"Law firms spend an average of 49% of their budgets on marketing and the results are tangible."
Building A Strong Marketing Foundation
A marketing strategy is vital for any law firm, helping to spread the word about attorney services and to reach new clients. However, creating a digital marketing strategy for a law firm can seem daunting. With numerous other crucial needs straining time and resources, prioritizing an effective digital marketing plan might fall through the cracks.
The Benefits of Digital Marketing for Law Firms
Digital marketing for law firms includes marketing services through online platforms like search engines, social media, websites, emails, and mobile apps. A digital marketing strategy is an effective tool to increase brand awareness, engage potential customers, generate leads, and build relationships with your target audience. While traditional law firm advertising tools like billboards, television and radio commercials, and newspaper ads can be beneficial, digital marketing broadens a company’s potential to reach thousands—or even millions—of screens. A well-rounded digital marketing strategy can result in more clients, increased revenue, enhanced name recognition, and an improved reputation, all goals that any law firm would want to work toward.
Today, law firms spend an average of 49% of their budgets on marketing, as many have experienced the tangible benefits of doing so. In addition, most law firms choose to outsource marketing efforts to experts, with 83% hiring external marketing firms to carry out their digital marketing. With these statistics in mind, it’s clear that digital marketing should be a priority in any legal marketing strategy. So, how do law firms create a successful digital marketing plan?
Designing A Digital Strategy for Your Law firm
Building a thorough and successful digital campaign is vital to marketing these days. Make sure you consider and implement the following steps:
Determine your marketing goals.
The first step in creating a law firm marketing plan is determining the goals that the firm wants to reach. This step is necessary to develop a marketing plan with measurable outcomes. While broad goals are an excellent start, firms must consider setting clear and accessible goals that are measurable. Some examples of measurable goals are:
- Increase clientele by 40 clients this quarter
- Increase email list by 250 subscribers in 90 days
- Gain 5,000 followers on the Instagram page by yearend
Establish attainable timelines.
Marketing goals should also have a preset time limit. Set a reasonable time limit for each, like the last day of the year. This way, firms can better assess what actions they need to take to reach their goals in time. In addition, firms must remember to be realistic. While meeting a goal of 5,000 new followers might sound doable, doing so without prior experience may be more difficult than expected.
Research the potential audience.
When marketing online, marketers are always speaking to a specific audience. Experienced law firms likely already know who their audiences are but even they sometimes need to reevaluate who they want their marketing to reach. To gauge the response of an audience, they must ask questions such as:
- How old is our audience?
- Where do they live?
- What social media do they use?
- What careers do they have?
- What are their beliefs and morals?
Create a professional website.
Serving as its digital hub, a well-designed website combined with great copywriting and content is essential to any digital marketing strategy for a law firm. A good website helps companies look more legitimate, a required feature for acquiring leads. At a minimum, the website should include complementary positive reviews, success stories, an about page, a mission statement, outline and description of services, and a contact page. All digital marketing efforts point back to the website to ensure clients will contact the office for services when they reach the end of their digital journey. Over time, this continuous stream of web traffic will help boost domain authority and improve organic rankings on search engines.
Choose the right digital channels.
Next, firms must select the appropriate digital channels to use in their marketing efforts. This choice depends on what the audience uses the most. For example, older generations are more likely to be on Facebook, while younger generations are more likely to be on Instagram or TikTok. Since creating a social media account is free, the process of trial and error is more sustainable.
Utilize SEO.
Next, firms must select the appropriate digital channels to use in their marketing efforts. This choice depends on what the audience uses the most. For example, older generations are more likely to be on Facebook, while younger generations are more likely to be on Instagram or TikTok. Since creating a social media account is free, the process of trial and error is more sustainable.
Invest in PPC.
Advertising a legal company on search engines where online users are researching is key to a successful marketing plan in this digital age. Pay-per-click (PPC) is another essential digital marketing tool that helps companies show up on desirable search engine results pages for specific keywords. With PPC, companies only pay for digital advertisements if online users click on them. Thus, this up-front investment can potentially have a massive return. PPC is a particularly important strategy for short-term campaigns if no SEO plan is currently in place. While SEO can take several weeks or months to see returns, PPC campaigns often yield results within days. However, if a law firm’s PPC plan is coupled with an efficient SEO strategy, cost-per-click for advertisements may decrease over time.
Measure success and adjust.
The last essential step of a digital marketing plan is measuring success, made easy by using free online tools or working with a comprehensive marketing service provider. Digital marketing often involves trial and error, so it is common to need adjustments over time. However, partnering with attorney marketing professionals like Growth Squad can exponentially reduce the adjustment periods.
Whether a firm is looking to create and implement a digital marketing strategy on its own or be highly involved in its outsourced marketing firm’s design, it is essential to understand the ingredients for a successful marketing plan.
Implementing Best Practices for Law Firm Marketing.
Marketers should also know law firm marketing best practices. Some best practices for marketing for attorneys include:
- Taking a client-centered approach– Firms that offer a client-centered experience are more likely to succeed by delivering excellent customer service, fast communication, and empathy.
- Ensuring data security of audience and clients– Law firms are legally required to store clients’ data securely and provide opt-out options for user data storage.
- Investing in marketing assistance– Nearly 83% of firms work with outside law firm marketing services to run their marketing efforts. To be competitive, invest in experts to assist with the plan.
- Understanding the legalities of advertising – There is a specific difference between legal advertising and solicitation that firms must ensure they know.
Get the Results Your Firm Deserves.
Digital marketing is an essential tool for ensuring the success of any law firm. As online advertising for law firms grows more competitive, many firms choose to invest in experts to reach their goals. Growth Squad provides attorney marketing services for law firms, building upon simple yet powerful marketing solutions through years of expertise, a dedicated team, and a centralized digital marketing dashboard. Contact Growth Squad today for a free Marketing Health Assessment to learn how to take a digital marketing strategy to the next level.
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