Solicitor marketing is not really about selling yourself and your services as much as it is about building trust with potential clients and establishing yourself as a knowledge authority. You need to focus more on communicating than advertising. A lot of elements go into any comprehensive online marketing strategy. Here are a few of the most important parts of online marketing if you are trying to gain a wider reach for your solicitor marketing.
Build a Great Website
Every serious solicitor has a serious website. You need to make sure your website looks and sounds professional. Make sure you edit everything and make sure there are no errors, broken links or images that are not visible. Since most people now use the internet on their cell phones, it is essential that your website is mobile friendly.
Optimize Your Website
You want your site to show up on the first page of search engines when local people search for solicitor services. This is where SEO, search engine optimization, comes in. There are many SEO strategies and techniques but focus on the basics. You may even wish to hire a professional SEO consultant to improve your site optimization. SEO involves creating content with relevant search terms and keywords.
Running a solicitor-focused blog is a great way to improve your search engine ranking. What should you write about? Show off your legal knowledge in each blog post. Write about your opinion on legal issues, advice on how to deal with new legislation (for example, many solicitors wrote about how to comply with Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation when it came out this summer), when to hire a solicitor, and so on.
Establish a Strong Presence on Social Media
Many solicitors do not use social media, but some are beginning to realize how effective social media marketing is if you do it right. Some solicitors avoid social media because it is such a time trap. If you have to post on your Twitter and Facebook pages every day, it eats up your time. The great thing, however, is that social media management is very easily automated. Create a series of scheduled posts that go out automatically when you want them to. You can even automatically target them to specific social media users.
Wondering what types of posts you should create? Think about creating content that is interactive for visitors or that is highly informative. Don't make the mistake of just using social media for advertising your solicitor services. Follow the 80/20 rule: 80% informative content and 20% promotional content.
Post information on new legislation, videos and pictures of your law firm engaging in local community events, opportunities to win free legal consultations and so on.
When you do want to post promotional marketing content, it's always great if you can find external content that talks about your law firm or your solicitor services. News articles about your involvement in community events are also great for social media.
Follow Up with All Leads
Solicitors know that they should engage any potential clients who call their office. But what about online leads? Many interested people may visit your website and social media pages to check out your solicitor services. How do you connect with them? You don't have time to contact everyone who is interested online... unless you automate parts of the process.
To ensure that you are able to connect with the most leads possible, place a simple signup form on prominent pages of your website and your social media pages. Above or beside your signup form, place the text "Please contact us with your questions or to learn more." Of course, not everyone will fill out the form. But it at least gives you a chance to connect with your online leads. A lead may not be ready for a personal phone call at this time, but they may be more open to asking a simple question or requesting more information through email.
Automated signup forms gather and store all information so you can easily access it as soon as you have time to reach out to the lead. Form information provides you with a place to start when contacting a lead. A quick response to a form submission shows that you are serious, dedicated and professional.
Try a New Solicitor Marketing Solution for Free
Adding automation to your marketing process saves you time and enables you to connect more effectively with leads and clients. You can successfully automate your social media posting, signup forms, emails, surveys and much more. Provide your clients with a highly personally targeted level of service. Sign up for a 14 day free trial of our solicitor marketing solution. If you want to learn more about how our automated solution makes your process more efficient, check out a free demo with our friendly sales team.
