The latest Bloomberg Law & Legal Marketing Association study reveals that 62 percent of law firms are increasing their focus on marketing and business development (you can access the report here). This is obviously music to the ears of legal marketers. But law firms and attorneys without an established marketing department will need to be giving careful consideration to how they are going to keep up if their goals are to generate more leads, grow revenue and retain clients.

Creating a data-driven legal marketing strategy is critical to these efforts. But even piecing together such a strategy can be a daunting task, particularly with the rapid changes occurring across the marketing and advertising landscape. What trends are actually worth pursuing? What marketing tactics are actually contributing to lead gen, sales and client retention?

This post sets out to answer these questions. Below you’ll find six legal marketing trends that are actually working for attorneys and firms. When building out your next marketing plan, we recommend incorporating a few of these tactics!

Choosing the right Continuing Legal Education provider… where do you even start? While today’s attorneys looking to fulfill annual CLE requirements are much more frequently turning to the web (as well as mobile applications) for the bulk of their classes, an increasingly crowded online space has made it important for providers to differentiate themselves.

Yes, a modern, streamlined website is going to help. Deploying the right CLE delivery technology is critical. And offering an easy user experience from registration to certification will keep content seeking lawyers coming back for more when the time comes.

But the content itself is typically what is most important. In fact, a recent study conducted by Above the Law found that the content’s relevance was the most important determining factor for lawyers assessing their CLE options. While some legal industry professionals will heavily rely on their firms or bar associations to direct them to specific CLE events, it turns out the least important factor is the identity of the provider. With a scarcity of brand loyalty in the legal world, this leaves room for small but well-marketed CLE organizations to attract more people to their programs.

So how do you pitch the relevance of your content to prospective participants?

Short answer: by writing compelling CLE course descriptions! The following seven tips will help your organization better market its CLE courses to your target audience and inspire more signups. Read on for more details…

Shopping around for just the right CLE platform for your business can be stressful work. After all, it’s critical that you offer a streamlined, professional experience to your customers, but it's just as important to mitigate the amount of time you or your internal team spends on administrative tasks, technical setup and dealing with all the potential regulatory nightmares that come along with working in the ever-changing CLE universe. We understand!

The world of continuing legal education is a complicated one. And as a CLE service provider, law firm or legal association catering to today’s professionals, it’s critical that the tools you’re leveraging to deliver and manage your continuing education programming are state-of-the-art – and built with CLE specifically in mind.

Of course, platform end users in this day and age expect a super intuitive, seamless, mobile-friendly CLE experience. They expect to operate in a Flash-free environment, taking in complex content using a simple, streamlined interface. They require technology that isn’t going to suddenly crash on them in the midst of a course, and they want immediate access to any certificate or grades they earn from a personalized portal. And what’s more, it’s important that your CLE platform reduces your organization’s administrative workload – all the while increasing revenue and helping you to retain and impress your employees, members or customers.

However, with various accrediting bodies offering credits to the end user in different ways, you also need to be equipped with an adaptable platform. Therefore, it’s critical that the CLE technology you’re using meets all possible national and state requirements without any additional applications, plug-ins or downloads. The key to doing this is to utilize a system that is driven by virtual event templates and makes use of the right CLE workflows. Here’s what we mean:

Okay, CLE professionals – this one’s for you! With all the educational service platforms and technologies at our fingertips today, it comes to no surprise that corporate eLearning has grown by a whopping 900% over the last 16 years. What’s more, approximately 77% of U.S. companies now offer online training to improve their employees’ professional development. And despite the unique needs of many law firms and other legal organizations, it’s impossible to deny that the world of Continuing Legal Education has quickly followed suit.