5 Marketing Tips for Solo and Small Firm Lawyers

Mar­ket­ing is key to get­ting your name out there and to grow your firm. How­ev­er, you do not need a mar­ket­ing genius to get clients in your door. Our tech­nol­o­gy-dri­ven age has made it eas­i­er (and cheap­er) than ever to pro­mote your law prac­tice like Don Drap­er. A good mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy for your firm can be implant­ed quick­ly, afford­ably, and with lit­tle stress. The fol­low­ing are some help­ful tips to con­sid­er when design­ing your mar­ket­ing plan.

Build a Brand

Brand­ing and mar­ket­ing is the first step to increase your firm’s busi­ness and pro­fes­sion­al­ism. Effec­tive brand­ing and mar­ket­ing takes plan­ning, time, and a clear vision. You know best what your firm’s brand is and the clients you want. Brand your­self. Good brand­ing starts with you dif­fer­en­ti­at­ing your­self from your com­peti­tors. Focus on what ser­vices or per­son­al style are unique to you and your firm.

Once you know what sets you apart, rep­re­sent it in your logo. Logos add pro­fes­sion­al­ism and con­sis­ten­cy to your firm’s web­site and mar­ket­ing mate­ri­als. Cre­ate a pro­fes­sion­al logo on the cheap from a vari­ety of web­sites like UpWork.com and 99Designs.com.

Put your logo out there. Cof­fee cups, beer cozies, hats, ban­ners, busi­ness cards, blog posts, print and web ads. Every part of your mar­ket­ing plan will work around your brand. Rein­force a con­sis­tent mes­sage to make your brand mem­o­rable and suc­cess­ful. There­fore, clients will soon rec­og­nize and asso­ciate your firm with that mes­sage over oth­er firms.

Advertise Online (for FREE!)

The dig­i­tal age has changed the busi­ness and mar­ket­ing fields. Lawyers must have the good web pres­ence to draw in more clients. Lawyers can use online mar­ket­ing to increase their firm’s vis­i­bil­i­ty with­out spend­ing a lot of mon­ey. This is espe­cial­ly true for solo and small firms as they com­pete with larg­er firms for clients.

Social media is one of the eas­i­est ways to adver­tise your law prac­tice to clients. You prob­a­bly already use and are famil­iar with Face­book or Insta­gram. If not, cre­at­ing an account with them is free and they are easy to use. A Face­book, Twit­ter, Insta­gram, and LinkedIn account for your firm can help you con­nect with locals in your area. Thus, you can adver­tise your firm’s ser­vices, spe­cial­ties, pric­ing, and brand through these platforms.

Pay Per Click (PPC) adver­tis­ing is quick­ly becom­ing the new norm in online mar­ket­ing. Google Adwords will host your ad on a web­site or their search for engine for free. You pay them a fee every time some­one clicks on your ad. More­over, you have the free­dom to set up ads in mul­ti­ple places and track where you are get­ting the most clicks. Thus, Adwords is one of the most effi­cient and cost-effec­tive ways of mar­ket­ing your firm.

Online reviews are anoth­er easy and free way to adver­tise your firm. Most peo­ple can speak to how a Yelp review influ­enced their opin­ion of a restau­rant. Reviews give poten­tial clients a pos­i­tive or neg­a­tive per­cep­tion of your firm. Firms should ask their clients for con­stant feed­back and use it to see how they can improve the way they deliv­er their ser­vices. The more pos­i­tive reviews your law firm has, the more like­ly that clients will choose you over oth­er law firms.

Like­wise, cre­ate a free list­ing in online direc­to­ries like Avvo or Find­Law. The more reviews you have the high­er on the list you will be placed. Fur­ther­more, you can pay for their pre­mi­um ser­vices so you will be fea­tured on the top of their direc­to­ry and on Google searches.

Website SEO and Blogging

Today, clients are more like­ly than not to find your firm online. A web­site is like a busi­ness card. It looks unpro­fes­sion­al if you do not have one. Also, if poten­tial clients can­not instant­ly find your web­site then they will find some­one else. Lawyers need to famil­iar­ize them­selves with Search Engine Opti­miza­tion (SEO) to get more atten­tion to their web­site. The high­er your web­site ranks in search engine results the more vis­i­ble you will be to poten­tial clients.

Thank­ful­ly one of the eas­i­est ways to improve SEO results is to blog. Lawyers often for­get to blog, if they have a law blog at all. I know blog­ging can seem time-con­sum­ing, but it is one of the most effec­tive mar­ket­ing tools firms have. A blog con­nect­ed to your firm’s web­site will give you the oppor­tu­ni­ty to draw more peo­ple to your site if you are offer­ing inter­est­ing and infor­ma­tive content.

A blog is a good way to share your legal knowl­edge with oth­ers. This estab­lish­es you as an expert in your field and por­trays you more pro­fes­sion­al­ly to clients. Since you can share your posts on social media, you can give your social net­works fresh con­tent dai­ly. This will draw more atten­tion to your law prac­tice and gen­er­ate more leads.

As you cre­ate and share catchy con­tent you will increase your vis­i­bil­i­ty online and increase traf­fic to your web­site. This leads to bet­ter SEO results and your firm will show up high­er on search engine results.

Lawyers should post at least one new blog post a week. Do not let your blog with­er away due to lack of atten­tion. The more you blog, the more cred­i­ble you look and the more vis­i­tors you will get. Blogs do not need to be dis­ser­ta­tions. Users expect short, use­ful, and inter­est­ing posts. Always make sure to include a call-to-action so poten­tial clients can explore your web­site fur­ther and increase the chance they will become a pay­ing client.

Network

There are plen­ty of low-tech mar­ket­ing options to meet your mar­ket­ing needs. Some­times you need to pound the pave­ment and press the flesh. Get involved in your com­mu­ni­ty. Go to as many events as you can and get your name out there. Net­work with com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers and local busi­ness­es. Con­sid­er set­ting up speak­ing engage­ments or spon­sor­ing an event in the com­mu­ni­ty. This will give you a chance to hand out busi­ness cards, fly­ers, and make con­nec­tions. Keep your firm on people’s minds and you will get more referrals.

Look at the Numbers

Now that you have a mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy in place you need to keep up with the num­bers. Do not assume that your first mar­ket­ing plan is per­fect the first time. If peo­ple are vis­it­ing your web­site, but are not being con­vert­ed into clients, then your plan is use­less. You need to track and mea­sure your strategy’s per­for­mance to see what is work­ing best and what is not.

Track how many peo­ple are read­ing which blog posts. This way you know which top­ics peo­ple search and you can give them more con­tent. Track which pages on your web­site clients view the most. Now you can edit the flow of your web­site to guide clients to where you want them to go. Con­stant­ly improve your mar­ket­ing plan so are doing what works and get rid of the rest.

Mar­ket­ing your law firm is not a dif­fi­cult or expen­sive process. Tech­nol­o­gy has removed much of the has­sle and expens­es. Solo and small firms can com­pete with larg­er firms with­out break­ing the bank. Fol­low these tips and your firm will succeed.

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