The Do's and Don'ts of Law Firm Marketing

Do you know the importance of marketing your law firm? Have you been procrastinating in creating a budget for marketing at your company?

There are 449,633 law firms in the United States. You have a lot of competition, whether a small or large company. To be successful, you must advertise your business.

However, you must be strategic. You don't want to waste your money on print ads and other marketing methods if they will not help you grow your business.

This law firm marketing guide is full of tips that will help you expand your reach and connect with your ideal clientele. Keep reading to learn all the do's and don'ts you need to know to keep your company thriving.

Build Your Personal Brand

People are looking to hire a person but a large firm. They want the experience to be personal and not to feel like another case number.

When you're marking your law firm, make your brand personal. This can be a challenging task.

You'll want to advertise the lawyers you have on staff. However, you always want your potential clients to know that your lawyers have a lot of resources and a firm backing them.

To find a balance between marketing your firm and making it personal, you'll want your attorneys to promote their own brands as well. This will make them more personable and less like a genetic photo on a law firm's website.

Don't Pass Marketing Off

It may be tempting to pass off the responsibility of marketing to a paralegal in your office; however, this will not be beneficial. Marketing is not where you want to save money or resources. Your paralegals likely don't have the time or the experience to market your law firm well.

In the end, you'll be wasting resources instead of saving them. There may be other tasks that you can assign to them, but marketing isn't one of them. You won't see the results you want if you don't invest in properly.

Know Your Ideal Client

Before you start marketing, you must know who your target audience is. As an established law firm, you likely have a target group of people that you work with or want to connect with. For example, if your firm works in family law, you'll want to research where parents get a lot of their information.

If your lawyers typically work on cases of medical malpractice, advertising near medical facilities may be a good option. The most important thing is finding out how your ideal client gets their information.

Are they on social media? Do they watch TV or read the paper? This information will allow you to post, print, and promote your ads in the right places so the right people see them.

Produce Content

Part of your law firm's marketing strategies should be creating valuable content for your consumers. You can help build your reputation through advertising. Giving out free information is an easy way to get your potential clients to trust you.

Navigating a lawsuit, divorce, or any insurance issue can be challenging and intimidating for people. Most will go to the internet first to get information about handling the situation. Having YouTube videos or blogs containing information that can help them is a great way to get people to your website and build up your creditable.

Speaking of websites, you must spend some time setting yours up. Your website is an important aspect of advertising. It should be easy to navigate and should have your contact information.

Making it mobile-friendly is also key. People are constantly searching for information on their phones. If your website doesn't work or translate over to mobile devices, you'll likely lose a lot of leads.

Setting up a live chat on your website can also be beneficial. It gives anyone that comes to your site the chance to ask a real person questions, which goes back to giving clients a personal experience.

Social media is a huge part of people's lives. You should utilize LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and even TikTok.

These platforms give you the chance to connect with people and expand your reach. You can connect with other professionals and guide people back to your informative guide and videos.

Track Your Marketing Results

While you may not want to invest your time in making videos and posting online, it allows you a unique opportunity that billboards and print ads don't. Each social media and online platform will give you analytics that shows you how many people have seen and interacted with your content.

This information will tell you who likes your content and who's seeing it. Your content may be reaching a group of people you may not have known needed a lawyer.

Tracking your marketing results also allows you to see where you may be missing the mark. You'll be able to change or tweak your marketing strategies to reach more people and make your advertising more effective.

Don't Forget About Email Marketing

Email marketing can be tricky. It can be a useful tool, but it can also be difficult to find the right amount to send.

You don't want to send too many and bombard your clients, but you'll want to send enough so they have all your accurate and updated information. You'll want to include a call-to-action with a link to your page in your emails.

You can use email to share the services you offer or let your customers know that you've posted a new informational video. It's estimated that 60% of law firms don't return or reply to client emails. If you're not sending or responding to emails, you're missing out on a lot of business.

If your law firm has never prioritized email marketing, now is the time to start. You may be surprised by how many leads you generate.

Update Your Stats

Many law firms don't update their information on their websites, social media pages, and in their emails. Update your business' information as often as it changes.

You always want your clients to have the most accurate information. If local or national laws change, make a note on your site. Your clients and anyone who clicks on your page will appreciate having the most accurate information. It will also improve your SEO.

Don't Start Without a Plan

Starting without a plan can lead to a disaster. You'll end up wasting time and resources. This also can easy way to make mistakes and get in trouble with the law.

Making a plan will help you identify your audience and create obtainable goals. The process will seem more manageable if you have an organized plan and steps that will help propel yourself forward.

Get Involved

Getting involved in the community may not seem important, but it can be a game changer. You can get your company's name out there by simply sponsoring a little baseball team or having a tent at a 5K race. People will be taking pictures and posting them online which is more advertisement for you.

This also gets you offline and meeting people. People like to know the businesses they work with care for and support the things they love.

Don't Break The Law

It may seem obvious, but don't break the law when you're marketing your company. As a law firm, you aren't allowed to direct any marketing to a specific person who needs legal advice.

You will also want to avoid making false claims. When you're advertising, you'll want to avoid claims similar to "best lawyer in town" or "we never lose a case". While it's not illegal to make these statements, it does hurt your creditability.

Don't make promises you can't keep. Instead, talk about how many cases you've won or how many clients you've worked with over the years. These statements have proof to back them up and are measurable.

Monitor Your Online Reputation

You'll want to monitor and pay attention to what people are saying about you online. You can set up alerts so that anytime your law firm's name is mentioned, you get a notification.

Part of law firm marketing strategies is to address any bad reviews that may come up. While you hope they don't, you need to be prepared. Anything you post online for your business in advertising.

If you respond to a less-than-ideal review with negativity or denial, it can look bad. Avoiding also isn't a good look. Take the time to apologize and ask the client if they are willing to take the conversation offline so you can address the issue more directly.

If you're not monitoring your online reputation, you'll miss out on the opportunity to thank people for their business. You can also learn about what people post about your business. An issue may come up that you need to address internally that you didn't know about.

Don't Hire a Competitor's Marketing Firm

You'll want to avoid working with a marketing firm that is advertising for your competition. There's a clear conflict of interest and you may not get the best advertising from them. It's safe to assume that will give their best efforts to the company that is paying them the most.

Try Something New

Stepping outside the box can be difficult. If one of your marketing strategies is working, then there's no need to change it.

However, if one of your tactics isn't yielding results, don't be afraid to try something new. Be creative.

Even if that particular marketing strategy fails, you'll learn from it and improve. Since there are so many law firms out there that you have to compete with, trying something new when it comes to your marketing can help you stand out.

Hire Experts

Whether you're a new company or you've been in business for years, working with a professional who is educated and experienced in advertising can prove to be vital. However, you don't want to work with any digital marketing team. They should be knowledgeable about law firm marketing and SEO.

Take the time to find the right company, asking about their experience and how they plan to market your firm. You'll also want to look at past client reviews. Ask about what type of marketing services they offer and supporting data that shows they've been successful in the past.

Keep Clients Happy

Word-of-mouth can be beneficial or detrimental to your company. People will share their good and bad experiences with their friends and family.

If a client has a great experience, they will likely share your law firm's name and suggest their friend give you a call. The opposite is true if they have a bad experience.

Most people (88%) trust the word of their friends and family more than other advertisements. Keeping your clients happy and treating the right will result in great marketing for you.

law firm Marketing Tips

As a business owner and lawyer, you have other tasks that require your attention and it can be easy to let advertising and marketing take a back seat. However, this can be damaging to your business and your profits.

To continue growing, you must prioritize lawyer marketing. That doesn't mean you have to spend all your time creating ads. Our law firm marketing team is available to help you with your advertising needs.

We've worked with many lawyers and firms and we are certain we can take your company's marketing to the next level. Contact us here to get started.