Digital Marketing Tips for Law Firms

One thing that needs to be more firmly covered in law school is how to market your law firm online. Yet, typically, only large firms with 50 to 100 attorneys have fully staffed internal marketing departments. Based on our experience and industry best practices, Oneupweb put together this collection of law firm marketing tips to give you and your firm a starting point for your marketing plan.

Why Do Law Firms Need Marketing?

It might be easy to think that lawyers don’t need to advertise because there’s always demand. But people need to choose a lawyer, and the options they find online may be extensive. So, marketing is essential. With the right digital marketing efforts, you’ll be able to:

• Differentiate yourself from competitors
• Connect with more qualified leads
• Establish your reputation

Law firms have specialties, but from an outsider’s perspective, a law firm is often viewed as just a law firm. With good legal marketing strategies, you can establish your firm as a thought leader within your specialty and be top-of-mind when someone needs representation.

4 Essential Elements of a Law Firm Marketing Plan

If your marketing today doesn’t include strong digital components, your strategy is incomplete. The four elements below are the most critical to your efforts. Beyond these legal marketing tips, our agency would happily walk you through a detailed plan after getting to know your business – reach out!

1. Tell a Compelling Brand Story

Modern consumers don’t care exclusively about transactions anymore. If you only try to market what your firm does but not how you do it, you’re missing out on the connections that modern consumers crave. Few firms are the only option their prospects have. If you don’t create a compelling brand story, potential clients will find it harder to humanize your firm and will choose the firm they relate to. In personal injury cases, for example, people want a lawyer who cares about them, not just potential earnings from a settlement. Your brand story should convey that your firm cares.

Law firms can build their reputation by sharing human stories. If your firm aided an older adult in a nursing home neglect suit or helped a business owner sign the necessary documents, you’ve already created stories of human connection that potential clients will cling to. You just need to publish the narrative.

2. Craft Content Worth Consuming

Content, when properly made, allows your firm to connect with potential clients who aren’t ready for your services yet but will be later. It’s also great for building name recognition and trust. When people watch a true crime or legal drama, they hear legal terms they aren’t familiar with. What if they Googled those terms and your firm was the first to provide a good answer? That would be a strong show of your knowledge and value.

Here are several forms of effective legal content marketing: 

Legal Blogs

When a user searches the term “What is a threshold injury?” they see different types of results on the SERP, like featured snippets, People Also Ask, and organic links to webpages. If your firm has a blog about threshold injuries that has been optimized to show up in search results, you could get in front of potential clients before or during their time of need for legal services. You could even appear in several locations on the SERP, increasing your chances of getting website visits.

Blogs are also an excellent tool for attracting mid-funnel users, the people who are considering representation. An example of a mid-funnel keyword to target on a blog is “Should I get a lawyer for a minor car accident?” This term is searched about 390 times per month in the US!

Social Media

Use social media platforms to communicate with your prospects and followers. LinkedIn is ideal for more transactional messaging and firm news, while Facebook can be an educational engagement platform where you share information, links to your blogs and more. Even though there are plenty of social media platforms, you don’t need to be on all of them. Narrow down which social platforms best serve the audiences you want to target and which platforms you have the resources to manage.

Resource Content

In addition to blogs covering various topics, long-form resource content on your website can provide more opportunities to be represented in search engine results for things your audience is asking about. Some good starting ideas include checklists, glossaries of legal terms, interactive decision flow charts, and Frequently Asked Question pieces with quick responses to common legal questions.

Multimedia rules the content world these days, especially video and interactive content. For example, the keyword “Florida employment law” serves a video search result in Google. If you are a Florida law firm specializing in employment, this is the video you should make. Embed the video on your long-form resource article and put it on your YouTube too with an optimized description.

3. Make the Most of Local SEO efforts

Smaller firms often don’t have the attorney capacity or licensing to take on national cases, so they focus on local, regional, or state-specific cases. These local and regional SEO efforts are crucial for these firms:

• Optimize your Google Business Profile (GBP) and other local listings.
• Link your local listings back to a web page that includes local keywords. (See tips below!)
• Use city terms like “Miami, Florida law firm” on your most relevant web page to rank in the Google Local Pack.
• Use regional-specific terms in your content too to help you perform better in your area.
• Get backlinks from other local businesses and publications. Additionally, link out to other sites from your own.
• Use various Local Business schema markup on your website to wrap elements like your logo, address and phone number.

4. Use Email Campaigns to Keep in Contact with Previous Clients

Admittedly, most people don’t think of legal representation as a recurring service. Particularly for commercial transactional services, though, staying in contact with previous clients can take some worry out of trying to find new clients. Even in personal injury law, maintaining a relationship with past clients is crucial. In a perfect world, no one would need a personal injury attorney – especially not more than once. But it does happen. For example, someone could be in a car accident in their 20s and then need to sue for premises liability later in life. They might have a loved one who is a victim of nursing home negligence.

Email is an excellent way to remain top of mind for repeat or referral business, as happy clients will refer you to their friends and family. As a starting point, consider starting an email newsletter that’s sent to your existing client list. Then you can segment that list for various additional campaigns, such as sharing a special new resource you created.

Find Assistance with Your Law Firm Marketing

The law is a tricky, constantly evolving field – so is marketing. This law firm marketing guide is just the beginning of the possibilities for your firm. If you need support to pursue those possibilities, turn to Oneupweb by contacting us online or calling (231) 922-9977. We’ve been helping businesses with digital marketing for over two decades, and we’d love to help your firm, too.