Attorney Marketing Blog

Count yourself lucky. There are many more ways to market your firm today than there were 20 years ago. However, just because there are many choices doesn’t mean you should try them all. I am going to talk about a few “cutting edge” marketing ideas that you should consider, and a few that you should avoid.

6 Innovative Online Marketing Ideas for Attorneys

First, I should point out that none of these ideas are slam dunks without the right mindset. Just attempting a webinar won’t guarantee you high-quality leads. You need to research what makes webinars work, and typically try a few configurations before you strike gold.

However, if you are willing to put in the work (or at least delegate the work to an employee), you can find success. Of course, Great Legal Marketing HERO Membership is a great place to get started if you are ready to invest in the growth of your law firm.

Here are the six new marketing ideas that will help you find success with your online marketing.

1) Market to Your List with Live Webinars

Live webinars are popular with marketers and customers for good reasons. One, you can give your followers quality information about a legal topic. Two, they can ask questions and engage with you. Three, the webinar is convenient for everyone. It is not difficult to get people to sign up for an online webinar, and the costs to run a webinar are minimal.

2) Get More Leads with Facebook

Lead Ads on Facebook are great. Facebook favors them because they keep people on Facebook. Business like them because Lead Ads are great for lead generation. The trick is to craft an offer that is attractive and that you can deliver through automation. If you want to try Facebook Lead Ads, make sure you are targeting the right audience as well.

3) Remarket to People Who Visit Your Website

Hopefully, you have heard about remarketing. Naturally, remarketing leads to hirer conversions because you are marketing to people who have an interest in your product or services. There are many places to remarket to your customers, for example, Facebook or Google AdWords. While a free consultation isn’t the best call-to-action, remarketing is one of the few places that may work well.

4) Create Long Follow-Up Sequences

Too often attorneys create thin follow up sequences, forgetting that leads can take months before they become clients. When you are doing lead generation, make sure you are creating follow up sequences that last weeks, even months. Ideally, they will get at least one email a week from your law firm, but you will need to monitor your results to determine if more, or less, emails are required.

5) Develop a Referral Program for Leads You Send to Other Attorneys

A referral program is one of the best investments you can make for your law firm. Like nurturing leads, you need to cultivate your lawyer relationships to create a steady stream of referral income. The best place to start is by creating a list of attorneys to who you can refer cases. Great Legal Marketing members have access to our Ultimate Referral Letter, a proven system to getting more leads within a few weeks.

6) Start a Facebook Group Based on Your Interests

Two years ago, many experienced marketers would have scoffed at Facebook groups. However, Facebook has emphasized personal connections and “time-well-spent” on social media. Facebook’s initiative has pushed Facebook groups into the spotlight.

The trick with creating a successful Facebook group is focusing on a topic of genuine public interest. Avoid creating a “Car Accident Victims” Facebook group. Instead, pick a topic about which you are passionate. Even though your Facebook group is not law focused, it will position you as a community leader, which is very valuable for referrals and word-of-mouth marketing.

3 “Revolutionary” Ideas You Should Avoid

The internet is littered with marketing ideas. However, many people who are giving advice about marketing are not experts. Marketing gurus often talk about unproven, untested ideas to seem intelligent and ahead of the curve. It can be hard to know when a marketing idea is genuinely worthwhile or just a pile of nonsense.

Here are some new ideas that you should avoid because they have little value for the solo and small firm attorney.

1) Posting on Social Media Without Purpose

I have spoken to many business owners about online marketing. They all say the same thing about social media: “I want my profile to be active, but I don’t want to put a lot of effort there.”

They are right to be skeptical. It is rare for attorneys to find qualified leads on social media. However, there is an art to social media marketing, and your strategy should require some thought.

One strategy you should avoid is hiring a company to post content to your page. This content is worthless unless it comes from your website. Your presence on social media should focus on getting your articles and blog posts circulating on social media, not random images with links that take users to other people’s websites.

2) Pay-Per-Click Ads on Small Websites

Each town, city, or county has many small websites that are local. An excellent example of this is the website for your local newspaper. Advertising in these spaces can seem like good “geotargeting,” but in practice, pay-per-click ads on these websites rarely work. One reason is that their websites are poorly structured, making the pay-per-click ads appear in unfavorable locations.

Often, these small websites oversell their pay-per-click ads so that you will be competing for space on an overcrowded website. These factors typically mean that locals will not visit that website and instead favor mainstream sources of news. Not to mention that Facebook is doing a good job of circulating local stories, overpowering local websites by a large margin.

3) Attorney Apps for Mobile Phones

Creating an application requires a lot of capital. You need 1) a great idea, 2) a great developer, and 3) the time required to maintain a mobile application for years. If you don’t have all three (most small business owners don’t), then your app will fail.

Even if you have a great app idea, there is no guarantee your potential clients will find it useful. Our mobile phones are overcrowded with apps, and it is more likely your app will go unused or unnoticed.

Tifiny Swedensky

Tifiny Swedensky is the Marketing Director and data analysis expert at Great Legal Marketing.

Most attorneys start their firms assuming that being a really, really good attorney should, in and of itself, be a marketing advantage. Those attorneys believe that joining a whole bunch of committees and putting their name in lawyer directories is “marketing,” and they never bother to ask if there is a better way.

Attorneys are catching on, however, and those who succeed learn to leverage their current resources to create effective (and ethical) marketing. What they discover isn’t a magic pill or silver bullet but a different approach to marketing that your competitors haven’t considered.

If you want a peek at what successful attorneys use to market their practice, the HERO Starter Kit is your logical next step.

We’ve put together a FREE (and potentially life-changing) kit for solo and small firm attorneys that will show you a better way to reach potential clients and get them excited to call your firm. Request your HERO Starter Kit from Great Legal Marketing!

Request Your HERO Starter Kit Today!