20 Tips for Attorneys to Market a Law Practice

What’s the dif­fer­ence between a finan­cial­ly suc­cess­ful attor­ney and an attor­ney who some­times strug­gles finan­cial­ly? It’s not nec­es­sar­i­ly their track record or knowl­edge of the law. Fair­ly often, its the attorney’s abil­i­ty to mar­ket his or her ser­vices to poten­tial clients.
But mar­ket­ing a law prac­tice isn’t always the same as mar­ket­ing oth­er types of busi­ness­es. So David M. Ward, Esq. of The Attor­ney Mar­ket­ing Cen­ter pro­vid­ed some tar­get­ed mar­ket­ing tips for lawyers in an email inter­view with Small Busi­ness Trends. Below are 20 of his top suggestions.

How to Market a Law Practice

Choose a Specific Type of Law

Instead of being a gen­er­al prac­ti­tion­er, you can auto­mat­i­cal­ly set your­self apart by choos­ing one type of law to focus on.
For instance, you could focus on tax or trade­mark issues. When a poten­tial client is look­ing for a lawyer, they nor­mal­ly already have a spe­cif­ic issue in mind. So they are more like­ly to both find and trust a lawyer who focus­es on that type of law, rather than one that spreads their atten­tion between sev­er­al specialties.
Because of this, Ward says that lawyers who spe­cial­ize in a par­tic­u­lar type of law tend to earn more than those who don’t.

Choose a More Specific Niche

You’ve cho­sen a spe­cial­ty. Great, now go one step fur­ther. To dif­fer­en­ti­ate your ser­vices even more, choose a niche with­in your branch of the law.
For exam­ple, if you’re a busi­ness lawyer, focus on a spe­cif­ic type of busi­ness, like retail or man­u­fac­tur­ing. Or if you’re an immi­gra­tion attor­ney, you could tar­get clients from a par­tic­u­lar coun­try or region. Make sure cus­tomers know that you are focused on this niche by includ­ing it in your web­site or pro­mo­tion­al mate­ri­als. Then you can focus on grow­ing your client base with­in that com­mu­ni­ty of busi­ness­es or indi­vid­ual clients through referrals.

Build a List of Clients and Referrers Over Time

Ward says that a com­mon mar­ket­ing mis­take for lawyers is try­ing to do too much all at once.
For instance, some new attor­neys might go through an entire list of poten­tial clients and refer­rers (law firms or lawyers that might refer clients to you) in their com­mu­ni­ty right away. But not all of these peo­ple are like­ly to need legal ser­vices at the same time. So going on a mass con­tact­ing spree could just prove to be a waste of time.
Instead, he sug­gests build­ing up a list of prospec­tive clients and refer­rers. Some of that will hap­pen dur­ing the course of reg­u­lar busi­ness oper­a­tions. So instead of call­ing all of your con­tacts right away, you could sim­ply keep your con­tact list at top of mind through­out your day to day activ­i­ties. This could lead to a big­ger refer­ral list and a more healthy busi­ness over time.

Create a Helpful Website

For new prac­tices, one of the first mar­ket­ing steps should be to set up a web­site. The site should real­ly show­case what you do. Mean­ing, it should clear­ly state your spe­cial­ty and your niche. If you offer sev­er­al dif­fer­ent ser­vices with­in your type of law, out­line them very clearly.
But your web­site should also offer some­thing else to poten­tial clients — help­ful resources. This could mean offer­ing a free ebook or even just a list of links for peo­ple look­ing for gen­er­al infor­ma­tion with­in your area of expertise.
Offer­ing these resources will bring more peo­ple to your web­site. And those peo­ple are more like­ly to need your ser­vices at some point, since they are already look­ing for resources on sim­i­lar topics.

Give Away Free Resources in Your Community

Once you’ve cre­at­ed some free resources for peo­ple who vis­it your web­site, go one step fur­ther. Make some con­nec­tions with peo­ple and busi­ness­es in your com­mu­ni­ty who can pro­mote your infor­ma­tion and give those resources away to them for free. This can help you ampli­fy your reach.
Pro­vid­ing free infor­ma­tion and resources for peo­ple in your area can help you build use­ful con­nec­tions and trust in your brand. Ward said:
“Write a “how to” report in your area of exper­tise and give it away. Make it so good that cen­ters of influ­ence in your tar­get mar­ket or com­mu­ni­ty will­ing­ly pro­mote it to their lists and thank you for mak­ing it available.”

Network with Local Businesses by Offering a Helping Hand

You can also sim­ply help oth­er busi­ness own­ers through­out your com­mu­ni­ty. You nev­er know who these busi­ness own­ers know.
When you help oth­ers they are more like­ly to refer poten­tial clients to you at some point in the future. To net­work in your com­mu­ni­ty, you can sim­ply ask for some busi­ness cards to keep in your office or pro­vide some refer­rals to oth­er local businesses.

Consider Building a Social Media Presence

Social media can be a pow­er­ful mar­ket­ing tool for all types of businesses.
If you like using social media, sign up for an account or accounts. Then build up net­works using your client and refer­ral lists, or lists of con­tacts with­in your com­mu­ni­ty. Then you can use these sites to pro­vide infor­ma­tion on your busi­ness and oth­er legal resources. Per­haps you could offer your free ebook or links to rel­e­vant websites.

But Don’t Focus Too Much on Social Media

Ward insists hav­ing a strong social media pres­ence isn’t all that nec­es­sary for law practices:
“Con­trary to pop­u­lar opin­ion, social media mar­ket­ing isn’t some­thing that you must do. If you don’t like it, don’t do it. There are oth­er ways to mar­ket your services.”
So if you want to use social media, it can be a valu­able and inex­pen­sive tool. But if you don’t feel that you have the time to build up a fol­low­ing, it isn’t nec­es­sary. Your time could be bet­ter spent work­ing on refer­rals or your website.

Make It Easy for Others to Connect

But even if you decide social media isn’t your thing, at the very least, you should have an account or two.
Face­book espe­cial­ly has become an incred­i­bly pop­u­lar place for peo­ple to con­nect with busi­ness­es. So even if you don’t have a lot of time to ded­i­cate to social media, you could just reserve your busi­ness name on Face­book and/or Twit­ter. You don’t need to post exces­sive­ly or pro­mote the accounts. Just update with impor­tant infor­ma­tion for those who want to fol­low you.

Allow Others to Share your Content

In addi­tion, you should make it as easy as pos­si­ble for those who do use social media to share con­tent from your website.
Add share but­tons to your web­site that make it as easy as pos­si­ble for peo­ple to post links to your blog posts or ebooks to their social net­works. You can also encour­age peo­ple to share your con­tent. So even if you don’t have the time to post on social media, you can at least give oth­ers a chance to do it for you.

You Can Also Use Social Media to Find Resources

You can also use social media as a way to find resources and experts. You can use it to find blog­gers for guest posts, experts to inter­view for your newslet­ter, or oth­er pro­fes­sion­als you can net­work with.
To do this, you can sign up for per­son­al accounts on social media and fol­low peo­ple in your indus­try. Then con­nect with those peo­ple and ask if they might be inter­est­ed in col­lab­o­rat­ing with you.

Start Small with Advertising

Adver­tis­ing can be one of the quick­est ways to build traf­fic. How­ev­er, Ward cau­tions it can also be a cost­ly mis­take if done incor­rect­ly. For that rea­son, he sug­gests start­ing with a small budget.
Choose a very tar­get­ed out­let that attracts peo­ple in your spe­cif­ic mar­ket. For instance, if you’re a busi­ness attor­ney who focus­es on local retail­ers, con­sid­er using a trade pub­li­ca­tion that also focus­es on local retailers.
Using a small pub­li­ca­tion will allow you to keep your adver­tis­ing bud­get small at first. Then you can gauge the results of your first cam­paign before mak­ing a huge mon­e­tary com­mit­ment. Just ask new clients how they found out about your ser­vices, and you’ll be able to tell how well your adver­tis­ing efforts are working.

Hire Marketing or Advertising Professionals If Necessary

Ward also said it can be worth it to work with mar­ket­ing and adver­tis­ing pro­fes­sion­als when first start­ing to pro­mote your busi­ness. These pro­fes­sion­als can help you choose the right out­lets and mea­sure your success.
When you’re busy run­ning a law firm, spend­ing time on mar­ket­ing and adver­tis­ing might not be pos­si­ble. Espe­cial­ly when start­ing out, adver­tis­ing and mar­ket­ing pro­fes­sion­als who under­stand your needs can take some of this respon­si­bil­i­ty off of your shoul­ders. They will also be more knowl­edge­able about how to go about pro­mot­ing your firm with­out the need for as much tri­al and error.

If It Works, Increase your Budget

If you find that your ads are get­ting pos­i­tive results, con­sid­er increas­ing your bud­get. Invest­ing in more adver­tis­ing can help you grow even more, espe­cial­ly if you already have some evi­dence it can work.
Con­sult your adver­tis­ing pro­fes­sion­al, if you use one. You can even con­sid­er branch­ing out to dif­fer­ent types of out­lets for your ads. Just be sure to con­tin­ue find­ing out which clients found you through adver­tis­ing so that you can mea­sure what is work­ing and what isn’t.

If It Doesn’t Work, Cut Your Losses and Move On

On the oth­er hand, don’t raise your bud­get if you see no pos­i­tive results. Some­times adver­tis­ing with a par­tic­u­lar out­let doesn’t work out. Don’t keep invest­ing in some­thing that doesn’t work.
Instead, look for anoth­er type of out­let for your adver­tis­ing bud­get. Keep mea­sur­ing what is bring­ing you new clients, and don’t be afraid to admit defeat and try some­thing else.

Rely on Referrals

But even though adver­tis­ing and social media can be use­ful, Ward says that refer­rals are absolute­ly inte­gral to mar­ket­ing a law practice:
“Every law firm should base it’s mar­ket­ing on a foun­da­tion of refer­rals. Referred clients are less resis­tant to hir­ing you, tend to be more loy­al and more like­ly them­selves to pro­vide refer­rals. They also come to you with­out cost (time or money).”

Focus on Customer Service

In order to get refer­rals, you need to make sure your clients are sat­is­fied enough to tell oth­ers about you. Pro­vid­ing great cus­tomer ser­vice isn’t always con­sid­ered a mar­ket­ing task, but in this case it is.
To make sure your clients are sat­is­fied, make it very clear what they should expect when they hire you. Then be sure to live up to your end of the bargain.

Offer Referrals to Others

You can also try to get refer­rals from peo­ple who aren’t clients. To do this, you’ll still need to con­nect with them in some way.
You can con­nect with peo­ple on social media, at events, or just out in your com­mu­ni­ty. Then you can build trust with peo­ple by offer­ing them refer­rals, pro­mot­ing their web­site, or inter­view­ing them for your newsletter.

Ask Your Satisfied Clients for Help

But there could be a more direct way to get refer­rals to your busi­ness. Accord­ing to Ward, you get more refer­rals by sim­ply ask­ing for them.
Ask sat­is­fied clients if they know any­one else need­ing sim­i­lar legal help. Make it clear to them that you are open to tak­ing on new clients. You might even con­sid­er offer­ing a dis­count or perk for peo­ple who refer oth­ers. You could also just hand out extra busi­ness cards or sim­i­lar mate­ri­als so that clients and oth­ers can eas­i­ly pass along your information.

Seek Referrals Indirectly

But if you don’t want to ask peo­ple direct­ly for refer­rals, there are oth­er ways to get your name out there.
If you pro­vide oth­er ser­vices or resources like ebooks or legal sem­i­nars, you can ask peo­ple to rec­om­mend those items to oth­ers. That way, peo­ple will still be famil­iar with your name and area of exper­tise, but you don’t have to seem like you’re beg­ging for clients.
If you’ve spent the time and ener­gy to launch a new firm or prac­tice, be sure you also take the time to let oth­ers know. Mar­ket­ing is a crit­i­cal aspect of build­ing your prac­tice. Give the process the time and ener­gy it requires.

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