Why Content Marketing for Law Firms Doesn’t Have to Be Boring

SOURCE: SEARCH ENGINE JOURNAL

The legal field often gets a bad rap for being, well, bor­ing. Par­tic­u­lar­ly when it comes to marketing.

Many dig­i­tal mar­keters cow­er at the thought of tack­ling such a com­pet­i­tive niche and often shy away from any project that has the label “legal” tacked in front of it.

Not only is there the con­no­ta­tion of mar­ket­ing for law firms being bor­ing, there can be quite a bit of work involved to help your clients rise above their competitors.

Such can be the case with con­tent mar­ket­ing for legal as well.

If I had a nick­el for every gener­ic “What to do if you get a DUI” post ped­dled my way, then I would be a rich man. I’d also have a lot of guest posts to publish.

For­tu­nate­ly, con­tent mar­ket­ing for the legal niche doesn’t have to be boring.

In fact, it shouldn’t be.

If you are mys­ti­fied by the process of obtain­ing qual­i­ty links, net­work­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties, leads and more for your clients through con­tent mar­ket­ing, then it’s time to rethink “bor­ing” and find bril­liant, cre­ative con­tent ideas to up-lev­el your strat­e­gy.

Rethinking Content Marketing for a ‘Boring’ Niche

Con­tent mar­ket­ing presents loads of oppor­tu­ni­ties to think out­side the box.

While many aspects of dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing and search engine opti­miza­tion (SEO) can be high­ly tech­ni­cal, web con­tent allows you the space to get cre­ative and speak to your audi­ence on a deep­er level.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, this is a missed oppor­tu­ni­ty for many mar­keters who aim to focus on the tech­ni­cal gains of con­tent marketing.

In oth­er words, they miss the full pic­ture, which is that the con­tent is meant to reach and res­onate with your client’s audience.

The ulti­mate goal?

Help your client make more money.

The stereo­type that mar­ket­ing for a “bor­ing” niche often becomes a bit of a self-ful­fill­ing prophecy.

Mar­keters expect “bor­ing”, so they pro­duce “bor­ing”.

This doesn’t serve your busi­ness or your clients well.

Now is the time for mar­keters and SEO pros to shift their per­spec­tive when it comes to con­tent mar­ket­ing for legal, and open their eyes to the many oppor­tu­ni­ties that cre­ative con­tent can bring for their clients.

Legal Content Marketing for Relational (and Technical) Gains

If you go into con­tent mar­ket­ing only think­ing about the tech­ni­cal ben­e­fits, then you are only see­ing one piece of the puzzle.

High-qual­i­ty, cre­ative, authen­tic and con­ver­sion-friend­ly con­tent not only opens the door to links and rank­ings but can serve your clients in many oth­er (arguably, more impor­tant ways).

Effec­tive con­tent mar­ket­ing can:

• Posi­tion your client as an author­i­ty in their niche.
• Increase brand awareness.
• Gen­er­ate leads.
• Dri­ve traf­fic and circulation.
• Encour­age part­ner­ships with oth­er brands.
• Secure speak­ing engage­ments and net­work­ing opportunities.
• Dri­ve free publicity.
• Improve their social media presence.
• Iden­ti­fy a new market.

Being cog­nizant of these pos­si­bil­i­ties (and many oth­ers) frames con­tent mar­ket­ing in a new, rela­tion­al way.

Moving Beyond the Usual KPIs

Con­tent mar­ket­ing isn’t sole­ly about gam­ing the algo­rithm. It’s about form­ing new rela­tion­ships (being that pro­fes­sion­al, tech­ni­cal, or oth­er­wise) for your clients.

That could mean cre­at­ing con­tent that:

• Speaks direct­ly to your client’s audi­ence, increas­ing brand loyalty.
• Secures them a spot at a promi­nent speak­ing event.
• Opens up a new mar­ket for them in a typ­i­cal­ly crowd­ed niche.

Focus­ing on KPIs will only get you so far.

Think out­side the usu­al frame­work of con­tent mar­ket­ing, and you will tap into the cre­ativ­i­ty that shapes con­tent that is built for rela­tion­al and tech­ni­cal gains.

3 Ways to Get Creative with Your Legal Content Marketing

No more bor­ing blog posts.

There are much more cre­ative ways to dri­ve brand aware­ness, gen­er­ate links, and land more oppor­tu­ni­ties for your legal clients.

Below are three inno­v­a­tive strate­gies to cre­ate authen­tic and con­ver­sion-hap­py con­tent for law firms and the like.

1. Appeal to Each Step of the Customer Journey

Know your audience.

Rather than cast­ing a wide net when it comes to cre­at­ing con­tent, it is best to cre­ate pieces that relate to each step of the cus­tomer journey.

The cus­tomer jour­ney con­sists of the Dis­cov­ery, Nur­ture, Pur­chase and Reten­tion phas­es. The kind of mes­sag­ing and approach you use in your con­tent will dif­fer for each.

Ide­al­ly, you will be cre­at­ing con­tent that res­onates with your clients’ audi­ence every step of the way

Discovery Phase

Oth­er­wise known as the “infor­ma­tion gath­er­ing” phase, poten­tial cus­tomers in this phase are notic­ing what is grab­bing their atten­tion and are active­ly look­ing for more information.

This can be an oppor­tu­ni­ty to cre­ate inter­est­ing, thought-pro­vok­ing, or emo­tion­al content.

This con­tent should meet the user’s intent and make them take notice.

For exam­ple, if your client prac­tices fam­i­ly law, you may want to cre­ate con­tent like, “3 Ways to Tell that Your Part­ner is Con­sid­er­ing a Divorce”, or “To Adopt or Not to Adopt: 3 Fam­i­lies Share Their Stories”.

These exam­ples are eye-catch­ing, niche-relat­ed but don’t over­whelm the read­er with information.

In oth­er words, it lets them know that you under­stand their strug­gles and can speak their language.

Then, this con­tent can be cir­cu­lat­ed in ads, on social media, or in forums online to get it in front of the right people.

Nurture Phase

Peo­ple in the Nur­ture phase are those that have already inter­act­ed with your client’s brand in some way, but may not be ready to buy.

Per­haps it’s not the right time, the bud­get isn’t there, or they need more information.

This reveals more oppor­tu­ni­ties for engagement.

This is a good time to con­duct mar­ket research to fig­ure out what your client’s audi­ence strug­gles with most and what are the decid­ing fac­tors in them choos­ing to buy.

Often times, you will have access to these peo­ple via an email list or lead gen­er­a­tion tool. You may choose to run a remar­ket­ing ad or an email campaign.

Cre­ate con­tent that nur­tures their feel­ings of relata­bil­i­ty with the brand.

Address their fears around cost, trust­wor­thi­ness, exper­tise, etc., in con­tent that meets them where they are at.

Purchase Phase

Your leads are just about ready to buy, so how do you get them there?

It may take a bit of coaxing.

This is often where mar­keters lay on the charm – and by charm, I mean sales tactics.

In actu­al­i­ty, you should be pro­vid­ing more in-depth infor­ma­tion that is pri­mar­i­ly brand neu­tral. Tes­ti­mo­ni­als, case stud­ies and the like can be that added push to make peo­ple feel that your client’s brand is the best fit for them.

You may want to cir­cu­late con­tent that dif­fer­en­ti­ates your client from their com­peti­tors. You can do this through strate­gic guest post­ing on:

• Well-posi­tioned blog posts on oth­er sites.
• Face­book groups.
• Forums.
• Oth­er places where poten­tial clients may be inter­act­ing with the brand.

It’s also impor­tant that your client is avail­able for receiv­ing ques­tions at this time. Pro­vid­ing the appro­pri­ate con­tact infor­ma­tion can make a huge dif­fer­ence. Cus­tomer ser­vice matters!

Retention Phase

So your legal client has closed a new client – now what?

In the legal field, it may seem like once a lawyer/client rela­tion­ship ends, it’s all over. How­ev­er, there’s always a chance that this client may need help with legal issues in the future – or could refer a friend or rel­a­tive their way.

Ide­al­ly, these con­tacts should be avail­able via an email list or CMS for fol­low-up con­tact. That way, you can send con­tent that main­tains brand aware­ness and loyalty.

One option is to send an email once the engage­ment has ended.

This can be to thank them for their busi­ness, ask for a review and prompt them to fol­low your client on social media. Then, you can run a con­tin­u­ous email cam­paign of legal tips, events, pro­mo­tions and more.

2. Create Timely, ‘Human’ Content

We’ve all seen the #trend­ing and “click­bait” arti­cles on social media.

As annoy­ing as they may seem, there is a les­son to be learned that can be applied to con­tent marketing.

Users like con­tent that is engag­ing, inspires emo­tion, is con­tro­ver­sial or oth­er­wise dri­ves some kind of feel­ing or reaction.

Staying on Top of the Trends

The best way to get con­tent in front of the right eyes is by cre­at­ing con­tent that is time­ly and human.

Is there a cur­rent event that’s mak­ing its rounds on social media? Offer a lawyer’s per­spec­tive of the issue.

Celebri­ties going through a divorce? Out­line the top 10 ben­e­fits of hav­ing a “prenup”.

By cre­at­ing con­tent that’s time­ly or up with cur­rent trends, you can be more con­fi­dent about fast cir­cu­la­tion and shareability.

Con­tent that has a human ele­ment will ensure that it will res­onate with the audi­ence and inspire them to engage.

The right piece of con­tent will get them to click, think, share and give your client a call.

3. Sharing Applied vs. Passive Knowledge

The way users engage with con­tent is con­stant­ly changing.

More and more, peo­ple are look­ing to con­tent that enter­tains them, gets them think­ing, or makes them feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

The legal niche is espe­cial­ly guilty of cre­at­ing Pas­sive con­tent that informs their audi­ence about a top­ic. While this can be good for SEO, it’s not par­tic­u­lar­ly good for conversions.

Cre­at­ing con­tent based on Applied knowl­edge is dif­fer­ent. It:

• Inspires.
• Instructs.
• Under­stands.
• Helps.

For instance, a blog post titled “3 Things that Hap­pen When You Get a DUI” serves to inform.

How­ev­er, a bet­ter piece of con­tent for inspir­ing users to con­vert may be, “Got a DUI? Here’s What You Need to Know”.

This con­tent may out­line what the user now has to do to work through hav­ing a DUI, hir­ing an attor­ney, and even over­com­ing the embar­rass­ment of being hit with a DUI.

The Power is in Their Hands

This kind of con­tent is great for hon­ing in on a par­tic­u­lar audi­ence, rather than sim­ply meet­ing the search queries of those look­ing for more infor­ma­tion about DUIs.

There is also poten­tial to incor­po­rate inter­est­ing tools, charts, and info­graph­ics to increase engagement.

What’s impor­tant here is to not hit the audi­ence over the head with information.

Offer­ing applic­a­ble knowl­edge gives them auton­o­my and puts the free­dom of choice in their hands. They will trust you as the expert because you are offer­ing valu­able infor­ma­tion, but won’t feel pres­sured by a hard sell.