Earlier this year I read an interesting report from the US-based Legal Marketing Association (in conjunction with Bloomberg Law), which cited the top three most effective activities for law firms to develop new business as:
- Firm-hosted events;
- Client meetings; and
- Networking.
These are all great areas to focus on, however, a lot of firms I speak to tend to want something more from their legal marketing. If only marketing could deliver leads for their lawyers to follow up on they often say to me.
In this article we will look at some of the recent developments in legal marketing to see how this might be achieved.
Strategy Before Tactics
At Enlighten IC we are big believers in strategy before tactics. Answer some tough questions such as who your firm actually is, what you want to achieve and the sort of clients you want to do business with before getting stuck into the nitty-gritty. No matter whether you are involved in traditional or new marketing initiatives, get your strategy locked down first!
A Brave New World
With our legal clients we find the steps below to be the most effective for generating leads and ultimately winning new clients for their firm.
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Optimise Your Website so that it appeals to your target audience rather than present a static online brochure telling the world how wonderful your firm is. Why not read our free guide on how to do this and start generating new leads from your law firm website?
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Add Relevant Content that your audience wants to read including regular blogs on relevant topics they are interested in. Develop premium content such as ebooks or whitepapers with more detail on the particular area of law they are interested in.
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Create A Conversion Path by adding several “Calls to Action” throughout your website taking visitors to specific landing pages where they can supply their details in order to download your premium content (or perhaps book an appointment!). This is the point when that stranger on your website turns into a lead for future follow up!
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Introduce A CRM (or Better Still A Marketing Automation Platform with an in-built CRM) to record valuable intel such as the pages your lead has visited and the actions they have performed. This will also be a great place to record your various interactions with this person on their journey towards becoming your client.
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Stimulate New Traffic To Your Website so that more prospects will see your content and therefore have the opportunity to become leads and ultimately new clients for your firm. The main ways to do this include using SEO, Social Media, Email, Paid Social, Google Adwords and even the traditional, real-world initiatives listed at the start of this article to increase traffic to your website.
The good news is that in our experience this process works and could be the missing link your legal marketing needs in order to bring in more clients for your firm. Stop thinking about one off activities such as “let’s do more social media” or "let’s write a blog". Real success lies in the fact that the sum of the parts is greater than the whole. Map out your firm’s strategy and develop a comprehensive programme of activity along the lines mentioned above.
We fully appreciate that this all takes a lot of time. It also takes several skills and expertise not always found inside a law firm. The good news is that a lot of these marketing activities can be outsourced to external agencies who will be much better resourced and skilled at delivering the results you are looking for. Why not look conduct a gap analysis to see where your marketing strategy might need support?
If you would like to find our more about our approach to generating new business for law firms, check out our “Definitive Guide To Legal Marketing” for useful hints and tips regarding law firm growth. Alternatively why not drop us a line to schedule a call. We would love to hear from you.