Marketing Tips for Lawyers

The legal land­scape is a com­pet­i­tive and chal­leng­ing mar­ket to brand your­self in but with the right mar­ket­ing tac­tics, it’s pos­si­ble to achieve long-last­ing success. 

If you’re just embark­ing on your legal career, get­ting ready to hang your own shin­gle or are in a small to a mid-sized firm, here are some help­ful ideas to pro­pel your mar­ket­ing plan forward

Before we look into how to mar­ket your­self as a lawyer, let’s address some of the basic build­ing blocks:

Pre-Marketing Essentials for Lawyers 

• Build a website
  Whether you use a DIY plat­form or you out­source the work to a web devel­op­er, a web­site is essen­tial to your cred­i­bil­i­ty as a lawyer. Poten­tial clients instant­ly check your web­site or may con­duct a Google search look­ing specif­i­cal­ly for an area of spe­cial­ty you han­dle or have han­dled in the past. Addi­tion­al­ly, exist­ing client want­i­ng to share your infor­ma­tion with a friend only to real­ize there is no online brochure that accu­rate­ly depicts the work you do and the list­ings you have. 
  A web­site projects a pro­fes­sion­al image, pro­vides nec­es­sary infor­ma­tion to clients and prospec­tive clients and has the poten­tial to gen­er­ate leads through organ­ic search. 
  

• Spread the word
  When it comes to get­ting legal work, word-of-mouth is your strongest mar­ket­ing ploy. If you are new to law or have just formed your own law firm, let friends and fam­i­ly know so they can help you spread the word. 
  

• Nar­row your focus
  To start out, choose a prac­tice area or very spe­cif­ic niche to focus your efforts on. By nar­row­ing your focus, you can con­cen­trate on being known as an “expert” in an area of law that doesn’t have much com­pe­ti­tion and could even­tu­al­ly lead to more work. Be mind­ful of Bar rules when hold­ing your­self out as an “expert” – there are ways to go about it and not run afoul.
  

• Build CRM
  Begin build­ing your cus­tomer rela­tion­ship man­age­ment (CRM) pro­gram by cre­at­ing an email list and using auto­mat­ed mar­ket­ing soft­ware programs.
  
  
• Stay top of mind
  Busi­ness can be rapid fire or tur­tle slow as you start your own law firm. Stay­ing top of mind at any stage of the game is essen­tial. Send email cam­paigns, write arti­cles or blog reg­u­lar­ly, net­work and hold infor­ma­tion­al sem­i­nars; do any­thing you can to remind prospec­tive clients that you are active in your area of practice. 

Now that you have the essen­tial cri­te­ria top of mind, we can dive into strate­gies for mar­ket­ing your legal practice:

Top Marketing Ideas for Lawyers

Add social sharing to your website

Assum­ing you’re already active on social media, make it easy for fol­low­ers to find you on their social plat­forms by post­ing fre­quent­ly with rel­e­vant infor­ma­tion. If start­ing your pro­fes­sion­al social media pres­ence from scratch, be sure to set aside a real­is­tic paid adver­tis­ing bud­get to grow your visibility.

Unique business card

Even with a decline in reliance on paper, a busi­ness card is still the eas­i­est way to ensure that a prospec­tive client gets your con­tact info. Cre­ate a fun, eye-catch­ing card that peo­ple you meet can remem­ber. Make sure that even if all you are using is your name that you asso­ciate it with a dynam­ic brand logo and don’t for­get to have a dig­i­tal con­tact card as a back­up uploaded to your smartphone.

Video

Cre­ate infor­ma­tive videos to high­light spe­cif­ic areas of law that you prac­tice. Videos can be bro­ken down by answer­ing vital FAQs and shared on your social plat­forms and web­site. If you decide to go this route, use pro­fes­sion­als to look professional.

Pinterest boards

Cre­ate Pin­ter­est boards with infor­ma­tive solu­tions. Here you can incor­po­rate your blogs and videos on a plat­form designed for con­sumers look­ing for answers. If you have a niche, this is a great way to nar­row down the focus on spe­cif­ic key aspects. 

Easy to get in touch

List and link to the con­tact infor­ma­tion you are most respon­sive to. In today’s com­pet­i­tive legal land­scape, lawyers should be imme­di­ate­ly respon­sive. Make sure it is a con­tact method that your niche audi­ence prefers to use and one that through tech­nol­o­gy you can eas­i­ly respond to. 

Professional photos

Pho­to qual­i­ty shows clients how pro­fes­sion­al you are, looks great on social media and helps boost search engine rankings. 

eNewsletter

Use eNewslet­ters to inform your audi­ence of what is hap­pen­ing in your area of spe­cial­ty. Stay rel­e­vant as a lawyer by offer­ing some­thing use­ful to prospec­tive and exist­ing clients.

Mobility

Make sure you are mobile! Your web­site must be mobile respon­sive and all infor­ma­tion total­ly acces­si­ble on clients’ smartphones. 

There are many ways to mar­ket your law prac­tice and your first step is to reach out to the legal mar­ket­ing experts at Rosy Strate­gies to find out what would work best for you and your firm.