The Best Legal Marketing Tactics You Haven't Tried Yet

Use These Fresh Law Firm Marketing Tips To Attract Potential Clients

Whether you are in charge of marketing for a large personal injury law practice or a small law firm, you know that you must do everything in your power to attract prospective clients and show them what your company specializes in. 

Until recently, your legal marketing team generated the success of your law firm or legal organizations through referrals, where word-of-mouth was currency. 

Bringing in new leads and clients was all about reputation management, networking, and making the most of the visibility you would receive through significant industry events and well-known publications.

When searching online, most people looking for legal services and solutions don’t use a specific company name. They’re statistically more likely to use a local SEO term combined with the practice area needed, such as defense attorneys in Boston or personal injury law firms in New York. 

Therefore, from a business-to-consumer perspective, your online presence and content, as well as a well-designed, well-optimized, and easy-to-navigate website, will make a significant difference in how your firm or institution is perceived. And since most law firms now offer a free consultation, it will take a lot more effort to attract the right clients. 

To get the most out of your online marketing efforts, your law firm needs to meet its target demographic actively searching for legal advice. That means amping up your digital marketing campaigns to increase brand visibility and lead generation. 

Let’s look at the ins and outs of digital marketing for law firms and four legal marketing tips you can use to help build your brand. 

What Is Digital Marketing For Legal Professionals? 

Also known as online marketing, digital marketing involves reaching your target audience and attracting new business through online channels, like: 

• Social media posts

• Search engines 

• Email 

• Virtual events 

• Mobile Apps 

• Websites 

And since 78% of consumers will spend time researching a brand online before reaching out, it’s crucial that your law firm's digital marketing efforts paint an accurate picture of what your legal team can offer them. 

To amp up your law firm's marketing strategy online, you must focus on the marketing channels that will best serve what your law firm needs. 

You’ll need to combine the power of pay-per-click ads, social media marketing, and high-quality content to make your mark and get your legal firm in front of the right people. You should also host virtual events to help you connect with potential clients and demonstrate your law firm's knowledge. 

It may sound complicated, but you don’t have to be a marketing agency pro to promote your law firm online. Here are some marketing tips you can use to improve your metrics and conversion rate. 

4 Law Firm Marketing Tips To Help Attract New Clients 

It's no secret that marketing is going digital across all industries. And to keep up with competitors, law firms must follow suit and adopt new legal marketing strategies that accommodate the modern prospect's needs, research habits, and buying behaviors.

Without further ado, here’s a look at four legal marketing tactics you may not have tried in your marketing plan yet that can pay off big in terms of lead generation results without breaking the bank.

1. Webinars Are The Digital Marketing Tool Your Firm Needs

Whether you’re distributing industry insights to your clients and prospects or delivering mandatory continuing legal education to your firm’s attorneys, it’s essential to reach your audience members where they are. 

Producing engaging, high-quality live programming or virtual seminars allows you to share your knowledge and information in a way that is accessible to your audience members no matter where they’re located.

But why are webinars such a powerful and enduring form of content and communication?

• Enhanced thought leadership: For starters, webinars serve as a convenient medium for repurposing business development, thought leadership, and client retention content that you already know matters to your audience.

• Better company culture: Webinars also help humanize law firms and make clients feel more comfortable with their services. Connecting to clients personally will help keep your business top-of-mind when the customer starts the buying cycle.

• Improved user experience: Live webinars are a form of interactive content. And that’s particularly important. If you read up on content marketing trends, interactive content, such as webinars, apps, assessments, calculators, configurators, and quizzes—gained a lot of ground in 2016. Interactive forms of content generate conversions moderately or very well 70% of the time, compared to just 36% for “passive” content. So webinars have a lot of potential to contribute to your visit-to-lead generation efforts and lead nurturing programs.

• Expanded brand reach: Since webinars are held online, reaching your target audience near and far is easy. This means you can make connections with potential customers and fellow legal professionals in other areas to expand your network and build a positive reputation for your brand. 

In the legal industry, video is becoming a bigger and bigger commodity as more people turn to YouTube to get answers to questions. If you record a live webinar, you can offer it for on-demand viewing and even repurpose it into new content for your social media posts. 

Note that there are several self-managed products on the market today that equip you with the tools to deliver powerful and professional webinars for your law firm marketing campaign. 

But if you’re not comfortable executing them all on your own, or you’d rather not worry about all the details, search for a vendor with extensive experience delivering legal marketing webinars that can lead you before, during, and after the event.

2. Pop-Up Forms Will Help Boost Your Law Offices’ Lead Generation Efforts

Legal marketers can create pop-up forms on specific website pages to promote a piece of helpful content for which a website visitor would exchange their contact information. And presto! You have a new lead in the blink of an eye.

Marketing automation giant HubSpot has integrated pop-up forms, formerly known as their Lead Flows tool, as part of their HubSpot Marketing Free package—and it is free to use! 

This tool is beneficial for building up your list of blog or newsletter subscribers and leads who would like to download educational guides, papers, and checklists. To make the most out of the pop-up forms tool, follow these three pieces of marketing advice: 

• Assess your content inventory: Go through your existing content and ask yourself these questions: What offers do you have that are the most compelling? Do you have a new content offer? Or can you serve a company blog or newsletter subscription to website visitors? The amount of information you can ask for with these forms is relatively limited, so think about the value of each offer and what you’re willing to “give away” for a name, email, and company name in return. Consider developing specific content that you can use to encourage users to fill out the form. 

• Research top-performing pages: Take a look at your website analytics. Which pages are getting the most views? Which pages tend to have higher bounce rates? Leverage the opportunity to offer content to the many eyes already passing over these pages. And if there are pages where your current Call-to-Action isn’t getting very many clicks, use Lead Flows to supplement it!

• Optimize your legal website: If you want your pop-ups to be well received, the rest of your website needs to be appealing. Include positive reviews in the header of your landing pages, enhance your SEO with target keywords, and ensure your phone numbers are clearly displayed. The better your website looks, the more likely visitors will trust your pop-up forms. 

With a steady flow of website traffic, there is undoubtedly the potential to generate a good number of new contacts in a short amount of time, mainly if all you ask for is a name and an email address.

3. Fully Committing to Social Media Marketing Campaigns

Did you know that 23% of legal organizations have a minimal social media presence? It’s tough to justify dedicating time to social media when the ROI seems minimal. And to be frank, many people in the legal field aren’t typically too keen on social selling.

However, the right social strategy can be a powerful branding tool, one of the top referral sources, and, ultimately, a legal marketing lead generation tool. It can also give you the biggest bang for your buck regarding your marketing budget if done right. 

It just requires a commitment to consistently publishing and building your name. Here are a few steps you can take to improve your social media presence:

• Follow influencers and engage with them online: Before you get started, make a list of important legal publications, authors, CLE institutions, and legal professionals that have social accounts. While you build up your content, comment on and share their retweet content. Become a part of the conversation, and they’ll be much more likely to reciprocate. You’ll also keep in touch with past clients and remind them that you’re always there to help.

• Abide by the 60-30-10 rule: Despite what you might think, 60% of your content should be third-party content your target audience will find helpful. This will help you accumulate a healthy amount of followers and develop a reputation as a go-to resource for your field. Then 30% of the remaining posts can be your educational articles, press releases, blog posts, video content, and other items related to your practice areas. Leave the last 10% for purely promotional content to avoid your social media pages coming across as little more than an infomercial. 

• Maintain a content calendar: Publishing high-quality content regularly may feel like a time-consuming uphill battle. But it doesn’t need to be something you spend time on every day, even if it appears that your legal practice posts material daily. Use a scheduling tool (like HootSuite, for example) and set up posts in advance to save time. Be sure to post evergreen content, which works well at any time, as well as seasonal posts geared towards specific holidays or milestones during the calendar year. 

• Use law firm SEO to boost your ranking: The words you use and the backlinks you include in your content will help your law firm website rank higher in a Google search. Search engine optimization, or SEO, allows your website and Google Ads to display for the right people. Ensure your website design is high-quality, your PPC ads target, and include reputable backlinks that will help your website appear as trustworthy as possible to search engines and potential clients. 

In addition, you can use many effective and affordable paid social advertising options to gain exposure and generate leads. LinkedIn sponsored posts, Facebook ads, and Google Remarketing are all great ways to promote registration for an upcoming webinar, a webcasted event, a new eBook, or a thought-provoking video. 

The primary benefit is that you can dig into targeting a specific audience—based on parameters like demographics, interests, or job roles. 

4. Personalization, Segmentation, and Relationships In Online Marketing

One way you can build strong relationships with your prospects is through personalized content marketing. According to The CMO Council, 97% of all law firm websites fail to deliver personalized content. So if you can do that, you’re already one-upping everyone else!

CMO Council also reports that 90% of consumers find custom content useful, and 78% believe that organizations providing custom content are interested in building good relationships with them. And to further drive home that point, 60% of consumers feel more positive about a company after reading custom content on its site.

Now, what do we mean by customized and personalized content?

In a nutshell, it’s about creating content like emails, blog articles, dedicated landing pages, eGuides, white papers, explainer videos, or infographics that specifically address the prospect's needs based on the information you already know about them. 

This also may apply to an entire target segment of your audience, as opposed to blasting the same emails and promotions to your whole contact database. Yes, this will take more time, but it’s worth the extra effort in the end because more of your content will be consumed by the right people. 

A little personalization can go a long way to improve the user experience for your target audience and make them feel a connection to your law firm. Here are a few additional tips to help you add a personalized touch to your marketing tactics. 

• Send out a monthly or quarterly newsletter: You can use topic-specific newsletters to promote related events, special offers, insights, company news, or anything else your audience would like to read about! You can also include a featured quote or testimonial from an upcoming speaker or a partner offering a unique opportunity. As long as the content is relevant to your audience, a newsletter will keep your firm or organization in front of prospective customers.

• Consider loyalty programs, referral programs, and discounts: Change up your pricing model for those customers who return time and time again. You’ll be a lot more likely to get a referral if your clients can benefit from a sustained relationship.

• Use automated lead nurturing and follow-up emails: If someone fills out a form on your website, the contact should immediately receive an email with more information or a link to a helpful resource, preferably that is hosted on your website. Surprisingly, only 14% of law firms send an automated follow-up email to contacts who fill out a form on their website, so again, it’s another way to stand out. If the prospect downloads a brochure about environmental law, for example, funneling him into an email lead nurturing campaign that delivers related content will be much more helpful than sending them a white paper about immigration law a week later.

Most importantly, deliver on what you promise. In the services industry, keeping your word is essential to ensure customers build trust in your brand. 

In legal digital marketing or marketing services for any field, for that matter, there are no tangible products customers can see or hold. So they put their faith in what you tell them before signing on the dotted line. 

Offering personalization throughout your legal marketing strategy will show that you put your clients first and care about building relationships with your audience. 

Let BeaconLive Help You Take Your Law Firm Marketing Strategy To The Next Level

At the end of the day, your goal is to attract new clients to help boost your business and build your law firm’s reputation. Digital marketing is a great way to expand brand awareness and put your unique, high-quality content in front of the right people. 

Hosting webinars, webcasts, and CLE courses are all great ways to show that your firm is a leader in your unique practice areas and knows what it takes to get your clients the results they need. 

If you’re unsure of where to start when it comes to virtual events or online CLE, BeaconLive can help. Our virtual event solution offers customizable virtual experiences focused on scale and quality. We can also help you design the perfect LMS for your continuing legal education course offerings. 

Contact BeaconLive today for more information on how our solutions can take your legal marketing approach to the next level.