5 Digital Marketing Tips for Law Firms

Law firm digital marketing is a broad topic. A quick Google search brings up dozens of articles on digital marketing tips for law firms, tricks and strategies to attract clients, build your brand, and market your law firm. However, depending on your practice area and size of your law firm, certain strategies may be more difficult to implement or not even relevant at all. 

Under the bigger umbrella of digital marketing includes many tactics like social media marketing, website optimization, digital advertising, search engine optimization (SEO), etc. (more on these below). For law firms that don’t have a marketing strategy yet or are just starting out, trying to capture all of these channels can feel overwhelming.

However, the most successful firms are those who prioritize quality over quantity—prioritizing areas of digital marketing that suits their practice area and clients. In this blog post, we’ll look at seven digital marketing tips for law firms of all sizes. We’ll also explore how you can personalize each channel so they are effective for your practice area. Out of these digital marketing tips for law firms, we recommend picking a few that will impact your firm most. Use these tips as a starting point for your marketing strategy.

Why do lawyers need digital marketing?

Digital marketing is the fastest and easiest way for lawyers to grow their brand.The more people that discover your law firm, the more potential clients you will gain, and the more growth your law firm will experience.  While different tactics suit certain practice areas better, all law firms can benefit from having a sound digital marketing strategy.

6 digital marketing tips for law firms 

A digital marketing strategy does not have to be perfect from the start. As you understand your target audience better and run more marketing campaigns, you may get results that are different from what you originally predicted. Digital marketing is ever-evolving, and your strategy should be too. The most important part is getting started. Below are 6 digital marketing tips for law firms. We suggest focusing on a few tips that are most relevant for your law firm. 

1. Invest in your law firm’s social media presence 

Social media is the best way to directly engage with potential customers. Clients can ask questions, learn more about your law firm business. Details clients can learn from social media include its operating hours, practice area specializations, and direct contact information. Potential and existing clients can even book appointments through social channels. 

Showcasing your firm’s approach, values, and expertise through social media will also help clients feel more connected to you and expand your reach to those who might not have discovered you otherwise.

While there are many social media platforms(Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn), you don’t have to be on every one of them. The following is a high-level summary of how law firms can benefit from these platforms:

• Facebook: Many people use Facebook to connect with friends, family members, and brands they like on a more personal level. Most law firms, regardless of practice area, would benefit from being on Facebook, unless they are very specialized (such as business and compliance law).
• Twitter: This channel can be useful for law firms, but it depends on your audience. Twitter is best known as a source for legal news with many media publications. Firms that are very niche will benefit from this channel (such as sports law, entertainment law, and intellectual property law).
• LinkedIn: Law firms that service companies and business professionals should be on LinkedIn. Practice areas such as business and compliance, corporate law, and even administrative law will benefit most from LinkedIn. Firms that specialize in elder law, family law, and criminal law will most likely not need to be on this channel.

2. Prioritize your website’s user experience

Another one of our digital marketing tips for law firms includes making your firm’s website user experience a priority and ongoing project. If you’ve ever ordered takeout, then you might’ve experienced going onto a restaurant’s website and trying to find their menu, only to get completely lost. While lawyers don’t sell food, the same principles apply—there’s nothing more frustrating than not being able to find the information you need.

All law firms should have a website that is easy to navigate and contains clear, straightforward information for clients on your services. Your firm’s website should also include details on how to contact you and what your operating hours are. One way to make this experience seamless is by connecting your website to your practice management software like Clio’s WordPress integration, so you can easily streamline the journey from website users to clients.

3. Embrace SEO best practices 

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a marketing concept that seems much more complicated than it actually is. The goal of SEO is to provide users with the best possible answer to their questions when they use a search engine like Google.

SEO involves writing high-quality content, giving users a good experience, improving the technical aspects of your website (like loading speed). It also includes increasing the number of quality websites linking to your web pages.

The practice of SEO aims to understand what search engine users are searching for, why they’re searching for it, and what answers they need. Every law firm should have at least a basic understanding of SEO before creating a strategy around it. There is lots to learn when you first dive into the world of SEO. But as you learn more and more, it gets much easier. You can also work with a law firm marketing consultant to help with your firm’s SEO strategy.

4. Utilize email marketing  

The first four digital marketing tips for law firms focus primarily on helping potential clients discover your first and expanding your reach. However, email marketing is a channel that targets people who already have heard of you—keeping your firm top of mind.. Top-of-mind awareness refers to the goal of having your law firm be the first firm that comes to potential clients’ minds when they think about a legal service provider.

This audience may include:

• Clients on retainer (business and compliance law)
• Clients with recurring legal requirements (real estate law, wills and estate law)
• Potential clients that have upcoming cases or decide to push their cases to a later date (civil rights law)

Every law firm should use email marketing. It’s one of the best ways to market to people who are already in your network and keep them up to date with the latest events happening in your firm.

5. Measure your law firm’s digital marketing results

One of the most important digital marketing tips for law firms is to measure your marketing efforts. Peter Drucker, a consultant and educator whose theories helped shape the modern foundations of modern business, famously said “What gets measured, gets managed.”

But it’s difficult to manage your marketing if you don’t observe your results and create plans for improvements. Each of the five strategies above have different ways of measuring and different markers for success. Understanding what those markers of success look like for your business and how to get there is just as important as creating the campaigns themselves.

Before you add any of these digital marketing tips to your business strategy, ask yourself what you’re trying to achieve and how you’re going to get there. 

Conclusion 

It may be overwhelming to see all the different digital marketing tips for law firms and feel like your own marketing strategy is falling behind. But another way to look at it is by seeing all the different possibilities and results you can achieve by taking your digital marketing strategy to the next level.

While all law firms can benefit from these tips above, that does not mean you need to implement them all at once. Start slow and use however many digital marketing tips that feel right for you. If you need help, there are plenty of forums and communities, like Clio’s Law Community, where you can discuss and get advice from fellow lawyers on where to start and how to pace yourself. And don’t forget to keep on top of digital marketing current events—you never know what you might learn! 

Marketing brings many benefits to law firms and getting started doesn’t have to be difficult. In certain ways, everybody is already a marketer through posting on their own social media profiles, interacting with your fellow lawyers online, and sending emails to potential clients. You already have all the basics down, now it’s time to expand it to your law firm.

We published this blog post in October 2021. Last updated: June 1, 2023.

Categorized in: Business