Marketing to new law clients in 2017

This the year you want to implement a powerful marketing strategy to get new legal clients.

The online market for law firms is getting more saturated as small and mid-size marketing firms are implementing online marketing strategies. How do you plan to set your law firm apart from the pack and get new law clients in 2017?

Let’s assess where you are now. You have an informative professional law firm website. You add new blog posts regularly. You even have an active presence on social media.

2017 will be a year filled with new marketing challenges. Just covering the basics (professional website, regular blog posts, social media) will not be enough.

The basics you have implemented are a great start and will lay the foundation (and be the tools) for the next steps we recommend to boost your law firm marketing this year.

Enhance existing blog posts

You already have an archive of informational blog posts that are bringing in search engine traffic regularly and boosting your authority on topics your clients care about.

But we have increasingly seen that search engines are rewarding posts with more thorough content. That’s why we are going to encourage you to go back into some of those older blog posts and add a few more paragraphs. Instead of adding new blog posts (making your content wider), deepen the information in your existing posts. The good news is that it is faster to build on what you already have.

While you are updating blog posts, you want to be sure that every page of content you have reminds your reader to take action.

Create a social media charity campaign

Charity campaigns are win-win situations. Your law firm will raise awareness for your favorite charity, your followers will have an opportunity to participate, and you will have the opportunity to support an organization you care about. Plus, it is easy to implement.

You set up a campaign to give to a local charity of your choosing. Pledge to give a certain amount of money (e.g. $1, $5, $10) for every “like” on your post in a given time period.

When mixed with the right formula of pre- and post-campaign promotion, your law firm can become the local hero. And since most of your potential clients will be checking social media before contacting you, goodwill earned from a charity campaign is a great way to get the relationship off on the right foot.

Begin a community outreach initiative

Similar to a social media charity campaign, your involvement in the community can help boost your business as a law firm.

When you serve in a community outreach initiative, not only are you building relationships within your community, but you are also solidifying your brand as an invested long-term community partner.

You also have the potential to garner some coveted high-quality backlinks from highly ranked organizations like Universities and nonprofits. Google considers these websites to be top level domains and links from these sites carry a lot of authority (which is great for your firm), meaning your search engine ranking will likely go up.

Include more visual content

The rise of visual search engines (like Pinterest) coupled with advanced website designs has created a high standard for visual websites. Readers expect to arrive to your website and quickly see the information they are looking for before they even begin to read a single sentence of your page.

Potential law clients are looking for large, bold headings full of the keywords they are searching for. They expect to see graphics and charts with easy to digest content. Visual aids, screenshots and photos will help break up your text and keep your potential clients interested in what you are saying.

And if you really want to captivate them, why not post a video conveying exactly what you want to say? Videography is being used in all areas of law firm practice. From trial videography to marketing.

And if you think video isn’t a big deal, consider the fact that YouTube processes more searches a month than Bing, Yahoo, Ask, and AOL combined.

Get more reviews

Period. Reviews need to be a priority for your law firm. When you search for a local business and the results come up, are you more likely to choose a business with a 4.8-starr rating and 122 reviews or the business at the bottom with a 5-star rating and 1 review? People trust online reviews.

But if you think people just give reviews out of the kindness of their hearts without any prompting, you are mistaken. After their trial is over, clients will go back to their every day lives, and unless you reach out to them, you will lose that review.

Do you have a complete Avvo profile? Have you incorporated review gathering into your client narrative? If you aren’t even sure where to start, we can help.

Hopefully, these ideas will get you thinking in the right direction if you are considering implementing a more strategic marketing plan for your law firm this year.