Create a Law Firm Marketing Plan to Grow Your Firms Traffic

It’s Time to Brainstorm Your Law Firm Marketing Plan.

It is true that there are many law firm marketing strategies that you can use to increase your turnover and attract more clients.

But the success of these strategies depends on having an effective game plan based on your unique business and target audience.

How Well Do You Know Your Business?

Before you dive into any marketing “hacks”, you will need to come up with a plan that will work best for your business model.

To imagine this process, start by asking yourself these questions:

What types of legal services do I offer and why?

What geographical areas do I serve?

What am I trying to achieve with my marketing?

How will I measure marketing success?

If you don’t have the answers to these questions yet, that’s fine.

By following the process below, you’ll be able to discover what makes your audience charming, what makes your law firm stand out, and what platforms you need to use to get potential clients to notice you.

How Well Do You Know Your Audience?

Another goal in thinking about your marketing plan is to determine what types of clients you want to reach. Here you dig into the sore points that your audience is facing and what are their goals in hiring a law firm.

You may be able to answer these questions yourself, or you can dive deeper by asking your audience directly (via email, surveys, etc.):

What types of clients are I trying to reach

Where do my potential clients go to find law firms like mine?

What solutions have my potential clients already tried?

What is their number 1 goal in hiring a law firm?

What terms do my prospects use to search for law firms online?

What experience do users expect from working with me?

The better you answer these questions, the easier it will be to establish a marketing plan based on what your audience wants, how they search, and what expectations they have of working with your company.

1. Establish a Brand Identity

The process of understanding your business and understanding your audience serves to help you cultivate a strong brand identity that resonates with your ideal customers. This brand identity will help you stand out from the competition and build trust with potential customers.

Whether you have been in business for years or are just starting out, it is never too early to establish a strong brand identity. This identity essentially consists of:

Your Unique Selling Offer (USP)

USP & ICA

Your law firm’s USP is a statement that distinguishes your firm from what other law firms in your area offer.

For example, you may be a personal injury law firm, but your USP deals with the types of services you offer, how you offer them, who your audience is, and how you help them.

Knowing your USP will help you determine what makes your business unique, so you can incorporate this message into all of your marketing campaigns.

At the same time, ICA is a description of who your ideal client is. This goes beyond demographics to explain what your potential clients are looking for, struggling with and hoping to achieve in hiring you.

You can create an ICA and USP statement for internal reference (with your team) and then apply this message to all of your marketing. This will make your marketing even stronger and more likely to turn customers into paying customers.

2. Dive Into Website Design

If the previous part seemed dense, it’s because building a brand identity lays the foundation for your entire marketing plan. This should happen before you think about building or renovating your website.

Once you have established your brand identity, you can dive into website design. You will already have a better idea of ​​what your potential customers want and what experience they are looking for when they visit your website.

What Makes a Great Law Firm Website?

Website optimization for lawyers consists of several key elements – from the look of your website to the “bones” that help you achieve marketing success. When creating or redesigning your website, know that your website needs:

Be designed with your ideal customer in mind

Describe exactly the services you offer

Give users an insight into how you work and what they can expect from employment

Be optimized for organic search (see step 3)

Fast loading and great user experience

Include website security to maintain business hours

Our recommendation is to hire a professional website designer to ensure that your website is optimized from the inside out. This sets you up for the best ROI and ensures that your site is built to last.

3. Implement Search Engine Optimization

Search engine optimization is one of the best marketing strategies for law firms due to the fact that most potential clients start their search for lawyers through Google. SEO helps law firms rank better in organic search and attract more traffic (and leads) to their websites.

You will need a solid SEO action plan to optimize your website for the right users and the right search terms. This process primarily includes:

Keyword Research – to identify the search terms your clients use to find law firms like yours

SEO on the page – to optimize your website for these keywords

Local SEO – to optimize your business to attract customers in your service area

Technical SEO – to ensure that your website is indexed by search engines, customized and protected from security threats

Off-site SEO – to attract backlinks that increase authority from other websites

Read: Best SEO Strategies for Lawyers

Optimizing Your Website for Users & Google

The key to a law firm’s SEO is not only to focus on pleasing Google gods, but also to optimize your website keeping in mind your target audience. This includes creating content that effectively communicates your USP brand and targets specific search terms that your audience uses.

In addition to SEO on the site, backlinks for attorney websites serve to strengthen the authority of your site and increase traffic. One of the best ways to get backlinks is to submit your business information to reputable directories, publish guest posts on high-profile sites, and create valuable content (such as ebooks) to organize links.

4. Get Started with Local SEO

Local SEO is a specific type of SEO that involves optimizing your business for local, organic traffic. If you’ve ever searched for, say, “Italian restaurants near me,” then you’ve seen localized search results.

For law firms, local SEO consists of optimizing your Google My Business listing and online directory to attract localized traffic. This also includes using geographically specific keywords (such as “Seattle PI attorney”) on your website to attract customers in your area.

Local best practices for SEO for law firms include:

Create and optimize your Google My Business profile

Submitting your data to local business directories

Optimize your website for localized keywords

Get feedback from sites in your service area

Again, it may be best to work with an expert to make sure your law firm is implementing local SEO properly. A local SEO expert or agency will help you identify the right keywords and attract customers in your area.

5. Run Pay Per Click Advertising

Pay-per-click (PPC) marketing is an inorganic marketing method that involves running paid ads to attract more traffic and customers.

Many law firms use PPC to generate more leads in a shorter period of time compared to organic methods such as SEO and social media marketing. However, PPC can often have a higher cost per potential customer and requires precise targeting to make the most of your advertising budget.

Google Ads

Google Ads is the most popular PPC platform for law firms because most users search for lawyers in Google search. These ads can help your law firm appear above organic search results, giving your business a slight advantage over other companies that use only organic methods.

The key to running Google Adds successfully is targeting the right keywords and the right audience. This may require hiring PPC experts to run data-based campaigns, optimize your ads, and generate the best possible results.

When used with SEO, PPC is a smart component of a law firm’s successful marketing plan. With both, you are able to generate organic traffic as well as inorganic leads to make your schedule full of new customers.

6. Grow with Email Marketing

Does your law firm use email marketing? If not, it may be time to add email to your law firm’s marketing plan.

Email marketing involves increasing your list, nurturing subscribers and turning website visitors into new customers. There are a few steps to do this effectively:

Optimize your website and social media platforms to attract new users

Create content resources that users can choose to join your email list

Launch targeted email campaigns to nurture your list

Give subscribers more opportunities to learn more about your company and hire you

Continue to invite new leads via email

Retain and support existing customers with quality email content

Create positive reviews by tracking previous clients

Email marketing tools such as MailChimp and ConvertKit make it easy to send marketing emails. Simply sign up, create contact forms, write your campaigns, track results and gain more clients from your list.

7. Take Advantage of Social Media Marketing

Social media is one area of ​​marketing that law firms know the most about, but few do it properly. Most often we see lawyers posting content worth yawning when they should create content full of value that appeals to their target audience.

Again, here is a good knowledge of your USP and ICA. With this message in mind, you can create social media content that will appeal to your unique audience.

Some of the best social media platforms for law firms include:

8. Brush Up on Conversion Optimization

It is one thing to generate traffic and another thing to convert that traffic into customers. This is where conversion optimization comes in.

Conversion optimization involves providing users with numerous and obvious opportunities to engage with your content, subscribe to more information, contact you, or otherwise learn more about your business. Summary Calls to Action (CTAs) can help you turn passive visitors into new leads.

Contact Forms and Call Tracking

For most law firms, conversion optimization includes website contact and call tracking forms. Your website should have more forms where users can choose more information, plus phone numbers that can be tracked to see where your new leads are coming from.

Also, instead of the generic “Contact Us” posted on your website, you can become more creative with your CTAs. Here are some ideas:

“Subscribe to our newspaper”

“Access our free resource guide”

“Schedule your 30-minute consultation”

Take a look at your website and social media accounts to see if you give users enough opportunities to reach your business.

9. Create a Lead Follow-Up System

After collecting information about the user – through the contact form, phone call, etc. – You need a system to track the user as a potential customer. This is where all your marketing efforts come together, because that is the point that can make or break a sale.

Many law firms are relaxed about tracking potential clients and, as a result, let potential clients fail. We want to make sure you generate as many viable leads as possible, so tracking is absolutely necessary.

CRM Solutions

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tools such as Salesforce, HubSpot or CASEpeer allow you to collect customer information, automate tracking, send legal documents and more. We strongly recommend that you subscribe to one of these (or similar) tools to fill any gaps in the lead tracking process.

For example, a solid tracking system for potential customers might look something like this:

The visitor comes to a key landing page on your website

Users fill out the contact form asking for more information

Your CRM tool collects this information in your database for easy access

This tool also automatically sends follow-up emails to allow the user to schedule a call

When your consultation is over, you can use your CRM to send the contract or any other documents

Having this software on hand makes it much easier to keep track of potential and new customers, so you don’t have to worry about missing out on any new business.

10. Track Analytics & Results 

Finally, your law firm’s marketing plan must include measuring the results you have achieved from your campaigns. After all, without data and analytics, how do you know if your marketing is really working?

The main tool you should use to track results is Google Analytics. This is a website analysis tool that tracks where your traffic is coming from, how users are navigating your site, and whether users are meeting the “goals” (conversion points) you’ve implemented on your website.

At the same time, most social media platforms and PPC account accounts have their own version of analytics. Here you can see engagement metrics, conversion rates, clicks, cost-per-clicks, and more to evaluate the success of your campaigns.

Many marketing agencies follow these results for you, they even go so far as to give a detailed report that analyzes the data. With this analysis, you can determine your ROI and decide how best to spend your marketing dollars.

Do You Have a Legal Marketing Plan?

Chances are you know about a few marketing tactics of a law firm to attract traffic and potential buyers. But do all these tactics work together effectively as a cohesive marketing strategy? If not, it’s time to outline your marketing plan from start to finish.

We’ve covered all the areas of marketing above that you should consider in creating an effective game plan. From SEO through social media to web design, you’ll have everything you need to increase traffic, turn that traffic into leads, and close new customers.