Let experience guide your law firm marketing.

If you're wondering how you might market your law firm more effectively, you may want to take advantage of some of my experience rather than a trial and error approach. I've been consulting with law firms for many years about how they can position themselves in the marketplaces they serve, educate current and potential clients, and build new business for their practices. I want to share some of the best ways to market your firm successfully in today’s world of endless marketing channels and networking opportunities.

1. Position yourself as a thought leader

You have probably heard this advice about other kinds of businesses before, but for attorneys and firms, it is of the highest importance to position yourself as a thought leader in your firm's primary practice areas.

You can achieve this through the development and distribution of great content. It may be videos on your site, through the tone and direction of your traditional advertising, blogs, or a combination of these. It will depend somewhat on your ideal/target clients. Setting yourself up as a subject matter expert is very cost effective and can develop leads you may have never expected. This kind of inbound marketing is designed to have potential clients approaching you for your expertise rather than you chasing them down.

2. Go after more referrals

Categorize the best groups your referrals come from and hone in on them. Develop relationships with your referral sources. Reach out, thank them, recognize their contributions. This is an important resource for your business to use to develop and expand. Make sure you take good care of it.

3. Create educational content and promote it in the right places

Writing educational articles about your particular practice areas is not only helpful for those who may have questions or concerns about how the law affects them, it also makes you a trusted resource for information. This affinity will make prospective clients more likely to contact you when the need arises. It's important to post your articles across a variety of social, email and blog channels, but remember one of the most effective channels for this type of marketing is LinkedIn.

4. Online reviews are important, and they are viewed by your prospective clients

There are many directories out there for location information, reviews and citations. Take advantage of them by keeping your information up-to-date and encourage clients to post good reviews about the experiences they have with you. Accurate directory information will boost your website's SEO rankings and so will positive reviews.

5. Claim your presence online, but also focus on your community

Use websites, directories, and profiles to own your online presence, but also don't forget that it's not only your online reputation that must be cultivated and protected, it's also what you do in your community by sponsoring/supporting community events and organizations, personally networking within the community, and taking special care of referral sources and others who are willing to help you develop your firm.

6. Pay attention to your website

For most law firms, their website serves as the center of their marketing ecosystem. It is the central hub around which other marketing efforts orbit with links to landing pages, contact forms, content downloads and more.

Pay attention to your website, make sure that it is professionally designed and user friendly. It must provide the information a visitor will be searching for quickly and easily. Make sure you invest in the development of on-site SEO. It is important that your site is one of the first to be seen when a visitor searches for something that is relevant to the services you provide.

7. Invest in SEO …

Internal SEO and external SEO are important to develop. Enhance your site with videos introducing who you are and offering free information to potential clients. This free information (often called freemium services) is one of the most important things lawyers can do. Offer up valuable information to potential clients for free, e-Books, legal research, and instructional videos, and you’ll find that this not only increases your SEO, but also draws in a lot of clients. Make sure you also focus on developing links to your site from external resources. This should be one of the primary goals of all of the content you produce for social media, reviews, blogs, videos, etcetera.

8. Build meaningful relationships with clients

For the most part, the legal business is still based on relationships—who you know and how you are perceived as contributing to the community. A website is essential for credibility and general info, but networking and relationships are key.

If you’re a principle in a law firm, we should get to know each other. My methods for creating decades of successful marketing campaigns for the legal industry could be critical in your efforts to attract new business. Read my eBbook; How to build marketing campaigns that get results and drive growth. Use this link today to GET YOUR FREE COPY