No business owner wants to waste money or time on marketing efforts that don’t achieve the goal: attracting new customers. Lawyers, who must focus on assisting their current clients while also looking down the road for the next case, have little time to learn the nuances of marketing trends. If you want to increase your case load but aren’t sure where to start, here are some helpful tips that can get you on the path to better marketing.
Current Trends
The methods small businesses use to market their companies change all the time. It seems with each innovation in technology, a new advertising opportunity is born. There are a few resources that currently are the focus for many law firms, and you’ll do well to understand and use their services:
- Analytics: These are the statistics that can be gleaned from your law firm’s website. If you know what to look for, you can drill down on demographics about your site visitors and really target your messaging in response. For example, if your site analytics indicate that women between the ages of 30 and 55 are the most common demographic reading your blog, you can tailor your writing to address that group.
- Social media: It is no secret that many companies use these popular platforms to boost their name recognition and send people to their websites. But the perhaps the most useful aspect of social media is the ability to interact with potential customers in a fast and direct manner. If other followers see that you are proactive and helpful, they are more likely to seek your services.
- Multichannel marketing: No one advertising method is going to reach all your ideal clients. You must use all the tools at your disposal. Again, your analytics can help you learn who is looking at your site and what the best channel is to reach them. Consider using television ads, printed materials, SEO efforts and radio spots to get your message across.
Here is an additional resource for law firm marketing in 2016.
Hiring Help
In the end, you might decide that marketing your law firm is a task best left to the professionals. If you hire an advertising firm, be sure that the staff is well versed in all the important strategies mentioned above. If they don’t do media buys or they underestimate the importance of social media, it is not the right advertising partner for you. Here are some other traits to look for in an agency:
- Do they have methods for measuring results? If you can’t see any return on your investment, how do you know if your efforts are working?
- Are they innovative? Because marketing channels change constantly, the agency must be able to pivot with new opportunities.
- Do they communicate clearly? If they can’t give you the information you need to make decisions, it is unlikely they will be effective in educating potential clients on your behalf.
- How do they work on deadline? You have a big community event coming up and the advertising campaign must be rolled out weeks in advance. Look for an agency that can meet or even exceed deadline restrictions.
- Is it a full-service shop? Your law firm needs a company that can help with customer development, media buys, direct mailing campaigns and many other services. The agency gets bonus points if bilingual messaging is available.
Being Diligent
No matter whether you tackle your law firm’s own marketing strategies or hire a professional agency to help, you must be diligent in monitoring the progress. If you don’t seem to be attracting new clients, it is time to tweak the process. It is OK if you decide that one effort has failed. Just discontinue that strategy and try a different one. Only by tracking results can you know if you are spending your time and money in the optimal way. Plus, you’ll be able to spot potential areas for growth that previously had been overlooked. The knowledge you gain from diligence could be what moves your law firm from good to great.