Marketing is an ongoing effort, and lawyers who want to improve their lead generation can do so by improving their digital marketing efforts bit-by-bit.
When it comes to digital marketing for your business, there is an endless number of resources out there to learn from. But if you’re a lawyer working around-the-clock to build the best case for your clients, there’s undoubtedly a demand on your time that will leave little to no room to think about marketing strategies. Instead of sifting through hours of how-to articles and videos for how to market your legal services, here are a few quick ways to bring your marketing strategies into tip-top shape.
#1 Get on Google My Business
Time and time again, Google My Business has proven to be one of the best tools for businesses (and lawyers) to improve their online presence. Let’s face it: it’s 2020 and If you’re still not taking advantage of Google’s free listing service, you’re missing out on important lead opportunities. This year, the pandemic economy further proved that having an online presence matters. Restaurants that failed to move their presence online were most likely to fall behind and lose a serious number of customers who were now ordering delivery online or through apps such as UberEats. Don’t let that failure happen to you in the future.
If you haven’t already, create a Google My Business profile for your law firm or your legal services. Fill out the listing with your company name, industry, phone number, address, and opening hours. Give potential customers as much information as you can about these general details. Add pictures of yourself, your logo, and your office to give others a good idea of where your office is located. All together, these small details will build trust between you and potential clients who find you online.
#2 Offer Risk-free Opportunities on Your Site
Everyone loves free stuff, but more importantly, people want to experience great service and avoid risky opportunities. One of the ways lawyers can draw in potential clients is by offering something that is risk-free to clients. When it comes to legal services, it’s easy to overwhelm a client by bombarding them with too much legal lingo too early in the process. Instead, offer something free that could be helpful to a client who is considering their options. For example, this military medical malpractice site offers free case evaluations to clients who want to know if their case is relevant. Another idea is to offer clients free tips regarding the forms they may need to fill out for their case. Whatever you decide, the most important factor here is to think about what you can freely offer to potential clients and encourage them to look to you as an important resource in their legal process.
#3 Client Reviews
Nowadays, everyone on the internet can share their opinion and experience with a business. Customer and client reviews can play a large deciding factor for potential customers who now trust crowdsourced knowledge and experiences. You can see this play out on platforms such as Yelp, where eaters consistently look to find great restaurant experiences and avoid bad ones. In the same way, Google My Business allows customer reviews on business and company listings. Lawyers who have taken that first step by creating a Google My Business listing should encourage past clients to share their experiences. A good review can make the difference between a client choosing you over your competitor. On the other hand, it is equally as important to avoid bad reviews, which can hurt your company image and turn away potential clients. The best way to approach reviews is to encourage clients who were happy with your service to write a positive review for your listing.
#4 Utilize Local Directories and Listings
For professionals such as dentists and lawyers, there are plenty of local directories that will list your business and legal services for free. You’ll want to focus on getting your listings on large directories such as the Yellow Pages, Apple Maps, Yelp, Super Pages and others. Also consider directories that are specifically for lawyers such as Justia, Avvo, Martindale, Nolo, and others. Although some sites will offer a subscription plan, there is no need for a premium service in most cases. Instead, focus on getting your company name, address, phone number, website, and services out there in multiple places. This marketing strategy is primarily two-fold: customers who are looking for legal services can find you through multiple avenues when you have more listings, and secondly, having multiple business citations will be helpful for your website’s SEO efforts.
#5 Consider Paid Ads
One last tip for lawyers to improve their marketing strategies: consider going the paid ad route. If you have a budget you can set aside, paid ads can help you target the specific audience you’re looking for and give you insight and data that can help you in future marketing strategies. For example, if you decide to open a Google Ads account, you’ll be able to see the related terms a user is searching when they see your ad. Your ad and website could show up at the top of the search engine results page when a user types in a certain key term related to your industry. This, of course, is all contingent on how you set up your Google Ads account. If you decide to go this route, you or another person will need to educate themselves on how Google Ads works and figure out the best way to manage the account.
One tip: the first few weeks of your ad campaign will be learning how to manage your bids and making sure your ads are showing to the right kind of audience. It’s important to make sure you have a good budget set aside for your ad campaigns, otherwise it will become very expensive.
You Can Always Hire Someone
Marketing is an ongoing effort, and lawyers who want to improve their lead generation can do so by improving their digital marketing efforts bit-by-bit. For lawyers who are stretched on time and would rather leave the marketing to the experts, there is always the option of hiring in-house marketers or marketing agencies to do the work for you.
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