Family Law Marketing: More Cases, More Revenue

No matter what kind of family law practice you have, you can benefit from a reliable family law marketing plan to bring in new clients. When you target clients in your niche, you will attract those who need your specific services.

Advertising a law firm comes with challenges, and knowing how to meet them will help your practice grow and distinguish itself from the competition. 

Understand Your Demographic

Before you create your family law marketing strategy, you first need to determine your firm’s ideal client demographic. Based on that knowledge, you can then develop a plan to reach out to it. As a family law firm, you want to brand your services for divorce law differently than you do for adoption law.

As you focus in on your demographic, consider these elements:

• Age
• Gender
• Location
• Occupation
• Salary level
• And other characteristics

Successful marketing plans for family lawyers depend on anticipating your client demographic’s questions and knowing how to answer them. Ask yourself these questions about your target demographic group:

• What qualities do they need in a lawyer?
• What information are they seeking?
• How much can they pay?
• What factors might scare, threaten, or challenge them?
• What is their main problem or reason for needing a family law expert?

Look at the clients you already have, especially the ones you’ve enjoyed working with the most. Please create a profile for that ideal client, then seek clients like them with your marketing plan. 

Develop a Clear Value Proposition

The value proposition for your family law practice should set you apart. Many family law firms have divorce attorneys to represent their clients, but what can your firm offer a client that your competitors cannot? In addition to being aware of your clients’ distinctive characteristics, become aware of what sets you and your firm apart, as well.

Use the information you have about your prospective target demographic to develop your value proposition. Picture what your clients’ lives are like. Are they just beginning the divorce process? Are they going through a custody battle or dividing assets? How can you make these processes easier for them?

Ensure that your value proposition relates to at least one of your potential clients’ main problems while highlighting the unique advantages your firm can offer them. If you have a process unlike any other family law firm, or a background that allows you to offer something more, be sure to include that in your value proposition.

Put your value proposition on your website’s landing page to show clients why they should remember you. It will function as a simple marketing component to indicate your specific practice areas within family law. 

Build Your Website for Customers

User-friendly website design with high-quality content will impact your ability to engage prospective clients who are shopping for a lawyer. It can reduce your bounce rate and encourage potential clients to reach out for more information.

Most of your digital marketing will happen through your website — where customers can find your blog posts, credentials, contact information, and more. Using best practices for website design means optimizing the user experience, allowing you to capture more leads and appear higher in search result rankings.

When you build your website, make sure to consider these factors:

• Mobile-friendly design: Most people search for legal advice and use search engines on their phones. Neglecting to optimize your content for mobile will put you at a disadvantage.
• Live chat: A live chat allows clients to get quick information, whether they need advice on hiring a divorce lawyer or want additional details based on one of your previous posts. Live chats offer immediate service and an opportunity to generate leads when people view you as responsive.
• Speed: Your webpage must load quickly to minimize your bounce rate. Most visitors will leave if your site takes more than a few seconds to load.
• Exclusive content: When you offer premium content that only visitors who provide their email address may access, you can build up a database while giving prospective clients privileged information.
• Newsletters: Newsletters can become a valuable marketing tool for your family law practice by helping you grow your database and keeping you at the forefront of your subscribers’ minds.

Show Clients Your Expertise

Clients want to know that you’re an expert at what you do. Marketing, for lawyers, means publishing content that shows prospective clients proof that you can indeed help them the way you claim you can. You should include as many of these marketing components on your website as possible:

• Trust badges: Trust badges show people that your family law firm has specific qualifications or certifications that prove your credentials.
• Awards: Display any awards your firm has received for your family law services and expertise so that clients will know you offer something other firms don’t.
• Testimonials: Reviews and testimonials go beyond marketing and show that real people have not only used your services but have expressed their satisfaction.
• Statistics: People like to see quantifiable success. Show them how many clients you have successfully helped, cases you’ve worked, awards you’ve won, and times you’ve appeared in the media.
• Case studies: Here, you can highlight specific cases you’ve won, without publishing names, to show people you have worked on and won cases similar to theirs. For example, a woman going through a divorce may want to see how many divorce cases you have won, especially if she anticipates a difficult process.
• Practice areas: Family lawyers sometimes practice over a broad range of niches. Listing your specific practice areas shows people whether they can rely on you to fulfill their particular needs.
• Firm size: By showing your firm’s size on your website, potential clients will know how much attention you may devote to their case.

Answer Client Questions with Content

Content that answers visitors’ questions encourage prospective clients to reach out to your family law practice for more detail and advice about their situation — which may result in converted leads. Creating content on your website, such as a blog or FAQ pages, allows potential clients to find the information they need, while you expend minimal effort and resources on marketing. You can also use other materials to offer informational content, including white papers, videos, and infographics.

When you create these marketing resources, consider answering questions like:

• How much does it cost to get a divorce?
• How long does the divorce process take?
• Do I have to go to court to get a divorce?
• When should I get a divorce lawyer?
• How do I handle custody, property, and other joint issues before the divorce gets finalized? 

Different content types engage diverse audiences, so consider what information you want to convey and which demographic you want to reach. Videos can help your family law firm reach younger audiences while increasing search traffic, building trust, and getting you quick leads.

Webinars show your firm’s expertise in your field while reaching many people and connecting with your clients. Meanwhile, infographics can provide an excellent visual marketing tool to offer information in small pieces. Blog posts show your law firm’s expertise while providing more detailed information that encourages clients to contact you. 

Use SEO to Drive Traffic

You want your marketing plan to get you on the first page of Google’s search results. For that, you need to incorporate search engine optimization (SEO) so that search engines will rank you higher, especially since 96% of people seeking legal advice use a search engine to find it.

To get the most out of digital marketing, use search engine optimization (SEO) with Google Ads. SEO will help you rank for many terms, from “divorce lawyer” to more specific terms in your practice areas.

SEO involves using head, body, and long-tail keywords. However, it would be best to consider keyword placement, URL optimization, dwell time, and your website’s usability when trying to rank higher. You can also use link-building, citations, and reviews when advertising for law firms.

Visitors will search for informational terms, which are phrases intended to get answers to their questions, or transactional terms, which they use when they want to speak to an expert in family law. Your SEO should cover keywords and phrases that cater to both types of visitors.

If you want to rank for “divorce attorneys” in your area, consider local SEO marketing, too. Use location-based SEO on your website to let search engine algorithms know you practice in a specific location. You can also take advantage of local marketing resources like Google My Business and law firm directories, but make sure to keep your information up-to-date.

Regardless of whether you use SEO on your blog or social media pages, avoid keyword stuffing, link farms, and content farms, which can harm your search engine rankings. These practices will cause the search engine to dismiss your content for using too many keywords and links at the expense of providing value for visitors. 

Use PPC for Lead Generation

Pay-per-click (PPC) ads allow your family law practice to rank higher in Google search results when someone searches for a relevant term. As the name suggests, you pay for these ads based on how many people click on them.

Good PPC can bring you business by putting the information people need in front of them. Hiring a family law marketing specialist to determine the right keywords and SEO strategies can help you rank in results that will enable your ideal demographic group to find you.

When it comes to PPC, you should focus on using long-tail keywords and dynamic keyword extension in your ad copy to match client search terms. It would be best also to target zip codes rather than city names. This strategy will allow you to rank for someone who searches for “family lawyers near me.”

When you use PPC ads, focus on having your visitor take a single action. If you want them to subscribe to your newsletter, create your ads so that when the ad takes them to your website, it doesn’t bring them to a divorce lawyer blog post but, instead, to the “subscribe to our newsletter” page.

When you use PPC for lead generation, budget at least $1,000 per month, and optimize your content. A poor marketing campaign can drain your budget quickly.

Enhance Your Leads with PR Work

Creating relationships with the press and media outlets is a long game that can bring high-quality leads. When it comes to PR, marketing for attorneys involves giving and taking.

Customize your communication with each PR outlet and tell each why and how their audience will benefit. Make your marketing approach about them, not you.

Can you offer advice on divorce law for their viewers? Can they interview you about adoption law for people considering adopting a child? If you tailor your expertise to their audience, they’re more likely to work with you.

Let PR professionals know that you have the family law expertise they need by creating authority-building content. You want to build trust with the people who can help family law firms, like yours, to network. When they mention you, feature these connections on your website so that clients and visitors can see your credentials. 

Create a Newsletter for Clients

Some people are looking for more information about your family law practice even though they aren’t ready to hire you. Keep these people engaged, send them your newsletter, and encourage them to refer other people to you.

Newsletters are a low-cost, effective marketing tool that reminds people about your firm through content delivered to their inbox.

With a newsletter, firms can feature show business highlights, case studies, family lawyers’ profiles, and media appearances. These items drive traffic to your website, improving SEO and reminding readers that you’re actively accepting clients.

Try combining other marketing strategies with your newsletter, such as:

• Blog links
• Relevant articles
• Q&A Posts
• Educational content
• Events 

This marketing technique gives your audience quality information and keeps them engaged as warm leads.

Social media doesn’t always work well for divorce lawyers and other family attorneys. People want to keep legal connections more private when it comes to family matters. They may not want your firm’s name appearing on their social media feed. Therefore, a more discreet email newsletter will help potential clients remember you when they need you. 

Convert Your Leads with a System

Once you’ve developed your marketing strategy, you’ll need a system to convert those leads into new clients. Your system should include a process for onboarding clients when they want to hire you. The most successful family law firms respond promptly to transactional communication, including emails about their services.

Clients should feel that their family lawyers care about them as people, not just getting their business. Clients going through a divorce may want an empathetic family law professional who understands the difficulty of custody battles.

Include a lead-conversion system in your marketing plan with your response time and how the firm will respond to inquiries. Share this marketing system internally to improve your method of keeping up with prospective client communication. 

Conclusion

Any successful family law firm should have a marketing plan that showcases your practice’s strengths, draws clients, and makes it easy for clients to find you.

Successful family law marketing encourages clients to visit your website, whether they need advice or are ready to hire you. These marketing efforts will help grow your practice and keep clients coming in, allowing your firm to thrive.

If you are looking for help please contact us here.