7 Essential Digital Marketing Actions for Law Firms

If you have a website or a LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter profile, you’re engaged in digital marketing. It’s a good start but you’ll need to do more to establish yourself and your firm as trusted experts in your field to drive leads and get more business. We’ve compiled a list of essential actions you need to take for an effective and productive digital marketing effort.

1. Start with a solid strategy

You need a plan or else you’re just spinning your wheels. How do you know the pain points of your clients and prospects? What are they looking for? What can you provide to help them? How will they find you? How much are you willing to spend? How do you know what’s working and what’s not?

The questions are endless and you don’t want to be answering them half-way through your digital marketing efforts after spending lots of time and resources. A law firm digital strategy is the roadmap for what you want to accomplish and all the ways you’ll get there.

See: Law Firm Digital Marketing Strategy

2. Content fuels your efforts

Content is the center of your digital marketing strategy. But content is a broad concept. It can include your website, blog, e-book, newsletter, infographic, and so on. This list can overwhelm. You’ll need to craft a content strategy starting with documenting your mission statement and identifying buyer personas. You’ll also need a COPE-ing strategy.

See: What is Law Firm Content Marketing?.

3. Social media verifies and amplifies your brand

You need social proof. When someone discovers you though a speaking engagement or your website or blog post, they immediately head over to social channels to find out more about you. Social media is today’s word-of-mouth. With it, your firm gets vetted, gets its message to more people, lets you engage with your target clients, and generates new leads and opportunities.

See: A Social Media Strategy Checklist for Law Firms

4. SEO gets you found

“If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” I’ll leave that to the philosophers. But when it comes to content, you needs people around to make an impact. You do that by optimizing for search so when someone enters a query into Google about the problem they’re trying to solve, you show up. SEO (search engine optimization) is a fundamental component of any digital marketing strategy. 

See: SEO for Lawyers and Legal Marketers

5. Email helps you convert

Email is an oldie but goodie. It let’s you stay top of mind with your audience, helping to convert prospects to clients. Email marketing has gotten sophisticated with the ability to segment your list based on behavior and demographic. Weekly newsletters and email campaigns can be finely targeted leading to a more useful experience for your readers and a better return on your investment. 

See: An Email Marketing Checklist for Law Firms

6. Advertising drives leads

All of the actions we’ve discussed so far takes a long view approach. It’s important to look at your digital marketing strategy and actions as a marathon and not a sprint.

That said, you can use the tools available, such as online advertising, for some quick wins. This include Google AdWords, Display Advertising, and paid social media that drive potential leads to a landing page on your site which you can then nurture into becoming a client.

See: How to Structure Keywords for Lawyer Pay-Per-Click Advertising.

7. Analytics provides insight

Now that you’ve got a digital strategy and action plan in place and everything is humming along, you need to know what’s working and what’s not, to inform your ongoing efforts for more effective results.

See: Law Firm Analytics: Measuring Your Digital Marketing Efforts.