The best time to reach clients is not when they’re in crisis, but when you gain their trust in a calm frame of mind.
When a potential client is faced with legal trouble their decision-making skills are impaired. They need to know that their lawyer is someone they can trust, has their best interests at heart, and can protect their rights. It’s intimidating to seek counsel, but gaining a client’s trust before they seek legal counsel can determine whether or not your firm is the right person for the job.
You may already feel like your firm’s reputation is far-reaching and steady, but your competition may be narrowing the playing field by investing in marketing. Your existing reputation paired with marketing efforts, however, can help your firm to excel even more.
Marketing is a skill set that perhaps you’re not familiar with. It’s very possible that as a lawyer you feel like you don’t even have the time to explore marketing. But, marketing starts the minute your firm opens its doors whether a business realizes it or not.
People need legal representation and your firm needs quality marketing in order to reach them. By investing more in your marketing efforts, you are investing in your business and in the clients you serve. You know you can win cases, but clients need to know this, too.
So how can you successfully market your law firm to potential clients?
Read on to learn all about successful law firm marketing ideas and how to implement them into your business.
Successful Law Firm Marketing Ideas
Running a law firm takes a lot of work. Paperwork, court dates, and providing counsel to clients all take up the majority of your time as a lawyer, but successful marketing can ensure that this workflow continues on a consistent basis. Explore the following law firm marketing ideas to take your law firm’s business to the new level.
1. Website Design
To successfully market your business you first need to have a well-designed website.
Having a well-designed website means that it is functional, offers visitors clear-cut services and links, and is appealing to the eye. Your website design is an extension of your brand. If you want potential clients to trust your brand, then you need to have a website design that is professional and easy-to-navigate.
Remember, when people are facing stressful situations they need clarity. If your website is designed with clarity in mind then you can make your client feel more at ease by choosing your law firm to represent them. The last thing they want to do during a stressful period is aimlessly search your website for the services you offer.
Just like any other business, your website visitors will exit your website if they cannot find the answers they need a quickly.
To have a clear and professional website for your law firm, start by deciding on what links will appear in the navigation or main menu bar. For your law firm, these links should at least include a home page, services offered, rates, contact us, and about us. When people are seeking counsel these links will provide them with all of the information they need to know without needing to contact your firm directly.
A bonus to the clarity of your website and its design is that it could reduce the number of phone calls and inquiries you receive about the services you offer. Freeing up precious time and confusion from the start.
When considering the design, images, and color scheme of your website revisit your branding. Your website should have similar qualities as your logo, feature your firm’s slogan, and use design elements that match your current branding such as fonts and images. By designing your website around your branding you create a consistent professional image that clients will grow to know and trust.
Learn more about law firm website design by using the previous link as an example.
2. SEO
When building your website also keep in mind Search Engine Optimization or SEO. SEO allows search engines to rank and find your website based on a formula the search engine uses. Aspects of this formula include keywords, original content, loading time of your website, and internal and external links.
Start by selecting keywords or phrases that your potential clients would use to search for your law firm. Examples include “intellectual property law,” “tax attorneys,” or “personal injury lawyers.” Include these keywords in your website’s content and links whenever it’s natural to do so.
It’s tempting to place the keywords all over your website to get better rankings, but search engines see right through this and consider it as spam.
Loading time of your website will also affect your ranking. Search engines are able to process exactly how much time it takes to load your page and know that people prefer waiting for shorter periods of time. In other words, search engines consider loading times to mean that the content is less relevant to the web surfer.
To reduce loading times regularly perform site maintenance and testing, avoid using flash videos and images and limit the use of plugins. Plugins such as Yoast SEO can help to improve your SEO, but plugins aren’t created equally and they may slow down your website’s loading time.
Another way to improve your website’s SEO is to have a blog. Blogs with original content, keywords, and internal and external linking help websites to be ranked higher.
For example, someone may have a specific question regarding a legal concern and search the web for answers. They may not be specifically searching for your law firm, but if you have a blog post that matches the topic they’re searching for the search engine will direct them to your website.
By creating quality, original content potential clients will also learn to trust your word and guidance before they even set foot in your office.
3. Video Content
Video content properly placed on your website can help potential clients to trust your law firm and lawyers even more. By seeing your lawyers and getting a feel for their personalities and the work your firm does it puts their minds at ease. It can be intimidating and stressful to meet with a lawyer for people who aren’t normally around lawyers.
Even better would be to provide potential clients with more emotionally based and somewhat personal content. If you can show clients that you’ll be friendly to them, yet firm in the courtroom then you can gain their trust. You see cases and courtrooms almost every day, but clients may only face one legal proceeding or less in their entire lifetime.
Keep this in mind when personalizing video content on your page. It’s also a good idea to create a video outlining all of your firm’s accomplishments and successes. When clients know that you have the ability to successfully resolve cases for your clients, then you are able to build rapport with them before you meet in person.
4. Community Events
Attending community events can put your law firm in the spotlight. Attending events shows potential clients that you care about your community, you’re accessible and personable, and that your firm is trustworthy.
Community events could include career days at a local high school, volunteer events, or fundraising events. When your law firm gives back to the community, it shows that you are invested in their futures and see them as equals.
5. Search Engine Directories
Register your business with all of the major search engines so that they can pull up your contact information to prospective clients without needing to directly visit your website.
To register your law firm on the major search engines you will need to provide your firm’s name, phone number, address, website, and legal services category. When a potential client searches for lawyers in their area your firm’s name and contact information will be included as a relevant search result. Web surfers can then easily click your listing and either call, get directions or visit your website.
6. Get on Social Media
Social media may not seem like a strong bet to advertise your law firm, but in this day and age, it can produce tons of leads and referrals. When selecting which social media platform to use for your law firm consider the type of law you practice.
If your practice is geared more towards businesses, then Linkedin would be a better choice. If you’re a personal injury law firm, however, Facebook may be a better option because personal injury is common to most people on Facebook. Facebook users can also easily share your law firm’s business page with people they know who may be seeking legal advice.
In that respect, your followers and social media pages do the marketing work for you! Folks can also leave reviews on your page which can enhance your firm’s reputation further.
Ready to Implement These Law Firm Marketing Ideas?
Marketing your law firm can at first seem like a hassle, but with the right strategy in mind, these law firm marketing ideas can become a reality. The best news is that you never have to do marketing in-house. There are plenty of services and companies who would be more than willing to help with your firm’s marketing efforts.
To learn more marketing your firm, read our blog post which outlines 9 creative marketing tips for getting your business’s name out there.