A law firm, whether for profit or pro bono, must function as a business to survive and grow. Just like any other kind of business, law firms require effective marketing to ensure a steady flow of new clients. Yet most attorneys graduate law school having received little to no training on how to run a business, let alone how to market one.
If you’re struggling with marketing your law firm, this article will help you understand why and get you started with an overview on law firm marketing strategies.
Most law schools teach future lawyers how to get a job at a law firm, but provide little or no training related to business or marketing. They teach constitutional law, contract law, torts, criminal law, property law, civil procedure, legal writing and research, as well as all kinds of legal specialty areas. But very little, if anything, about consumer behavior, branding, or marketing and advertising.
Because lawyers were historically prohibited from advertising due to ethical concerns about solicitation, you might even resist the idea of marketing altogether. You might feel that overt marketing could detract from your professional image or the seriousness of your work.
And as a busy lawyer, you most likely do not have the time, resources, skills, knowledge, or marketing expertise to effectively promote your law firm. Even if you are already using traditional marketing methods – like referrals, networking, and word-of-mouth – you might hesitate to adopt more recent marketing techniques – like digital marketing and social media – which are often more cost-effective and efficient in helping you reach a wider audience.
You might also struggle to assess the effectiveness of your marketing strategies and, therefore, not be able to justify your marketing budget. Many legal services are long-term and high-value in nature, which makes it difficult to attribute specific cases or clients directly to your marketing efforts.
In addition, the legal industry is highly competitive, with numerous law firms vying for clients in the same practice areas. Depending on your practice area, your law firm may have a limited target audience, which can make it more difficult to reach and engage potential clients through marketing efforts. To be successful you must develop unique value propositions and effective marketing strategies.
Ineffective or nonexistent legal marketing wastes time, loses money, and can even negatively affect your law firm’s reputation. Three of the most common mistakes law firms make include:
Let’s explore each of these in more detail so you can save time, money, and your reputation.
Because marketing requires an up-front cost outlay, you might be thinking about it as an expense. And if you view marketing as simply a cost of doing business, like paying for taxes or permits, you will be less likely to allocate time, effort, and funds to marketing efforts. This perspective may even lead you to trim your marketing budget if you need to make cuts.
On the other hand, when you view marketing as an investment in your law firm that helps you gain more clients and make more money, you become more willing to allocate time, effort, and funds to marketing. An investment is when you use your money to obtain a material result or profit.
Here are some of the returns you can expect when you invest in law firm marketing:
The majority of law firms focus their practices in specific fields, such as criminal law, tax law, or personal injury law. Because of this, it makes sense that their marketing strategies should also be focused on reaching their desired clientele. In other words, you should focus your marketing strategy on a target market.
The common practice of “casting a wide net hoping to catch more fish” can cause several issues for your law firm including:
Your potential clients are online and your competition is online, so focusing on traditional marketing approaches only and neglecting digital marketing techniques translates to leaving a lot of money on the table.
It’s true that traditional marketing methods – such as billboards, networking, phone books, flyers, and TV and radio commercials – are still effective. One study conducted by MarketingProfs shows that 92% of 18-23 year-olds find printed materials easier to read than digital content and also that direct-mail marketing had a higher response rate than email marketing. And the fact that large organizations still use print ads and billboards is proof that traditional marketing is far from irrelevant. But traditional marketing methods lack the precision of digital marketing and can be much more costly.
There are several reasons why you might be hesitant to embrace digital marketing techniques:
Digital marketing gives you a more focused approach to gain interest and trust from potential clients. Certain kinds of digital marketing – such as legal forums, feedback pages, and social media – provide an interactive platform where clients can reach out to you immediately, which is not easily accomplished using traditional marketing.
There are many different options for digital marketing, and we recommend you use multiple platforms to help ensure success.
We also understand that it may feel overwhelming. So here are some examples of the most basic and widely-used law firm digital marketing strategies that you can get started with:
Your law firm’s website can be the foundation and starting point for your legal digital marketing. Your website serves as the first impression for your potential clients online. Because of this, be sure to put as much effort and resources into designing you law firm’s website as you put into designing the firm’s physical office.
At minimum, your law firm’s website should cover:
It’s not enough, though, to simply have a website for your law firm. Even if it’s the most well-designed and informative website on the internet, if your site does not appear in the search results when potential clients perform a keyword search on Google or other search engines, your law firm will fail to maximize that website’s potential.
This is where SEO, or search engine optimization, comes in. SEO is a vital aspect of your law firm website strategy. As the name SEO implies, this is about optimizing your website’s content and source code to increase visibility and ranking in search engine results pages.
Website design, development, and SEO integration might be more technical than you can handle on your own – especially as your time is better spent practicing law. So know that there are many digital marketing companies providing these services at competitive rates.
Social media is a powerful digital marketing strategy that can allow your law firm to reach a larger audience with very little, or even no, financial investment. The majority of potential clients will already have a social media profile on one or several social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, Twitter, Pinterest, and more. Because of this, it makes sense for your law firm to have a presence on these platforms as well.
Your social media profiles give potential clients an alternative way of finding your law firm online apart from your website. Keep in mind that using social media to market your law firm is not simply about posting an ad here and there. Your law firm’s social media presence can be used to educate potential clients by providing informational content or engaging in thoughtful discussion about relevant topics.
Closely related to social media, your law firm can (and should) also claim your spot in online directories, review sites like Yelp, and maps like Google Maps and Bing Maps. Doing so will help make sure potential clients have access to your firm’s updated address and contact information online. But even more importantly, these sites tend to rank the highest in search results – which means keeping them up-to-date is a core aspect of good SEO practice.
Email marketing can be a highly effective online marketing strategy because it is low-cost and low-effort. Email marketing allows your firm to send targeted emails to your network and potential clients which allows you to engage in direct communication, build trust, and provide valuable information. You can also measure the success of your email campaigns by using a marketing platform with analytics that show how many recipients actually open your emails.
Here are some beginning tips:
Paid search, or pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, is another effective digital marketing strategy you can use that may yield significant results for your law firm when done correctly.
PPCs allow a law firm to set up an online advertising campaign where the firm only pays for each time an online visitor clicks on an advertisement. This ensures that the law firm only pays for the times a potential client actually clients on the ad and visits their website. Some of the most popular PPC ad networks for law firms include:
Here are some tips for getting started:
Remember that paid search strategies require continuous optimization and testing. It is important not to be discouraged if your initial results are not as good as you would like them to be. With careful attention to detail and ongoing refinement, paid search can be a highly effective marketing tool for your firm.
There are also online platforms and services that specialize in linking lawyers with potential clients and vice-versa. Different legal marketing platforms and lead generation services offer different approaches. For example, some allow clients to look for lawyer profiles and corresponding client ratings and reviews while others use SEO and PPC to drive online traffic to their website which contains many lawyer profiles.
As the original attorney-client matching platform, with more than 20 years experience, LegalMatch allows potential clients to post their legal issues online where member lawyers can respond. This provides member attorneys with the ability to contact potential clients directly and schedule legal consultations that can lead to contracts.
But don’t take our word for it, read what some of our member attorneys have to say:
“LegalMatch has brought to me a clientele that I would not have otherwise seen. The market’s very competitive for lawyers. There are a lot of lawyers who advertise and it’s very easy for someone to Google or otherwise search for a lawyer and find a name and call, but I like the exposure that LegalMatch gives me.” ~Keith N., Business and Family Law
“It’s easy for me to keep track of who’s coming in that way. I’m very satisfied with how the product works, the technology.” ~Edward M., General Practice
“I’m happy with LegalMatch because they have a team of skilled, knowledgeable people and staff who are easy to communicate with and provide me with good leads versus fake leads that I get from many other advertisers out there. I get the actual true leads that I pay for at a reasonable price.” ~Zari H., Family Law
“LegalMatch provides me with a constant stream of interest from people who are in need of assistance…The communication is open and I’m happy with the exposure that I get.” ~Lillian S., Intellectual Property Law
“I think that the best thing about LegalMatch is that the clients have already put their contact information in so they’re actually real leads. And so you have basically a direct line of contact to the clients pretty much as soon as they post. And you can just get right into the weeds if you happen to catch them on the phone, which is just has a much higher success rate than, let’s say, messaging on a board and saying, “Hey, I’d be happy to do some work for you” and don’t hear back for three weeks.” ~Maris H., Family Law
LegalMatch marketing services provide member attorneys with an excellent and effective lead generation system that ensures a steady flow of clients. You can use the LegalMatch attorney-client matching platform to obtain relevant client information that is typically acquired during the initial consultation. This allows you to assess whether a potential client’s issue falls within your area or areas of practice before you communicate at all with each potential client.
In contrast to many other lead generation services, LegalMatch does not encourage or require member attorneys to create or maintain your own website. Instead, member attorneys can create a profile within the LegalMatch platform. This is an excellent tool for solo or small practice lawyers, especially if you are less familiar or comfortable with websites and digital marketing.
LegalMatch offers many features to bring member lawyers and law firms a steady stream of quality leads, as our members can attest:
“LegalMatch has been good for me as a small practice attorney, because it really gives me a lot of control over what I’m taking on and the type of cases that I get. It takes a lot of stress off of me to know that whatever my workload is, it’s almost like a spigot that can be turned on at any time. There are always leads and most of them are pretty good.” ~William M., Family Law
Read more reviews and success stories from member lawyers about their experiences using LegalMatch and our commitment to supporting attorneys and law firms like yours.