Marketing yourself or your firm can significantly challenge many legal professionals. The primary focus for most attorneys is helping clients and winning cases, not building an online presence, growing online authority, or generating leads. This problem is, many attorneys find themselves first having to win their clients since the industry is so hyper-competitive.
The most effective lawyers have learned how to effectively market themselves to some degree. There is a lot to consider when thinking about your marketing strategy, but when executed correctly, marketing can grow your firm and client base significantly. There will be challenges, as well as some specific considerations you’ll need to incorporate that are specific to marketing a law firm. Here are 5 major marketing tips for lawyers.

Initial Challenges

Before we get into the marketing tips, there are some unique challenges that you will face as a legal professional trying to build interest in your firm and demand your services. You’ll need to give serious consideration to the buyer’s education or familiarity, the current level of market competition, and ethically dubious tactics to avoid. All three of these things should strongly influence how your overall marketing strategy is created.

Consumer Familiarity

Most people don’t need an attorney until they do. This means they are generally very uneducated about market offerings, services, what to look for in a lawyer, and so on. They may not even be aware that there are different areas of legal practice, such as personal injury and investor or fiduciary law. This means one of your primary hurdles is going to be educating your potential clients with your marketing content.

Competition

The plain truth is that the attorney marketplace is heavily saturated across all types of lawyers. From full-service firms to general practices that cater to individuals and businesses. This means that to be highly successful, you’ll need to stand out from the masses. This is a primary reason that your marketing will need to set you apart and showcase your option as the best option.

Ethical Considerations

At all times your marketing will need to adhere to the same strict ethical guidelines that you and your practice do. There are a lot of opportunities for unethical marketing in the legal sector, and publishing the wrong ad or content could mean controversy, censure, or even disbarment. Creating engaging and effective marketing content can present significant challenges, but you should always follow the Rules of Professional Conduct.

Top 5 Marketing Tips For Lawyers

The attorney marketing industry is growing quickly, with more and more attorneys coming into the field already understanding a lot of the basics of an online presence. This can give them an advantage over attorneys and firms that have yet to optimize the marketing for their practice. Here are 5 tips for making sure your marketing is top-tier.

Know Your Audience

There are countless areas of legal practice and specialties, and this variety and diversity carry over into a firm’s client base as well. No matter how good your marketing strategy, content, and social media channels are, you aren’t going to win any clients if you don’t know how to engage with them. Think about all of your clients, and start to map commonalities, maybe even do a short survey, and start to gather crucial demographic information. Ideally, you want to be able to take this data and use it to create “the perfect client”, which is who you’ll build your marketing content to appeal.

Understand Your Competition

Once you have your target audience, understand that there are dozens and potentially even hundreds of law firms in your general region that will be going after that same audience. Make sure you know who your competitors are, and how they are portraying themselves to your audience, so you can adapt accordingly. Are they marketing themselves as aggressive, compassionate, high-settlement, or most experienced? Is there an angle you don’t see represented? These are the considerations you’ll need to make when evaluating your competition.

Make Your IP The Foundation Of Your Content

You can create amazing, and effective, content. While it may seem those bar associations and legal trade organizations have the market cornered on intellectual property, this is far from the truth. You and your partners have knowledge and opinions that people want to see, and creating content from that is a major factor in grabbing new visitors to your site.
The big problem is, many attorneys see putting their IP out there on their website as incredibly intimidating, particularly when you need to put so much of it out there to gain sway with your potential client. More IP means more perceived authority, and the firm seen as more authority will be the one getting that phone call or email. If you can dial into what your audience wants to learn about, you can even start a podcast or live stream answering their questions.

Make Your Site Stand Out

Your website is likely going to be the first way your potential client is introduced to you, and it should reflect not only your innovation and personal flavor, but also give the client an intuitive, informative, and engaging experience. Here are some things to focus on:
  • Overall user experience - your site talks about you but you’re building it for your users, if they find it confusing or clunky, they’ll move on.
  • Mobile-ready format - more than 75% of website traffic comes from smartphones or similar personal digital devices, and when your site is first indexed by Google it reads the mobile version, so make sure it’s good.
  • Accessibility elements - clients that need accessibility features, such as easy screen reading or similar features for those with visual impairments, will simply leave if your site lacks them. 

Make Your Digital Presence Count

One of the most important things you can do is create a solid, consistent, digital presence across all social media platforms. This may require you to hire a social media manager or work with a firm that provides social management, but it can extend the visibility of your practice to so many more people than otherwise. Make sure your content is engaging though because nobody wants even more ads in their feeds.

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