Lawyers, Don’t Underestimate The Importance of Digital Marketing for Law Firms
If the thought of putting your headshot on a billboard gives you anxiety, listen up: it’s time for lawyers to step into the future and focus their marketing efforts on digital and content marketing. Employing the right strategy can make a world of a difference in the number of cases you sign each month and the people you help along the way.
With 4.95 billion people using the internet on a daily basis, you’re more likely to find your next clients through digital platforms like social media, blog posts, paid marketing, podcasts, etc. rather than offline marketing efforts. Traditional forms of marketing can still have their place, but there is no denying how the world has become increasingly more digital.
Gone are the days of looking in the yellow papers to find an attorney. People now head to Google and type in search terms such as “divorce attorney near me” or “best car accident lawyer in Los Angeles CA”. It’s important to understand the ways in which people now seek information. Ultimately, you ask yourself not how can I find more clients, but, how can more clients find me?
Grow Organically with Content Marketing
One of the best digital marketing strategies for law firms is one that focuses on content marketing to build trust and authority with your audience. And we’re not just saying that because we are a content marketing agency (insert winky face emoji here). While strategies like paid search for example can give you some quick hits, Content Marketing is an investment. It will continue to perform and bring traffic to your website long after you create it, whereas with paid search, the minute you turn off the ad spend is the minute traffic stops trickling in. Content marketing is more of a long game, yet, given the high amount of trust needed between a lawyer and their clients, content marketing can be a very effective way to start building that trust from the get-go.
The content marketing approach is one that is less in your face, and more about building a relationship with your audience. For example, certain digital ads can be annoying, and often downright intrusive - like when the pair of shoes you were looking up last night suddenly appear on the right sidebar of your morning news blog, in ad form. Stalker much? That strategy is called remarketing ads by the way, and yes, they tend to follow you around the web relentlessly.
With content marketing on the other hand, you lead with value. You provide content that builds trust, shows your expertise, and makes your firm approachable. You do that with content that is educational, inspiring, entertaining, or validating, giving your audience valuable content that they look forward to seeing. And Google favors natural, ‘real’ content over that which appears to be written full of keywords, i.e. written for the search engines vs. humans. Over time, you can develop a following that eventually turns into a community, one comprised of your biggest fans, your happiest clients, and ultimately your best source of referrals. So as we mentioned earlier, we’re big fans of the content marketing approach. But that’s not the only aspect of digital marketing that you should pay attention to.
Below, we’ll look at a few of the different types of digital marketing strategies that you can utilize in your law firm.
Social Media Marketing for Law Firms
Social media is a great platform to show some personality for your firm. The legal industry tends to get a negative reputation as being stuffy, corporate, and intimidating. Fight against the stereotypes by showing the human side of your firm, and the way in which you are committed to and care for your clients. What works best on social tends to be specific to each different outlet: Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, etc. Videos are king, so a good way to get some traction going is with video content. For example, you can host a weekly “Ask an Attorney” series where you answer legal questions in a video. Shameless plug, we have a free Creative Social Media for Law Firms guide that you may find handy to get you started, download it here.
SEO Marketing for Law Firms
As a local business, it’s especially important to have a strong SEO strategy in place. Long gone are the days of the yellow pages – when people need to find a list of law firms to call up, they will head over to Google (or Bing, if you fall in the 2.47% of the population that uses that search engine). When these potential clients type in “divorce attorney near me” or “car accident attorney Spokane Washington”, you want your firm to be one of the first that pop up because statistically speaking, most people do not click past the first page of the search results. A solid SEO foundation can set your website up to perform at it’s peak – ranking higher in the search results, driving more visitors to your site, and ensuring that the time they spend on your website is optimized for conversion.
Video Marketing for Law Firms
Video is the top form of content these days. And no, you don’t have to do a TikTok dance to create compelling videos that get noticed. There are a myriad of ways you can approach it, and you don’t have to be in the videos themselves.
The following are some examples:
Case Stories: This is best when done professionally, by hiring a film crew to video compelling short videos that tell the personal story of one of your clients and the way in which you firm helped them overcome their legal challenge.
Testimonials: This can be done professionally or even with an iPhone. Invite your current and past clients to drop by the office and film them sharing their experience in working with your firm.
Q&A: This performs best when done organically, i.e. does not need to be professionally shot. You can set up your phone to face you on your desk and simply speak into the camera answering a legal question that you can pull from a list of submitted questions by your followers.
These videos can live in a myriad of places: on your website, on your social platforms, on YouTube, and even in your emails. One important video marketing tip: these days, people watch videos on the go. Most of the time, they are in places or situations where they don’t have their audio turned on. As a best practice, ensure that all your videos are captioned - this will greatly increase your watch rate.
Creative Marketing Ideas for Law Firms
Besides the above, there are other ways to grow your following and get more visits to your website. For example, think outside the box on tangentially related topics to the services your firm provides. Then, create content based on those tangents. The idea here is to position yourself as a thought leader or expert on that topic, so that it attracts a larger audience.
Let’s dig a little deeper:
Real Estate Law: You can create content sharing your legal opinion/expertise on the affordable housing crisis in major cities and the rights of tenants and landlords.
Personal Injury Law: You can create content showing your legal insight on autonomous driving and the future of liability in car accidents where a human was present but not technically driving.
Marriage and Family Law: Create content surrounding evolving custody arrangements with the boon of homeschooling spurred by the recent pandemic.
These are just examples of content that is tangentially related to your niche, broad enough to reach a wider audience, and intriguing enough to generate interest and get others to share your content (something that is both important for your reach and your SEO!)
There are many other digital marketing strategies not covered here: email marketing, paid search, etc. The most important thing is that you start somewhere. The world has gone digital, so there is no denying the importance of having these digital marketing strategies in place. They can make a significant difference in the number of cases you sign each month, and the number of people you help with your legal expertise.
