Do you have an effective marketing strategy for your law firm? It’s a good idea, even if you already have a marketing strategy in place, to review and update it every year. You need to cultivate and attract new businesses to grow your law practice and make it more profitable. A solid marketing plan and strategy for your law firm will help you grow by ensuring that your firm’s marketing is as effective as possible.
This post will show you how to take your law firm to the top by implementing a marketing plan that is based on your objectives and creating a marketing strategy.
How Can You Market Your Law Firm?
You can follow several steps to develop a successful marketing strategy for your law firm, and then implement the strategy through a marketing plan. To create a successful law firm marketing strategy, you must first define your goals, then conduct a market analysis. Then, you will need to craft your marketing plan and finally implement it. We’re here to guide you through the process. It takes patience and time, but it is possible.
Why Is Marketing a Law Firm Important?
A steady and manageable level is required to run a successful business. Correctly marketing your law firm can increase the number of people who see your business and generate more income. You need clients to earn money, and a good marketing strategy can help you achieve that.
What Is the Difference Between a Marketing Strategy and a Plan?
Understanding the differences between marketing strategy and planning for a law firm is crucial to streamlining your marketing.
Your marketing strategy is a guide that explains the “whys” of your firm’s efforts and helps you to move forward. Your law firm’s marketing plan captures the marketing goals of your firm, as well as its target audience, services provided, core message, and more.
On the other hand, your marketing plan outlines the actions that you will take to implement your strategy and reach your marketing goals. Your law firm’s marketing plan will outline the marketing methods you’ll employ for your firm. Social media marketing and search engine optimization are examples of this.
Law Firm Marketing Strategies
How do you develop a law firm marketing strategy? This section explains the various pieces of your marketing strategy and what they all mean.
Summary
Your marketing strategy can be summarized using the sections below. Be concise and clear. This section will give your employees or other stakeholders the details of your marketing plan.
Marketing Goals
Make sure your goals are SMART. Be sure to set SMART objectives. One of your marketing goals might be to increase the law firm newsletter opening rate by 20% in the first half of the year. Ask yourself why you have chosen these goals for your firm.
Target Audience
It is important to understand your target audience. Understanding and defining the target audience, including their characteristics, buying habits, and pain points, will help you create an effective marketing strategy.
Market Analysis
Market refers to your current and potential clients, including businesses and individuals. Consider the size of your law firm’s business opportunities based on the practice areas, geographical location, the audience you are targeting, etc.
Competitive Analysis
A marketing plan will help you to stand out among your competitors and attract the clients that your law firm requires. You must first understand who your competitors are and the actions they are taking. What are your competitors’ characteristics? What is the market share of your competitors? Do they have a marketing strategy?
Services Provided
What type of services will you provide? What areas of practice do you cover and for whom? Do you provide legal assistance to people who have suffered accident injuries? You could also provide legal assistance to families who are going through a difficult divorce. What will be the benefits, and how are you going to provide these services?
Core Message
You want to make sure your audience knows what your law firm stands for. Your core message must go beyond simply letting clients know about the services you provide. It should also speak to their personal and legal pain points.
Pricing and Promotion
How will you promote and price your services? What is the pricing model for your law firm, and what are the different prices? What marketing channels are you going to use, and why?
Law Firm Marketing Plan
A detailed marketing plan for your law firm will give you a roadmap that can be used throughout the year. A detailed marketing strategy can save you money, time, and effort in the long thread. A defined plan makes it clear to your team who is responsible for each task. It helps you to stay on track and complete the legal marketing tasks for your firm that would otherwise slip through the cracks.
Plan Structure Overview
It is just as important to have a well-structured law firm marketing strategy as it is to have a business plan. This will ensure that everyone in your firm is on the same page, and a marketing plan will enable you to track and measure your progress.
A successful marketing plan for a law firm involves three main steps:
- Define your marketing goals.
- Write down your goals and how you intend to reach them.
- Implement the plan.
1. Goals and Purpose
What is the goal of your legal marketing strategy? It is impossible to measure and track your marketing success without quantifiable, set goals. If you already have a solid business plan, you don’t have to start from scratch. You may need to modify the marketing goals you set out in your business plan.
Be sure to set measurable SMART goals. Your marketing goals should have a clear objective and timeframe so that you can measure their success in the future. Some examples of achievable marketing goals include:
- Expanding your law firm’s clientele: You could, for example, set a target of gaining new clients who are active by the end quarter.
- Raising firm pricing: Set a goal to increase the price of certain legal services by a certain number before the end of the calendar year.
- Increasing brand awareness for your legal firm: Increasing brand awareness is a more subjective goal that’s harder to measure. You can evaluate your brand’s awareness by evaluating your firm’s organic website traffic. This is the number of visitors who arrived on your site from search engine results and not paid advertising.
2. Plan Components
Keep it short when you write down your marketing plan for your law firm. You’ll have better success.
The following sections should be included in your marketing plan for your law firm.
- Overview. You should include a plan that outlines the why and how of your firm’s marketing. Include:
- Statement of purpose Why do you want to market your firm? What are you hoping to achieve when marketing your firm?
- Your marketing goals for your law firm. Set specific, SMART marketing goals.
- Financial investment. What is your budget for marketing? Your marketing budget will depend on a variety of factors, including the size of your firm, your target audience, the marketing channels you plan to use, and your overall marketing goals.
- Marketing activity. What marketing campaigns, activities, or tactics will you use to reach your goals? If you are listing specific marketing tactics that your firm will employ, ensure they relate to one of your marketing objectives. If your marketing goal is to get five clients per month and you plan to do that through social media, your marketing activities might be a campaign using Facebook Ads.
- Measurement strategies. How will the success be measured? Have a method to measure the success of each marketing activity. As an example, you could measure success by a 20% increase in organic traffic to the website of your law firm.
3. Execution
When planning or updating your marketing plan, it is important to assign roles to individuals. Determine who will be responsible for what tasks and make sure to consider who will manage the project. Will it be up to those assigned or will someone else be in charge? Don’t forget to think about these important details.
Outsourcing to an Experienced Marketing Agency for Law Firms Is a Good Idea
If you’re uncertain about your firm’s ability to achieve all of its marketing goals internally, be honest about it. Consider outsourcing some or all of your marketing tasks if it’s not feasible to handle them internally. You can hire an expert for everything from search engine optimization to content creation. Don’t hesitate to outsource. LUX’s network of digital marketing experts is an excellent place to start.
Law Firm Marketing Tactics
There are many ways to market your firm today, which can make creating a legal marketing plan overwhelming. Keep your firm’s objectives in mind and select marketing tactics that you can successfully implement in your plan.
Consider these eight legal marketing strategies for your firm.
1. SEO
Search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the most crucial marketing strategies any law firm can use. SEO can help your law firm’s website rank higher in search engine result pages (such as Google), resulting in more traffic to your site.
2. Local SEO
As a law firm, it’s important to optimize your ranking in local search results to ensure clients can find you online. As part of your marketing strategy, you should focus on optimizing your ranking in local searches, also known as local SEO. This will help you attract clients who are in your vicinity.
Local SEO Strategies
- Create a Google My Business Page: To appear in local search results, you should create a Google My Business Page. Google My Business pages should contain contact information, photos, and a link back to your firm’s website.
- Make sure your website contains local keywords: Add local keywords to your website to improve the ranking of your law firm website in local searches. If you are a Bellingham Criminal Lawyer, for example, you might want to include terms such as “Bellingham Criminal Lawyer” on your website.
- Your NAP should be consistent: It is important to format your NAP (Name, Address, and Phone) consistently everywhere it appears on the internet (such as your website, Facebook Page, etc.). Local SEO optimization is essential.
- Get backlinks: Backlinks can improve your website’s ranking in search engines by increasing your site’s authority.
- Create client reviews: Positive reviews will help build your firm’s reputation. Local SEO is boosted by good, genuine customer reviews on your Google My Business page as well as sites such as Yelp and Avvo.
3. Search Advertising
You can use paid search advertising to bring clients to your site.
Search advertising examples include:
- Pay per click (PPC): PPC advertising allows you to set up a campaign online where you pay an amount every time a visitor clicks on your ad. It can be a good way to increase traffic to your website, but it is expensive for each click. This guide for PPC advertising success in law firms explains the basics of the model.
- Google Advertising: Google Ads can be an effective tool to increase traffic to your law firm’s website, depending on the practice area you are in.
4. Website
Your goal, whether you invest in SEO, PPC, or both strategies, is to attract potential clients to the website of your law firm. Your law firm’s website is an effective marketing tool. This guide to law firm web design will help you ensure that your website meets certain criteria:
- Accessible and easy to navigate. The images should be sized correctly, and the content should be easily readable. The contact information should also be easily accessible.
- Mobile-friendly. Your website should be optimized for mobile devices so people can navigate it on any device, which can also improve its search rankings.
- Optimized for SEO. The content on your website must be keyword-optimized and aligned with your brand to improve its visibility in search engines.
5. Social Media
If used correctly, social media can help your firm by:
- Reach a wide audience with little or no investment. Social media is used by the majority of potential clients today, so being on social media gives you a great opportunity to interact with them.
Social media marketing combined with paid advertising on platforms such as Facebook can help you reach more clients at a low cost. According to Barry Walker, Managing Director at Walker Law, “Social Media Marketing is the Future for Lawyers.” The majority of people conduct research using their smartphones. “I get between one and two cases of significance per year through paid marketing on Facebook, for a small investment.”
- Create community and authority for your brand. You can boost your community connections and establish yourself as an authority in your field by sharing high-quality content on social media with your target audience. A social media presence can help your business reach new people and potential clients.
- Give your clients a second way to locate your firm. Professional online and social media content can also help clients find your firm.
6. Branding
Your legal marketing strategy should also include how your firm distinguishes itself from its competitors or your firm’s brand. You can grow your firm by attracting new clients if you find ways to distinguish your firm from your competitors.
Brand Your Law Firm
According to Katshtasbi Goshtasbi’s article on Puris Consulting, law firms, and attorneys must resonate with their clients. Here are a few steps to help you develop your law firm brand:
- Establish a unique selling point. Find out what makes your law firm unique and what appeals to your clients. Use that to create a distinctive brand. For example, Hello Divorce, founded by attorney Erin Levine, offers subscription-based divorce navigation services to a unique market.
- Clarify your target audience. Narrow down your target audience as much as you can. Start by thinking about the attributes that your best law firm clients possess and use those to create a profile for your target client.
- Decide on your core messages. Use concise, authentic, and unique language to convey your brand’s messages to your audience. Focus on the messages that resonate the most with your team.
7. Content Marketing
Content marketing is the process of creating and sharing quality content that relates to your area of expertise online. Moreover, content marketing is a powerful marketing tool that can be used to build your brand, establish your expertise, provide value to potential customers, and drive more traffic to your website. Content marketing can include blog posts, videos, and infographics, and it can also include podcasts.
8. Email Marketing
Email marketing can be a highly effective online marketing strategy for law firms, requiring minimal effort when using software like Mailchimp. By sending targeted and consistent marketing emails to your network, you can build your brand, establish your firm’s expertise, and provide value to your readers. With analytics provided by email marketing platforms, you can easily measure the success of your campaigns by tracking metrics like open rates.
9. Credibility, Authority, and Capability
Active and passive marketing should be included in a solid marketing plan for a law firm. Passive marketing can be achieved through professional website copywriting and design, which can help build credibility and authority for your firm. By showcasing your expertise, potential clients can gain confidence in your abilities.
10. Customer Testimonials and Reviews
Positive client testimonials and reviews are a great way to earn the trust of potential clients who are seeking representation. Set up a process to encourage satisfied clients to provide public feedback about your services. This can help build your firm’s reputation and attract new clients.
11. Case Studies
Displaying case studies on your website can demonstrate your expertise and build confidence with potential clients. By arranging the case studies in a way that allows visitors to identify situations similar to theirs, you can show them that you are capable of helping them. This can increase the likelihood of them choosing your firm for their legal needs.
12. FAQs
Dedicating a section of your website to FAQs about your practice area can be an effective marketing tool and also helpful to prospective clients seeking quick advice. By demonstrating that your firm is capable of handling specific concerns within your practice area, you can differentiate yourself from more general practitioners. This can make a significant difference in whether you win or lose a potential client.
KPIs for Law Firms to Measure and Monitor Success
If you have a marketing strategy for your law firm and are executing an effective marketing plan, the next step is to measure and monitor your marketing key performance indicators (KPIs). Tracking your efforts is crucial for determining what is working and what isn’t, as well as which marketing efforts will provide a good return on investment. By having a clear view of your results, you can make data-driven decisions to improve your marketing outcomes.
How to Measure and Track the Success of a Law Firm Marketing Plan
Ask your clients for feedback:
- A simple question like “How did you find out about our firm?” can provide valuable information.
- You can train the assistant of your law firm to ask the question and take down the answer over the phone.
- Or, you can customize the intake form with a field for asking when new clients fill out their paperwork.
Analyze Website Analytics:
- You can use the website traffic statistics to determine if your law firm is the primary point of contact with new clients.
- Install Google Analytics on your site
You can see details such as:
- Referring Domains: Knowing which website your clients visited before coming to your site will help you determine the effectiveness of your online marketing.
- Bounce Rate: How long do people stay on your website? If people leave your site or “Bounce”, you can improve it to increase new leads.
- Traffic: Compare the traffic on your website to the number of new clients that come in for consultations. If there is a big gap, it can show you marketing areas where you are struggling.
Effective Law Firm Marketing with LUX
A thriving law practice relies on new business. To attract new clients, it’s important to have a well-defined law firm marketing plan and strategy that includes SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound) goals. Having a marketing plan can help you reach more clients and grow your firm.
At Lux Digital Marketing, we specialize in helping law firms enhance their online presence and drive targeted traffic to their website through Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
Our team of experts will work with you to develop a customized SEO strategy tailored to your firm’s unique goals and needs. By utilizing proven SEO techniques, we can help your firm rank higher on search engine results pages, increase visibility, and attract more potential clients to your website.
Contact us today to learn how we can help you grow your law firm through effective digital marketing strategies.
Services We Offer:
- Search Engine Optimization
- Web Design
- Google Maps Marketing
- Most importantly, ranking you number 1 on Google!
