Law Firm Digital Marketing Strategy Guide

Digital marketing for law firms spans a comprehensive mix of disciplines across owned, earned and paid media. Audiences expect organisations that they engage with to be accessible to them around the clock and across all devices and channels. For law firms, this means implementing a digital marketing strategy that incorporates a sophisticated end-to-end client journey. The most digitally effective law firms invest in several tactics to attract, engage and retain clients and employees with their firm and its services for an attractive ROI.

Legal firms worldwide have historically been slow to innovate digitally, however following the pandemic there has been a seismic shift in an appetite for digital transformation from the sector. By 2025 it is predicted that firms will increase their spend on digital threefold in a move to transition from being lawyer-centric to client focussed. A clear signal that digital investment is becoming an increased priority.

7 tactics for an effective law firm digital marketing strategy

1. Invest in your website

Your firm’s website is your most valuable digital asset in terms of law firm digital marketing. Your website is the epicentre of how your firm is perceived online and how its designed, built and optimised is critical to your target audience being able to find your firm digitally and find out more about your services.

Choosing a website technology that is aligned with your firm’s digital ambitions is important in providing marketing and communication teams with the tools they need to deliver a premium online experience for your existing and prospective clients. Enterprise-level platforms like Sitecore or Episerver (now Optimizely) are equipped with the capabilities required for secure, sophisticated solutions that can operate effectively at scale.

For websites to deliver the best ROI, they must meet a series of best-practices. These include:

• Quick loading speed
• Mobile optimisation
• Technical SEO
• Accessibility
• Best-of-breed coding

2. Prioritise SEO

‘To Google it’ is an action embedded into our everyday lives and is the single most important search engine in the world, boasting a 92% share of the market. It’s this reason that any professional digital marketer will adhere their law firm SEO to Google’s guidelines to ensure optimum rankings on the search engine results pages (SERPs).

In the legal sector, two thirds of call conversions are driven by organic search and 58% of people use voice search to find information about a local organisation. SEO has the power to propel firms into new markets, territories and builds credibility, visibility and new revenue opportunities.

3. Create Targeted Paid Ads

Using Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising on Google and other search engines is a quick method to boost visibility online and target specific audiences. The potential ROI from paid ads can reach 200% making it a lucrative channel to include in a law firm digital marketing strategy or campaign.

Law firms can also leverage paid ads or ‘sponsored posts’ on social media channels. Ads can be tailored to a variety of demographics, user behaviours and be set to show to visitors that have previously visited your firm’s website, specific pages or previous paid social ads to drive conversions.

4. Engage Clients with Email Marketing

On average emails have an open rate of 21.5% across all industries and have a higher conversion rate than any other channel, making it an essential tactic to include in law firm digital marketing activity. Sending personalised emails, law firms can keep clients engaged with relevant content and messaging about their firm and services whether its informative reports or the latest industry news to keep their firm at the forefront of their target market’s mind.

5. Drive ROI with Content Marketing

Content marketing powers all aspects of law firm digital marketing and costs 62% less than traditional techniques. Clients like to learn about firms and have access to information on services and products that is easily accessible to them, with 70% reporting a preference on educational content via articles over adverts.

Creating content that is catered to your firm’s clients and target audience gives marketing teams the opportunity to control the messaging and positioning of their firm and the opportunity to build client trust and loyalty that they’re the leaders in their field.

By optimising content for SEO and creating content based on keywords that already are being searched for, firms can take advantage of increased visibility on Google’s search results and benefit from relevant website traffic and conversions.

6. Reach Clients Through Social Media

There are over 4.6 billion social media users globally, accounting for approximately 57% of the population making it highly likely that law firm clients are present on social media platforms. For firms, this presents an excellent opportunity in their digital marketing strategy to attract and engage clients before they’ve even picked up the phone.

The average adult spends just under 90minutes a day on social media, giving law firms a great space to promote services, share useful information and drive visitors to their website or to get in touch. Firms that make themselves visible and conveniently accessible to their target audience can benefit from building meaningful relationships whilst maintaining a positive brand image for their firm.

7. Personalisation

80% of people state that they’re more likely to do business with an organisation that offers personalised experiences. Law firms that include personalisation on their websites and throughout their digital marketing can benefit from building meaningful relationships with their clients, the insight to deliver relevant content and an increased conversion rate.

How to create a law firm digital marketing strategy

Creating a multichannel digital marketing strategy for your firm can be a challenging experience without the appropriate planning. Making the following considerations is a great way to make sure your strategy is effective and achieves the best results.

1. Analyse your current situation

Start your planning process by looking at your firm’s existing marketing activity and identify which aspects are working well and where there are gaps for improvement. At this stage you might want to explore some competitor analysis across different digital marketing channels as well as internal and external influences.

Find out where your target audience is hanging out digitally, take time to carry out a website and content audit to highlight key topics of interest. This review process will then give you some insight to base the direction of your strategy.

2. Set SMART Objectives

A critical part of any successful digital strategy is to have a clear overarching aim that informs your marketing objectives. If the analysis is highlighting where you are now, then this stage is looking forward to where you want to be. Whether your goal is to increase the firm’s new client volume or to become the most known firm in your field, objectives should be SMART to keep your strategy focussed and easily actionable.

S – Specific

M – Measurable

A – Actionable

R – Realistic

T – Time bound

3. Defining strategic and tactical delivery

Map out clearly what and how you’re going to do to achieve your objectives. From a strategic perspective you might want to consider how you want to segment your target market(s) and how your firm is to be positioned.

Tactical delivery can comprise of a singular or multiple disciplines such as SEO, social media or email marketing. Identifying which channels are best suited to help bring you closer to achieving your objectives and overall aim.

4. Taking action

Create an action plan that states what tasks need to be completed, what resources are needed and a timeline that will keep you on track. Resources might include expertise, tools or the budget required to deliver each task effectively. This part of your law firm digital marketing strategy will also highlight whether you have the required resources in-house or if working with a digital partner would be more beneficial.

5. Keeping track of performance

Without having defined metrics or KPIs to track performance, your law firm marketing can easily go awry. Effective digital marketing is tracked, measured and reviewed at regular intervals (daily, weekly, monthly quarterly). You can use a variety of analytics tools to monitor performance, i.e Google Analytics or Episerver Analytics. Keeping track of performance empowers marketers to fine tune their activity to achieve the best results and use budget most effectively.

How effective is your law firm’s digital marketing strategy?

Creating and delivering a digital marketing strategy can be overwhelming if your firm doesn’t have the appropriate expertise and resources available. Reviewing your current digital marketing performance can help you quickly identify areas for improvement and opportunities that you might have not previously recognised before. Working with a group of digital specialists with experience in helping ambitious, enterprise-level organisations to achieve their goals is a popular way to get a great ROI.

We are Ultimedia, a team of digital marketing and web development professionals that have been partnering with global organisations, sector-wide since 1995. If you’d like to learn more about how we can help with your digital marketing performance or get started with one of our Digital Effectiveness Audits, contact us today – we’d be happy to help.