These law firm digital marketing strategies can connect you to thousands of potential clients at once.
As your prospective clients trade in phone books and business cards for Google and LinkedIn, you need to update your marketing plan to reach them where they’re already looking. Modern law firm marketing is all about taking advantage of the web and the tools it has to offer.
Today, 97% of consumers using online sources to search for local services and products, which means having a strong digital marketing strategy is no longer optional. To stand out among the many legal professionals in your area—along with rising online legal services—you need to amplify your online presence.
When you employ the following law firm and attorney marketing strategies, you can quickly strengthen your lead generation to earn new clients in no time.
1. Search engine optimization (SEO)
Search engines are some of the best sources of leads around. However, in order to successfully generate high-quality leads from sites like Google or Bing, you need to land at the top of search engine results pages for keywords that matter for your industry and practice area. This is because the first page of results typically captures 71% of all clicks—a percentage that sometimes rises as high as 92%.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a law firm marketing strategy that helps you get found through tactics like the following:
- Inserting keywords throughout your website, including blog posts and landing pages
- Generating backlinks to your site from other trusted websites
- Updating and republishing past blog content
When your site is well-optimized, people conducting a Google search for your services should find your web pages before your competitors’ websites.
2. Website design
When your law firm website is fully optimized for search engines and clients are tapping into your website, you need to give them a reason to stay. Nearly 75% of all people who visit your law firm’s website will be ready to take action, so your site’s design can either lead your visitors to become new clients or turn them away.
The best website designs are easy to navigate and mobile-friendly, since a significant amount of today’s web traffic comes from smartphones. Make sure to avoid having too much text or clashing fonts or colors. Ideally, your design should also feature branded case studies, testimonials, and team pictures that help legitimize your law practice, while still loading within 2-5 seconds.
Even more importantly, your website design must include clear calls to actions (CTAs). These CTAs, usually appearing in the form of buttons or links, should encourage prospective clients to leave their contact information, book an appointment, or otherwise take action in a way that allows you to follow up.
Always make sure that your phone number is visible, so potential leads can reach out directly if preferred.
3. Content marketing
In addition to optimizing the content you already have on your site, you can enhance your marketing efforts by creating new content. This is a great way to ensure your web pages rank higher for new keywords, while also engaging your readers and positioning you or your law firm as a leader in your practice area.
This law firm marketing strategy is perhaps the best way to create loyal customers out of your leads. This is because content marketing continues to provide value to your potential and current customers beyond the legal services they pay for, inspiring them to stick with you in the long run.
Blogging is a fantastic way to begin your content marketing, though some law firms may venture into video content creation as well.
4. Online review management
One referral may connect you to a single new client, but one great online review can help you attract hundreds of leads on the web. Collect positive reviews on popular sites like Google and Facebook to showcase your law firm as a trusted business clients love to work with. Respond to these reviews—whether they’re positive or negative—to show both current and potential clients that you’re listening and that you care.
Collecting and managing your firm’s online lawyer reviews on industry-specific websites like Lawyers.com and Avvo.com can further help you attract leads who are already serious about seeking legal help. These lawyer review sites are often less saturated with competitors, while still drawing a significant amount of traffic from the right leads. With only 25% of large law firms and 47% of solo lawyers using Avvo to boost their online marketing, the platform offers a great chance to catch the eyes of its 8 million monthly visitors and convert leads quickly.
When you integrate Podium Reviews into your law firm marketing, you can automatically send your clients a text invite to review you on the sites that matter. As soon as the reviews start rolling in, you can respond to all your reviewers, conveniently on one platform.
5. Social media marketing
LinkedIn is a major player in legal marketing nowadays, with 90% of lawyers leveraging the platform to network, connect with clients, and even promote their employers. Pushing content—including whatever you produce as a part of your content marketing strategy—on your personal LinkedIn feed, as well as your company’s LinkedIn page, can help you reach new followers and develop a dedicated audience.
Lawyers are also increasingly using Facebook as a part of their law firm’s marketing. Through your Facebook Business Page, you can take advantage of the platform’s advanced ad creation and post promotion tools, which enable you to reach a highly specific target audience.
6. Pay-per-click (PPC) Advertising
The leads you get from Google don’t have to come purely from organic search results. If you want to maximize your search engine presence, you can launch a Google Ads campaign, which allows your PPC ad to appear above search results for your desired keywords. Many law firms choose to link to specific landing pages—for example, a landing page dedicated to personal injury law for the keyword “car accident lawyer—to maximize the effectiveness with their ads. You can also create a landing page specifically for members of your community and target your ads to locals in your area.
PPC advertising isn’t cheap, with a single click often costing $1 or $2. Lawyers and attorneys often choose to employ a marketing services firm to manage these ads to make sure they get the best results possible from their investment. Still, PPC ads can get you fast results, allowing you to turn leads into clients quicker than many other law firm marketing strategies.
7. Email marketing
For every dollar spent on email marketing, companies can expect a return on investment (ROI) exceeding $35. To leverage the power of email marketing, many law firms develop drip marketing campaigns that guide leads through the sales funnel and convert them into clients, starting with an initial follow-up email.
Some of these CRM examples can help you visualize where a prospective client is in the sales funnel at any given moment so you can automate emails along the way.
If you’re looking for creative ways to capture email addresses in the first place, you might want to consider offering downloadable resources, such as whitepapers and slideshows, in exchange for an email. Though more time-intensive upfront, starting an email newsletter and building subscribers can also help you gather plenty of leads. Email newsletters are also a great avenue to share more of your web content.
Expand your law firm marketing
Using the seven law firm marketing strategies listed above can help you generate and convert more leads to get more clients walking through your doors. Digital marketing may come with a slight learning curve, but when you connect with potential clients online, you have the opportunity to gain quality leads faster than ever before.
As you start developing your law firm marketing plan, check out our local SEO checklist to learn more about perfecting your website’s search engine optimization. As your marketing efforts bring more search traffic and potential clients to your customers, convert your leads into customers with Podium’s free messaging tools.
