Are you finding it more difficult than every to market your law firm? Twenty years ago all you needed was a YellowPage ad and a couple good referral sources. Now it seems like every city has attorneys using:
- Billboards
- TV
- OTT
- SEO
- Social Media
- and more
How are you ever to compete in a market with so many options and large budgets that are being thrown around. Not only do you have the National brands like Morgan & Morgan coming into a town near you…if they aren’t there already but ABS law firms backed with private equity dollars. Here’s the bad news, you won’t be able to compete with them dollar for dollar. The good news is, you can carve out a digital presence for yourself to protect your backyard from these big marketing firms. Billboards and TV are mediums that are expensive with very little direct payoff. They are branding tools serving as the icing on a very big cake. SEO and Social Media allow you to be hyper focused in your targeting so you’re not wasting any of your marketing budget. The reason your website, along with SEO, is so important is that you can meet someone who is looking for you where they are at. A billboard or TV ad is wasted on 99.9% of the people who see it because they don’t need an attorney at that time. BUT, if someone is searching for a “personal injury lawyer” or a “discrimination attorney”, they need your help now.
Social Media is another branding tool but you can be extremely selective in who sees your content. Wait, let’s back up a second. Social Media is not just one thing. There is an organic side and a paid side to social media and they behave very differently. In order to have a true organic presence on social media as a law firm you need to put in the work. It’s going to take a lot of time or some time and a lot of money. If you are able to film yourself and post videos, then you’ll just have to dedicate the time to posting good videos to your social media platforms. If you need professional help, you’ll still need to dedicate some time but you’ll also be writing some pretty big checks to have experts help you come up with ideas, shoot and post them. In a nutshell, to have a really good organic social media presence it’s going to take you a lot of time. My suggestion to most law firms is, have a few professional images and videos on all of your social media just in case someone looks you up there. If you do a half ass job on your posts, you will detract from your messaging and brand.
Paid social media is a different animal all together. I would steer away from traditional “TV advertising” style videos you’ve seen lawyers do and try to get a message out that will resonate with your community. By traditional I mean “If you’ve been hurt in a car accident blah blah blah”. Remember, these videos will be seen on social media and people will scroll past that faster than an ad for Amway. Keep in mind that 99% of the people who see your ad will not need you then. Your job with paid social media is to be respected and memorable so if they or someone they know needs an attorney, you are at the top of their mind. Or, more likely, when they do a Google search, they see and recognize your name on the first page and you’ll earn the first click. Here are some ideas for good Social Media posts:
- Your history in the community
- Your passion about practicing law
- Testimonials of people you’ve helped
- Charities (hopefully local) that you support
- Youth Sports teams that you support
- A personal story of how your firm changed someone’s life for the better
- Your commentary on a law that was changed for the betterment/safety of your community
People engage with stories on social media. Trial attorneys have some of the best stories to tell. Just be concise and sincere and you’ll resonate with your community.
Once you have a library of good videos you can pay to have them put in front of your community. You can target cities and zip codes. Or, by interest and yearly income. For example, if you know that most of your clientele make less than $100K per year and rent their home instead of own, your ads can be targeted to that audience. This can all be done with a modest budget when compared to traditional TV advertising.
Here’s a video I made explaining what I call the “Milkshake Effect”. Don’t let this happen to you. Reach out to me at anytime and I’d be happy to dive into any of these topics in more detail.