The legal sector is one of the most saturated and competitive niches in the digital marketing realm. If you are an attorney or represent a law firm, you’ll likely know that getting seen in an ocean of firms is easier said than done.
If your law firm isn’t seeing much traction on digital channels, then you may need a better marketing strategy.
How to market a law firm?
Compared to most other niches, the legal sector is incredibly saturated (full of competition). From other law firms, legal solutions firms, to attorneys and even legal blogs: most firms are driving their clients from some form of marketing and it tends to be digital. Due to the amount of competition in the legal niche, marketing legal services is easier said than done. Most firms allocate a significant budget to digital marketing and some even hire in-house marketing pros to generate leads.
For smaller legal firms, spending thousands each month just isn’t feasible or cost effective. In this article we look at some of the best ways that law firms can drive leads using digital marketing methods.
PPC – Pay Per Click
PPC or pay-per-click advertising is incredibly costly in the legal sector. For just one person clicking on your Google ads, you can expect to spend $5+… for just a single click to your site. However, pay-per-click marketing doesn’t have to be so costly. Working with a PPC team who has the ability to find low-cost keywords relating to your legal services means that you’re likely to pay less than $1 for each click to your site. If your website has a strong lead funnel, you may be able to get as many as 5 leads for every $100 spent using PPC. Unlike SEO, PPC isn’t a DIY marketing solution. Without proper research, planning, testing and altering, you are unlikely to make your ad campaign profitable, especially is a niche as competitive as law.
SEO or search engine optimization is another marketing channel that law firms can use in order to drive leads. Search engine optimization is the process of ensuring that your website follows best-practices that search engines set. The main benefits of SEO is that it is cost effective and can achieve a high ROI, due to the lack of constant spending like with PPC. The main issue that businesses face is that SEO can take months to see strong results. There are many aspects to SEO, ranging from site speed, on-page factors and link building.
An SEO freelancer or agency can charge as much as five figures per month to handle your SEO, which is why many business owners chance their own hand. The legal sector is filled with big names and big budgets, which means that it’s unlikely that you will see results without working with a specialised law firm marketing agency.
Why does my law firm need digital marketing?
The era of highway banners and newspaper ads is no longer here, with digital advertising being the premiere way for businesses to generate leads. The legal sector is no different, as most law firms and attorneys generate the majority of their leads from digital channels such as SEO and PPC.
Digital marketing should be seen as an investment and not just an expense for firms. Working with a well-suited agency can be the difference between your thrive surviving and thriving.
Signs my marketing strategy isn’t working
Different marketing channels have their own measurements of success and for law firms, it’s essential that you know if your marketing is a success or not in order to prevent your budget from being wasted.
If you are running a PPC campaign, you should look at your cost of acquisition per lead. Over time you should see this figure decline as you further optimize your campaign. Not all campaigns are immediately profitable, but as the months go on you should see the cost of your PPC ads be less than the revenue they they generate (they should be in profit.)
As SEO is a longer-term marketing solution, results may take weeks or months to see. Within 4-6 weeks your site should rank for keywords (even if they’re in the top 100). And after a few months, you should be generating traffic and leads from organic search.
If you are not seeing these type of results within a suitable time frame, then it may be wise for you to find a different, more specialised marketing agency that’s tailored for law firms and attorneys.
