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The accepted number floated around is to spend 10% of the law firm’s budget on marketing. According to a Dynamics Law Firm Study, law firms spend an average of 1.9% on marketing. That number is abysmal, but not surprising. The reason marketing is often ignored in solo and small law firms is because lawyers are never taught how to run a business.
This guide will cover:
CallBoost is a “pay per call” marketing tool. That means no calls = no cost! No upfront fees. No monthly charges. No long-term contracts. In fact, the first 60 seconds of each call is also FREE, so you don’t have to worry about misdials or wrong practice areas. Our ethics-compliant advertising is targeted specifically to a particular practice area.
To enhance this:
10 steps for marketing your law firmCreate a marketing budget. ... Build a well-designed law firm website. ... Ensure your site is search engine optimized. ... Claim your free online profiles. ... Make sure your law firm has a social media presence. ... Manage your law firm's online reviews effectively. ... Try your hand at content marketing.More items...•
In summary, lawyers get new clients by two major methods–referrals and reviews. By utilizing networking skills and events, you can get your name out there and let people know that you are a reliable, trustworthy source of legal representation.
Legal marketing professionals develop and evaluate client surveys to identify the strengths and weaknesses of their firms, client satisfaction, concerns, and expectations. They also track referral sources of new business and maintain positive relations with these sources.
We've published several tips from individual law firms here, and we hope you find them useful.Take advantage of free law firm marketing options. ... Position yourself as a thought leader. ... Create educational content and promote it in the right places. ... Build meaningful relationships with clients. ... Focus on securing referrals.More items...•
10 Ways to Get New CustomersAsk for referrals. ... Network. ... Offer discounts and incentives for new customers only. ... Re-contact old customers. ... Improve your website. ... Partner with complementary businesses. ... Promote your expertise. ... Use online reviews to your advantage.More items...•
Here are some tips to get legal clients online:List your law firm or solo practice online. It only takes a few minutes and enables you to easily advertise your legal services. ... Give clients a free consultation online. ... Get rated. ... Consider doing more to practice law online.
While your firm may choose to hire an outside marketing agency or expert, or dedicate members of your own staff to marketing efforts, you as a lawyer can and should be involved in most aspects of your firm's marketing strategy.
Learning legal marketing is arguably one of the most important skills you need to develop when you first start your law firm. It's what drives your firm's image and attracts clients to your practice. From setting up analytics to email marketing for lawyers, there are plenty of topics to cover.
The three main legal areas you need to consider are privacy and data collection, intellectual property issues, and rules and regulations of the FTC and other consumer protection bodies.
Firm Profile: For most firms, their profile photo will probably be their logo, or it can be a personal photo for a sole practitioner. Try to be consistent with the visual identifier you use on other social media outlets. Your name should also be consistent, and be sure to include your law firm's website URL.
According to Rules, a lawyer may advertise through written, recorded or electronic communication, including public media. However, these rights are subject to the following restrictions: (i) No false or misleading communication should be made about the lawyer or the lawyer's services.
The marketing plan details the strategy that a company will use to market its products to customers. The plan identifies the target market, the value proposition of the brand or the product, the campaigns to be initiated, and the metrics to be used to assess the effectiveness of marketing initiatives.
A good marketing strategy involves creating a solid brand for your law firm. Branding is about more than just coming up with an eye-catching logo and official business cards and letterhead. It’s about developing a strong message that you want to convey to your clients and potential clients. What image do you want to portray, and why should clients choose your law firm over another? Branding is about figuring out what your firm does better than the others and what makes you unique. Once you figure out your brand, you can incorporate it into all your other marketing efforts to make them more successful.
A marketing strategy is only helpful if you know it’s effective. That’s why it’s important to rely on tracking, reporting, and analytics tools to see how much traction you’re getting on your website and your various social media posts and articles. You should figure out what exactly you’re trying to accomplish with your marketing strategy and establish key performance indicators (KPIs) that you want to meet. If you’re falling short of your KPIs, you need to develop a plan to adjust your marketing strategy accordingly.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the practice of using certain targeted keywords and strategies to get your firm ranked higher in internet search results . SEO comes into play in your website copy and the other content you create. When potential clients run a web search for lawyers in your practice area or information on one of your specialties, you want your law firm to appear within the first few search hits, not on the fifth page of Google results. SEO is important and requires a fair amount of thought and strategy. This is another place you can partner with an expert vendor if you’re not getting the results you want on your own.
Branding – As a lawyer it’s important to remember that YOU are the brand. Clients hire lawyers not law firms. That said, you still need to stand out above your competitors by having a graphically appealing logo, website, marketing materials, social media profiles, invoices, letterhead, and business cards.
Marketing is everything you and your firm do to market the firm and its practice areas. Marketing is all about the MESSAGES you put out into the marketplace on who you are, what you do, and the unique value your firm delivers. Marketing efforts generally benefit all lawyers in a law firm not the individual lawyer. Law firm marketing includes everything above from websites and social media, to blogging efforts, client communications, branding and law firm public relations . Marketing softens the marketplace so prospective clients and referral sources know the firm. When the market is familiar with your law firm and its brand, it makes it that much easier for the next task – accomplished 100% by the sales force – I mean the lawyers.
A strategic law firm marketing plan will provide a roadmap for the firm’s future growth. It will reiterate which areas the firm wants to grow, and others it may want to contract. As we know the adage: if you embark on a journey without a map, you may not get anywhere, much less to a desired destination you may be able to sense up ahead in the fog. A strategic law firm marketing plan will benefit the entire firm by defining:
The first thing you need to do is to identify specific and measurable objectives for the growth of your law firm. I recommend creating tangible objectives for each of the seven areas above. If you remember back to your marketing courses from college, marketing objectives need to be Smart:
One of the best ways to develop your name recognition as a lawyer, is to be featured in the media, quoted in news stories, interviewed on TV or Radio, or to publish an article in a publication read by your key target audience. Keep an eye on national news, and if you can provide a local angle, follow up with the news media and pitch them on why the story is significant not just nationally, but in your market. If you have an idea for an article, create an outline and reach out to the editor of a publication reaching your key audiences. Media coverage provides the third-party credibility every lawyer needs to build name recognition.
There are the finders (rainmakers), binders (working attorneys) grinders (generally associates) and minders (likely the rainmaker). Not every lawyer is a rainmaker. Many firms need to step back and analyze what they value in individual lawyers. Not every lawyer is cut out to be a rainmaker.
At A.L.T. Legal Professionals Marketing Group, we work with vendors that market their products and services to attorneys and law firms. Specifically, we help them to: 1 Define their target audience 2 Understand what they are truly selling 3 Determine the best strategic approach for marketing their products or services 4 Choose the most effective marketing vehicles 5 Implement all branding and marketing initiatives 6 Track Results
This is because, as a group, business organizations tend to rely more on recommendations, referrals and published works as a means for determining their law firm of choice. Size of the Firm. Very large legal practices have very different needs than those of small practices or even of sole practitioners.
In truth however, marketing to the legal community is really about much more. Yes, you are selling this kind of widget, that kind of a support service or your personal expertise, but from a broader perspective, what you are really selling are certain benefits.
Some products and services may cut across all practice areas, while others should be targeted towards very specific groups of individuals. Prior to implementing any type of marketing endeavor, it is critical to understand how the particular product or service fits into the needs of each practice area.
Most attorneys will not want to know the details of your application’s internet message protocol (IMAP) – only that you can help them work faster and more efficiently. They will not care that you finished first in your class in a particular discipline – only that your expertise will help them win in court.
Referrals are one of the top ways attorneys attract new clients. What’s a proven way to increase referrals? Send thank you cards to clients. At the close of a case, lawyers should always take the time to write a handwritten thank you to clients for allowing them to represent their case.
Blogging about personal injury isn’t always easy. Even finding quality legal blog topics that you organically rank for can be a challenge. An expert needs a process to create high-quality articles for your target audience. Low-quality content won’t rank in organic search results and may drive potential clients away.
An effective marketing activity for lawyers and attorneys is employing a great local SEO strategy. The majority of the time, potential clients are looking up keywords like “personal injury lawyer + location.” To show up on Google for these, you need to invest in Local SEO.
As an account manager, I am always searching for innovative ways to increase my legal clients’ visibility! One great tactic you can employ is submitting yourself or creating profiles on popular legal directories. Not only is this a great way to generate referral traffic online, but it is also an easy way to build backlinks to your site.
One marketing strategy for lawyers or attorneys that helps attract more clients is building authority and credibility. One way to build authority and credibility is to write and publish regular articles on your practice areas. Constantly providing answers to legal questions on your firm’s website, or other sites, will give you credibility.
As a law firm that helps clients with PTSD, we have a niche audience. Hence, maximizing our reach within that demographic is our main objective. One of the most helpful tools is Google Analytics, as it gauges audience behavior and offers demographic data, audience interests, and insight on users’ devices.
I’ve often noticed that marketing for law firms solely focuses on the law itself and forgets that they’re essentially marketing a brand. You must keep the firm’s “personality” at the front of your mind so you can appeal to your audience and stand out from all other law firms who are simply focusing on their specialty.
In a joint study by Bloomberg Law and the Legal Marketing Association, 52% of attorneys said social media was their highest-rated marketing initiative. In fact, social media was ranked higher than every other strategy.
The cyber world is always evolving so make sure you do some research on the latest marketing trends or better yet consult an expert in online legal marketing to help raise the bar for your law firm.
These lawyer marketing strategies are always a good idea, but especially now when the world is upside down.
In the months since the pandemic hit, law firms have been pumping out alerts and scheduling webinars at warp speed. And these are fine ways to bring information to clients, of course. But what is really welcomed by clients is empathy — listening to them, not just one-way communication.
Alerts, emails, invitations and the like are pouring into client inboxes at a dizzying pace. Clients may receive dozens if not scores a day. How do you stand out from the crowd? Pick up the telephone. Mail a personal letter. Send a handwritten note. You get back what you put into something so put a little TLC into your communications.
Pay attention to what is happening to clients, their industries and their competitors. Information technology tools available for lawyer marketing today are amazing and can alert you to things that you or your clients should know.
Visibility is very important in law firm marketing. Generally, people need to hear from you or see you every three months in order for you to be top of mind. In these extraordinary times, staying visible is much harder; you won’t run into people in restaurants and building lobbies or have a chance to catch up at conferences and meetings.
Since most organizations are canceling in-person meetings and conferences, they are working hard to provide benefits to their members through other methods. How can you help? Volunteer to take on the role of a moderator for a virtual panel. Offer to write something for the group’s electronic newsletter or website.
While people always want to talk about unique approaches to marketing in times like these, it can be most effective to return to the fundamentals. Listen, be helpful, and show you care.
It is the most convenient to gain popularity and more quickly. Affiliate marketing is crucial marketing for new lawyers and small law firms. It is the most proven policy for every kind of law firms in the world police stuff. You should start affiliate marketing from the beginning of your career.
Basically, there are two types of affiliate marketing. There are offline affiliate marketing and online affiliate marketing. This article will tell you how you can craft your affiliate marketing, both offline and online. 1.1. Online Affiliate Marketing For Lawyers And Small Law Firms.
If your friend preferred a case to you and received the case and took a good amount of money from the case, you have to give your friend some money. Because of this system, your friends and other people try to convince others who have problems or cases to choose a lawyer like you or your firm.
Ok, you know the law very well, and then you become a lawyer. But nobody knows that you are a lawyer and you appear before The Honorable Court. That’s why you need a marketing policy to know people that you are a lawyer. Every law firm in the world starts with a tiny amount of cases or nothing.
But they grow bigger and bigger as day by day with a little magical help of marketing. Marketing for law firms and lawyers or attorneys are not the same as other marketing policies; there is some very little difference between legal marketing policies and other marketing policies. Most preferred marketing policies for new lawyers ...
Social media is a smart way to reach out to communities and specific groups of people to inform them of your legal expertise. Get a website for your law firm. If you haven’t done so already, having an attorney website for your law firm can increase client intake by finding new clients searching for lawyers online.
Start a law blog. Writing articles and guest posts on other blogs is a great way to share your expertise in your area of law. Create a content marketing strategy. Once your blog is filled with quality content, you’ll need a smart marketing strategy to reach out to people interested in reading it.
Plus, referred clients tend to be more loyal and more likely to provide you with referrals in the future. Send referrals to other lawyers. You can send referrals to others in your network (i.e. when your too busy with other cases or a prospective client asks for work in a different area of law).