The Best Digital Marketing Techniques for Law Firms
Marketing Your Law Firm in the Most Effective Ways
Earlier this week, I spoke with a client that was building their business 100% using magazine advertisements. They are struggling because it is 2020 and magazine readers are declining and they’ve worn out what little audience there is. The conversation was like opening a time capsule to the way some law firms used to market in the 1970s and 1980s.
Today’s law firms don’t rely on yellow pages, radio, and print ads to bring in business -- there isn’t enough of an audience using those mediums to justify the expense. Today, most potential clients are using the Internet, so it is important for every lawyer to generate a digital marketing strategy that is effective. Every type of law practice is different, so the strategies for an AM100 practice with hundreds of attorneys will be very different than a solo personal injury practice.
Drive Conversions with Your Website
The first step to any digital marketing plan for a legal practice is to have a good destination for your marketing to go to. In most cases, that’s a practice’s web site. Most lawyers think of their website as an expense that comes up every 4 or 5 years, a necessary evil that hurts the bottom line. The truth is that your website is your firm’s most effective lead generator -- every visitor to the site is a potential client and the site is tasked with getting them to contact you. Think of your website as a sales team member that’s available to provide information to clients 24/7, so consider it a potential boost to the bottom, not an expense.
The median legal website conversion rate is 4.4% - that means that 95 out of 100 visitors don’t contact you when they see your site. That’s the median, so half of the sites see conversion rates that are lower than that!
Driving conversion rates higher is a science. It starts with effective design that tells your story effectively and gives people a taste of what your practice is all about. Then there’s a guided journey that incorporates content writing that helps the user determine that your practice is the right one for what they need. Then there’s analysis and optimization which works over time to increase the percentage of users who ultimately call or email you.
Check Your Law Firm's Reviews
As great as your website might be, some users will look for outside sources to determine whether you are a good fit for them. They check Avo, Yelp, Google and Facebook for reviews, so you should too. Check our general advice for handling reviews, and pay specific attention to how you respond publicly to negative reviews -- sometimes owners or partners take these reviews personally, and an overly defensive response can actually make the situation worse.
Understand Your Law Firm’s Audience
Once you have a site that is ready to receive potential clients, then we need to determine who your audience, or brand personas are. A personal injury firm’s audience might be 50/50 men & women and solely focused on individuals injured in a motor vehicle accident. A personal bankruptcy attorney might be focused on finding clients who are struggling financially, but not in the worst financial straits yet. Maybe you’re working in corporate law and need to appeal to a number of different decision-makers.
It’s important for you to know who your audience is because it can help guide your content, design, and even your marketing tactics. Obviously it makes more sense to market to people who are actually looking for your law firm’s services, so it’s important to think about who they are, and then decide how it’s best to reach them.
Consider Where Your Audience May Be Looking
Once you know who your audience is, determine where they are and how they make buying decisions. One of the most effective ways to fill your sales funnel efficiently is through AdWords and Pay-Per-Click marketing. There are several types of pay-per-click advertising online: keyword based, audience based, and retargeting.
- Keyword advertising shows your ad when someone types in a keyword, like “car accident attorney” - these ads are expensive but also very effective, because the person searching is giving strong signals that they are a potential buyer.
- Audience based advertising shows your ad to a specific audience. You need to repeat the ad many times over a period of months to be effective.
- Retargeting shows your advertisement to people who have already been to your site to try and get them to come back. An effective digital marketing strategy incorporates all three of these techniques.
There are also other ways to target your audience, through organic search engine optimization, inbound marketing tactics, local SEO, and email marketing. It's important again to cosndier how they are making their buying decisions, what information they're looking for, and how you can help!
Looking For a Better Way to Market Your Law Firm?
Let the experts at efelle help you identify your audience and find the most effective ways to market and grow your firm. Fill out the form below and one of our digital strategists (like me!) will reach out and chat with you to learn and share more.