7 Timeless Digital Marketing Strategies That Work for Law Firms

In the year 2023, digital marketing is crucial. The challenge is it can feel complicated and overwhelming. Even the biggest believers in digital methods may pause before diving in. That being said, there are a few classic online marketing strategies that business leaders should embrace. These timeless digital marketing strategies are not going anywhere – and they can generate a big boost to your bottom line if you put some effort into the tactics. 

Content Marketing

You’ve heard us say repeatedly “Content is king” and that’s for good reason. Almost everything you view online is some sort of content. Many other strategies cannot be effective without first focusing on content. Great content not only educates your potential client and keeps your firm top of mind, but it provides an opportunity to demonstrate thought leadership which is essential for differentiating. 

Blogging – Maintaining a blog is necessary to position your firm and firm leaders as thought leaders and keeping your firm top of mind. 

“Linkbait” creation – Any form of content works, but the ultimate goal is to attract backlinks. Inbound links will improve search rankings and drive more traffic to your site. 

Guest posting – Publishing content on another website can drive referral traffic to your site and also help you build relationships and create brand exposure. 

Video – Creating impactful videos and promoting them on various platforms positions your firm as a thought leader, improves your SEO and makes you more discoverable online. 

Webinars – Easy to create and versatile, webinars can range from a simple presentation to online courses. Be sure to explore how else to use the content in other marketing capacities. 

Podcasting – Whether you create your own podcast or are featured on someone else’s, podcasting is a great way to get your message out and gain exposure to new people. 

Email Marketing

Email is a direct channel between your firm and potential customers. It’s important to think of personalized, relevant email campaigns that won’t spam your database. 

Lead magnet – The first step in email marketing is gaining an email address. Offering something valuable – like a white paper or checklist – in exchange for contact info is a great way to build your database. 

Segmentation – To effectively market, you’ll need to target your audience based on what you know about them and their actions. Segment your list and emails based on topics that contacts have demonstrated an interest in. 

A/B Testing – Split testing involves testing different conversion elements to see what your audience best responds to. 

Automation – This is a tactic that can help firms better target and also save a lot of time. A marketing automation system can place individuals on lists based on different actions they take, and then automatically market them to that list in a targeted manner. 

Search Engine Optimization

If you want organic traffic, you have to pay attention to SEO. It can seem complicated, but smart marketers make time to understand the basics or work with a partner who can do it for them. 

Keyword research – Find out what people are searching for so that you can create more compelling content. 

On-page SEO – This is the practice of optimizing the content and elements on a webpage for better ranking. 

Off-page SEO –  These are the actions you take to improve SEO that aren’t directly related to your website.

Technical SEO – These are the non-content related techniques that make it easier for search engines to crawl and index your website. 

Conversion Rate Optimization

The whole point of marketing is to get conversions. There is a whole science behind CRO – the practice of increasing the percentage of users who complete an action on your website in order to generate more leads. This is typically done by improving copy and user experience to drive the actions you want. Copywriting delivers the message and design elements (UI/UX) make it easy for the visitor to accomplish their goals and convert.

Headline optimization – Improving your headline is one of the quickest ways to ramp up conversion across advertising, email, organic search – or really anything else. Check out our post on optimizing headlines for CRO. 

Calls-to-action – A simple yet effective CTA is one of the best ways to drive conversions. Test different placement, verbiage, etc. to make the most of this element. 

Landing Page Optimization – Landing pages are created with the purpose of prompting visitors to engage in a specific action. It’s essential to optimize them to ensure that users can effortlessly navigate and complete the desired action.

Social proof – Testaments to your firm such as testimonials, case studies, and reviews demonstrate your firm’s credibility. 

A/B testing for UX elements – Answer the questions about what works best on your site by testing various components. 

Social Media

A key tool for communicating with your audience, social is an ever-evolving landscape. Understanding the latest and greatest methods for promoting your firm on social is an important part of modern marketing. In order to grow your audience, you need to gain more followers and also have people share your content. 

Choose the right channel – Not every platform works for every purpose. LinkedIn is known as the most effective B2B channel, but you should understand how your audience interacts with all the social media channels. 

Social listening – Social can help you to manage your online reputation. Make sure you are keeping a pulse on what is being said about your firm on social media. 

Understand your target audience – Take a close look at the lifestyle, personality, needs, and challenges of the people who follow you. It is important to create content that resonates with your audience. This leads to higher engagement rates, as people are more likely to like, comment, share, or click on content that speaks to their interests and needs.

Paid Advertising

Paid advertising is where you pay a third-party – such as Facebook or Google Adwords – to advertise on the ad space they own. These are great options because it can generate interest in your firm right away. 

Google Adwords – An extremely powerful platform, this pay-per-click approach only charges you when someone clicks on your advertisement. 

Facebook Advertising – Effective and inexpensive, Facebook has some great targeting capabilities and generally performs well.

LinkedIn – LinkedIn tends to generate the most leads for the legal industry. It has phenomenal targeting across sectors like interest, job title, job function, and geography. 

Programmatic advertising – This option allows marketers to be more strategic about how they spend their advertising budgets. Programmatic advertising serves ads to relevant audiences based on data like demographics, geography, online search behaviors and device usage. It’s an automated buying process except that it’s done in milliseconds instead of hours or days. 

Retargeting – Retargeting is a form of targeted advertising based on their previous Internet actions. It helps your firm stay top of mind with prospective clients who previously interacted with your site. 

Influencer Marketing

The legal industry depends heavily on word-of-mouth, and influencer marketing is a form of that in today’s digital world. People are more likely to buy from those they trust or look up to. Your audience will look to industry leaders to see who they recommend or follow. Consider boosting your credibility by working with influencers in your sector. 

Takeaway:

This list is certainly not comprehensive but should give you a general overview of some of the strategies that have been impactful in recent years. It’s important to remember that online marketing is constantly evolving. If you need assistance building out a strategy to take advantage of the data at your fingertips, contact us today.

This post has been edited and repurposed from Nov. 22, 2021.