Tips on Adjusting Your Law Firm’s Content Marketing Strategy During COVID-19

Your law firm’s pre-pandemic content marketing strategy won’t work in this new world. Now, your firm’s content marketing should focus on exhibiting your integrity through genuine attempts to help your clients and future clients, otherwise you risk coming off as irrelevant or tone-deaf. Here are a few thoughts on how your law firm should adjust its content marketing strategy amidst the COVID-19 chaos.

Don’t go dark – start tweaking your strategy

It’s important not to hit pause and wait to ride this out. Though the way you work has probably changed, it’s important for your credibility that your clients and partners see you remaining active. So take a step back and look at what types of activities are appropriate for the moment. You do need to take current events into consideration and adjust your content plans. Think about the ways your clients and community are being affected, and what will help them right now. Ensure that they are crystal clear on your firm’s response and on anything employees are doing to support your local community.

Put your audience first with top-of-mind topics

Don’t come off as insensitive during this crisis. Rather than blogging about your latest webinar or sharing a new white paper that has nothing at all to do with current events, think about what your clients are going through. Focus on long-term brand building and ease up on any short-term campaigns that you were running. Anticipate how the virus and subsequent closures are affecting your clients, and then gear your communications toward addressing those issues. 

Education and support are most important

Right now, your law firm should focus on being a source of timely guidance on the legal and business implications of the pandemic. People are nervous for many different reasons, so how can you deliver information that puts their mind at ease and helps them with their challenges? Tailoring your content to the needs of today means ensuring information that you share is accurate, informative, helpful, or even entertaining to provide some relief. Consider creating trustworthy posts that provide updates, chart information, infographics, etc. See: How to Make Your Law Firm’s Content Stand Out When Everyone is Writing About the Same COVID-19 Topics.

Focus on being trustworthy and transparent

Communicating clearly and responsibly will build brand loyalty. As we mentioned in our past post, being honest about what is going on with your firm and how you are working right now will create trust with clients and prospects. As much as possible, obtain information from experts in the field (many times you can turn to firm leadership for this information). Cite credible sources, and be sure any information you present is reliable. Now is not the time to push your firm’s own agenda, but to share objective and helpful information that helps your readers. 

Create new content for Covid-19

Coronavirus and Covid-19 are among the most searched terms on the internet right now. It’s important to redirect your content strategy to provide pieces focused on these topics. To do so, consider the ways that your clients are impacted and create content offering guidance. You can also see what top publishers are doing and put your own spin on the legal aspect of the topics. For example, highly sought subjects are bound to be unemployment, the PPP and small business loans, insurance issues, tax deadlines, cybersecurity, etc. Providing valuable advice in any of these areas will really help future clients. 

Once you’ve created some content, your law firm can develop specialized content hubs. Ideally you have some content that’s already relevant, and are rapidly creating more. Take the extra step of organizing it all into a “resource center” that can function as a one-stop-shop for your readers. Include any tutorials, webinars, toolkits, articles, or videos that you have created or found helpful. Once the hub is created, you can put a banner or button on your home page directing users to all of your Covid-19 material in one place. If you want to get creative, checkout Akin Gump’s COVID-19 resource center. It showcases an interactive map that clients can click through to find the latest COVID-19 guidelines particular to any U.S. state. 

Takeaway

Now is not the time to slow down your content creation – but it is a time to adapt and be flexible. Without using legal jargon, use your content to help your readers understand the deluge of associated legal and business implications brought on by COVID-19. Focus on helping them to understand the questions they need to ask with a view toward both the immediate and longer term impacts and potential consequences. By emphasizing content marketing during COVID-19, and acting while others hesitate, law firms can capture new market share and assure the firm’s success in the current landscape and in years to come.

If your content marketing strategy is not driving real business results – contact us for help today. Our team has years of experience helping law firms of all practice areas develop and execute cohesive content marketing strategies that generate real leads.