How to Build Your Law Firm Marketing Tech Stack (With Examples)

Let's get this out of the way, there is no cookie-cutter method for building your market tech stack. Your firm is unique, and your marketing stack is not going to look exactly like anyone else's or you may not have the budget to copy someone's tech stack.

Let's dive in.

1. Identify Your Marketing Goals

Before even thinking about all the cool software you recently came across, you’ll need to outline your marketing strategies. It doesn’t have to be in-depth, you simply need to have an idea of the basic strategies that you want to implement.

If you already have a marketing or BD team in place, take a look at what they're doing. This will give you an idea of the tools you need.

Here’s an example. Let’s say that you want to increase organic traffic to your website. The strategy for that would be SEO. Next, you want to capture leads. So you would invest in better web design and copywriting that highlights your calls-to-actions more efficiently.

Note it down and It could look something like this:

Example 1

• Goal:?Increase organic traffic
• Strategy:?SEO
• Tools:?To be determined

Example 2

• Goal:?Get more visitors to convert
• Strategy:?Copywriting
• Tools:?To be determined

2. What Challenges Are You Facing?

It's good to have a chat with your team and find out the challenges they're facing when they're trying to execute their day-to-day duties.

What adds more time to their job? What makes their job harder?

While the conversation should be open-ended, try to connect their challenges to your marketing goals. For instance, if you want to increase organic traffic, ask what specifically your team finds challenging when trying to optimize the website. If they say keyword research takes too much time, then you’d know that you’ll need a keyword research tool specifically.

Example 1

• Goal:?Increase organic traffic
• Strategy:?SEO
• Challenges:?Keyword research takes too much time
• Tools:?Keyword research tool that quickens the process

Example 2

• Goal:?Get more visitors to convert
• Strategy:?Copywriting & Webdesign
• Challenges:?Not enough copywriting experience with in-house teams, layout is weird
• Tools:?A new CMS that makes it easier for the team to add CTAs to any page

3. Establish a Budget

You can think about all the fancy tools you want for your firm but it means nothing if you can’t afford them.

You can go several ways about this. You can determine a budget per tool or per strategy. Alternatively, you can choose a budget overall for the entire team on a yearly, quarterly, or monthly basis.

If you're a small or mid-sized firm, I'd recommend going the monthly budget route. Most tools are available on a monthly subscription basis, which makes it easier to drop one if it doesn’t work for the team.

You can also choose a budget per strategy. For instance, you can decide you’ll invest $150 a month in SEO tools.

Note: Cancel the damn subscription if you're not using it!!

4. Research the Tools

Now that you have your strategies, your tool ideas, and your budget, it’s time to research the actual products you’ll be adding to your firm's stack.

Most lawyers hear about tools from other lawyers, but often just end up paying for them without knowing if it's the best choice for the firm.

Take your time and test out the tool (most offer a 7-day trial) and make sure it suits your firm's needs.

In the example I mentioned above, you'll need a list of keyword research tools and CMS software.

Make a list in a spreadsheet and include pricing and a general description of the product. From there, refine the list until you’ve decided on the tools you want to try out, and be sure to specify whether the tool needs a monthly or yearly subscription.

5. Non-marketing Tools

Project management tools, collaboration platforms, and data sync software solutions are just as important. Anything that cuts time from a complicated workflow is worth exploring. Google Drive would be an example, and so would?Asana.

6. Compile the data that you’ll transfer into the tools.

After you’ve purchased the tools, it’s time to transfer the data. Already have a list of leads? How about Excel documents you’d like to import into Google Sheets for collaborative editing?

Compile all of them in folders. Assign a type of data to each team member. For instance, one team member can compile the contacts from a conference. Another team member can compile the current templates you use for your social media posts. Another can compile all of the copy from the website for the website redesign.

When it’s time to sign up for the tools and adopt them, you can transfer these files and data and more easily pick up where you left off.

7. Analyze the tools’ success and switch solutions if necessary.

You don’t want to end up with an unused martech stack (I've paid months for software I stopped using...). Always audit your tools for their success — whether they effectively streamline workflows, automate tasks, and help your team do their work in a better way.

If not, there’s no shame in canceling your subscription and going for another solution. Take a look at product curation posts or research individual tools you may have heard of from other marketing leaders.

Best Marketing Tech Stack

The best marketing tech stack for your firm is entirely tailored to your needs, but there are a few tools we recommend — especially if you’re just building out your marketing team.

1. Collaboration

Google Drive

Pricing: Free

Alternatives: OneDrive, Dropbox

2. Communication

Slack

Pricing:?Free; $6.67/user/month (Pro); $12.50/user/month (Business +); Custom (Enterprise Grid)

Alternatives:?Google Chat, Microsoft Teams

3. Project Management

Asana

Pricing:?Free; $10.99/user/month (Premium); $24.99/user/month (Business)

Alternatives: Trello, Freedcamp, Project.co

4. Asset Creation

Canva

I can vouch for this and for nontech folks like myself, this is amazing.

Pricing:?Free; $199.99/year (Pro); $30/user/month (Enterprise)

Alternatives: Visme, Snappa, Adobe Creative Cloud (recommended for advanced users)

5. Stock Images

Unsplash

Great for finding images for blog articles and legal updates.

Pricing: Free

Alternatives: Pexels, Shutterstock (Paid), Getty Images (Paid), iStock Photos (Paid)

6. Grammar Checker

Grammarly

Pricing:?Free; $12/month (Premium); $12.50/user/month (Business)

Alternatives: ProWritingAid, Hemingway App

7. Website Visitor Analytics

Google Analytics

Pricing: Free

Alternatives: StatCounter (Paid), Simple Analytics (Paid)

8. Web Page Analytics

Google Search Console

Pricing: Free

Alternatives: Ahrefs (Paid), Moz (Paid)

9. Website Analytics Dashboard

Google Data Studio

Pricing: Free

Alternatives: HubSpot’s Dashboard and Reporting Software (included in Marketing Hub), Databox (Paid)

10. SEO

Ahrefs

Pricing:?$99/month (Lite); $179/month (Standard); $399/month (Advanced); $999/month (Agency)

Alternatives: Moz, SEMRush

11. Technical SEO

Screaming Frog

Pricing: Free;?$211 USD/year

Alternatives: DeepCrawl, Ahrefs, Moz

12. SEM (Paid Ads)

Google Ads

Pricing: Varies (Pay-Per-Click)

Alternatives: Media.net, AdRoll

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