Increasing lead generation can pose a challenge to many personal injury law firms in an industry heavily saturated with competition. While there are many different ways to set your firm apart, building a strong digital marketing strategy is one of the most important.
Even if your firm has a stellar reputation, that doesn’t guarantee that potential clients will be able to find you. Establishing the building blocks for a solid digital marketing strategy sets your firm on a strong foundation to drive leads and brand awareness.
Below are some of the key components of creating a successful online legal marketing strategy and rising above the competition.
Know your audience & your goals
One of the perks of digital marketing is that you can target specific clientele. Before you start dipping your toe into the world of digital marketing, it’s important to know who you are marketing to. When you have that key piece established, your law firm can focus on catering your marketing strategy to that audience so the type of marketing you experiment with is intentional and effective.
The next step you’ll want to take before launching a digital marketing campaign is to determine what your goals are. Simple, but crucial. While every firm has a goal of driving more leads, it’s important to be specific and direct. For example, “We will increase leads by X amount by Y date.” Some legal practice management solutions have built-in reporting features that make tracking your firm’s goals and KPI’s easy. Specifying your goals early on will give your firm the guidance to set up a realistic timeline for your marketing campaign and how much you will need to invest.
That brings us to another point - determining how much money your firm is willing to invest in its digital marketing efforts. While there are both paid and organic forms of marketing, the most successful law firms experiment with both. Set up a digital marketing budget for your firm so you can determine what areas make the most sense for your firm to invest in.
Explore different digital marketing channels
With so many different marketing avenues to choose from, it can be overwhelming to figure out where to start. Just because something works for one law firm, doesn’t necessarily mean it will work for you and your audience. That’s why it’s important to know who you are marketing to and what platforms resonate the most with your audience.
Here are a few good areas to experiment with:
Social media marketing
Because there’s no one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to social media marketing, it’s important to build a brand presence on a variety of platforms to expand your reach. While Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn are the names we hear most often, some lawyers are even trying their hand at TikTok, and seeing tremendous success. The world of social media marketing is ever evolving and growing, so keeping an eye on current trends and the platforms your audience interacts with the most is likely to work in your favor.
While both paid and organic social media efforts are great for increasing brand awareness, most successful law firms use a combination of the two. Organic social media marketing is typically better used for building and strengthening relationships with existing clients, while paid social media marketing improves your ability to reach more leads within a specific target audience.
When marketing on social media, another key focal point is the kind of content you are producing and how you are boosting engagement. With seemingly everyone on social media these days, it’s important to create content that is interesting, eye-catching, and provides a call to action to drive leads. For example, video posts on LinkedIn are proven to earn three times more engagement on average than text posts. Incorporating human elements into videos also gives you an opportunity to connect with your audience.
Email marketing
Did you know email marketing has an ROI of 4,400%? That makes it the highest of all online marketing strategies. By regularly launching email campaigns to those on your prospective client list, you have the opportunity to target contacts already in your network and nurture leads into clients.
Whether it be newsletters, sharing blog posts, highlighting previous client reviews, or providing industry-related news, your email content should provide some type of value to provoke action in your prospects. If the content you deliver isn’t relevant or valuable to your audience, you aren’t likely to see the results you want. With that said, always consider including a call to action in your emails to drive leads in the right direction.
Paid online lawyer directories
Arguably one of the most important tactics for driving leads is making it easy for prospective clients to find you. Being listed on an online lawyer directory for personal injury law like FindLaw or Avvo is a fantastic way to increase your firm’s visibility, improve your reputability, and rank higher in online search results.
Many prospective clients resort to online directories to find credible, successful lawyers in their area who can best advocate for them and serve their needs. Not to mention, it’s a great place to display positive online reviews for prospects to see too.
Maintain a carefully curated and updated website
Your website is your firm’s canvas to paint a picture of who your firm is, your values, mission, and what you have to offer. One of the biggest mistakes you can make is neglecting your website by not keeping it regularly updated and easy to navigate. When potential clients are looking for an attorney to represent them, online is often the first place they will go to research. That means that your website should clearly state who you are, what you do, and include a contact form to reach you.
Other things to consider including on your website are:
SEO Keywords
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of including specific keywords on your website to rank higher in search engine results pages. Targeting the right keywords on your website can drive lead generation significantly by putting your firm’s name in front of prospects searching for answers to specific questions online. Google Analytics is a great tool for determining what keywords those prospects are searching for and where you can incorporate them on your website.
Client Testimonials
One of the best and easiest ways to establish your firm’s credibility is by displaying client testimonials and reviews on your website. Prospective clients want to be confident that they are in good hands and can trust you to have their best interests at heart. Including positive client feedback on your website improves your firm’s legitimacy and puts you in a stronger position to turn leads into clients.
FAQ Section
When browsing any website, readers want to reach whatever their goal is as quickly and as easily as possible. Including an FAQ page on your site is an easy and efficient way to answer any questions that often come up during consultations and save yourself time later on during the intake process.
Photos/Videos of Your Team
Including photos (and better yet, videos) of your staff brings in a human element and gives prospective clients the opportunity to feel connected to you. Even if they never meet you in person, clients want to have a personal connection with their attorney.
Blog
Maintaining a blog is a great way to promote community events you’ll be participating in, discuss important topics in the legal space to demonstrate your expertise, and even create networking opportunities. Blogs are also an easy way to incorporate SEO keywords to drive more traffic to your website.
Measure your efforts
If you don’t have a way to collect actionable data to drive your decisions, your efforts to generate more leads are unlikely to produce sustainable results.
Legal case management software like CASEpeer helps personal injury firms capture and interpret data in meaningful ways. Our Source Performance Report, for example, allows you to track marketing referrals, lead sources, conversion and retention rates, and marketing costs so you can prioritize resources to maximize ROI.
Taking advantage of legal software makes it easy to track your marketing goals by keeping all of your data in one place and providing valuable insights to help you make better business decisions.
At the end of the day, there is a surplus of different marketing tactics to choose from, and it’s up to your firm to take the initiative of experimenting with various strategies to determine what works best for you. We hope that these steps will give you a solid foundation to build your digital marketing strategy and drive more leads for years to come.