Lawyer Up: The 9 Most Effective Marketing Ideas for Law Firms

If you want to put the most effective marketing ideas for law firms into practice, you’re going to be doing a lot of work online. In a study by Martindale Nolo, 78.4% of lawyers said online marketing was their best-performing advertising medium.

This shouldn’t come as a surprise. Consumers now have smartphones in their pockets that are more powerful than the computers that sent the first humans to the moon. Every resource we need is just a tap away, whether we’re shopping for shoes or looking for a lawyer.

So, if you’re ready to finally amp up your law firms’ marketing strategy, here are the 9 strategies you can’t afford to ignore.

1. Start a Law Blog

The public doesn’t know much about the law — not the fine details, at least.

While there are plenty of online resources they can turn to, you have an opportunity to stand out in your area of law. The law differs from state to state. Make your blog the top source of legal information for your niche in your state.

Publish blog posts regularly: a few a week, if possible. If you’re strapped for time, you can always contract the work out to a blogger with legal expertise.

Speak directly to your audience. For example, if you’re a personal injury lawyer, address your audience as “you” and answer frequently asked questions about your practice area. Visit Utah Advocates for more info on how to write for personal injury clients.

2. Build a Mobile-Friendly Website

If you let out a sigh of frustration every time you look at your website on your phone, your visitors are doing the same thing. Law firm web design doesn’t vary much from site to site. But there are a few things you can do stand out.

First, you should make your website mobile-friendly by making it mobile-responsive. Don’t create a separate website for mobile devices. Instead, make your website adjust based on the device that’s accessing it.

This will require the attention of a web developer, but it will be worth it. A growing population uses their phones to access the internet more than they use a desktop computer or laptop. Some people use their phones exclusively.

3. Get Friendly with Live Chat

When someone contacts a lawyer, time is of the essence. You’d think lawyers would be quick to respond to leads and prospectus. But according to Law Technology Today, a shocking 42% of lawyers take three or more days to reply to an online form submission or voicemail.

Live chat is a simple feature you can add to your website to streamline your response time. You can even hook it up to your cell phone, so you never miss a lead.

Keep in mind: Live chat is not a channel for providing legal advice. Rather, it’s a way to nurture your website visitors toward a consultation.

4. Do an SEO Audit of Your Website

If you’re unsure about what SEO stands for (it stands for search engine optimization), or you haven’t updated your website in years, it may be time for an audit. Improving SEO rankings often requires technical knowledge, so this may be a job suited to a web developer.

Nonetheless, improving your SEO by adding meta information, header tags, and other attributes can help search engines better understand your website. There’s no silver bullet for ranking in search. But maintaining a basic SEO strategy isn’t just one of the most important marketing ideas for law firms — without it, it’s hard for anyone to find you online.

Once you’ve got your SEO taken care of, you can focus more on creating helpful content for your lawyer blog.

5. Create Targeted PPC Ads

It’s easy to waste a lot of money on pay-per-click (PPC) ads. The trick to success is finding your PPC niche market. You can do this with display ads on social media networks, but Google AdWords remains one of the most popular lawyer advertising tools because of its precision targeting.

For example, if you’re doing personal injury marketing, the keywords you choose will matter. Ads targeting a keyword like “best lawyers” won’t always give you viable prospects. But keywords like “personal injury lawyer in (your town here)” and “how to find a personal injury lawyer” might.

6. Stay Active on Forums

Not every client will find your blog to get the answers they need. Many people still post legal questions to sites like Avvo and Justia. Try to answer relevant questions on these sites as often as possible. Typically, the people asking them need more than answers — they need a lawyer.

In addition to making your stay active within forums and putting your name and face out there, it’s also a good idea to search for local legal directories as well. Many of these sites not only offer listing services for free, or at a premium — but they often rank really well for content as well.

7. Always Track Your Leads

If you aren’t tracking your leads, you won’t know how well your marketing strategy is working. That means you could be wasting money on strategies that aren’t generating new clients.

You may need a CRM to track your leads and contacts effectively. Some CRMs can even give you analytics to help you measure the success of your marketing campaigns. But if you don’t want to use a CRM, an old-fashioned spreadsheet can help you measure your success and keep track of your contacts.

8. Get Active on Social Media

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.

Once, social media was a grey area for lawyers, ethically. You still need to be careful what you post, but if you want to reach your potential clients, social networks can’t be ignored.

Research which platforms your prospects use. Post regularly and respond when people like and comment on your posts.

9. Generate Referrals

Just because most marketers are investing in digital strategies doesn’t mean the old school approaches are obsolete. 62% of consumers still seek lawyer referrals from friends and family, according to Above the Law.

Take a systematic approach to your referral strategy. Referrals can come from anyone in your network, like past and present clients, classmates from law school, professional service providers, family, and friends.

Once you map out your existing contacts, develop a plan for outreach. You can send automated emails to clients to generate testimonials after successful cases, for example. Create referral scripts to give to other contacts and reach out personally to those you’re most comfortable with.

Discover More Marketing Ideas for Law Firms

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.

If you just need more marketing ideas for law firms. Shoot me an email at any time to start up a conversation.