The Ultimate Guide to Digital Marketing for Lawyers: Expand Your Online Reach

Digital marketing has moved swiftly from being an additional marketing campaign for companies to the need of the hour. Today, digital marketing is shining as the topmost client acquisition and retaining channel in every field. 

What makes digital marketing so accessible to all is how it has the potential to filter out the potential target audience and then bring them to you, reducing many filtering out steps and extra efforts. It also reaches far wide and makes deeper impressions on people. 

Marketing for law firms and lawyers in practice is no different. 

The only difference lies in figuring out the marketing trends in your particular niche. 

One in three people turns to the internet to find an attorney. They do not bother their friends and family; they do not ask their work friends. They simply search on Google. So with the right digital marketing strategy, you would be showing up for one in three people. Now, that is a huge number. 

How can you put one in three people into your sales funnel? You will know by the end of this blog!

What can digital marketing do for a lawyer vs. a law firm? 

Digital marketing campaigns and strategies work best when they are personally catering to the particular goals and needs of the individual or organization. This is why Digital marketing for a lawyer and a law firm needs to be individually catered to.  

For a lawyer, and by large, any individual professional, one main challenge with digital marketing is establishing credibility. 

A good digital marketing strategy will focus on building a solid personal brand catered specially to your marketing and business needs. 

This does not mean that law firms do not need to build a personal brand. The credibility of the law firm decides on the social proof each lawyer brings to the table. And an even more important task is to market all these achievements to your target audience effectively. 

Now that we are done bringing out the contrast in both these situations, there are some similarities as well. 

Irrespective of whether you are an individual advocate or a law firm, every target audience looks for how you have upheld ethics over a period of time. They look for someone who can effectively advertise how you can understand their situation the best and get the best possible way out. 

Looking at the statistics will convince you enough to start preparing a strategy to steer your digital marketing strategy toward your target audience. 

Steps to create a digital marketing strategy

It might get a little tricky for lawyers and law firms to navigate through the perfect digital marketing that matches their expertise in practice and the audience. But these foolproof steps can pretty much be a comprehensive guidebook. 

So keep reading and follow along! 

1. Research your target audience 

Almost all marketing campaigns start with knowing your target audience well. Being unaware of the pain points of your target audience can make you feel lost in the rest of the steps of the marketing campaign as well. 

Knowing the pain points of your target audience will help you address those pain points, which can align with your business ethics and also make you step aside from the crowd of your competitors. 

Creating an ideal target avatar which also helps you decide which platform to invest in. Some types of audiences would be looking for their lawyers on a social media platform such as LinkedIn, others on Instagram, and some on Google. 

Knowing which platform is going to get the maximum revenue will go a long way in creating the digital marketing strategy because gaining reach on different platforms is a different ballgame in itself. 

2. What are your goals?

To make any result-oriented plan shine through, you have got to make sure that every plan has its purpose aligned with the end goal. And for that to happen, you, your team, and your digital marketing team need to be very well aware of your end goals. 

It makes planning and executing much simpler and more effective. Your goals with a digital marketing campaign can sound like this: 

1. Establishing a personal brand. 
2. Getting more social proof and positive reviews from existing clients. 
3. Figuring out ways to invite more customers into your sales funnel. 
4. Getting more traffic across platforms. 

And many more. 

Irrespective of these, the primary goal of every marketing campaign would be a way to retain old clients and acquire new ones through a smooth funnel. This should show up in numbers in your revenue and also the quality of work that you are getting. 

Spending more time with your team in the beginning just to figure out desirable goals that you are trying to achieve can help you save time during future decision-making processes as well. 

So get your team to sit together and think it through. 

It also helps to measure all these goals in terms of the return on investment you will be getting.

 Posting every day will help you get great engagement but is your team ready to bring quality content every day to the table? And is your audience even going to be looking for you every day at the time you are posting? 

Figuring out these small details can help you from unnecessary effort, making you work effectively only on things that can bring results. 

3. Figuring out the right platform 

Once you are done with both of the above steps, figuring out which platform to execute your plan in will be just a moment’s task. 

After that, you will have to research the kind of people who use that platform, their needs, and the metrics of that platform. 

For example, people would use LinkedIn only during work hours, so your posting schedule will be around working hours. Whereas Twitter and Instagram are platforms people of all ages use round the clock, so then you will have to navigate through prioritizing the audience you want to target. 

Following are the platforms which can help lawyers and law firms extensively: 

1. Lawmatics: To automate lead generation and run successful email campaigns.
2. Hubspot: A CRM software that helps you to keep track of your clients and leads regularly. 
3. Avvo: To match with clients who are looking for a practicing lawyer in your field and much more!
4. Lawyers.com: Let clients find you based on your profile and experience. 
5. Nolo: A platform that makes it easier for potential clients and leads to find a lawyer. It works like a huge directory but with personalized recommendations catering to the specific need of the audience. 

Apart from this, various companies have adopted a PPC model for advertising. 

It basically means that ads for your services are uploaded to famous search engines and platforms, and the charges are then payable depending on the number of people who click on the ad. 

There are a few services that you can take which can help you specifically with an effective PPC module, or you can go for a more versatile plan with more options. 

4. Don’t underestimate the power of social media 

Social media has become the lead magnet for various fields. Yes, even in the field of law practice. 

Law firms and lawyers either mistakenly think that social media won’t be the appropriate platform for them, or they would make a dead account and not work on it. 

Now, in the world of digital marketing, social media is not used just to get leads. It is used to educate your clients, establish thought leadership in your particular industry and set you apart from your competitors, and even for networking. 

According to a survey, 77% of lawyers use social media for networking. Moreover, 86% of law firms are active on at least one social media platform. 

Social media also helps a great deal in helping you establish a personal connection with your clients. This is why letting go of opportunities here can become costly. 

To steer your social media marketing in the right direction, ensure that you –

1. Choose the right platform. For example, 45% of law firms claim that they use LinkedIn for marketing purposes. 
2. Optimize your profile effectively, and use the correct keywords and names that will pop up instantly when someone looks for your service. 
3. Build brand awareness and get on with posting consistently on social media. More quality posts mean more reach. 
4. Network regularly with your audience on social media so that when they do require your service, your name pops up in their minds instantly. 
5. Do not shy away from adding a personal touch to your posts. This makes it personal and more attractive to the audience. 

5. Keep measuring your progress 

Does not matter if you are producing your marketing strategy in-house or with help, do not forget to have a record of the progress being achieved with your strategy. 

As the saying goes, you will only measure what matters to you. 

Besides that, if you need to review your strategy and see how well it is working so far, it will be very easy and less time-consuming for you. 

Reviewing within regular intervals of time will also help you to make small alterations in the strategy in case a certain plan is not generating the expected results. That way, you will not be losing out on a lot of time and can continue to receive the good results of your strategy. 

6. Think about content marketing 

When you search for something on google, the very few results that show at the top are content results that have optimized their website effectively. 

By creating blogs and articles that answer specific questions completely, even you can build a foolproof content marketing strategy. 

This will also show your expertise and help in showcasing the ethics of your personal brand. 

In the world of digital marketing, content is still king. So don’t underestimate the conversion rates and revenue that good quality content can bring to the table. 

The legal aspect

Now it is pretty ironic to tell a lawyer about the legal aspect of a campaign, so let us have our moment !! 

Jokes aside, lawyers are expected to hold high standards of client-lawyer privacy and to steer clear of data breaches at all times. 

The internet, by large, is one of those places which is notorious for data safety. 

So be very safe and read all the terms and conditions of any platform you are signing up for, and look for the following: 

1. Storage of client data such as names, emails, and phone numbers should be in a secure place. 
2. Clients should be able to get their data deleted from the original servers when and if requested. 
3. Clients should be able to opt out of receiving communications at any point so that your promotional messages should not become a nuisance for them. 

There are several acts that levy fees and penalties for platforms that do not comply with data security and protection rules of the government and other agencies, so that is something you need to focus on from the beginning. 

McElligott Digital Marketing

Do the above points confuse you a little too much? 

Are you also wondering aimlessly about a good place to start with? 

While all the above steps are doable for a team that is learning along the way, professional help can bring much more efficiency to the whole process. It will also ensure that your team focuses on enhancing the quality of work. 

Which can then be added to top up the social proof of the law firm. 

We specialize in various digital marketing services, such as: 

1. Google ads management 
2. Social media management 
3. Local SEO services 
4. WordPress design and management
5. Website Hosting 

And several other areas. 

We make sure that the entire customer journey from start to end is as smooth as possible and include the best practices which make them convert into long-term clients. 

So what are you waiting for? Let us get your website the recognition it deserves and make your law practice and firm shine through in 2023!

You can book a free consultation with us or click here to know more!