Digital Marketing Strategies Law Firms Should Use In 2020
You might have the best law firm with the best attorneys in their respective fields, but if no one knows about your services, it would be impossible to grow. A law firm may be as good as the attorneys who work there, but it’s also fueled by the clients that hire the firm. The best way to get the attention of your potential clients is by marketing your services.
Marketing involves a combination of different strategies so that you can get the best results. However, for the purpose of this article, we are going to focus mainly on digital marketing.
Technology has evolved beyond what we expected, and so has the marketing strategies. Digital marketing has proven to be a leader in terms of marketing since a vast number of people spend their time online. The best way to target these people is by marketing on the same media they spend most of their time using.
Even though print marketing is still useful, it’s being overtaken by digital media. The flexibility and control that you have over your digital marketing campaigns have proven to be a game-changer. It’s also affordable and has more impact on your business compared to the print media. Nonetheless, you should combine the two to maximize your marketing success.
Digital marketing is also a combination of different techniques, which, when used well, can boost the brand awareness of your firm, while also help you reach out to more clients. The only way that you can achieve success with digital marketing is by using all these techniques together. Even though they may seem different, they are related to one another.
Blogging
Every law firm should have an online presence. Having a simple website that describes your services is not enough. You will be competing with other law firms that are doing the same. The best way to stand out from the crowd is by having a blog.
A blog can be an extension of your main website. You can either use a subdomain or create a page on your website and dedicate it to your blog. The latter is the best strategy as your firm’s website will rank when the blog posts are indexed by Search Engine.
Blogging is exhausting and is time-consuming. However, if the right blogging strategies are implemented, you will benefit from the free traffic the posts will be generating. Make sure that your blog focuses on the issues that are related to your services.
Content Marketing
Content marketing is similar to blogging, but the main intention of this strategy is to entice your readers to take action. Blogging may focus on the latest legal news, amendments of certain Acts, or new information surrounding the legal system. However, content marketing may focus on a specific niche that you are targeting.
The majority of law firms that use content marketing tend to educate their readers. They give them the information that is not widely available. If your practice surrounds personal injury in work place, you may create contents that focus on this field.
Other than providing free information to your readers, you also need to make them aware of the problems they are facing. You should highlight the risks they face and what they are missing out in case they were involved in an accident. The next step is to provide them with a solution to the problems you have mentioned. That’s the significant difference between blogging and content marketing. Content marketing focuses on a sub-niche while blogging targets the entire niche.
Email Marketing
Email marketing involves the sending of commercial emails to a group of people. You should mix up the content of your emails is encouraged. You should strike a balance between educative material and commercial ones. Over relying on one type of content may put off your readers and harm your business.
If you are going to focus on email marketing, you need to create an email list. There are different ways you can build an email list. There are paid methods and free methods. The paid method involves buying solo ads. However, this method is not the best if you are planning to build a solid business. You can hire someone else to collect email addresses of prospect clients at a fee. The best method, however, is where someone opts into your mailing lists willingly and is aware of your business.
The free method includes having an opt-in page on your blog or website. However, the only way for you to grow your list using this method is by having consistent traffic flowing to your website. That’s why you must focus on traffic generation.
Organic Social Media Traffic
If you are not using Social media to grow your law firm, you are probably leaving money on the table. A combination of social media platforms has billions of daily users, and it’s the best place to find new clients. By leveraging these platforms, you may end up growing your client-base.
Opening a Facebook page and a Twitter account for your law firm is not enough. You need to create a forum and a community where you can engage with your followers. Writing informative posts and Tweets regularly will help with business exposure. Many a time, law firms have misinterpreted the social media presence as having dormant social media accounts.
Posting regularly and answering questions from people who are interested in your services will help to grow the reputation of your law firm. Make sure you share your blog posts with your social media followers and ask for their opinions. Seeking their opinion means you care about what they think and you value their input. You will be surprised how people respond once they realize their opinions matter.
Paid Social Media
Social media have a paid advertisement program that helps you to reach out to people who use their platforms. Since there are billions of people who use these platforms, it becomes easier to target the right people.
It’s the best alternative of free social media traffic, and it works almost instantly. The trick is understanding how the entire process works and to know your way around it. You need to narrow down the demography you are targeting to eliminate unnecessary clicks and impressions.
Before setting up the ads, it’s critical to make sure you have a clear idea of the people you are planning to target. If you provide real estate legal services, you should avoid people and businesses that are interested in motor vehicles and sports activities.
You don’t need a huge budget to make this work.
Organic Search Engine Traffic (SEO)
There is no doubt that SEO is the best way of marketing any business. If you have been struggling to get clients to sign up with your law firm, you should start adopting the SEO strategies on your website. SEO is simply optimizing your website so that it may rank well with the search engine.
There are different SEO strategies that must be performed so that you can get better rankings. SEO is a puzzle, and missing one piece may affect your rankings. You must understand every stage of SEO and implement them.
Content marketing/blogging are part of SEO, but there are others as well. You need to understand link building, guest posting, social media posting, YouTube, and social bookmarking. SEO results don’t happen overnight as it’s a process that will take you six to ten months to start seeing results.
Even though it might take time, the payout is worth it. Once your pages start to rank on search engines, your traffic will become constant. If you continue doing what you are doing, the results may be permanent.
The process is complicated and exhausting, especially if you are starting out. If you don’t want to burn out, make sure you outsource some projects to lighten the load. You hire people to help you with guest postings so that you can get the quality backlinks. Outsourcing content creation is also an alternative since it’s easy to run out of ideas. An ideal article that is SEO friendly should be between 1,000 to 2,000 words. It should also contain relevant keywords, and call to action.
Pay-Per-Click Advertising
When someone mentions pay-per-click ads, the first thing that comes into your mind is Google Ads. There is a good reason for that as Google is a leader in providing paid advertising to their clients.
The best thing about paid ads is that they are targeted and often produce instant results. However, you need to understand everything about paid ads before you attempt to try. Otherwise, you may end up burning your budget and have nothing to show for it.
Paid ads have everything to do with keywords. Popular keywords that have a high search rate tend to be expensive. In some cases, you may be charged around $1 per click for such keywords. Google Keyword Planner helps you to research the keywords, and also get the search results of each keyword.
If you want to get the best out of your pay-per-click ad campaigns, make sure you keep a close look at your competition. Research which keywords they are ranking for, and use them in your paid campaigns. For instance, if your competition ranks for ‘Personal Injury Attorney in Denver’ on Google search results, you can try and use the same keywords on your paid ads. By doing this, your ads will be shown on the same page, and even higher than the results that show your competitors.
If the keywords are expensive and you don’t have the budget to fund them, you can always go for the alternative keywords. Google Keyword Planner will always suggest alternative keywords you can use.
Video Marketing
YouTube is the second largest search engine behind Google. Video popularity has been growing in recent years, and it would make total sense if you used this channel to your advantage. Video marketing works the same as content marketing.
You can create a video that focuses on people’s problems and offers a solution to the problem. You may also choose to give value to your viewers without a call to action.
Another method of utilizing video marketing is by creating video ads. YouTube is becoming a favorite destination for businesses and people who use video marketing. You can opt for YouTube video marketing campaign, which works like Google Adword. The only difference is that you are dealing with videos rather than written content.
An alternative to YouTube ads is by buying ad space from popular YouTubers. Make sure you only work with YouTubers who are in the same niche as your business or are closely related. If you offer property law services, you can buy ad space from a YouTuber who posts videos about properties. If you provide financial law services, you can talk to a YouTuber who posts videos about the financial markets. There are endless possibilities with video marketing. Some of these YouTubers charge a flat fee, while others have different billing methods. Get to know them and their prices.
Podcast Marketing
A podcast is the audio version of a video. Like some people enjoy watching videos on YouTube, there are countless people who listen to Podcasts.
You can host your podcast session where you can share any useful information with your clients. However, if you don’t have a podcast, you can buy ad space from an existing one. Make sure you choose a reputable podcast if you want your message to spread fast.
Conclusion
Digital marketing has proven to produce outstanding results when done right. You need to familiarize yourself with the entire process to achieve massive success. Nonetheless, digital marketing will help you to grow your law firm fast than any other available method. If you are in the early stages of digital marketing, make sure you hire an expert who will help with complex tasks. Simple tasks such as social media posting can be handled by anyone regardless of their marketing skills.