What is Legal Marketing in 2023? | Marketing for law firms

Legal Marketing is any form of advertising and communication between you as a lawyer, your law firm and its ideal customer. Your law firm’s legal marketing includes business development activities and efforts to win more legal work, therefore, increasing revenue.

Introduction to Legal Marketing

Legal Marketing in Law Firms is essential at any stage of your practice’s existence and there are many legal marketing tactics you can use as a lawyer to win over new clients. But be wary of doing too much, too quickly.

Focus on several legal marketing strategies that play to your strengths to achieve the best results.

Why is Legal Marketing important to win more law firm clients?

Developing your legal marketing knowledge as a lawyer is important when starting, and scaling your law firm. This skill allows you to effectively steer your firm’s image to attract and win new clients.

Legal marketing activities attract more traffic to your law firm and allow your practice to identify and focus on your clients’ needs.

What is Legal Marketing and why is it important in 2023?

Legal Marketing is made up of multiple activities that successful Law Firms and Lawyers do daily. But not everyone knows where to start. The core marketing activities are:

• Market research;
• Advertising;
• Promotion;
• Publicity;
• Public relations;
• Market segmentation;
• and sales.

If you create, plan, and manage all these activities, then that’s legal marketing!

Legal Marketing Explained

Legal Marketing is the art and science of choosing target markets, and getting, keeping, and growing customers through creating, delivering, and communicating superior customer value.

Here are some activities we recommend for marketing your law firm.

Referral Networking Marketing for your Law Firm

Referral Networking is still one of the best ways of marketing your law firm in 2023. Whether online or in-person, it is something you can start doing if you’re not already doing it.

Connect with people who are potential sources of referrals for legal work even when you’re busy. Examples of ways to connect are through emails, phone calls, social media (LinkedIn), in-person (networking groups), or meetings.

Regular practice of referral networking for marketing your law firm works better than only making attempts when business is slow.

Be active in your Law Firm’s Marketing on Social Media.

Most law firms have social media, but not all use it actively or effectively for marketing to their ideal customer.

Being active on social media is essential, and you can easily start by distributing blogs or pages on your website through them, content distribution is a great way to boost your search engine optimisation (SEO).

But be sure to research the peak posting times to get the best click rates, and most business social media accounts will tell you when your followers are most active! For example, Between 11 am to 12 pm, and 1 pm to 2 pm on Wednesday is usually the best time to post on Facebook.

Provide legal information and content marketing through your blog

Content marketing through blog posts on your website is important and most law firms don’t know where and how to start posting legal information.

Regularly posting new content is a great way to win at SEO for your law firm. If you’re not sure what to post, start by explaining what your law firm’s services are or use two paragraphs on topics that are relevant and interesting to your ideal customer. As a legal professional, you’re not expected to write long and immersive content, but make sure it is original and expand on them later on!

Marketing a Law Firm with a Niche or Specific Area of Legal Work

Does your law firm focus on a niche or specific area of legal work? This is a great opportunity to position your practice as the “go-to” legal expert for searchers. You can do this by showcasing your ability to answer legal questions and provide helpful insight and facts.

Offer Your Law Firm’s Resources to Connect with Local Businesses

Act locally by offering your law firm’s resources to local businesses, individuals and professionals.

Partner up your law firm with a local charity and establish your greatest brand ambassador by volunteering or providing free legal advice. Legal issues cause emotional purchases and showing that you work with charities shows that you value people, not just profit.

Hire a Legal Marketing Professional for your Law Firm

Hiring professionals that specialise in legal marketing for law firms can further your efforts. As a solicitor, your field of expertise is in law and not marketing. Therefore, it’s worth your time and resources to use a legal marketing agency that delivers specific results.

These results can be reducing the cost of acquisition of new clients or a % increase in phone calls.

Once your initial efforts increase your workload, you’ll be able to keep consistent legal marketing activities to develop your client base.

The Basics of Marketing a Law Firm

You start a law firm and you go looking for an office to attract your ideal customer. You are conducting market research.

Before moving to your new office, you hang a sign that reads “Legal Services for Businesses and Individuals”. That’s advertising. So is putting your sign on a vehicle like a taxi that will drive around your town.

If the taxi with your sign on it gets stuck in someone’s garden and makes the evening news – that’s publicity.

And if you make the garden owner laugh about it, then that’s public relations.

If you deliberately lead the taxi past business parks and residential areas, this is market segmentation.

You set up a deal for local businesses for your legal services – that’s a promotion.

And when the local businesses and individuals come to your law firm, you show them your array of services. You explain how easily you can solve their issues, and answer their questions. Ultimately, if they choose you, then that is sales.

There you have it. Creating, planning and managing all these activities becomes legal marketing!

How does Legal Marketing create value?

The definition of value is the benefit you provide to your customer, minus the cost for your law firm to provide it.

The Benefit of your legal product or service comes in many ways. How does it make your customer feel? How do they look with it in front of others? What are the product benefits or the benefits of your legal services?

The Cost is not just money. It could be the ease of buying your legal services, or how much energy and time your customer needs.

Therefore, Value = more Benefit, less Cost.

Key Legal Marketing Principals for Law Firms.

1. Creation of Customer Value
2. Competitive Advantage
3. Concentration of focus (segmentation)

Segmentation works on the principle that you can’t be all things to all people.

It is the process of breaking down the total market into smaller, more manageable groups of customers sharing similar needs.

Using characteristics and aspirations is the key to identifying a suitable target market. Put simply: ‘it’s not for everyone, but it might be for you”. Your product/ service might not be for everybody, but it might be perfect for a specific group. A small group of people that values your services, even if you put off the rest, is better than being in the middle as an average product or service for average customers.

How to choose target markets for your law firm

Before you can segment the market and choose your law firm’s perfect target, you have to know several things and the five Cs of marketing.

The following five Cs explain what you need to know to be able to choose your preferred target customer:

The 5 Cs of a Great Marketing Strategy:

• Context

This is the market that you are in. Make sure you have a solid understanding of it. If you are a B2B business, you should know whether you’re dealing with the finance industry, or the legal industry providing people who require legal solutions.

• Customer Needs

You need to know what your customers’ needs are, what they want, and what the issues in your particular market are.

• Company Skills

Understanding what skills you have as an organisation that can offer solutions to the needs and issues of your market is key to a good marketing strategy.

• Competition

Your marketing strategy must take into account your competitors and therefore when you come to choose your target market. Knowing if the competitor base is really strong is important. If you are choosing a saturated market, it might be better to choose a different target market for your marketing strategy!

• Collaborators

Various businesses in your target market can be called upon to help you achieve your aims. These are your businesses’ collaborators. Having an idea of who you can work with and who your collaborator(s) are is a great way to add value to your firm, and subsequently its products or services.

Why you should focus on key markets

Understanding your key market

Unless your company has enough financial resources and time, you will never be able to understand all the markets. Therefore, it’s best to focus on understanding your market in depth.

Understanding your key market is a foundation that enables the next step for your business.

Better products

Now that you have a strong understanding of your customer, this allows you to offer better products and/ or services that are closely customised to people’s needs.

Adaptable business

Focusing allows you to be more responsive to changes in how your customers buy, and their needs.

Competitive advantage

You’ll know what your competitors are offering. Your business will develop a competitive advantage as you will already have better products and are responsive to your customers’ buying process.

Better use of firm’s resources

Focusing on your key market brings focus on the use of company resources, your time and budgets will be used to excel in your area of work. And If you want to do particular research in a particular market, then focusing your resources in that area is going to be financially better.

It’s easier to reach multiple customers from the same segment.

• They all know each other and talk to each other.
• All of them congregate in the same groups online.
• They attend the same trade events.
• Readers of the same trade magazines.
• They move jobs in the same sector.
• Facing the same issues.
• They speak the same language

How to choose the best customer category for your legal marketing strategy

1. Examine your strengths (experience, capabilities and resources)
2. Consider those external elements which may affect your business (e.g. competitors, social and behavioural changes, environmental changes)
3. Choose a particular group of customers and understand their needs
4. Choose the right channels to reach them (including new ways)
5. Try to differentiate yourself from your competitors using all the tools at your disposal
6. Establish a position in the market that is valuable (to customers), different (front competitors) and profitable (for you)

Key Legal Marketing Takeaways for Law Firms

• Be aware of the issues that your customer are facing at the moment.
• Know your customers’ priorities and how you can help them achieve their objectives.
• Identify your customer’s customers.
• Understand the skills and experiences you have in the sector.
• Know the products and services your customers want and need.
• Highlight the products and services you offer which differentiates you from your competitors.

Online Legal Marketing Services for Law Firms

Are you looking for support in the online marketing of your law firm’s legal services? See which one of our legal marketing services is the right one for your legal practice on our Marketing For Lawyers page.