It is not new that Digital Marketing has become the main strategy of law firms to expand their performance in the market. But without good digital marketing plans for lawyers, the results may fall short of expectations.
After all, it is through planning that these professionals will be able to develop assertive strategies, communicate better with the public and, thus, win over potential customers more likely to close a deal.
Besides, digital marketing plans for lawyers reveal new opportunities to expand their presence in a highly competitive market. But, if you still don’t know where to start your planning, don’t worry.
In this article, we bring you some tips on how to build digital marketing plans for lawyers efficiently. Come on?!
Why do you need to plan marketing for your law firm?
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Before the presence of law firms, freelance lawyers, consulting firms or legal counsel in the digital environment became popular, lawyers won their clients, mainly through referrals.
However, in recent years, these professionals have started to use the digital medium to strengthen ties with their clients and potential clients. After all, with well-thought-out and executed digital marketing strategies it is possible to grow (and a lot).
But, to achieve good results it is necessary to plan. For this, the ideal is to develop Digital Marketing plans for Lawyers. Thus, it is possible to create objectives and map actions so that the goals are achieved.
Besides, planning helps to identify what makes your business unique to stand out from the competition by doing an analysis of the office and the market. It is also important to outline more effective communication strategies with the public.
Finally, with digital marketing plans for lawyers, it becomes easier to follow the evolution of goals efficiently. This allows us to identify which marketing actions and strategies have brought the most positive results.
Thus, the professional increases the chances of completing the service, as well as increasing their profitability. Therefore, any law firm or lawyer who wants to get good results with marketing needs to know how to create digital marketing plans for lawyers.
How to create digital marketing plans for lawyers?
For some lawyers, building a digital marketing plan can be quite a challenge. Even more so because it is essential to respect the restrictions imposed by the OAB. So we created a simple structure to make things a lot easier. Check it out:
Think about where your office wants to go
Start your digital marketing plan for lawyers by discovering the big “why” of marketing for your business, that is, think about what are the initial goals you intend to achieve through digital marketing. For example, you can aim to:
establish your law firm as an authority in your field;
increase the number of active cases;
strengthen the brand’s presence in the virtual environment;
improve customer relationships.
With well-defined goals, it is important that you also set goals for each one. After all, this will facilitate the execution and monitoring of the results.
For example, if the goal was to increase the number of cases, then the goal could be to increase the number of active cases by 20% within 6 months.
Perform a diagnosis of the current situation of your business.
Performing a diagnosis of the current situation of your business will be essential to discover possible problems that need to be improved. It will also be important to be clear about what you do well and define your competitive edge.
To do this, analyze the office processes, such as customer service, services offered, office structure, portfolio management in law, and marketing policy.
To facilitate understanding, for example, imagine a lawyer who is well recognized in a certain area of expertise or who has quick communication. These would be good examples of differentials for the office.
On the other hand, if you are unable to be available to the customer when he needs it, it is something that needs to be improved. To recognize this type of lack, it is important to recognize one’s mistakes, and that is where digital marketing plans for lawyers come in.
Analyze the market scenario
When it comes to developing the digital marketing plan for lawyers, do a market analysis. This will be important to keep up with trends, allowing you to take advantage of opportunities or minimize the impacts of possible failures.
To do this, you must analyze competitors and consumer habits. But how? Do some research and find out who your main competitors are. Then, point out the strengths and weaknesses of each of your “competitors”.
Also, study their reputation. For example, the competitor’s clients complain too much that the lawyer does not return quickly to questions. That’s his weak point, right?
But, if you are always available to the client, then you can highlight this in a campaign, within the limits imposed on legal marketing by the OAB. In the same way, you can find some weaknesses about the competitor and improve.
Find out who your target audience is
After analyzing the market, the next step is to find out who your target audience is, that is, who your customers are. This is important for you to know which language to adopt and in which online communication channels they are present.
To do so, ask your current customers questions such as: what are your main sources of information; what are the expectations they have about your service; how they got to your office; why they chose their office, and where they are located.
Another way to know your target audience is to use research data about the segmentation of the market in which you operate. If you already have profiles on social networks, you can use your metrics tools like Facebook Insight, for example, to easily find your audience.
Define the main digital marketing strategies
Based on the information collected in the previous steps, it is possible to define the best digital marketing strategies for your office. After all, you can now rely on real information about your business, your customers, and your chains.
For example, if you have found that your customers like to stay informed through legal blogs, then developing blog content weekly can be a good way.
In addition to this, there are several other digital marketing strategies that you can use in your digital marketing plans for lawyers. Get to know the main ones:
Branding strategies
Branding is a strategy to build a brand image to make it stronger in the market. This process involves everything from the creation of the logo and name to the visual identity of the profiles on social networks and the website.
To apply branding to your business, you need to have answers to these questions:
What are the differentials of your service?
How do you want your customers to understand your business?
What are the benefits of hiring your services?
From there, write your company’s mission, have a logo that reflects the personality of your business, create standards for your digital marketing materials and, if you want, create a slogan.
Traffic strategies
Digital marketing plans for lawyers should also include strategies for finding the ideal clients or getting them to find you when they need it. To do this, you can use organic or paid traffic strategies, or both.
To begin, you must make a list of marketing channels on which your customers are focused. What social networks are the most present on, for example? Then, you can invest in posts on these social networks.
From there, you can post to the feed or history and get organic traffic at no cost. To boost your publications you can invest in paid traffic, like Facebook Ads.
Also, invest in SEO strategy. Through this practice, your customers will find you when they search Google for the main keywords related to your business. For example, “law firm in Florianópolis”.
With the right SEO strategies, you can reach the top positions of search engines through organic traffic. But, you can also invest in paid traffic, like Google Ads, and create ads on Google.
Content production strategies
With good content that demonstrates the legal expertise of the lawyer, it is possible to build authority in your field. As a consequence, you will be able to acquire new potential customers and increase the chances of closing a deal.
But it is not enough to just write content sporadically and without SEO strategies. For a legal content marketing strategy to give satisfactory results, it is essential to feed company profiles on the internet.
All published materials must have quality and good publication frequency. Therefore, the explanatory content must be able to resolve the main doubts of the clientele. Therefore, define in your digital marketing plans for lawyers what the frequency and themes of the published materials will be.
Social media strategies
A digital marketing plan for lawyers also presents social media strategies, which consist of producing and sharing content that your clients find useful and important. Therefore, content marketing also needs to operate here.
However, many lawyers are afraid of what they can post since the OAB has a code of ethics that prohibits commercial content. So, the tip is to publish explanatory content on the concepts of law or content that promote a discussion, such as changes in legislation.
Build a digital marketing action plan for lawyers
The next step is to put together an action plan that describes all the actions that will be carried out to reach the initial objectives and goals, as well as the deadline to start and finish each project and the expected deadline to achieve the desired results.
Take a look at this simple example of a digital marketing action plan for lawyers:
Objective: To increase the number of active cases by 20% within 6 months.
Activities: – redefine the business persona and visual identity of the website;
– attract more qualified traffic to the blog through paid traffic;
– optimize the way content is published on social networks using a posting
Now it’s time to execute everything that was devised in the digital marketing plan for lawyers, always keeping in mind the objectives and goals. Finally, during the execution of the digital actions, follow the performance of each one to find out which ones were successful and which need improvement.
What’s up? Ready to start?
As we have seen, putting together digital marketing plans for lawyers is not an easy task. But, for sure, it is very worth it! After all, digital marketing can increase (and a lot) the results of an office.
For the development of assertive strategies, it is always good to have the help of a digital marketing agency, such as Inside Digital. We are experts in digital marketing for lawyers and we are fully prepared to increase the results of your office.
The entire strategy is designed with exclusivity and competence. To learn more, contact us and find out everything Inside Digital can do for your law firm.
