Are you a law firm looking for increased website traffic, better lead call volume, and the potential for returning clients and referrals? If so, it doesn’t matter what field of law or specific niche your law firm falls under, your marketing strategy should be built upon a firm foundation of trust and a solid marketing strategy.
Online marketing campaigns begin by working to establish a brand and its website as reputable and trustworthy. From there, ongoing online marketing strategies are aimed at making it as effortless as possible for potential clients to receive the information necessary for you to convert them from mere website viewers to actual clients, loyal returning clients, and brand ambassadors. How?
Online Marketing Strategies To Reach & Retain Clients
Statistics show that most legal searchers aren’t ready to buy immediately. Instead, most potential clients are first looking for education, information, and resources to help them with due diligence and decision making. This means your law firm needs to be at the forefront of their thoughts during all stages of the sales funnel and establish yourself as a trustworthy authority on their topic of law.
The following marketing strategies can help you achieve this goal:
1. Rethink and redesign problem areas on your website
Once upon a time, legal searchers opened the Yellow Pages or contacted the local bar association when they needed legal assistance. Today, studies show that almost 40 percent use an organic internet search and 29 percent go with a referral from a friend or relative. For law firms, this means that their website isn’t just merely a homepage and contact button. It’s a tool to attract and convert a huge percentage of people in need of legal assistance.
Your ‘tool’ should operate flawlessly in design and layout. Pretend you’re a potential client looking for various types of information. Can you easily find and access it on your website? Would you use your website as a legal resource? If not, it’s time to rethink and redesign for:
- Clear branding
- Clear messaging
- Fast loading
- Ease of navigation and use
2. Make your website mobile-friendly
Just as the day of the Yellow Pages is long gone, you should remember that over half of searchers are operating on smartphones and handheld devices. If your website isn’t optimized for mobile viewers, they’ll just hop over to a legal website that is, and you’ve just lost a potential client due to something as simple as the layout.
3. Have a clear CTA on your website
Not having a clear and clickable CTA, or call to action, is a huge website design flaw. Viewers aren’t going to search for how to contact you. Make sure phone numbers are global and easy to access. Free resource buttons and quick-fill contact forms at the bottom of service and blog pages are great for viewers still in the research stage of the sales funnel.
4. Establish yourself as an authority
Use frequently asked questions, evergreen content, service pages, expert guest bloggers, and so forth to position your firm’s website as an expert on relevant topics to your geographical location and field of practice. What to write about? This is where the competitive analysis helps you think like your target customer and create useful and informative content. The goal is to become their go-to site when they have a legal question in your wheelhouse.
5. Become invaluable to searchers
There’s a lot of focus on visibility in digital marketing campaigns with organic SEO best practices and PPC, but attracting readers to click is only part of the equation. Failing to keep that reader can do more harm than good because a reader quickly bouncing off your page causes search engines to lower your relevance score for the advertising campaign’s keyword that was clicked.
Your website has mere seconds to capture a reader, with most leaving in 10 to 20 seconds if they don’t find a clear value proposition to hold them to the page. Keep in mind that the average viewer is only reading less than a quarter of the content on the page, which means your website’s content must be clear, focused, and provide invaluable information. Engagement ideas to get viewers to stay and click deeper:
- Video content
- Checklist guides
- Testimonials
- Q&As
6. Have a stellar content marketing strategy
Build your online reputation with a content marketing strategy. One of the most effective methods is accumulating credible backlinks, which is content on your website with a link that points to outside resources or additional pages within your website. You can also add value to your own website’s content by contributing content to other authoritative websites, media outlets, bloggers, and so forth. These typically have a link that will point back to your website. It’s a free and easy way to build brand recognition and trust with readers.
7. Make sure your traditional marketing efforts complement your online marketing efforts
Don’t forget that your in-person marketing needs to be optimized for performance, too. Your traditional marketing strategies when you’re networking should work side-by-side your online efforts and be complimentary. A good example is how you exchange information.
Instead of handing your business card out to everyone you meet, Adam Draper from GladiatorLawMarketing.com recommends getting other people’s business cards and then emailing them with your contact information later. This offers you a sure method of contact, and it opens the door for future online correspondence via newsletters and marketing emails.
Another optimization for your traditional marketing efforts is always included your website on paper marketing materials. This offers recipients an easily accessible and clear path to gain more information about your company and services.
8. Develop your social media presence
A number of law firm surveys have shown that the majority uses social media as a channel for their digital marketing strategies. LinkedIn and Facebook usually rank highest in utilization and performance. These channels are proven performers when it comes to both authority gains and attracting new clients. Here are some content ideas:
- Positive reviews and client quotes
- Industry accolades
- Links to your own content with helpful information
- Links to secondary content with helpful information
- Volunteer and charity endeavors
- Q&A segments and live interviews
9. Use measurement tools to fine-tune your marketing efforts
So, you’ve introduced all these cool online marketing strategies, but do you know which are working and which are a waste of time and resources? Use digital marketing analytics to evaluate and refine strategies concerning:
- Traffic sources
- Click-through rates
- Bounce rates
- Site navigation refinement
- Organic vs PPC performances
- Top performing topics and layouts
10. Never lose sight of the big picture
Looking at the big picture for your law firm’s long-term success, you must think of online marketing as a cycle, not a step toward a finish line. Yes, there will be successes where you achieve a specific marketing goal, but the continual function and placement of online marketing never ceases. There isn’t a finish line in the grand scheme of marketing, and it will never be a set it and forget it task. The web continually evolves. Marketplaces shift on a dime. Competition sprouts daily. All of this means that your law firm’s marketing efforts are an ongoing process that must adapt and change with the tides to sustain results.
The above online marketing strategies provide an excellent starting point to build authority and trust with potential clients. Used correctly, they’ll become the foundation of a drawing board for innovative marketing techniques and strategies to propel your website and firm as an authority and go-to source for those in need of the services and information you offer.
