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There are so many marketing channels out there that it can get a little confusing, especially if you don’t have any advertising available. When you start promoting your law firm, you will be presented with numerous strategies that you can use to try to attract new clients, such as: B. digital marketing, print marketing, SEO, blogs or even old-fashioned poster advertising. However, there are two crucial elements to consider when developing your law firm’s marketing plan so that you don’t waste your time, energy, and most importantly, your budget. The first point to remember is that you always need to promote your customers and prospects, and the second point is that you need to come up with a clear and concise plan that is tailored to your business.

Should I just do what the other law firms do?

That would clearly be a no. Like your clients, no two law firms are alike. Each law firm is at a different point in their legal journey. So make sure you plan for your law firm and not just copy other law firms that may have different goals than you.

When marketing a law firm, here are some things to keep in mind:

• Exercise area
• Size of the firm
• Corporate goals
• Acquisition goals
• Types of marketing activities the company currently engages in
• How much time the company has to invest in its marketing

To take this as an example, if your company is a brand new personal injury law firm, you are in a different phase of your marketing journey than an established local family law firm. A well-known law firm that specializes in family law will likely already have a strong referral network, website, and up-to-date marketing strategy that includes a social media presence and possibly a blog, but a new law firm operating in a different market may not have a website or social media channels, and is unlikely to have a solid reputation. Planning where to spend the legal marketing budget for each of these companies requires a different and tailored approach that may use different channels.

Depending on the practice area, there are also different costs that must be taken into account. In the example above, personal injury law is traditionally more expensive and requires a much higher cost per lead (CPL) whether you are marketing online or offline. Family law is known to be a much cheaper area of ​​legal marketing that requires less spending.

What marketing channels are there?

Right now, law firms have a wide variety of marketing channels available to them – some would say a terrifying number for your consideration. Below are some of the key channels that you should at least consider when designing your legal marketing strategy.

On-line

• Website development
• Content marketing / blogging
• Pay per click advertising
• Online reviews and recommendations
• Video marketing
• Podcasts

Offline

• Television advertising
• radio advertising
• Trademark
• Print advertising
• Billboard advertising
• recommendations

Where do other law firms market?

A recent study found that for many law firms, email was the most used marketing channel, followed by organic social media (as opposed to paid social media advertising, which was much lower). Below is the full breakdown of where law firms allocate their budget.

While the above can be helpful in suggesting and providing some insight into what others are doing, it remains important that your law firm embarks on its own marketing path depending on your goals. It should be added that the table above can also be a bit confusing when it comes to, for example, the difference between organic and paid social media. Legal marketing and its numerous channels can also seem overwhelming. Marketing, like the law, has a number of its own terms and abbreviations that can be confusing. But don’t be alarmed; Many of them may not even apply to you right now.

So where should I market my law firm?

Put simply, you need to market your law firm where your clients are.

When searching for a lawyer, consumers said that the following methods led them to select their law firm:

• Referrals from friends / family – 62%
• Online search – 37%
• Referrals from other lawyers – 31%
• Directory listings – 28%
• TV advertising – 13%
• Online ads – 13%
• Radio advertising – 7%
• Billboard advertising – 6%

When looking at the above, it might be tempting to think that you can just sit back and rely on recommendations, but that would be unwise. Why? Because nowadays everything is connected. Most people who get a referral from a friend or family will at least check out this business online. If you take a multi-faceted approach, you are more likely to get more traffic, more engagement, and more leads. That doesn’t mean you have to spend money on every form of marketing – it does mean that you should prioritize your goals and align them with your customer intent.

A recent study found that email was the most widely used marketing channel for many law firms.

How do I reach my potential customers?

To align your goals with your customers, you need to make sure that you are marketing in the right place. Below are some top tips to help you decide how best to spend your legal marketing budget.

website

First and foremost, if you are not online, we strongly recommend getting a website. As mentioned earlier, more and more clients are finding law firms through search engines – overall, 78% of consumers search for lawyers online. If you’re not there, you simply won’t be found. It is for this reason that you should look out for a good website. It should be clear, impactful, and most importantly, contain all of the relevant information your customers want to see.

SEO

With the advent of search engines, SEO (or search engine optimization) is becoming increasingly important. Simply put, SEO is the practice of improving web content so that it appears as high up on the search results pages (or SERPs) as possible. Once you have a good, functioning website, your next step is to focus on some level of SEO so that your website appears as a result of your customers’ searches.

Content marketing / blogging

This is the next step in the website journey. When you add a blog to your website, you can leverage your law firm’s wealth of knowledge to provide answers to client questions and place yourself in front of them as a source of authority to build trust and showcase your firm. A word of caution is to only use a blog when you have the time to blog. Nothing is as disgusting as going to a website’s blog page only to find that it was last updated in 2017.

To align your goals with your customers, you need to make sure that you are marketing in the right place.

Pay per click advertising (PPC)

Internet traffic arriving to websites from PPC delivers 50% more leads than organic traffic, so this area is not to be ignored. Unfortunately, it is also quite expensive for many areas of law! But don’t be discouraged. PPC can be both a great form of presence and customer acquisition.

Think locally, no matter how big your law firm is

With the world so interconnected these days, there is a temptation to “go global” right away, but you can end up reaching consumers who are on the other side of the world if your business is not international. So think locally; Some of the best campaigns can be most locally targeted, be it a billboard or an ad on local radio. If you want to target potential customers in your area, make sure you use some of your budget on local advertising. Don’t forget that you can also target global platforms locally, create a Google Business page, and encourage clients to rate your law firm positively. Facebook ads can be targeted within a mile of your office, and you can even write blogs using topics and keywords that you know will be popular with local audiences.

Use social media (properly)

Social media can be a great tool for your law firm, but it can also be time consuming and confusing. A solid social media strategy tailored to your audience is therefore highly recommended – but getting your law firm an account on every social media channel and paying Instagram influencers and a full-time TikTok content creator when your prospects aren’t on Instagram or TikTok isn’t. You can also benefit from including some paid social media advertisements to help increase your clients’ awareness of your law firm.

Some of the best campaigns can be most locally targeted, be it a billboard or an ad on local radio.

Don’t be afraid to use old school marketing

In today’s digital age, the temptation to give up traditional advertising opportunities is all too great. But for many law firms, some of the more established marketing channels are for one reason: because they work. If your business is new and looking for local customers, consider placing an ad in your local newspaper. If you work for an international law firm opening a new office in New York, you are reaching out to a public relations firm to get your news out.

Get creative with your legal marketing

Almost all advice these days is to follow a specific checklist of steps, but with more channels (and enough time) you can afford to be a little more creative. Sponsoring a charity event or sports team, creating a YouTube channel for your business, or even creating your own legal podcast are now viable ways to meet your marketing goals.

In short, there is no right or wrong way to spend your legal marketing budget as long as you develop a strategy that is aligned with your goals and your customers. If you are still unsure of the best way to go, it is worth speaking to a legal marketing company who can help you plan and implement a targeted legal marketing strategy.

Next Month: How to Create a Legal Marketing Strategy