Law firm marketing is one of the most important things a law firm can do. It takes a lot of time, energy, and money to market your practice, but it’s worth it if you want to attract new business. In order to do this, you should have systems in place that measure the effectiveness of every marketing channel you use.
For example, did something like an ad on Facebook generate any leads? What was the conversion rate on those leads? How much revenue did they generate? By having these kinds of metrics in place before you execute any campaign or program, you’ll be able to evaluate what works best for your business model and budget constraints so that you can double down on those efforts—and ignore others that aren’t producing results fast enough for ROI purposes.
Define Your Law Firm’s USP and Niche
The first step is to define your law firm’s USP, or ‘unique selling proposition’. Your USP is a way to differentiate your firm from others and should be easy to remember, short and memorable, clear, concise, and relevant to your target audience.
Think about what makes your firm different from other companies in the same industry. What can you offer that no one else does? You should then focus on this with your marketing.
Provide Value To Clients, Prospects, and Referral Sources
To start with, law firms are in the business of providing value. Without a positive client experience, you have no business. If clients do not value your services, then why would they continue to work with you?
So what does this mean for you and your business? By focusing on the client experience as a way to drive referrals, you can build up a strong word-of mouth reputation within your niche.
Develop and Engage in a Retention Strategy
Customer retention is not just more important than customer acquisition, it’s also the key to your law firm’s success. This is because you can have all the clients in the world, but if you don’t keep them happy and engaged, then your business will fail.
This means listening to what they want and then giving it to them. When a client comes looking for legal services, he’s likely in a difficult situation that could be made worse if he doesn’t get help right away. Your job as an attorney is not simply to provide him with solutions but also to provide value through friendly customer service and an enjoyable experience while doing so (think coffee shop instead of courtroom). The happier clients feel after meeting with you or working together on a case, the more likely they are to recommend you in future situations where their friends or family members need legal help too.
Have Systems in Place to Track Results Across All Marketing Channels
One of the keys to successful law firm marketing is tracking how your efforts are working. This is a lot easier than it sounds, and can be accomplished with a few simple steps:
Identify what you want to track: Are you focused on overall traffic or leads? Is it more important for you to see how much time people spend on your site? Do you need data on social shares and referrals? Knowing exactly what metrics mean by success for your business will help keep your efforts relevant and focused.
Find out which sources are producing the best results: Do this so that you can focus on these results in the future. For example, if one of your marketing channels has been receiving significantly higher than average traffic, then continue using that channel while expanding into other areas (such as LinkedIn) based on what’s working well right now.
Set up systems that automatically track these metrics for each channel: Once you do this there will be less work involved down the line when analyzing success versus failure at any given point during an ongoing campaign. This will save time as well as money over time because there won’t be any guesswork involved in determining whether or not something worked.
Conclusion
Now that you know the four key components of successful law firm marketing, you should feel more empowered to put these strategies into action. If your marketing plan has stalled or isn’t working, try re-evaluating it and looking at what pieces could be improved. Don’t forget that social media is an important part of any law firm’s marketing strategy; however, don’t let it take over all other types of online content creation. Also, remember that traditional methods such as direct mail can still be effective if done well—meaning they should have a clear call-to-action and not just be another piece of clutter for potential clients.