If you’re looking for ways to fuel growth for your law firm, digital marketing is the answer. But as with any topic of this magnitude, it’s easy to get lost in the details and end up with a generic strategy that misses the mark. The more you learn about digital marketing, the better you’ll get at identifying which strategies are effective and which ones aren’t worth the investment.
5 Digital Marketing Suggestions
Law firms need digital marketing to build a brand, engage prospective clients, and nurture leads. As you develop or refine your strategy, here are some helpful suggestions:
Simplify Your Website
Think of your website as your little slice of online real estate. While your law firm may have a presence in various other areas, your website is the only thing that you’re in complete control of. Thus, it needs to be highly reflective of your brand and what it stands for.
Far too many law firm websites are busy, convoluted, and downright overwhelming. If words like these describe your site, it’s time to simplify. Trim the fat and aim for a minimalistic website that’s true to your brand and easy on the eyes.
- Develop a Content Library
Content is currency in the digital marketing world. But odds are, you don’t have enough of it to set the rest of your marketing efforts into motion.
Create a content calendar and focus on developing at least two pieces of original content per week. That will give you more than 100 pieces of content each calendar year. Over time, this library of content will enhance your SEO efforts and increase your law firm’s exposure.
- Support Your Content
“Blogging shouldn’t be treated as an independent strategy. It’s an extremely helpful strategy, and can serve as the foundation of your overall online marketing campaign, but it needs support if it’s going to succeed,” writes Sam Edwards, Chief Marketing Officer of AudienceBloom.
Content should be supported with sound SEO principles, white hat link building strategies, and a commitment to thorough, consistent social media marketing. When all of these wheel spokes are working in tandem, positive things are bound to happen.
- Optimize Social Media
You most likely have social media profiles, but does your law firm have a social media presence? In other words, are they stale placeholders, or are they reflective of your law firm’s brand?
Now is the perfect time to optimize and/or revitalize your social media marketing strategy. Choose one or two platforms and really place emphasis on them. Quality is better than quantity.
- Generate Social Proof
You’re familiar with social proof, right? It’s defined as the “psychological phenomenon where people assume the actions of others in an attempt to reflect correct behavior for a given situation.”
Social proof is what happens when a bar keeps people in queue outside and people passing by think to themselves, “Wow! That bar must be really awesome.” It’s also what happens when someone reads an online review from a previous client and thinks, “That attorney sounds trustworthy. I’m going to give him a call.”
There are a variety of ways you can generate social proof for your law firm. They include: getting clients to write reviews, publishing case studies and testimonials on your website, sharing milestones and accomplishments on social media, and integrating the logos of awards and certifications into your web design. Try them all!
Marketing Your Way to the Top
There are numerous ways to grow a law firm. First and foremost, you need to refine your craft so that you’re providing high-quality services that help your clients and drive positive word of mouth. But digital marketing also plays a significant role in today’s online marketplace.
There’s ample room for creativity and innovation in digital marketing. So while you don’t want anyone else to tell you what to do, it is helpful to follow some of the various formulas and patterns that others are using to find success.
Before you do anything else, set one marketing goal for this week. It could be to publish a blog post, optimize your social media profiles, or refine your approach to SEO. Just pick something and do it. There’s power in progress – take a step!
