Online marketing for lawyers offers many opportunities for lawyers to increase awareness of their firm and their practice groups, and to generate new business opportunities from prospective and existing clients.

The growing importance of online marketing is evident as we have seen the balance of power shift from traditional marketing to digital. According to eMarketer, U.S. digital marketing spending has only climbed since he surpassed traditional spending for the first time in 2019. In today’s digitally connected world, it’s clear that law firms need to market online to remain competitive and drive a steady stream of new clients and high-value cases.

A Beginner’s Guide to Online Marketing for Lawyers contains the basic strategies and building blocks of successful online marketing. marketing strategy. It focuses on three things: elevating your profile, building credibility in your area of ​​expertise, and getting the right message to the right people.

Keep reading to learn how to reach new clients and get you on the right track to grow your legal practice. Ultimately, you will also understand how to relate the many moving parts of online marketing to the big picture goal: return on investment (ROI).

1. Focus on the client

Our past, present and future clients are the lifeblood of our company. All aspects of your company’s online marketing strategy should be built around them. To successfully engage your clients and prospects with online marketing, you first need to understand what they really want and the challenges you need to solve.

According to HubSpot, it’s a “semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer based on market research and real-world data about your existing customers.” Then use these personas as a guide to create the customized content your prospects need at each stage of the marketing funnel.

Use this free guide to create your ideal client profile.

2. Build a marketing framework and set SMART goals

A central idea we want to emphasize is that marketing should be evaluated holistically. Instead of thinking in terms of campaigns, you should think in terms of growth frameworks and long-term business goals. The framework should be a written marketing plan that guides the company’s campaigns, goals, and growth direction.

If you start with a framework for successful goal setting called SMART goals, your efforts will be more fruitful and easier to stay on track.

• S.Be specific: Setting specific marketing goals for each campaign and for the company as a whole facilitates prioritization and ensures accountability.
• M.Measurable: What metrics, or KPIs, will you use to measure your success?
• aAchievable: It shouldn’t be so steep that you can’t reach your goal, but it’s important that it’s not too easy. Make sure it’s worth the time, effort, and resources you put into achieving them.
• R.Realistic: Ask yourself if what you’re proposing is practical. Do you have the time, team, and resources to run the campaigns necessary to reach your goals?
• T.imely: How long do you need to reach your goals? Set timelines for short-term and long-term goals.

3. Get found online: search engine optimization (SEO)

You can create the most amazing website or blog, but making sure your target audience can find your website is really important. This is where SEO comes into play. This is an integral part of an effective online marketing strategy for a lawyer.

Essentially, SEO generates traffic to your website by making it easier for visitors to find your company when searching online. If your site is optimized for his SEO, search engine bots can better understand what your page is about. The easier it is for search bots to understand your pages, the more connections will be drawn between each page and related search queries, leading to higher search rankings. Good search rankings end up looking like this:

• Increased website visibility
• Increase website clicks
• More potential customers who know your product or service

For more information on SEO, check out this article: SEO Checklist for Law Firms.

4. Drive Leads with Conversion Rate Optimization Strategies

Law firms focused on generating new qualified leads and acquiring new clients through online marketing need to ensure that their websites are optimized for conversions.

Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is a technique for converting website visitors into qualified leads. CROs work by capturing the contact information of potential leads visiting your website (i.e. with calls to action like “download” or “subscribe”). While search engine optimization helps law firms grow their online presence, conversion rate optimization helps law firms convert casual visitors into leads.

To implement CRO, you first need to divide the total number of conversions by the number of visitors and multiply by 100 to calculate the conversion rate. The result is a percentage and this number is your conversion rate. For example, if on his website for a law firm he had 53 conversions and his 2500 visitors, the conversion rate is his 2.1%, which is the standard rate for law firms. is.

Related: Law Firm Guide to Conversion Rate Optimization

5. Build connections with your audience with content marketing

Quality content that builds dialogue with your target clients ultimately strengthens and deepens relationships, leading to more business.

But content marketing isn’t just for law firm blogs. Content includes articles, eBooks, webinars, guides, quizzes, videos, podcasts, and more. All of these content formats can be powerful growth drivers for your company.

Whatever strategy you adopt, always try to keep your focus on your prospect’s needs and provide content that meets their needs, answers their questions, and helps solve their problems. At the same time, your content should position your attorney as a thought leader in your practice area and your firm as a trusted source of useful information.

Download our free eBook, The Law Firm Guide to Content Marketing, to learn how to create an effective content marketing strategy.

6. Launch a Social Media Strategy

Developing a compelling image through social media is an integral part of online marketing and public relations for today’s law firms.

Social media platforms should be used to connect with your audience, build your law firm’s brand, drive website traffic, and generate more leads. This includes publishing quality content (which can be repurposed from your website) on your social media profiles, listening to and engaging with your followers, analyzing results, and running paid social media advertising. . Also, don’t forget to create a professional social media bio. This is because it is viewed more often than any content you share.

To learn more about how to build a successful social media strategy, read this free eBook: Advanced Social Media Strategies for Law Firms.

7. Find clients through search engine marketing

Search engine marketing (SEM) is an effective way to deliver quality traffic and drive it to your law firm’s website. SEM is Also known as online advertising, paid search, or pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. These terms are often used interchangeably to describe the same concept of traffic purchased through online advertising on Google. SEM allows you to bid to advertise on search engine sponsored links when a prospect searches for keywords related to your legal services.

SEO takes time to deliver improved rankings and increased traffic, but while you wait for your optimization efforts to bear fruit, SEM will quickly increase your visibility and generate more quality visitors. can be attracted to the site. And since SEO and SEM each have their strengths and weaknesses, the most effective strategies often incorporate both. By leveraging retargeting and other advanced SEM tactics of his, you can make your paid campaigns even more effective.

8. Expand your reach with email marketing

Email marketing is one of the most important communication tools in online marketing for lawyers. Email is a great way for law firms to win new business and keep the firm on mind among past and current clients. Top law firms focus on sending relevant, valuable, and personalized emails. Email segmentation is an effective way to personalize your email campaigns.

A weekly or monthly newsletter is a great way to keep in touch with your subscribers. A series of well-written emails that provide informative, educational, and engaging content are highly effective in connecting with existing clients and prospects in a way that intrigues and stimulates interactions with your company. It will also be a means. To ensure that your email content consistently delivers value to your subscribers, ask yourself the following questions:

• What do subscribers want to know?
• what kind of questions are they asking?
• what are they looking for?
• How can my company solve the problem?

9. Always measure and analyze performance

In an ever-changing business environment, the need to measure online marketing success as efficiently as possible is more important than ever. Measuring and paying close attention to your online marketing metrics can help you better understand the impact and effectiveness of your online activity.

To get started, make sure you have Google Analytics installed on your website. This free tool is one of the most powerful reporting platforms available to digital marketers. Google Analytics shows how many users visited the law firm’s website and what pages they visited. You can also customize the platform to record lead activity to more accurately measure the performance of your various marketing campaigns and channels.

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We hope this guide has helped you better understand all of the essential basic digital marketing tactics when it comes to marketing online for lawyers. A consistent and sustained presence is required to stay in the mind as a law firm, but there is no one-size-fits-all online marketing strategy for law firms.

This post has been edited and republished from July 27, 2021.