Marketing Law firms in the Digital Age
Posted on 27 October 2011
If you are responsible for marketing the services of a law firm, welcome to Thinking Thursdays, our series of blogs targeted specifically at helping you achieve your goal.
Over the coming weeks we aim to give you insight in to how we help law firm practice groups and boutique law firms market themselves online, while contributing to the brand and marketing activities of the firm as a whole. We hope you will gain valuable insight that will help you understand how to apply the tools and techniques to your own practice and develop your new marketing strategy.
As a marketer or senior manager, you will already be aware that marketing your firm consists of two steps. The first step is to locate an audience with the need for your services and the budget to buy them; the second is to craft your product with the right price and service to encourage your prospective client to become a confirmed buyer.
Reaching an audience
As we all know, the marketing game has changed dramatically in the digital age. Historically, to market your service to a large number of people, the firm would simply contact the appropriate newspaper, television channel, or industry journal and pay for access to their prospective clients in the form of adverts. It was a simple transaction where publicity was traded for cash and every contact with the audience began with the writing of another cheque.
However, outright advertising has always been and continues to be a rich man’s game. If we look at it simply, it is unlikely that anyone reading the Financial Times would see an advert for high-value legal services and call up to engage lawyers immediately. A firm needs to place many adverts over a long period of time just for the chance to embed their name in the subconscious of potential buyers. It continues to be an expensive tactic, and one whose effectiveness is difficult to measure until huge amount of funds have already been committed.
For law firms this has another downside. Lawyers are competing for advertising space with consumer brands and financial institutions who have command of significantly larger marketing budgets. In order to make the marketing spend go further, firms can focus on their brand as a whole, but have no hope of simultaneously advertising their specialised services such as niche practice groups‚ the very services which make their law firm unique and marketable.
Going Digital
The digital age has brought about many changes, but for marketers, two are particularly interesting. Firstly, control of the audience no longer lies solely in the hands of a few powerful corporations. The Internet and Google in particular, have democratised access to consumers’ attention so that compelling content, not hard cash, is the price you pay to take your share. Put simply, if your lawyers have the ability to regularly produce interesting and useful content that potential clients want to read, then you can help yourself to a huge audience without spending a penny.
The second change brought about by the digital age is in the speed and level of detail at which marketing effectiveness can be measured. We have the ability using cheap tools and simple techniques, to track the interactions potential clients have with your firm, from the moment they first hear about you right up to the day they place their first order. With type of data at your disposal, you need never waste your efforts or budget on an ineffective campaign again.
Making it work
Building brands and awareness of the firm as a whole are important tasks and it is essential that law firm marketing departments focus their attention here. But here lies the problem ‚ where does that leave the practice group head, responsible for growing business in a particular area but without the support of a dedicated marketing professional?
The answer lies in focused, content-led, digital marketing strategies at the practice group level. Given proper training, lawyers can build independent, and highly effective digital marketing practices for the practice group, that will deliver a consistent stream of new business enquires with just a few hours. All you need is a little effort from each lawyer per week and help from an expert guide, which Isaac Parker can provide you with.
Continue reading our series of upcoming blogs as we will tell you how your law firm practice groups and boutique law firms can effectively market themselves online while contributing to and benefiting from the brand and marketing activities of the firm as a whole. We welcome your questions in the meantime and will answer them both here and within the series.
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