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How to Market a Commercial Law Firm? Complete Guide

Having a strong marketing strategy for your commercial law firm can help you stand out and attract new clients.

However, marketing a commercial law firm can be a challenge, especially when you’re not sure where to start.

How to market a commercial law firm?

Guide to effective strategies and tactics

In this guide, we’ll provide you with comprehensive advice on how you can market your commercial law firm. From identifying your target audience to creating a website, we’ll cover all the important steps you need to take to attract new clients.

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Identify Your Target Audience

Before you undertake any marketing activities, you need to identify your target audience.

Identifying your ‘ideal legal client’ is a crucial step if you are looking to create an effective marketing strategy. It will prevent wasting your budget, too.

Having an idea of who your ideal client would also help to ensure that you are targeting the right people with the right message.

How to Define Your Ideal Client

To define your ideal client, you need to consider the types of businesses or individuals you are best suited to serve.

This can include factors such as industry, location, size of the company, and legal needs.

It is important to have a clear understanding of their characteristics and preferences to tailor the marketing message and approach accordingly.

Research Your Market

To effectively reach your ideal client, you should do some research. Look at the market trends, consider the legal issues that your clients face, and the potential demand for your services.

The research can provide insights into how your firm can differentiate itself and add extra value to your services.

Analyse Your Competitors

Analyzing your competition is crucial.

It can provide valuable insights into the marketing tactics used by other firms in the same market.

By understanding the marketing channels, messaging, and value propositions of your competition, you can identify areas of opportunity.

This can also provide insights into what is working and what isn’t working. All of this can be used to inform your firm’s marketing strategy.

Develop a Strong Brand Identity

Creating a memorable brand identity will allow you to establish a strong presence in the industry.

Key steps to develop a strong brand identity include creating a logo and a tagline.

Establishing brand guidelines and using your brand consistently also are essential.

Create a Logo and Tagline

Your logo and tagline are the visual and verbal representation of your commercial law firm brand.

Both should be distinctive, memorable, and easily recognisable to your prospects.

When designing your logo, choose colours, fonts, and imagery that reflect your brand’s personality and values.

Your tagline should be a short and catchy phrase that encapsulates your brand message.

  • Note that your brand will be continuously evolving as your business is developing. Your logo and colours may change over time and that is completely fine.

Establish Brand Guidelines

Once you have created your logo and tagline, establish brand guidelines that set the tone for all your marketing materials.

This includes defining your brand’s personality, voice, and style.

Your brand guidelines should ideally outline rules for:

  • logo usage,
  • typography,
  • colour palette, and
  • any other design elements that make up your brand.

Having a document featuring your brand guidelines will help you and your marketing team adhere to them.

Consistently Use Your Brand

Consistency is key to building a strong brand identity.

Ensure that all your marketing materials use your logo and follow your brand guidelines.

This creates a cohesive and recognisable brand image across all platforms.

Make sure your brand is communicated consistently in all customer touchpoints to increase awareness and establish trust with your law firm clients.

Create a Professional, Fast Website

Creating a website for your commercial law firm is an essential part of establishing your online presence and attracting prospective clients.

There are two requirements your site needs to meet.

One, it needs to look professional to present your firm in the best light. Use imagery that doesn’t appear too stocky and complements your copy.

Two, your website needs to be fast as page speed has recently become a search ranking factor. If your website is slow, you may find yourself lower in the rankings and lose out on valuable client enquiries.

Lastly, you need to choose the right platform to build your law firm website on.

We always recommend WordPress as it is affordable and scalable. Website builders such as Wix may be better for small, independent businesses.

Choose a Domain Name

While your law firm’s name may be long, your domain name should be short, memorable, and easy to spell.

Ideally, it should also reflect your firm’s area of expertise.

You can choose from a range of domain extensions, such as .com, .net, or .law. However, we always recommend going with ‘.co.uk’ as your primary domain extension.

You may also wish to consider securing the ‘.com’ extension to prevent your competitors or resellers from purchasing it.

Select a Hosting Provider

Your website should absolutely be hosted on a reliable and secure server to prevent data breaches.

You can choose from various hosting providers that offer different plans and features.

It’s important to consider factors such as uptime, speed, support, and scalability when selecting a hosting provider for your law firm.

Good hosting is also important for digital marketing activities. A good service provides reliable and fast website performance, which is essential for providing a positive user experience.

Develop Your Website Content

Your website content should be informative, engaging, and easy to navigate.

It should highlight your firm’s services, experience, and expertise.

Include case studies, testimonials, and blog articles to showcase your knowledge and build trust with new website visitors.

All of this will make it easier to convert prospects into paying clients.

Optimise Your Website for Search Engines

SEO helps your website appear in search engine results when your prospects search for keywords related to your services.

It does this by showing your website to people who search for information related to your services.

If you decide to hire an SEO to help your law firm rank better, they may undertake a range of tasks to help you show in search results.

Some of the them may include:

  • conducting keyword research using various tools,
  • optimising your Google Business Profile,
  • speeding up your website.

Provide Valuable Content

As a commercial law firm, providing valuable content to your target audience is a critical component of a successful content strategy.

Use your website as a platform to share valuable information to help your firm become an authority in commercial law.

Many people turn to search engines to find answers to their questions. Appearing in front of them when they need advice, you have better chances of converting them into paying clients.

Develop a Blog

One effective way to provide helpful content to your target audience is to create a blog.

By doing so, you can share your expertise with potential clients and establish yourself as a thought leader in commercial law.

Consistently publishing high-quality posts that address your target audience’s pain points can increase your client retention.

In addition, it can improve your website’s online visibility and attract new visitors to your website.

Create E-books and White-papers

Educating your potential clients on legal issues and specific areas of commercial law allows you to showcase your expertise. Providing helpful information also builds much needed trust.

While you might be concerned that people may attempt to solve their legal issues using your guides, most will appreciate the guidance.

Ultimately, they may still choose your services to save time or ensure complete resolution.

Guides also attract potential clients, demonstrating your investment in helping them find solutions and leading to new business opportunities.

Host Webinars

If you don’t mind appearing on camera, you may consider hosting webinars.

Hosting webinars is another effective way to provide valuable content to your audience.

They allow you to engage with potential clients in a more personal way and address their specific concerns and questions.

You can use webinars to provide updates on changes in the commercial law or provide some general advice.

By providing valuable information through webinars, you can establish yourself as a trusted commercial law advisor to your audience.

Consider PPC Marketing for Your Commercial Law Firm

Paid advertising is an effective way for commercial law firms to generate new clients.

A good PPC campaign targets the right people, with the right message, at the right time.

Popular paid advertising platforms for commercial law firms include Google and LinkedIn Ads. Each platform has its own strengths and weaknesses, so it is important to choose the one that best suits your needs.

Speaking to a legal PPC expert can help you choose the right platform and invest your money for a high ROI.

Develop Effective Ad Copy

Once you have chosen the right advertising platform for your firm, the next step is to develop effective ad copy.

This should be concise, attention-grabbing, and clearly communicate the benefits of your commercial law services.

It is also important to use relevant keywords and target your ads to specific geographic locations and demographics.

An experienced legal PPC expert can help you develop this.

Monitor and Adjust Your Campaigns

Once the ads for your commercial law services are up and running, it is vital to monitor their performance. Adjustments should me made based on data and as needed.

This may involve:

  • tweaking your ad copy,
  • adjusting your targeting criteria, or
  • changing your bid strategy to ensure that you are getting the most out of your advertising budget.

With careful planning and execution, paid advertising can generate affordable enquiries and grow your firm.

Track Your Marketing Results

Tracking the results of all of your marketing efforts is absolutely crucial for the success of all your strategies. Without tracking the progress, it can be difficult to know whether your marketing efforts are having the desired impact or not.

Monitor your website traffic and conversion rates, and analyse your marketing ROI. Tools like GA4 (formerly known as Google Analytics) can be used to see the number of visitors your website generates. GA4 can also show you how visitors are interacting with your website. This will inform you as to whether your activities are bringing in the desired results.

You also need to track your conversion rates to measure the effectiveness of your marketing efforts. This involves tracking the percentage of visitors to your website who take a desired action. Such action may be filling out a contact form or making a call. By tracking your conversion rates, you can identify areas of your website or marketing strategy that need improvement.

In addition, analyse the Return on Investment of your marketing efforts. You can do this by comparing the cost of your marketing campaigns to the revenue generated from those campaigns. By keeping an eye on the ROI, you can make informed decisions about where to invest your marketing budget and optimise your strategy for maximum impact.

All this data can help you make informed decisions about where to focus your marketing efforts.

If you work with a marketing agency, ensure that you communicate with them well. The more effectively you communicate with your marketing team, the better they will be able to understand your business. This will help them create a tailored marketing strategy that aligns with your overall business strategy and objectives. Resulting in campaigns that are more likely to achieve success.

Additional marketing tasks you can undertake

  1. Leverage social media – choose the right channels, develop a content strategy, and engage with your followers.
  2. Attend networking events – join organisations relevant to your field, attend conferences, and participate in webinars.
  3. Offer referral programs – develop a program, reward your referrers, and follow up with referrals.

Frequently Asked Questions

The time it takes to see results from marketing a commercial law firm can vary depending on several factors, such as:

  • the marketing strategies being used,
  • the target audience,
  • the competition, and
  • the budget allocated for marketing.

It’s important to note that marketing efforts are a long-term investment and it may take some time to see tangible results.

Some marketing strategies such as SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and content marketing can take several weeks to months before seeing significant results.

Other marketing strategies like paid advertising (e.g. Google Ads, social media advertising) can yield faster results. However, it still takes some time to optimise the campaigns and see a positive ROI.

In general, it’s essential to have patience and focus on creating a consistent and effective marketing strategy that aligns with the goals of your law firm.

Continuously monitoring and adjusting your strategy based on data and results can help improve the effectiveness of the marketing efforts over time.