Digital Marketing for Lawyers – Hows And Whys?

Digital marketing is an important topic for law firms. A recent study shows that most potential clients start searching for an attorney online instead of offline. Law Firms lose around 30% of their potential customers if they do not have a solid digital marketing strategy in place.

But how can you build a digital marketing strategy that helps your law firm grow massively and get clients? And how can you ensure that you’re getting the best ROI for your law firm’s marketing bucks? We will answer all those crucial questions in this article.

One of the most pricey mistakes attorneys make is treating their firm as a law practice and not as a business. An essential aspect of any business is to have a solid marketing strategy. 

Branding and online exposure are the only differences between top-earning attorneys and median range attorneys. It is not because the latter have invested less money in their education or put less effort into their careers.

A high-quality law firm’s marketing plan is the key to increasing attorney income. Hiring an attorney marketing agency like Oamii can help you with the strategy based on your law firm’s business objectives. 

Answering the following questions will help you get started with a digital marketing strategy for your law firm. You can do this on your own with your in-house marketing team or with the help of an attorney marketing agency.

1. What are Your Business Objectives?

Most law firms’ primary objective is to get more clients and higher revenue. That’s very basic and is not enough to craft a marketing strategy. Instead, have a more concrete goal like increasing revenue by 150% in the next 12 months. 

Setting up your goals with the help of a marketing agency helps to know the crucial factors you should ask about. They could help you predict whether you can achieve that goal or not based on your existing resources.

2. Who is your target audience?

Understanding your law firm’s target audience is crucial before crafting a marketing plan. Not all law firms have the same target audience.

It’s easy to get caught up in measuring the wrong numbers and chasing behind the wrong people with so much going on in the digital marketing space. We tend to oversimplify things and go along with the general idea that numbers going down are wrong, and numbers going up is good. Therefore, understanding your audience and KPIs is crucial for law firms to reach the people you want as clients.

When it comes to finding your online audience, many marketers think bigger is better, regardless of whether or not they are getting the results they’re after. But the reality is that the size of the audience matters less than the strategies you’re using to reach out to them.

3. How do you want your ideal clients to find you?

An expert online marketer will ensure that your ideal client runs behind you instead of you running behind your client. Virtually all of your potential clients will look at your website before contacting you. A legal website’s marketing strategy should include specially tailored content to attract potential clients.

Identify the list of marketing channels to focus on. Find out the online channels where your target audience hangs out the most. While traditional marketing for lawyers still works to a limited extent, we recommend investing most of your budget and efforts in inbound marketing. It is more effective and makes it easy for you to see the specific results from your investment.

If you practice law where you serve consumers directly, like criminal defense or estate law, make sure you put Google and YouTube on that list of marketing channels. This is where most of your prospects find answers to their questions and choose a lawyer to work with.

4. How to craft a marketing message to your ideal clients?

The right marketing strategy for your law firm also depends on your content and expertise. Now that you know your audience and define who you will attract them, you should focus on crafting your message. The best way to go about it is by answering the questions you often asked by prospective clients.

5. What is your law firm’s marketing budget?

Budgeting for marketing can be difficult for law firms as there is no clear guidance most of the time. Here is what’s essential for you to know before you decide on a marketing budget:

Cheap marketing is always expensive. It may be tempting to hire a cheap marketing agency, but not only will you waste money, but you’ll also lose opportunities.

That’s right, your competitors, who have hired proficient marketing companies, will attract and get the clients you want. And, considering the compound effect of having this happen month after month, this can be incredibly expensive.

On the other hand, a top digital marketing company for lawyers may seem expensive to you. Still, it usually comes out free because it generates a strong return on investment.

6. What Needs to Be Done 

Planning is a great thing, but plans must be executed to achieve results. Go through all the questions we’ve discussed and write down what you need to do and in what order you need to do it to start seeing results.

For example, you probably need to schedule a meeting with your partners to decide your specific goals and a budget. You may also have to do some brainstorming to understand who your ideal clients are, write down what legal problems keep them awake at night, and then answer those questions.