Legal marketers must prioritize the acquisition of new clients for their law firms. But what exactly is legal marketing? It’s not about traditional advertising like billboards or late-night infomercials. Instead, it’s about creating well-crafted communications carefully tailored to the audience’s needs.
Legal marketing involves building strong relationships by offering your law firm’s clients valuable services. Even if you didn’t study marketing in business school, you may already be engaged in marketing efforts at your firm.
Anything that raises awareness about your business is considered marketing. Legal marketing is not so different from marketing in any other industry.
If you’re running a small law firm and still need to be ready to hire a legal marketer, you can still take plenty of practical steps to attract new clients.
Understanding legal marketing is crucial, as it can significantly enhance your firm’s ability to attract new business. In this article, we’ll delve into legal marketing basics and how they can be applied to help your firm grow.
What is a Legal Marketer?
Legal marketers typically handle marketing operations and activities for law firms, clients, and solo attorneys. They may have specialized education in law or relevant experience working in the legal field.
Legal marketers possess a deep understanding of the needs of clients who are looking for legal advice, and they leverage this knowledge to promote their services effectively.
According to the 2019 Legal Trends report, most people (57%) seeking legal help found their lawyers through independent searches. They usually do this by searching for lawyers online (17%) or visiting their websites (17%). Therefore, if your law firm’s website is not user-friendly, potential clients may struggle to find you.
One of the legal marketing challenges is ensuring a seamless website experience for clients. However, more is needed to just focus on the website experience. It’s also essential to ensure your website appears when clients search for legal services on Google. You can use search engine optimization (SEO) to get your website to show up in front of potential clients.
6 Smart Tips for Legal Marketers
Legal marketers usually have a marketing background. Some legal professionals turn to legal marketing after being introduced as lawyers. Developing marketing skills as a lawyer can help you provide more client-centered legal services. Here are six tips for becoming a successful legal marketer.
Maintain Brand Consistency
When creating a brand, it’s important to remember that it’s not just about the logo. Your brand includes your website, social media presence, business cards, emails, etc. To create a strong brand, it’s essential to be consistent across all these platforms. In the world of law firms, a brand has two parts.
It’s the intangible perceptions that a prospective client has about your legal service. Secondly, it’s the promise that you make to your clients that sets their expectations of you and your law firm.
Managing your law firm’s brand involves both tangible and intangible aspects. Tangible components such as your logo, font, and photos are relatively easy to handle.
Intangible parts, such as your message and presence, can be more challenging to assemble because they require careful consideration and planning. To effectively manage your brand, it’s essential to consider both.
Keep up to Date With Marketing Laws and Regulations
Legal professionals who market their services must stay informed about privacy regulations to avoid legal trouble and damage to their reputations.
Non-compliance can lead to significant financial penalties, harming the company’s financial performance and causing customers to lose trust. It’s always better to be informed and prepared to comply with these regulations than to face legal consequences.
Different locations have varying laws and regulations that aim to safeguard client privacy. One such instance is California’s CCPA Act, which is very strict.
This act necessitates that legal marketers make it easy for prospective and existing clients to opt out of marketing communications. Legal marketers should consider this and note their jurisdictions’ specific privacy requirements.
Know and Understand Your Target Audience
Knowing your target audience is crucial for legal marketers. It helps you understand your potential client’s behaviour and how they’ll find you. Creating client personas can help you gain a complete understanding.
Before pursuing marketing activities, it’s essential to understand your audience. As a personal injury attorney, I think Facebook might be the best social media tool to reach your target audience.
You can develop clear value propositions that address their pain points by understanding their needs, desires, and fears. This information will help build trust with potential clients by showing them that you see and want to help them.
Use the Power of Referral Marketing
Legal marketing relies on referrals from other legal professionals and past clients for new business. Referrals from legal professionals in different areas are an excellent source for new clients. Potential clients are often under time constraints and may need to be aware of other legal practice areas, but they know they need a lawyer.
Having a plan for when clients ask for legal advice outside of your area of expertise is essential. You should know which lawyers are best suited to handle these cases so you can refer them accordingly. Building relationships with law firms outside your practice area is crucial for making these referrals. If you need help figuring out where to start, check out our blog post on networking tips for attorneys.
Create Valuable Content
Legal marketers can use content marketing to create value for potential clients. That involves creating blog posts, videos, podcasts, and social media posts that address people’s questions when searching for legal advice.
When developing content, it’s essential to consider your audience’s needs and concerns. By providing thoughtful and precise answers to common questions, you can help potential clients understand legal issues and feel more confident in their decision-making.
Content marketing is an effective way to build trust with potential clients and position yourself as a reliable source of legal advice. Creating content that adds value and speaks directly to your audience can establish yourself as an authority in your field and attract new business.
Become a Legal Marketer Conclusion
Legal marketing is a mix of art, science, and business. The good news is that there is no right way to succeed. You can find the best way for you and your firm. The most important thing is to give your clients the best possible experience. You are already a legal marketer if you focus on putting clients first.
