More than ever, lawyers are expected to provide value beyond simply completing work for a client, particularly if they want to encourage repeat business or attract new clients. Demonstrating your expertise in a certain area of law or a specific industry or profession will help you establish yourself as the ‘go-to’ lawyer for that area of law or industry. A simple way to demonstrate this expertise is to blog about updates to law and provide snapshots of client work with an engaging ‘human’ story. As part of its series, ‘Four Simple Marketing Tips for Law Firms’, Insights explores how law firms can use a blog to attract new clients and encourage repeat business from existing/previous clients.
Provide free legal updates
Keeping your clients up-to-date with the latest law is a useful opportunity to show you are still thinking of them and their business. Legal Vision recently did this particularly well. The award-winning NewLaw firm published an update for its small business clients regarding the implications of changes to the Fair Work Act. The changes, which would allow long-term casual workers to request a permanent position, had been moderately covered by the media, but not from the perspective of business owners.
In this way, LegalVision demonstrated their expertise and kept clients, former and current, engaged. The update could also serve to alert clients to legal work that might be done to stay compliant with the new laws.
Focus on ‘human’ stories
Regardless of whether you prefer to communicate via blogs, social media, eNewsletters or podcasts, it is essential to focus on the ‘human factor’ underpinning each case.
For family lawyers and mediators, this might involve a video testimonial featuring you and your client talking broadly about what you did to help them, without disclosing confidential aspects of the case. This also offers a way of explaining what you do, and how you do it.
Focusing on the human stories that trigger legal issues removes the often dull, dry and unrelatable aspect of promoting the work of lawyers. Instead, it shows how the law can positively impact a person’s everyday life.
Promote via eNewsletters and social media
Now that you are creating all this content, remember to get it out to clients or potential clients in every way possible. Setting up an eNewsletter for current and past clients, as well as any email or online enquiries you may have received, can be a good way to provide value and prompt clients to get in touch for legal services. eNewsletters also tend to have the best ‘cut-through’ rates; in other words, they tend to be read more than social media or advertisements.
Posting to social media is attractive because, in a sense, it’s where people spend the majority of their digital lives. Be mindful that social media is very much a ‘social’ space; you should not be selling legal services here so much as telling stories of your clients, and how you have helped them.
As with all communication, consistency is key. Commit to sending an eNewsletter weekly, fortnightly or monthly and dedicate staff or external resources to creating content and sending it out. Post to social media 2-3 times a week, preferably during ‘commute’ times (6am-9am or 5pm-7pm).
Remember to include a clear ‘call to action’ in emails and posts – give potential clients something to do should they be interested in your services. This could be linking to an online booking engine to schedule an appointment with you, or, if available, purchasing a legal document from you via an interactive chatbot.
Where possible, podcast
Despite the decline in print and other forms of ‘traditional’ media, podcasting is more popular than ever. Free, easy to access and highly niche, podcasts provide an opportunity for people to learn, laugh and connect with issues that matter to them at a time convenient to them – usually while they’re on their daily commute.
According to a recent survey conducted by the ABC, 44% of Australians listen to at least 5 hours of podcasts per week, which equates to 6 podcasts per week across 4 different podcast series. The majority (71%) of listeners are 14-34 years old, with 62% listeners tuning in via their smart phones.
For lawyers, podcasts provide an in-depth interview medium to explore what they do, what makes them passionate about their work, and to give listeners a chance to get to know the lawyer themselves.
In addition, podcasts, can help boost a law firm’s SEO through backlinks. Given the key demographics of podcasts, they offer a rich source to engage first-time consumers of legal services who may not yet have an established lawyer.
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