The Future of Law Firm Marketing

Digital Marketing Trends in 2018 and Beyond

If you have seen a slump in your recent marketing efforts, you need to evaluate what you are doing wrong and what you are doing right. As the first quarter of 2018 ends, you should have a good idea of how your marketing efforts are playing out and readjust as needed. While the number of leads you are getting each month is significant, the quality of leads and rate of conversion is crucial to your bottom line. If you do not know your conversion rates and the breakdown of leads coming in each day, week and month, you may be wasting money. Working with a marketing team with a transparent accounting of how each campaign is working will help you keep track of your efforts, but you need to have a firm understanding of the basics of digital marketing.

Focus on Intake

The number of leads you get each month will matter even less if you do not have a comprehensive intake system. If you cannot close the deal, you will not be successful. If you are not personally doing the intake, call into your office as a prospective caller or listen to recordings from previous calls to ensure that the person doing the intake is competent, friendly and handling the calls appropriately. If you have a call center handling after-hours intake, do an audit of how they are handling each call. It is highly recommended that every size law firm has an after-hours call center to handle any calls with leads that can be directly transferred to an attorney or intake paralegal. The more calls you take directly, the more likely you will retain that client. The likelihood of retaining a prospective client that has to leave a message is considerably less. They will move on to your competitor faster than you can redial their number.

If you have a system for leads to email inquiries, consider having an automatic reply text to send to them or an automated reply email and then make sure the prospect is contacted as soon as possible. The quicker you are at contacting leads, the higher your conversion rate will be. 

Follow up, Follow Up, Follow Up

Follow up not only applies to leads, as discussed above but also to anyone interested in the content you are supplying on your website, blog or social media. Consider reply emails that go out to people that download your E-book or that visit your blog. Follow up with additional information that may be of interest. Consider sending video in the email that answers frequently asked questions. Video can often establish a connection with prospective clients that a regular text email may not. 

Diversify

You need to diversify when it comes to digital marketing. Relying solely on a robust SEO strategy will likely not produce the results you are looking for. You need to have all of your cylinders working when it comes to social media, blogging, or any other aspect of a complete marketing campaign. The more platforms you are on, the bigger your market becomes. Utilize the different technology available for getting your message on different platforms. Make sure that anything that is being published is consistent with your overall brand. Keep detailed analytics on every aspect of your digital marketing campaign so that you can tweak things that are not producing. 

Focus on your Ideal Client

Think about your ideal customer. As an attorney, you are naturally client-focused. You have to be to be successful. You are representing their interests and getting them the best results possible in their case. This should apply to prospective clients as well as current ones. Think about how your ideal client interacts with digital content. Make sure that your target audience has access to your information immediately. All content produced should be accessible on all devices. Clients will move on to a competitor within seconds if your website is not responsive to a mobile device. Do not make that basic mistake.

If you don't have video, you should. Video is one of the most compelling ways for customers to view your content. It is a mainstay on social media and is favored by numerous search engine algorithms. Give your potential customers information in the format that they want. 

Engage, Interact and Inform

Focus on engagement. A successful social media campaign will have high engagement with viewers. You want people to stay on your website and come back for more. You should be a valued source of information for not only your current clients but also those that are searching the internet. Consider the problems that your clients face and produce informative content that speaks to those issues. Respond to inquiries from blog posts and social media accounts, even if they aren't leads they should be considered potential referral sources. Be wary of posting content just to display content. Always focus on quality and make sure that you review anything that is posted on your behalf.

Digital marketing in 2018 and beyond presents new obstacles. Search engines continue to change how they rank sites with new algorithms being continuously generated. Artificial intelligence and machine learning is an unchartered frontier that will undoubtedly be integrated with marketing campaigns in the future. As we gear up for the future, we need to focus on the basics. Making sure you have a reliable intake system, all-inclusive follow-up and diversified digital marketing campaign will help you stay at the top of your game. 

Need more? Contact Amicus Media Group today. Download our free Media Report – Reevaluating Growth: Case Acquisition with Less Risk. We will help you understand your marketing options and improve profitability with strategic media options. We are focused on helping you reach as many potential clients as possible at less risk.

This article does not contain legal or financial advice. Author and publisher disclaim any and all warranties, liabilities, losses, costs, claims, demands, suits, or actions of any type or nature whatsoever, arising from or any way related to this blog, the use of this blog, and/or any claim that a particular technique or device described in this blog.