Law Firm Marketing – 10 Strategies to Dominate in 2019

The State of Law Firm Internet Marketing in 2019

The best way to accomplish law firm marketing is on the Internet. And the best place to focus your Internet marketing on is Google.

A lot has changed in the past few years with Google search.

The fundamentals of how to rank in Google search haven’t changed. But many of the details and nuances have, details that can have a dramatic impact on your law firm marketing, if you’re not prepared. Google continues to place an emphasis on mobile-friendly sites, page load speed and rich, authoritative content.

But what else do you need to be aware of, as a law firm marketer?

Knowledge Panel

In the past few years, Google has made a point of not just answering your query with relevant web pages, but with direct answers. One of the ways it does this is by showing what it calls a Knowledge Panel on the right-hand side of certain search results.

These knowledge panels are populated from a variety of sources including your Google My Business page (which, if you don’t have one–get one! more on this shortly), Wikipedia and other online sources. These portions of the search results page really stand out, so it’s important to leverage this for your online law firm marketing.

Asked and Answered

Another way Google answers search queries is to simply answer them. Google sometimes does this by finding a web page or article it finds authoritative, and showing a snippit from this page as an answer to your question. Google calls this a Featured Snippit.

More Google Changes

Google continues to evolve it’s search engine, which means your law firm marketing strategy, particularly your online strategy, needs to evolve too. Other things we’re seeing change within search and SEO include:

• Mobile Optimization. Having a mobile-friendly site is more important than ever, since (a) over half of all Internet searches are performed on mobile devices, and (b) Google will outright penalize sites that aren’t optimized for mobile.
• Increased Emphasis on PPC. Google ultimately generates revenue via ads. As a result, they (as always) obfuscate how they exactly rank websites, but provide a ton of (actionable) data when you advertise on their Google Ads (formerly Google AdWords) platform.
• Site Speed. Fast-loading sites and sites with clean code (that is: websites that aren’t overloaded with too much code under the hood) are a simple, but often overlooked ranking factor. This makes DIY-website-builders a poor choice for most law firms, as well as any platform that creates buly, code-heavy websites.
• Focus on authoritative content. Generally speaking, Google favors web pages that are meaty, comprehensive and authoritative. A practice area page or article/blog that’s 3000 words is more likely to rank on Google than a 300 word page (all other factors being equal).

Armed with this intel, we’ll walk you through the law firm marketing strategies you should be employing right now.

1 – Make a Plan and Set Goals

Step one: You need a marketing plan.

Not a 30-page, academic document that sits in a drawer. A simple, actionable plan that defines:

• (A) The goals of your marketing plan
• (B) The actionable steps and initiatives you’ll undertake to achieve them
• (C) Who is responsible for making your plan a reality.

Without a real plan, you’re taking a ready-fire-aim approach to law firm marketing. Again, your law firm marketing plan doesn’t need to be overly complex, long-winded. In fact it should be just the opposite: concise, dense and action-oriented.

Here’s a snippit of what your law firm marketing plan may look like (an excerpt from our own Law Firm Marketing Plan Template):

The elements of a good, actionable law firm marketing plan include:

The purpose, or “Why” of your marketing plan,

• Are you looking to build your firm’s thought leadership?
• To generate new clients and cases? (If so: How many each month or year?)
• To develop your firm’s reputation?
• All of the above?

The rest of our marketing plan should align to these goals.)

The strategy, or “What” of your marketing plan (key initiatives):

What key projects or ongoing initiatives will make up your law firm online marketing plan? These are the campaigns that you or your hired law firm online marketing agency will manage for you, including:

• SEO and Content Marketing
• Paid Internet Advertising (PPC)
• Email Marketing / Lead Nurturing
• Social Media Marketing

The tactics, or “How” of your marketing Plan. These are the nuts-and-bolts of your plan; the Who/What/When/How of your plan:

• How often will new content be published? (Consistency is key when it comes to digital marketing for law firms).
• What subjects will our content marketing cover?
• Who will write our marketing content, manage our advertising campaigns, and so on?
• When will we distribute press releases?

And finally, the metrics by which we’ll measure the success of our law firm online marketing plan:

• Is our website traffic increasing each month?
• How do our website pages rank in a Google search?
• How many leads are being generated each month?
• What is the cost of each lead and client generated (CPA)?

Learn more about how to make (and execute) a killer law firm marketing plan in our webinar:

Get the Template:

I highly recommend that you download our Law Firm Marketing Plan Template and use it to write your own marketing plan.

2 – Building a Winning Law Firm Brand

Next, your law firm needs a brand.

Branding lives at the heart of your law firm marketing strategy.

Who is your firm? Why should someone hire your firm? We need to answer these questions before going much further with website design, SEO and other law firm marketing efforts.

Your law firm brand needs to sum up who your firm is, what it stands for, and what sets it apart. If you’re startup or small law firm, your brand can (and should) represent what your firm aspires to be. Do you dream of your firm becoming a top 100 law firm? Your branding should reflect that aspiration, because many brands are inherently aspirational. Your brand gives potential clients a flavor of who you are, and gives you the inspiration to get to your goals.

Your UVP – Unique Value Proposition

Every business, including (and especially) law firms, need a Unique Value Proposition (UVP), sometimes also called a Unique Selling Proposition. Your UVP is just that, what separates you from the thousands of other laywers. It answers the very simple question:

Why should someone hire your firm?

Spend some time really thinking about this. “Better customer service” or “Lawyers that care,” however true they may be, are not good enough. Think of what you will truly do differently from other firms. Or–what experience do you have that just can’t be found elsewhere? Or what quantifiable accomplishments can you point to that make your prospective clients sit up in their chair?

Think about these questions, and the right law firm branding may just occur to you.

Examples of Great Law Firm Branding

Just a few examples of law firms with simple, but effective branding include:

Scott & Scott, LLP

Almadani Law

Robbins Litigation and Regulatory Law

Logo Design

Your law firm logo is an important element of your branding.

Your firm’s logo should represent you. Generally speaking, it should be clean (not too fussy), striking, and generally: done by a professional (not in Microsoft Paint). Take a look at the logos below for examples of strong logos that project the firm’s brand, look and feel.

3 – Develop a Killer Law Firm Website

Your firm’s website is the epicenter of your law firm marketing plan. It’s the first thing many of your prospective clients see, and it’s where almost all of our marketing efforts funnel potential customers.

And you’ve got to knock it out of the park.

The website is the new front-office lobby. It’s what makes (or breaks) a prospective client’s first impression. If your law firm website is dated and ugly, or too busy and loud–it will drive potential clients away (even referrals).

Key Law Firm Website Elements

No two law firm websites are alike, but there are a few key elements that every law firm website should have.

Home Page & Hero Bar

You’ll notice most modern websites have a big, full-width image across the top of their home page. Sometimes this is a picture of a person (such as a lawyer), other times it’s a picture of an object, a city, or a concept. And that businesses’ tagline, mission or Unique Value Proposition is often displayed across this bar.

We call this top part of the home page the Hero Bar, or the above-the-fold content.

(Example Law Firm Website Hero Bar)

In addition, your hero bar should have a touch of information on your attorneys, practice areas and awards, accolades or statistics (wins, etc.) But not too much. You’re not trying to tell people everything about your firm on the home page… just enough to (a) pique their interest and (b) help them find the page or information they’re looking for.

Practice Area Pages & Case Type Pages

If your law firm works in more than one practice area, don’t cram a description for each on a single page. Every practice area needs it’s own page, with substantive content describing that practice area, and why your firm is an expert in it.

Practice area pages are key pages for SEO (more on this later). Don’t simply state that you practice Personal Injury… show the reader that you’re deeply experienced working with injury victims. The more broken out your Practice Area pages are, the more that (a) Google is likely to rank your individual pages, and (b) your visitors are likely to have that “aha–just what I’m looking for!” response.

Next, you should have sub-pages for each potential type of case within that practice area. This too creates a “just what I’m looking for” effect with visitors, and expands your SEO reach.

For example, a family law firm should consider dedicated pages describing their work in:

• Divorce
• Prenuptual and Postnuptual Agreements
• Custody Modifications
• Adoption
• Asset Division

Similarly, personal injury law firm websites should consider dedicates pages for:

• Car Accidents
• Truck Accidents
• Motorcycle Accidents
• Product Liability
• Slip-and-Fall

And so forth.

News & Blog Feed

Your law firm website should also include a Blog/News feed. This is where you’ll post your firm’s announcements, wins, awards and opinions. It’s also where you’ll publish much of the content used to increase your firm’s SEO rankings, a major part of law firm marketing.

A staple of Internet-based law firm marketing is regularly publishing fresh new content. We’ll cover this in more detail below.

In any case, you’ll want a website platform that has a built-in blogging engine. For this, we recommend a WordPress-based web hosting platform.

Other Important Elements

Other important elements of your law firm website include:

For a few examples of great, modern and easy-to-read websites, check out our examples below.

4 – Demonstrate Expertise in Your Practice Areas

Many things that are good for marketing in a broad, general sense are also specifically good for SEO.

Demonstrating capability within your practice areas, on your website, is good to let potential clients know that your firm is the right firm for them, and it’s good at letting Google know that your website is an authoritative source for a given subject.

This is an important part of law firm marketing. The best way to accomplish this on your website is:

Blogs, articles and whitepapers are an effective way to demonstrate authority. Another great way is to embed videos on key pages of your firm’s website.

For instance, a video for each attorney on that attorney’s bio page. Each attorney can give a short introduction to themselves, their background and their areas of expertise. Even better: Have a short, explanatory video for each practice area page. Tell your viewers what they need to know about that kind of case, when to consult an attorney and why your firm is best suited to handle their case.

It’s also important to demonstrate capability in your practice areas outside of your website. Some of the best ways to do this include:

It’s also important to be loud and proud about your firm and your attorneys’ accomplishments. Are you a Superlawyer? Did your firm make the local news when you won a case? Promote these accomplishments, front-and-center on your website’s home page.

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5 – Develop an Ongoing SEO Strategy

SEO should be a key facet of any law firm marketing strategy.

And SEO is an ongoing process, not a set-it-and-forget-it affair. SEO, for anyone unfamiliar or needing a recap, is the process by which you make your website more likely to show up in a Google search result, and is accomplished by a variety of means. Usually the goal is to have your website (or specific pages on it) show up on the ever-coveted page one of a Google search.

Considering that ever year, more and more consumers are looking for products and services via the Internet (and usually start their search at Google.com), SEO remains a highly effective strategy to grow your law firm.

But not everyone understands what SEO is really all about.

I’ve worked with many law firms that, when they had their site initially designed, had it optimized for SEO… then sat back and waited for the traffic and new clients to come.

And they never did.

Law firm Search Engine Optimization is about a lot more than just optimizing your pages for Google (though that is one important part). You can break the process of SEO into three key compoenents:

The key to getting your law firm website to rank on Google is to master all three processes of SEO.

Technical SEO

Technical SEO is the process of making your website, and each page on it, easy for Google to understand. If Google understands where specific information is on your website, and what subjects are covered in it, the odds go up that you’ll show up in a search.

Technical SEO (for the most part) is less about the content on your website itself, and more about the technical, under-the-hood structure and configuration of your website and pages. Most of the technical SEO work happens when your site is first designed, which is why it’s so important that your website be designed by someone familiar with SEO, your SEO goals and builds your site with SEO in mind. (Though, even after design, it’s very useful to periodically audit your site and nip/tuck any technical SEO elements as your site evolves over time.)

It’s much harder to try to “back-fill” technical SEO after-the-fact; so much so that many SEO agencies will recommend a from-scratch rebuild if your current site lacks the onsite SEO capabilities required for an effective campaign.

The key elements of technical SEO include:

• Proper use of keywords in the page title
• Proper use of keywords in your page’s H1 and H2 tags
• Meta descriptions optimized for each page
• Proper use of keywords in image alt tags
• Use of schema markup to tell Google what your site is about

On-Page SEO (Content)

A key element of SEO is a regular stream of new, fresh, relevant content. Your law firm marketing content strategy should be primarily focused on:

• Your practice area pages (which won’t change frequently)
• Your case type pages (which also won’t change frequently)
• Articles/Blogs (which you should be publishing regularly)

As we discussed above, it’s important that you not only have a page per practice area, but as many case type pages (for each type of case or matter within that practice area) as appropriate. And each of the practice area and case type pages should be rich with content, including:

• Descriptive paragraphs (but not too long)
• Bulleted lists
• Relevant Images
• Videos (such as a short video of you describing this type of case)
• And of course, a call-to-action

Once your primary pages are technically optimized and flush with great content, it’s time to move onto blogs.

Blog articles are where you can narrowly focus on specific subjects in an effort to demonstrate authority and (most importantly) get Google to take notice. But you shouldn’t just open up your blog editor and start typing what comes to mind.

When generating blog content for the purposes of SEO, it’s important to start things in the right order. And all SEO/blog campaigns start with keyword research.

Before we decide what to write about, we need to learn what people in your area are searching for. When someone in Minneapolis, MN, for instance, is looking for a personal injury law firm, what do they most commonly type into a Google search bar? (The answer isn’t always obvious.)

During a keywords research process, you or your SEO agency will identify that top keywords and phrases being searched for. Those keywords will become the starting point for your blog topic roadmap. The roadmap becomes the punch-list of articles to be written, optimized and published.

We’ll cover blog content strategies in more depth later in this article.

Off-Page SEO (Backlinks & Citations)

A key ranking factor, or way that Google decides how important your website is (or isn’t), is: how many other sties link to your website.

Each of these potential links is called a backlink, or a citation. And the more backlinks you have from high-authority websites, the more authoritative Google will deem your website (and the more likely your pages are to show up on the first page of a Google search).

One of the most reliable ways to get quality backlinks to your website is to get your firm listed in high-quality lawyer directories.

There are a number of online attorney directories that you’ll want your law firm to appear on. Being listed on a particular website or directory isn’t just about people finding you via that directory (though they may)… the real value is the backlink from that directory listing.

Legal directories that you’ll want to get listed on include:

• Avvo
• NoLo
• Justia
• Lawyers.com

Some of these directories allow you to create a listing for free, others allow you to pay a fee to promote or emphasize your listing.

Other directories you’ll want to consider include:

• Bing Places for Business – Microsoft/Bing’s equivalent of Google My Business.
• Apple Maps – Apple’s map and navigation system–many iphone users still use this app.
• Other law firm directories in your city, state and county.

These local directory listing are also sometimes called local citations. Citations show prominence and relevance so the search engines like Google can feel confident about leading local searchers to your website and your firm.

Building backlinks is a time-consuming, but powerful way to drive your law firm SEO and boost your law firm marketing. Whether it be done by you, manually or by a capable SEO agency, I recommend you spend time generating backlinks and citations every month.

Dive Deeper

SEO is a big subject, but an important one for law firm marketing. Read our Ultimate Law Firm SEO Guide to learn now to master SEO for your law practice.

Learn more about SEO services for law firms.

6 – Publish Authoritative Blogs Every Month

Ongoing content generation is a big part of SEO, and SEO is a big part of law firm marketing.

That means your firm will need to be publishing substantive, quality content on a regular basis. And blog articles are among the best ways to do this for your law firm.

Google’s job, put simply, is to provide highly-relevant content to people searching for a specific subject or topic. So the best way to get on Google’s good side is to regularly generate quality content about and around your firm’s practice areas. The more informative, high-quality content you have on your website, and create every month, (a) the more likely Google is to rank your site, and (b) the more likely visitors to your site will acknowledge that your firm is an expert in their area.

The keyword, though, is authoritative.

In general, Google favors meaty, comprehensive articles that cover a particular subject in depth. While there are no hard-fast rules, in general a 3000 word article that covers a particular subject (say about the legal adoption process) will outrank, and get more clicks than a 500-word version.

Blogging

In order to make launching (and sticking to) a regular blogging schedule easy, it’s important that your website have a built-in blogging engine. WordPress websites are generally considered the best for websites in general, especially a website that will host articles in its blog feed.

Your law firm marketing strategy should include a set, specific publishing schedule (such as one new article per week) And the key here, is to stick with it.

I’ve personally witnessed many law firms, excited about kicking off their law firm marketing plan, start strong and reliably publish a good, keyword-driven article on a set schedule… then, as clients and cases pile up… slowly fall out of practice.

Its important to keep the momentum: If you can’t commit to a publishing cycle, hire an agency to write and publish content for you. (A good law firm marketing agency will have copywriters that are knowledgeable and able to write for your practice areas.)

Article Ideas

For many law firms, the first hurdle is: what to write about?

Remember: The first step is to do thorough keyword research for your practice area(s) in your city. This should drive what your articles are about, including the article titles and content.

For instance: Suppose, after diligent keyword research, you’ve identified that the top-volume keywords for your practice area in your city are:

houston accident lawyer
houston tx accident lawyer
car accident attorney in houston
personal injury lawyer houston
slip and fall attorneys in houston texas

Your next step is to expand these keyword phrases to highly-relevant articles.

For example, from the keywords above you might come up with the following potential article topics/titles:

• How to Find the Best Houston Accident Lawyer
• When Should You Hire a Personal Injury Lawyer in Houston?
• 5 Things to Consider for Your Houston Car Accident Case

And so on.

Not sure what to write about? Sit down, and think about:

• What events or circumstances prompt someone to need a lawyer in your practice area?
• Why / under what circumstances should someone hire a lawyer in your practice area?
• What are important factors when selecting a lawyer within your practice area?
• What are the top 5 (or 10) most common questions new clients have during intake?
• What are the potential outcomes for a typical matter in your practice area?

Any or all of these would make for a great blog article. Write down everything you can think of–often one good idea leads to another. Just make sure that your ideas are aimed at ranking from the keywords that you’re targeting.

Final Step – The CTA

After all of this hard work, don’t forget the most important step: Getting the reader to contact your firm.

Every blog should have a clear Call-to-Action (CTA). In our experience, the best way to do this is to have a ‘Contact Us’ bar on the right side of every blog article (rather than simply a link to your contact page). Website platforms like WordPress make it easy to automatically include this on the sidebar of every blog you publish.

7 – Launch a Google Ads (PPC) Campaign

Next, if you’re not already, your law firm should have an active Google Ads campaign.

Google Ads (the artist formerly known as Google AdWords) is Google’s advertising platform. The meat of Google Ads is showing text ads at the top of the Google search results page, but also includes display advertising.

Again, when today’s consumer looks for a lawyer, they often start with a google search (either from their computer of from their phone). So it’s important that PPC (which stands for Pay Per Click) is part of your law firm marketing strategy for this year.

Here’s how it works.

When you (or your law firm marketing agency) sets up your Google Ads campaign, you start by telling Google what specific keywords you want to bid on, or appear when someone searches. This means that the first step of launching a Google Ads campaign is keyword research, similar to SEO.

Then you develop ads (that show up when someone searches for that keyword), and landing pages (what visitors are directed to when they click on an ad). The ads themselves look nearly identical to regular, organic search results (but above the local and organic results).

It’s important that PPC be a key part of your law firm marketing strategy because:

1. Immediate results. Unlike SEO, which takes time, PPC can generate nearly instant new leads, and generate a return on your marketing investment right away.
2. Top of the Search Page. Paid search results show up above organic (unpaid) listings, and many people will visit these links before scrolling down and evaluating the organic results.
3. Data and Analytics. Unlike the (deliberately opaque) black box that is SEO, Google provides a ton of real-time, useful data on the performance of your keywords and ads. This allows you (or your agency) to quickly adapt and improve the performance of your campaign.
4. A/B Testing. Because of the speed and transparency of Google Ads, you can test new keywords, ad copy and landing pages… then quickly pivot based on the results of your A/B tests.

Setting up a Google Ads Campaign

Setting up a Google Ads campaign takes a certain level of experience, as well as a regular time commitment to monitor, analyze and continuously improve your campaigns.

The first step is to create a Google Ads account, which you can do under your existing G Suite account/login (assuming you have one.

Keywords

Next, you’ll identify the keywords you want to bid on, and how much you’re willing to pay, maximum, for a click for that keyword. Every search in Google Ads is a split-second auction; whether or not your ad shows up in a search for that keyword (and at what rank) is a combination of your bid and the relevance of the underlying landing page.

Using our example above, suppose you’re a personal injury law firm in Houston. And suppose that you’ve done your keyword research, and identified the top five to ten keyword phrases that people use when looking for an injury law firm in Houston.

In your newly created campaign, you’d enter each of these keywords (along with your bid), telling Google you want to show your ad when someone searches for these terms.

You’ll want to not only use the right keywords, but use the right modifiers (such as the “+” modifier in the example above). If you’re unfamiliar, your law firm marketing agency can help you configure your campaign.

In addition to using your county or city in the actual keyword, you can generally target a keyword (such as: “+injury +attorney”) and limit the search to a specific city or zip code. (This is sometimes referred to as geo-targeting or geo-fencing).

Ads

Next, you’ll create your ads, which will (ideally) appear when someone searches for the keywords you’ve just identified. Generally, you want to always have two (no more, no less) ads running at the same time. Start with two similar, but different ads, one is Ad A and one is Ad B.

For any ad you create, you’ll have visibility into key performance, metrics, including:

• Search Impression Share – What percentage of the time does your ad appear for that keyword search
• Impressions – how many times your ad showed up in a search
• CTR (Click-Through-Rate) – What percentage of people who see your ad click on it.
• Conversions – How many people clicked your ad then contacted your firm
• Conversion Rate – What percentage of clicks (website visitors) became leads (contacted your firm)
• Cost per Acquisition – Total spend divided by the number of conversions (leads) you received – what each lead cost you

Each of these metrics are important to monitor on a weekly or daily basis. In particular: You’ll compare the CTR of each ad compared to the other. And over short cycles, whichever ad out-performs the other: kill the lesser-performing ad, duplicate the winning ad, modify it, and see which wins over the next cycle.

This is called A/B testing, and it’s a powerful way to incrementally increase your Google Ads performance over time. This evolutionary process will gradually increase the CTR percentage of your ad campaign.

Landing Page

You’ll direct each ad to a unique landing page on your website. The landing page will be similar toy our home page, but tailored to this particular practice area and this particular ad.

The best landing pages give visitors just enough information to confirm they’ve come to the right place, and include a CTA (Call-to-Action) where visitors can either call by phone or fill our a short contact/intake form.

Then they become a lead.

Google Ads campaigns are an ongoing project. Every week, you (or your law firm marketing agency) should work to:

• Increase the CTR (Click-Through-Rate) of each ad via A/B testing ads.
• Increase the Conversion Rate of our campaign via A/B testing landing pages.
• Over time, reduce the total CPA (Cost Per Acquisition, or cost per lead) while:
• Increasing the overall volume of leads, while also:
• Mantaining a high qualify of inbound leads.

That’s law firm PPC, in a nutshell.

8 – Get Positive Online Reviews

We live in a Yelp world.

And by “a Yelp World,” I mean that we’re living in a world where nearly everyone reads online reviews before making a buying decision; this applies to electronics, to restaurants, and to lawyers.

So it’s important to get a lot of online reviews for your law firm. And to do this effectively, you must have a deliberate, defined and regular process for capturing reviews.

There are a number of online review platforms, some general and some lawyer-specific, including:

• Yelp
• Avvo
• Google (GMB)
• Nolo
• Super Lawyers
• Justia

While there are a number of online platforms for getting and sharing reviews, we generally recommend that law firms work to consolidate reviews to one or two sites. Having 30 positive reviews, for instance, under your Avvo profile looks (and is) amazing: It lets prospective clients know that you are the tried and true standard for law in your practice area.

On the other hand, if have a total of 30 positive reviews across 5 different review platforms (Avvo, Yelp, Google, etc.), chances are your potential client will only see one of them… and seeing only 6 reviews may make you look untested, to say the least.

So which review site should you focus on?

All else being equal, we recommend using the Google My Business platform as a central place to collect customer reviews.

Here’s why:

If your firm comes up in a Google search, either because they searched for you by name, or because they searched for a lawyer in your practice area (eg: “Minneapolis injury attorney,”) your average review/star rating will show up prominently next to the search results.

For example, here’s what a search looks like when looking for a specific type of lawyer. Notice that these three firms’ star rating (and number of reviews) shows up prominently in each listing.

Similarly, here’s what a search looks like when searching for a specific law firm by name (something that potential clients that are referred to you will do). This time average rating (stars) appears on the right side, along with a snippit of a few specific reviews below.

In both scenarios (and both will occur), if you’ve gone to the effort to collect reviews, it’s very useful to have them show up when someone is looking for your firm or a lawyer in your practice area. Especially when you consider many prospective clients, including referrals, may not take it upon themselves to hunt down reviews for your firm.

All of this makes your Google My Business profile the ideal home base for your customer reviews. Though you can, if necessary, have a secondary home for reviews. For instance, if you’ve already accumulated a respectable amount of positive reviews on your Avvo profile, that’s okay too, and can become your secondary review site.

9 – Implement Call Tracking

Wouldn’t it be great to know how callers found your law firm/website? To know if they came from your new Google Ads campaign, or your expensive new billboard?

You can.

Generally, new prospective clients will reach out to you (after arriving at your website) in one of two ways: They’ll fill out a ‘Contact Us’ form, or they’ll pick up the phone and call the phone number listed on your website. The former is relatively easy to track where that person came from, the latter can be tricky.

Call tracking software does just that; it’s software you embed in your website that shows you, in a dashboard or report, the original source of each caller. It will tell you if a caller came through via a Google search that landed them on one of your blogs. Or if they clicked an ad from your Google Ads campaign. Or if somehow ended up with your business card (say, at a networking event) and called the number on it.

Here’s how it works.

Your law firm has a phone number. The local or toll-free number you’ve always had, and that you consider your “main number.” Perhaps it’s the number you put in your email signature, your letterhead and your business cards. And–your current website, which we’ll suppose is prominently displayed at the very top of your website. Let’s say for this example, your “main number” is 899-555-1000.

When you setup call tracking software, you’ll be a assigned a bank (group) of phone numbers. We’ll say that for this example, that bank is 899-789-3001 to 899-789-3030 (though, what those numbers are don’t ultimately matter). Each of these numbers will forward to your main number, and ultimately get to your reception like any other call would.

What call tracking software does is replace your main number (899-555-1000) on your website with any number from your assigned call tracking bank (899-789-3001 to 3030). Each unique visitor to your website will be assigned one of these numbers, and that’s the number they’ll see on your website.

This way, when that website visitor picks up the phone and calls your firm, the call tracking system can tie that website visitor to a particular phone call.

And now we know exactly where that caller came from.

Law firm marketing is an ongoing process of testing, measuring results, adjusting the test (some element of your marketing plan), testing again… and repeat. Having intel like what sources generate what quantity (and quality) of leads is vital to a long-term, successful law firm marketing campaign.

Related:

Learn more about call tracking and how it helps law firm marketing.

10 – Get a (real) CRM

You spend a lot of time and money to generate leads for your firm. So don’t drop the ball on the last leg of the sales cycle: Get yourself a CRM.

A CRM (which stands for Customer Relationship Manager, and therefor is a bit of misnomer) is a piece of software that helps you manage your sales pipeline.

First, an aside. Sales is (still) considered a dirty word to some law firms. It shouldn’t be. Every business needs to be in the business of sales, however unique or special it is. When you’re working with prospective clients, you need to think and operate like a sales person. And by that I don’t mean like the stereotypical car salesman. Today’s successful, modern sales person is consultative, attentive, and organized.

CRM software, in its simplest form, is where you:

• Enter each new lead, as they come in (via form submission or a phone call)
• Enter notes for each lead, as you’re having your initial consultation
• Enter when to follow up or call the prospective client back
• Know, each day, who is on your ‘prospective clients to contact today’ list

That last bullet point is possibly the most important one. Most sales aren’t made on the first call. When someone finds you online, a result of your diligent law firm marketing, they may call you. And when they do, you have have an initial conversation or preliminary discussion.

And most of the time they’re not about to sign a retainer agreement as they wrap up the call. Maybe they need to think about things before taking the next step. Maybe they want to talk to a few other attorneys before selecting one. Or perhaps their situation needs to develop a bit more before engaging your firm.

Whatever the case, don’t assume that they’ll (a) remember you and (b) take the initiative to call you back. That’s your job. So a few times every week (or better yet: Every day), you need to work your sales pipeline.

Most CRM applications allow (or require) you to enter a ‘Next Contact’ date. That is, before you can close out a phone call or prospective client communication record, you must define when you’ll reach out to them next (assuming they don’t call you first). So when you work your daily/weekly sales pipeline process, you open up your CRM, and contact every prospect int he list that has a’ Next Contact’ date of today (or earlier).

This ensures no potential clients slip through the cracks. This is the roll-your-sleeves-up salesmanship that separates the growing firms from the stagnant ones.

CRM’s often provide other useful tools as well, such as automating some aspects of follow-up, providing win/loss (conversion) rates, and many other features that a sales person or team would require.

Law firm-specific CRM’s also blend traditional sales CRM functionality with legal client intake functionality, which further streamlines and operationalizes your process.

Notable Law Firm-Centric CRM’s include:

• Clio Grow (Formerly Lexicata)
• Law Ruler

Other, general-purpose CRM’s include:

• SalesForce (probably overkill for most law firms)
• Contactually
• Pipedrive
• ZohoCRM

Why Not Just Use My Practice Management / Billing / Excel to Manage Sales Leads?

You might wonder: Why not just use your current Legal Practice Management software, billing software, or even Excel to manage your sales pipeline?

Excel as a CRM is a terrible idea. It’s static, it doesn’t filter or sort which leads you’re actively working (and which ones you’ve won or lost). And without a lot of manual jiggering, it doesn’t show you (a) your Opportunities (leads), and (b) the Activities (calls, email, etc.) for each opportunity.

Using Practice Management software as a stand-in for a CRM is also a bad idea. Legal Practice Management applications are good at tracking time, generating invoices, managing cases and calendars… but they don’t have facilities for entering prospective clients, setting follow-up timelines, documenting activities, and reporting on which prospects became clients (and which ones didn’t).

Actively managing your prospective clients is critical, and often overlooked part of law firm marketing. If you’re going to take the time and make the investment to market your law firm, make sure you don’t drop the ball in the final stages.

Related:

Learn more about the most popular CRM applications.

Law Firm Marketing – The Conclusion

There you have it, 10 law firm marketing strategies that, if executed properly, are almost guaranteed to drive growth for your firm.

Effective law marketing can often yield a 1 + 1 = 3 effect. Each of these marketing strategies, when planned and executed together, can enhance your overall marketing traction. PPC will drive more traffic to your website. Proper website design will increase conversions. Email marketing will connect with people who found you via SEO. And so on.

The Checklist

Use this checklist to map your law firm’s marketing plan for this year. Print it out, add your own items, and execute it, either on your own or with the help of a law firm marketing agency.