Lawyer Marketing Ideas That Will Make The Difference in 2021
Lawyers play so many important roles in our society, it is easy to forget that they are not supermen or superwomen. Their specialized skills set them apart — but marketing is a skill set all on its own, one that law school does not cover.
Small practices, mid-sized firms, even huge legal enterprises often stumble in their marketing efforts, throwing large sums of money at outdated or half-baked marketing schemes that produce lackluster results.
The digital revolution has changed everything about marketing. Attorneys stand to benefit from that revolution just as much as, if not more so than, any other business. Today’s law firm deserves the benefit of today’s marketing techniques—the things that are working right now to build brand awareness for law firms of all sizes.
Here are fifteen lawyer marketing ideas that will make the difference in 2021.
Lawyer Marketing Idea 1: Create local landing pages for your core services
Most law firms, like most companies, use an outdated approach to the “services” pages on their website. They are cursory inclusions to the site index that provide bullet-point content, maybe a few links.
However, the specific services you offer are actually the things potential clients are looking for. They aren’t searching for “Smith, Smith, and Partners”—they are searching for “Best Real Estate Contract Lawyer in Albuquerque.”
To treat your “core service” pages as throwaway pages is to miss out on a huge opportunity. The service page may be the first page within your site a potential client finds. It may be the only page in your site index the potential client sees. It needs to make an impression, and it needs to convert in its own right.
What does it take to make a service page convert? Treat it like a landing page, with salesmanship, urgency, and a call-to-action.
“Call our office now.” “Fill out this form and an associate will contact you.” “Click here to book a consult.” Whatever works best for your firm—those are all great calls to action.
Don’t scrimp on the content either. Try to include everything your user might want to know about the core service on the page, in a logical and digestible fashion, without too much legalese, no big intimidating paragraphs.
These “service landing pages” also need to pitch you and your firm, in terms of expertise and experience with that core service. This may feel redundant—this information is on your “about us” page, after all. But remember that the client may not ever see your “about us” page! The point is to collect them as a lead while they are still on that page, since it may be the only chance you get.
Lengthy service pages also have the advantage of boosting your SEO, stocking your site index with voluminous, keyword-rich content.
Lawyer Marketing Idea 2: Configure a chatbot on your website
Chatbots may seem simple enough, but they are actually a form of Artificial Intelligence (AI). A chatbot resembles chat support, but instead of a human being sitting on your side of the chat, a computer algorithm attempts to interpret the user’s input and guide them based on its assessment of their needs.
At their best, chatbots can direct users to resources that answer their questions, without consuming expensive hours of customer service labor. If even a modest percentage of chat inputs can be answered by AI, it saves a law firm significantly on human resources.
Of course, a frustrating chatbot can turn a user off from a law firm altogether. This kind of brand damage is the opposite of what we want to achieve with marketing. Chatbots should not act as impenetrable gatekeepers of employee time. If your potential clients need to reach you, it pays to be reachable.
Legal Practice Management Software And The Benefits Of Change
There are many reasons a midsize firm should consider adding practice management software to its legal tech stack. This kind of software can help you better manage firm financials, matter management, business development, and other capabilities. You can think of practice management software as a toolbox that keeps all of your digital tools in one place or a Swiss army knife that combines multiple functions in one handy unit.
While this may sound pretty good, you might also be less than eager to take it on. That’s because it would require changing how your firm operates. Your firm has likely spent months and even years setting up and refining business processes so that you and your colleagues can focus on the big picture — your cases and your clients’ matters. And when you’re running a law firm, you have enough on your plate without having that plate completely upended.
It’s a reasonable concern. But the fact is, improving processes can also allow you to actually improve the way you work. But to do that, it requires everyone in the firm to do certain things a bit differently. A new white paper from Thomson Reuters, “How to get what you need (and what you want) out of legal practice management software,” goes in depth about practice management software and how it can help firms like yours save everyone time while also consistently producing high-quality work.
Let’s look at a couple of ways that incorporating legal practice management software into your firm’s technology mix could improve your processes. These are essential functions at every firm.
Accommodating client requests for e-billing
More and more clients are requesting e-billing because it establishes clear guidelines for how their legal representatives bill their work. Having that technology in place can give a firm an edge when competing for work from these kinds of clients.
If your firm wants to add e-billing or increase its use, it needs the legal billing software to integrate with your other digital tools (client management software, for instance). That’s something a well-designed practice management solution can help you do.
Streamlining legal document management
Document management can be one of a firm’s biggest headaches. Keeping up with current versions and making sure everyone’s changes are included so that the final document is completely correct is a huge challenge. And correct documents are crucial for a law practice.
That’s why many firms are opting for a legal practice management solution that handles all of their documents and client matters. These firms are integrating document management into the larger practice management platform to guarantee clean and accurate final documents. That way everyone involved can retrieve a document via either platform (document management and practice management) to make edits. The changes made are synced on both platforms, which eliminates the need to maintain multiple versions.
What might all this mean for you and your firm? Simply this: Being open to tech-driving improvements in your processes, despite the changes they require, can go a long way toward realizing legal technology’s — and your firm’s — full potential.
You can learn more about practice management software and how it could help your firm achieve more by downloading the new white paper from Thomson Reuters.
Law Domains – New Domain Extensions Offer New Opportunities
You may have noticed there are a number of new ‘domain name extensions’ specifically designed to help lawyers and law firms market themselves better.
These new domains for lawyers and attorneys include .lawyer, .law and .attorney. There are several pros to these kinds of legal domain names. While these domain extensions offer an alternative to the traditional .com, .net, .tv etc.,they have their own idiosyncrasies.
The first of the law domain names to emerge was .law. The Minds + Machines company was originally the only company that had the legal right to sell this domain name. Now the names are available at many registrars from Go Daddy to Name.com.
Originally those interested in the name had to submit an expression of interest and a verification process with names starting at between $200 to $500. Those were the good old days.
Now these names have had time on the open market and are appreciating tremendously as more lawyers see the value. There are many factors impacting the value of these extensions. These factors include the type of law practice and number of characters. One word and two word domains are of course worth more typically as are specific generic categories of the law.
Of course, if more than one person may want to register a specific domain name with the .law extension, an auction will be held after the date the extension is generally available.
Lawyers can show interest in a domain extension of .law, .lawyer, etc. for themselves, a company they work with, or even a law firm. The reason for the verification process is so that the good URLs with these new domain names go to people who will really use it. Savvy applicants bought up the best ones with .com, and they’re trying to avoid this issue with the new domain extensions.
Furthermore, these new domain names are intended to guide clients to professional law practices. For example, if an attorney registers the domain “austindui.attorney”, clients already see that if they live in Austin, TX and need a DUI attorney, this is a good site to go to. Problem solved. The .law, .lawyer, and .attorney domain extensions can also save a company hassle.
This will save a company hassle from having to deal with actors, phony websites that are going to attempt to scam or fraud clients. These new extensions are harder to get and therefore will go to the ones who need them.
In all, the new domain names are a game changer for lawyers, attorneys, and law firms all over the world – especially since they are available in many languages.
Legal Industry Digital Marketing Blog | 5 Star Lawyer
The Fundamentals of Legal Industry Digital Marketing
Lawyers learn a lot in law school – civil procedure, contracts, torts, constitutional law. But once we’re on the other side of training and look to begin our own practices, the gap in our understanding relating to marketing is immediately apparent.
That’s why the team of legal marketing experts here at 5 Star Lawyer have created a ‘Fundamentals of Legal Industry Digital Marketing Blog’– to help you and your practice stand out from the pack and find a greater client base.
The first post will dive into understanding web analytics, specifically Google Analytics – what the metrics mean, how to make sense of site performance, marketing channels and more.
From there, we’ll take a deep dive into the most common marketing channels from social, paid search and programmatic all the way to connected television and OTT. We’ll also take a look at emerging trends in marketing, case studies and a focus on how new technologies can be leveraged to better position your practice for success.
While tackling all aspects of digital marketing at once can feel a bit like drinking from a firehose, we’re here to make the process a little simpler. With our guidance, you’ll be able to determine which media mix is right for you and to craft a marketing plan that fits your needs and drives more value for you and your partners.