Content Marketing For Law Firms: The Complete 2021 Guide
In a world where anyone can find information on the internet, it’s more important than ever to have a robust online presence.?Content marketing for law firms?is an effective way to create brand awareness and generate leads for your firm.
In fact,?The National Law Review?just put out an article on this subject which noted that:
“people have seen enough of the same old advertising tactics. It’s not as easy to convince consumers with the same approach that worked once upon a time.”
It is important to give people something that is valuable and catches their attention. This is where content marketing really shines.
Of course, we agree with the National Law Review’s statement, but it’s not just because we’re a?content marketing agency. There are real benefits to be had.
For instance:
Content marketing can help law firms to:
Plus,?The Content Marketing Institute?recently found that content is one of the best ways to promote your business. More than half of all marketers across all industries use content to reach potential clients.
With that in mind, it’s our firm belief that your law firm can reach more clients and users through content marketing. You’ll have to if you want to remain competitive. You can bet?your competitors are already working to build content assets?and are using them to get their name out there, generate leads, and boost business.
Having said that, we put together this?2021 guide to content marketing for law firms?so that you can embrace content marketing and use it to outperform your immediate business rivals. However, let’s first cover a bit more about how law firm content marketing works.
Before we get into exactly how content marketing works for law firms, you should get a firm grasp of what it actually is.
You see, content marketing is different from traditional marketing strategies like newsletters and billboards for law firms.?It’s all about creating helpful content?that attracts and keeps your target audience.
This means that instead of telling potential clients all about how your services can help them, you share information that can actually help them … for free. People can sense the sleaze in overt sales pitches.
In contrast, content marketing is about convincing people you are the right lawyer for them. You can do this by pitching your company without actually doing the pitch.
So, how does that work exactly?
Well, consider the fact that many marketers simplify the content marketing process by saying?“Create Publish Share,”?leaving many business owners puzzled as to why their content isn’t generating any results.
Effective content marketing is about creating the right content at the right time for the right audience.
At the macro level, the law firm content marketing process goes like this:
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When it comes to developing a content marketing strategy for your law firm, it can seem intimidating. Many things need to be considered, and you need to put in considerable time and effort, especially if you’re starting from nothing.
Of course, for the busy attorney, that can be a pain in the rear end. That’s true even when you employ an in-house marketer, and most small to medium-sized law firms don’t.
With that said, putting together a?content marketing plan?can be accomplished without too much trouble, provided you have the right steps to follow.
That’s why immediately below, we’ve sketched out the process for putting together a content marketing strategy that will ensure your content gets created and seen by the right people.
If you answer the question?“Who’s your target audience?”?with “Anyone who has a legal problem,” then you don’t really know your target audience.
Instead, what you’ve got is an unclear picture of the type of people who might one day become your clients and why they “maybe” want to go with a law firm like yours.
To unlock powerful content that resonates with the people who have the sort of legal issues in which you specialize,?you have to have an in-depth understanding of who they are,?what motivates them to seek out legal help, and why they should choose your firm over your competitors.
You wouldn’t enter a courtroom unprepared,?understanding nothing of the case or the people involved. In the same way, your chances of missing the mark entirely and putting out content that does nothing for no one are incredibly high if you fail to put in the necessary audience research.
To make sure that your efforts are not in vain and your content is relevant,?conduct a market research survey?or ask potential clients the following questions directly:
Get potential clients to answer at least these basic questions.?The answers will inform your strategy?and provide you with relevant topics to cover in your content. They’ll also give you a pretty good idea about what sort of call-to-action (CTA) to use and the keywords you should include in your content.
We can’t stress enough the importance of doing audience research before you begin creating content. What you do here impacts your entire strategy and is a step that you mustn’t skip.
Content marketing can be a valuable way for law firms to build their brands and craft the narratives they wish to tell.
If you didn’t realize it, your brand narrative comprises your company’s values and mission statement, brand story, and approach to client service.
To build brand authority and trust,?all content must be consistent with the brand narrative.
A brand narrative can be created by your law firm and used as an internal document for your team to refer to when someone creates new content.
Be sure to answer the following questions in this document:
As you can see, these questions will ensure that your content is consistent with your company’s values. They will also help to address the specific needs of your target audience.
Market research can provide you with insight into your audience’s problems and the sort of solutions for which they’re searching. Keyword research will tell you what terms they use to seek out law firms on search engines like?Swisscows, DuckDuckGo, or Google.
Keyword research tools like?Ahrefs, Semrush, or Ubersuggest?provide valuable information about keywords used by your audience, how competitive those keywords happen to be, and how often they’re searched.
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You can use these tools to search for keywords related to yours, research competitors, find backlink opportunities, and more.
To find keywords relevant to your area of practice and specific legal services, it’s best to use SEO tools.
For instance, here’s an example of the Ubersuggest keyword research tool in action.
A best practice is to?make a list of keywords?that you want to target and then decide what makes sense when choosing the types of content you’ll build around them.
Competition research involves analyzing the content strategies of your competitors to help you improve your content.
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Remember that different target audiences may exist for your competitors. Therefore, you should?place a higher priority on your own market research?than on your competition’s strategies and tactics.
With that said, here’s a short list of ways you can spy on your competition’s content:
You can learn quite a lot by paying attention to what your competitors do with their content. You don’t have to copy their strategies to a tee, but you can use them as an inspiration for your content.
The takeaway here is to?be as strategic in your content creation as possible?and to be smarter than your competition when doing so.
A content funnel is composed of Top of Funnel and Middle of Funnel content. It serves to move users through the following stages of the buyer’s journey:
Top of Funnel
Top of funnel content is information that?addresses a topic at an extremely high level.?This applies to your blog articles and guides, which you can use to reach a larger audience with broad questions on a legal topic.
Middle of Funnel
Middle of Funnel content is?for users who are already “problem-aware”?and looking for a solution. They will likely be comparing different law firms and will seek out case studies, testimonials, and service pages.
Bottom of Funnel
Bottom of funnel content is?content that converts passive website visitors to new clients.?This could include landing pages for your service, a contact page, or a sales letter. These pages should include compelling CTAs that encourage users to get in touch with you.
Are you creating content that is relevant to every stage of the buyer’s journey? Potential leads could be missing if you don’t have content that aligns with every step of the buyer’s journey. To meet users at all stages, create a content funnel.
Related:?5 Reasons Content Marketing is Vital
When discussing content creation (blogging, podcasts, case studies, white papers, videos, social media posts, etc.), many lawyers will say that they don’t have the time or energy to do their legal plus content marketing.
The truth is, they’re right. It’s a full-time job, or it can be.
However, say you’re just focusing on blogging for the time being. Even then, it is better to create high-quality content that performs well in the search engines than it is to crank out a lot of low-quality articles every month.
Now,?Zoho Sheets?is a great tool to help you plan your keywords and blog topics. Then, set deadlines that are appropriate to your ability to create content. You may not have the resources to put high-quality content at a high volume. That’s okay; most can start with at least one article per month.
According to?BlogTyrant, “Brian Dean of Backlinko says he gets over 200k unique visitors to his blog every month, and he publishes a new post roughly every 4–6 weeks. At the other extreme, some blogs publish multiple posts per day.”
The truth is that over time, you may have more money to invest in content and getting others to do the leg work for you. In that case, you’ll be able to put out more top-notch content. One of the reasons?Brian Dean of Backlinko?gets those 200K views is that it is more about building backlinks to existing content than putting out more and more.
Work yourself up to two articles per month if it’s just you and your lonesome. The rest of your time should be spent distributing the content or repurposing it in podcasts, videos, and other formats … and building those backlinks. (Again, that’s another time-consuming area where you can outsource.)
Once you have created, published, and researched your content, it is time to let others see it. Although SEO blog content is a great way to passively generate organic traffic,?it’s crucial to have a distribution plan?to make your content visible on other channels.
Software such as Buffer can help you push your content to social media platforms. You can share your content on Linkedin and other social media platforms. More importantly, perhaps, your content can be sent out to your email list, used as a video, or transformed into another type of content altogether.
Schedule your content distribution so that it is consistent. This will help you drive traffic, attract website visitors, and potentially land you new clients.
An excellent way to make sure your content gets seen by new (yet still relevant) audiences is to repurpose it. For instance, that means taking a blog post and chopping it up into bite-sized chunks, which you can then reuse as posts on social media.
You can also make blog posts and turn them into a podcast or video script. Turn them into PowerPoint slides and much more.
Besides repurposing content, you should also?consider experimenting with creating new and different kinds of legal content. No rule demands that you must stick to blog posts alone.
In fact, it’s a good idea to try different content types in order to keep users interested and find what works best for your audience.
These are some alternative content types you might wish to consider using:
By now, you should understand that?all law firms can use content to reach a wider audience?across a variety of platforms. From blog articles to eBooks to video webinars, any form of content marketing has the potential for success if it’s done correctly.
To make sure your law firm is on track with this strategy, start by doing some research into what types of information your target market wants and needs. Once you know that, all you need is an effective plan for creating engaging content tailored specifically towards their interests and preferences.
The more you create, the more your content will improve over time and you will see a greater return on whatever you invest into your content marketing efforts.
The bottom line?
As we all move into the fall of 2021 and head rapidly toward 2022,?law firms are using content marketing as one of their main digital marketing strategies.?By following the advice throughout this article, you’ll be well on your way to creating a solid law firm content strategy.
Need content writing services for your law firm? Let’s talk about your business and content marketing goals.?Contact us today!
Originally published at?https://verticalcontent.biz?on October 11, 2021.
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1 年William, thanks for sharing!