When it comes to marketing for lawyers, choosing an online campaign can be much more beneficial than other routes. As consumers shift their attention to internet-based goods and services, traditional means of advertising such as phone book placements are becoming less practical. When it comes to choosing how to initiate online marketing for lawyers, attorneys and firms usually have the following choices:
- Work independently to create their own online marketing campaign
- Hire marketing/IT staff to handle online campaigns for the firm
- Enlist with a web marketing or online advertising firm
The decision of how to implement online marketing strategies depends on a lot of factors surrounding the practitioner or their law firm. For instance, if the firm is trying to cast a wide net to obtain a diverse body of clients, then hiring a web marketing firm may be necessary. On the other hand, if it is a solo practitioner trying to increase their leads in a given area, then they might attempt to handle the online marketing on their own.
Choices of Online Marketing Methods
- Advertising Campaigns: These involve ads that operate as pay-per-click or pay-per-lead. The ads can be placed on various pages on the web, and can help increase the lawyer’s presence online.
- Online Legal Directories: These are similar to phone book listings, except that they may contain more information than the yellow pages (such as links to attorney websites, e-mail addresses, and bar licensing information).
- Online Legal Matching Services: Legal matching or attorney-client matching services match clients with lawyers based on individual case needs. With sites like LegalMatch.com, the client can review attorney profiles, while the attorney can review cases that are of interest to them.
It is common for lawyers to use a mix of different online marketing methods. For example, they may have some ads up and running online, while using an online attorney-client matching service at the same time.
Generally speaking, it is not practical for a lawyer to spend large amounts of time and money on marketing. Resources in the legal field should be devoted to client representation and case work. Many attorneys have found great success using online legal matching through LegalMatch as their sole method of online marketing.
