
– Local/Blended SEO

In order to appear in these types of searches, many search engines will consider local search ranking factors. These factors include the domain authority of your website, contact information across the web, relevance of content, citations, and several other considerations.

Optimizing your website for local search is one of the best, most cost-effective methods to help your firm rank higher in search engines. It’s the reason all of the bigger firms are SEO believers and recognize its contributions to law firm marketing.

5. Play the Rankings Game to Stand Out Further

Attorney ranking sites aim to satisfy the needs listed in the previous category, such as relevance and authority. However, it also provides more traffic to the entity that is providing the award for excellence and leadership in their respective fields. This spills over into a potential quid pro quo situation. However, the bigger ranking sites will choose to remain discerning and only provide exposure to those who are the best of the best.

Upon acceptance into an attorney ranking site, you could receive many marketing benefits as a direct result. Some sites attract over 300 million consumers annually. It’s difficult to argue that this type of attention is a bad thing. Ranking sites also allow you to purchase and utilize their badge of honor for your website. This creates further credibility in the eyes of legal consumers when trying to decide between you and another firm.

6. Utilize Marketing and Business Plans

We really wanted to lead this with this law firm marketing tip, as it is most important (but we didn’t want to bore you right off the bat). A marketing plan is crucial to success for a number of reason, but one reason stands out more than the others. By taking the time to work with a legal marketing professional and develop a solid marketing plan will ensure that you are meeting your goals. Directing your marketing activities so that they account for goals, issues, and accountability is the quickest way to success.

Marketing plans are typically looking at a few things:

– Goals
– Strategies
– Tactics
– Implementation
– Feedback

These five elements of a marketing plan should evaluate the road-map to achieving your goals, be measurable, and allow for change of course in situations that require it.

Conclusion

In the beginning, we started this article about all of the things that today’s law firms are doing wrong. While the above-mentioned strategies aren’t right for every location, firm, or practice area, they will certainly get you started on the right path by putting time, effort, and money into a marketing plan that has been tailored to your firms’ exact needs. It will also give you more knowledge as to what types of activities are appropriate for your business development needs. If you need experts to handle your marketing (and lets face it, who doesn’t?) be sure to contact us today we work with 100’s of lawyers all over the country and know what it takes to get on top.