You may have arrived here because you’re an attorney looking to generate new client leads. Maybe you own a law firm but haven’t had the opportunity to build your marketing machine, or you’ve spent some time and money on marketing, but want to be sure the effort is generating results. Or maybe you’re an internet marketer who works in the legal space. Whatever scenario most closely resembles yours, we’re going to proceed with a few assumptions in mind: you work in the legal field, regularly use a computer, and are unsure if your marketing efforts are paying off. This article is meant to give you some essential marketing strategies to help you promote your business.

Just like with any marketing campaign the first step is to define your objective. You need to give yourself a concrete answer to the question: what does success look like? Is it the phone ringing off the hook? Your email inbox flooded with inquiries from prospective clients? Is it picking and choosing which clients are the best fit for you while turning others away because you’ve got more than you can handle? Can you field five prospective legal clients per week? Ten personal injury cases? Twenty new car crashes? Defining what success is in your particular situation is a crucial first step in designing a tailored marketing strategy.

Once you’ve set your goal, the next step for any lawyer trying to generate leads is to give prospective clients an easy way to find your firm on the internet and then contact you. No two clients are alike, so having a variety of methods by which they can reach you is key:

A WEBSITE

It’s today’s business card, and in a post-Covid word people would much rather send a link than any physical materials. A clean, easy to navigate, and well-maintained website establishes credibility and inspires confidence in the people researching you who may become your clients. There are plenty of easy-to-use website builders out there like Squarespace, Wix, and WordPress. WordPress has the best out-of-the-box Search Engine Optimization (SEO) because 30% of the internet runs on it!

FUNCTIONING CONTACT FORM

Every website should have a contact section that is connected to a regularly monitored email account to allow you to respond to inquiries quickly. This is also a great way of gathering basic prospect’s basic contact information (name, phone number, email) to build your mailing list.

WORKING PHONE NUMBER

Maybe it goes to an answering service, maybe it connects to an internet chat, maybe it goes to your personal cell phone. The point is: it should go somewhere that will get a prospective client an answer. Another strategy is to have different phone numbers on key landing pages to help you identify which page brought you which client.

GOOGLE MY BUSINESS (GMB) LISTING

What is Google My Business? Google is the first place the majority of people go to find a business. If your firm is not listed with GMB you’ve inadvertently created another barrier to prospects finding your law firm. GMB is a segment of local SEO that targets searchers in your firm’s local area. Law firms with an optimized GMB listing show up in the “three-pack” at the top of your target client’s search engine results page. (Tags for photo: Baton Rouge SEO lawyer 3 pack results for “baton rouge lawyer”)

Google My Business listings are a fantastic way to drive new clients towards your practice, especially those who are searching specifically for your area of law. Your target clients may be going through a sensitive personal matter, such as a divorce, a financial issue, or other potentially embarrassing concern.

To get started listing your firm, head over to the Google My Business home page and press “Start Now”. You’ll be asked for basic information about your business, including:

• Business name
• Location
• Contact number
• Email address
• Website
• Category (or industry) – it’s a good idea to list your specific areas of legal services such as personal injury, criminal defense, maritime, etc. Categories describe what your business is, I.E. “Lawyer,” “Law Firm,” “Civil Law Attorney,” “Tax Attorney,” “Family Law Attorney,” and so on.

After this, you’ll need to verify your Google My Business listing. There are several ways to do this but I’d recommend the option where Google sends a letter to your physical address and you enter the verification code that’s included on the letter. Now your law firm is set up on Google My Business. There’s more you can do to optimize your listing, but now you’re findable via Google search!

Basic data analytics are available on the back end of most web hosting services. They can offer valuable insights into how clients found you, which marketing strategies are yielding the best results and which are not and when your website is receiving the most traffic. Squarespace, Wix, and WordPress all offer some form of analytics to their users.

Anyone who’s ever tried to find a restaurant online or choose a movie on Netflix knows the importance of reviews. Most people’s first instinct when looking for an attorney is to ask a friend. What people are saying about your law firm in person and on the internet is a vital part of projecting credibility and confidence to future clients. A good review is worth its weight in gold and your review page is an integral part of creating your review funnel system to generate new leads. 

SIMPLE PAID ADS

Services like Google ad-words and geo-targeted Facebook ads are simple, cheap, and effective ways to reach new clients in your area by targeting specific regions, interests, occupations, or any number of other attributes you can choose to target.

EARNED MEDIA & REFERRALS

Earned media can include mentions in online articles, television interviews, or consumer-generated videos. Referral links are also a great, and often free, way to generate leads. Local newspapers and databases will usually let you list your business at no cost. Some lawyer databases include:

• General directories like:
   Yelp!
   LinkedIn
   Social media accounts
  
• Niche sites such as:
   Superlawyers.com
   Findlaw.com
   Justia.com 

CREATE YOUR OWN CONTENT

An active presence via digital or television commercials, vlogs, and blog posts can both project an aura of constant activity as well as being a thought-leader in your specific area of the law.

You can make it even easier for potential clients to find you by employing Search Engine Optimization. SEO essentially helps a search engine like Google feature your business near the top of the results when people search terms like “lawyer” or “law firm.” If you’re short on time but need to get a sense of where your firm currently lands in search results try our automated three-minute SEO Audit. 

So, how do law firms implement digital marketing strategies like this? Often they hire PR or digital marketing firms who craft campaigns that can cost well into the thousands or tens of thousands of dollars. Some alternate options are hiring freelancers as-needed to provide specific marketing services — I.E. one person to do your videos, another to write your blog posts, another to do your SEO or web development.

Or, you can work with a consultancy like us which has expertise in crafting digital marketing strategies and a deep roster of vetted, high-quality specialists. We fight to make sure you get the best deals on vendors and help you put together a game plan that works both with your budget and timeline.

Hopefully this article helped illustrate how many options you have when it comes to marketing your law firm to new prospective clients. You can pick and choose which approaches to use when ramping up the marketing and lead generation for your firm. Whether you use some or all of them before you know it you’ll have more business than you know what to do with. Good luck!

Useful Links:

MyShingle

Kirkland & Ellis Blog

Latham & Watkins Blog

WHAT IS HAMMER & NAIL?

Hammer & Nail specializes in marketing for legal professionals. From solo practices to mid-sized law firms, we design custom, targeted strategies to help build and expand client bases.