Digital Marketing Strategies for Your Law Firm

Digital marketing strategies for your law firm

Potential leads are out there, but you need a way to effectively capture and convert them. 

Establishing a digital marketing strategy for your law firm is the best way to effectively market your services to prospective leads.

Digital marketing strategies are different for every firm. In order to be successful, you need to approach your strategy in the right way.

Before implementing your marketing strategy, do the following:

Law firm marketing strategy requires attention to detail, strong digital media, and a willingness to try new strategies. Whatever plan you spend time on should get you closer to a predetermined goal.

Your Website is Your Most Important Marketing Tool

Over 93 percent of people go online to search for a local business, according to Blue Corona Marketing Solutions. Any digital marketing strategy you choose to run should begin and end with your website.

Content

Nobody wants to hire a lawyer who doesn’t have authority in the industry. A good law firm website should act as a funnel of information to prospective clients.

sales funnel for law firms

Content that you post on your website should have this practice in mind. Some questions you might ask yourself:

  1. When was the last time you looked at your firm’s website?
  2. What’s your website’s overall message?
  3. Is your website easy to read?
  4. Is your website navigable?
  5. Do you have a blog on your website?

Your website needs to be professional, which means its functionality, design and user experience need to stand out against your competition.

The best websites for consumers are:

The Faster the Better

Your site performance can actually turn off clients before you even get a chance to speak to them. In fact, 76 percent of consumers said that site performance is one of the top factors they look for when buying a product/service, Statista found.

online shopping factors for customers
Source: J. Clement, Statista

Not sure how fast your website speed is? Google’s Page Speed Insights will tell you how to improve your site’s performance.

Mobile-Friendly Legal Advice

If your website isn’t mobile-friendly you’re hurting your bottom line. Most research indicates more than half of internet traffic comes from mobile devices.

Mobile vs. Desktop Web Visits in the US
Source: Eric Enge, Perficient Digital

Mobile users are often looking something up quickly while on the go. By making your website mobile-friendly, you are creating a lasting impression as a firm that will pay attention to detail.

Have an employee, friend or family member try to navigate through your website on desktop and mobile phone. If they cannot navigate easily, chances are other customers won’t be able to either.

Conversion Rate Optimization

As part of your marketing strategy, your law firm should be striving toward conversion rate optimization. A conversion happens when an interested potential client becomes a paying customer. 

First, think in terms of your firm’s communications. Consider your call availability, your messaging responses and your turnaround time for answering calls and chats. If these aren’t up to speed, you could be losing potential clients and lowering your conversion rates.

Blazeo’s (formerly ApexChat) Live Chat Software ensures every chat request is answered promptly by a real person who can assure your potential clients that your firm is ready and able to assist them with their needs. We can help you turn interested parties into paying clients, and your conversation rates will skyrocket. Be prepared for an influx of clients as agents at our chat service and call center help your firm connect with more people, more efficiently.

Pay Per Click Advertising (PPC), Social Media, Local SEO, Email Marketing, and much more

Online marketing has evolved to the point where there are many different ways to reach your target audience. Depending on your niche, marketing campaigns can be tailored to fit a specific demographic.

Paid Search

Paid search ads, otherwise known as pay per click ads (PPC) are ads you pay for when someone clicks on them. We highly recommend running some form of PPC ad for your law firm, as the top 3 – 4 listings are usually paid advertisements that get prominently featured.

PPC Ads example for Law Firms
Image Source: Google

As you can see these ads took up a large portion of my screen. Blue Corona Marketing Solutions found that on average, 41 percent of clicks go to the top 3 paid ads on the search results page.

The downside for lawyers is that keywords are expensive, averaging roughly $54 per click.

Paid Social

Paid social media advertisements are powerful tools to expand your campaign’s reach and convert more leads to your website. 

One of the best digital marketing tools for law firms is Facebook. Facebook is the leading platform for paid advertisements, with the average Facebook ad campaign CPC listed at five U.S. cents.

Average Cost Per Click of Ads on Facebook
Source: A Guttmann, Statista

Utilizing Facebook paid advertisements allows you to directly market yourself to potential customers on the largest paid advertisement platform on the web.

Check out our Facebook Case Study

Local SEO

Let’s talk about local SEO a bit. Local SEO is the practice of getting your company at the top of the search engine results page for localized queries.

Local service ads have a different SEO algorithm that puts an emphasis on your local audience. Becoming one of the featured law firms in your area can boost click-throughs from the search results.

Local Service Ads for Law Firms

Learn more about leveraging Google Local Service Ads here.

As you can see local service ads feature your firm’s name, user review rating, area of practice, your location and your hours of business.

Social Media

Yes, you need to have a social media presence as a law firm. Internet marketing has changed the way customers communicate with businesses, and law firms are no exception. 

In fact, 95 percent of millennials expect brands to have a Facebook presence, 87 percent of Gen X’ers think brands should have a Facebook page as well.

A good rule for social media posting is the 80/20 rule: 80 percent of the content that you share should be about your customers. This includes answering their questions, retweeting links and sharing articles that they will find valuable. The remaining 20 percent can be sales-oriented shares.

Blumenreich Law firm example
blumenreich twitter example
Source: WiseStamp

Blumenreich Law Firm does a good job of following this rule. The majority of their tweets are links to outside articles that would be of interest to their followers, with the occasional sales pitch slipped in.

Lawyers who are great social media marketers stay in their clients’ lives by providing relevant high-quality content on a daily basis.

Email Marketing

Email marketing for lawyers is a highly cost-effective way to generate and close more leads. Potential clients want to feel wanted, especially when they have legal troubles.

Factors potential clients look for in choosing a lawyer
Source: E. Mazareanu, Statista

Opt-in email marketing is one of the best ways to stay in front of potential and existing clients, as it’s cost-effective and keeps your clients engaged with your firm even if they aren’t active clients.

A Convenient Call Center

Your law firm can greatly benefit from a convenient call center from Blazeo (formerly ApexChat). Imagine a potential client calling your firm or contacting you through your website. Perhaps as things stand right now, you’re having a tough time answering all your calls or responding to every chat request. You don’t quite get to one in time, and the client gives up and contacts another firm.

Don’t let things like this happen to your firm. Let Blazeo handle your calls and live chat requests. With our call center, you can be sure that your phone calls will always be answered and someone will immediately respond to a live chat request. Response times will drop significantly, and your potential clients will receive the attention they deserve. They’ll be able to chat with a real human being, making these satisfied folks more likely to choose your law firm and provide positive reviews about your availability.

Pay special attention to Blazeo’s Live Chat Software. This will make your law firm’s website a prime ground for connecting with clients. With the simple click of a button, potential clients will be able to chat with an agent 24 hours a day. Our agents can answer basic questions and connect potential clients with your firm for more in-depth communication. You’ll never have to miss another chat request or lose a frustrated client because you have trouble keeping up with queries.

Tracking Your Data

All this strategy is great, but you can’t waste time on ineffective advertising strategies. 

A good digital marketing strategy requires you to accurately measure and track each and every advertising campaign. Your goal is to find out which digital marketing strategies work and which should be changed or eliminated. 

Limiting the number of mistakes you make by tracking and pivoting accordingly will save you a lot of headaches in the long run.

We recommend doing the following for your firm:

Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s)

KPI’s are one of the most important aspects of any law firms digital marketing strategy. How will you know if your firm is achieving its goals if you never outlined what your goals are in the first place?

Here are a few performance indicators your firm should be tracking:

Anytime you are deciding what new ways you can market your firm, think about how you might track success for any new KPI you create.

Using these tools outlined in this article, you can now implement an optimized digital marketing strategy for your law firm.

Learn about how you can grow your law firm by optimizing the client experience.