Your law firm’s goal is to help clients with their civil or criminal matters. However, that doesn’t happen when no one knows you exist. Since there are close to 450,000 firms in the United States, getting from the bottom to the top is a challenge.
Fortunately, there are ways to boost your law firm so it starts to be recognized. Here are a few suggestions.
Guest Blogs
Before they come to you, potential clients try to find their legal answers through blogs. Sometimes, these are connected to the law firm’s website. In other situations, an attorney writes a guest column on another site. Normally, these are based on certain aspects of the law.
When you write something for one of these blogs you do so as a subject matter expert in a certain field. As a reader digests what you say, they realize you are the person needed to resolve their issues. In turn, you increase your client base.
Create A Podcast
A podcast is another way to display your expertise along with the attorneys that work with you. It doesn’t have to be an hour-long broadcast. Some of the more successful podcasts are a few minutes in length and focus on a single topic.
If you decide to go with something longer, then don’t make it a one-person show. Invite the firm’s other lawyers to discuss different aspects of criminal or civil law. Bring in someone from outside your office as a guest lecturer of sorts.
Hire A Marketing Firm
Yes, there are marketing agencies for attorneys. Like organizations for similar industries, their goal is to determine how to get more clients for your law firm.
They do this through discussions and assessments. Their agents try to find the right client avatar through a series of qualifying questions. When this is done, the marketing firm searches out the best ways to connect with these individuals through printed and digital media.
Provide Free Advice
Providing free legal advice doesn’t mean you take every pro bono case. Rather, you offer no-cost consultations for those who seek help with their legal matters. This could be in the form of an online message session or a face-to-face meeting.
The goal of these meetings is to make potential clients aware of their best options. Though you need to sell yourself it mustn’t be done in a heavy-handed way. Generally, people in need of attorneys don’t want to know about your history in the field. They want their pain points to be addressed.
So, the free advice needs to be in the third person. In other words, less use of ‘I’ and more use of ‘you.’ Sympathize with their situation, then be honest with them. In the end, those seeking free advice are smart enough to know if you are the best person to help them with their issues.
Change Your Website
When you do a guest blog on an industry site there should be a link back to your firm’s homepage. This one, and the other pages on your site, should reflect the firm’s knowledge and its goals to help individuals. A static, one-page site is not the way to show this.
On the contrary, the simplest website design connotes a sense of laziness. It shows you aren’t willing to invest your time or that of a designer to maximize its purpose. As a result, potential clients look elsewhere.
On the other hand, you don’t need a website with so many bells and whistles that customers have a hard time finding what’s needed. It should be somewhere in the middle. Sharp enough so the user experience is maximized but simple to avoid long processing times.
Although the above suggestions to boost your law firm seem daunting, you don’t have to tackle them at one time. On the contrary, it’s better to set small, achievable marketing goals to create a steady stream of clients. Start by listing the expertise of your attorneys. Then, through the above suggestions, determine the best marketing for each.
Should guest blogging or changes to the website not work, then continue to tweak your operations until you hit the right formula. When you do, the benefits will be beyond what you dreamed.
