A Guide to Growth Marketing for Law Firms

How to Use Creative Strategies and Analytics to Grow Your Legal Practice

You’ve seen the basic marketing strategies other firms use to promote their law practices: the respectable website, a general Facebook presence, maybe a few digital ads placed here and there.

But what if you want to really grow your firm’s client base and not have to wait for a slow and steady approach to start showing real results? Well, you need to start thinking like a startup and begin marketing your law firm.

The Basics of Growth Marketing for Attorneys

The way startups go from being a clever idea to a household name – often without a huge advertising budget – is through creative marketing strategies known as growth marketing, also sometimes referred to as growth hacking.

Marketing hack

The basic method behind growth marketing/hacking is to come up with an assortment of non-traditional marketing strategies – a bag of new and innovative tricks, basically – and then test each of them for effectiveness using the sophisticated tech and coding tools now available.

A good growth marketer basically experiments to see what works and then does more of it to grow the user/client base quickly, eliminating those long and uncertain waits for results and making every marketing dollar work harder.

Growth marketing is so powerful because it allows you to find the strategies that work best to bring in clients and target exactly the ones who are looking for your services.

What Does Growth Marketing Look Like for Legal Firms?

Obviously, what works for a hot new product seller or app developer won’t necessarily be the best plan for marketing your law firm.

But there are certain must-have growth marketing strategies your law firm needs to be employing. And any marketing strategy needs to include the analytics tools growth marketers use to such impressive effect.

Step 1: Start Taking A Dynamic Approach to Your Marketing

Create a growth-primed law firm marketing strategy by employing best practices in these crucial areas.

A Law Firm Website Worth Visiting

Your website shouldn’t just be a parking spot for your firm’s information on the web – it needs to work hard to draw new leads, engage with useful and interesting information, and spur contacts/hires with calls to action (CTAs).

That means a dynamic, interactive site with the regularly updated content potential law clients are searching for.

Law firm website must haves

Law firm websites must-haves include:

  • A great visual style and user-friendly design.
  • An optimized landing page with CTAs designed to convert leads into clients.
  • Written content: Articles on legal topics, FAQs, blog posts, downloadable guides.
  • Videos and podcasts are a great way to inform and help clients get to know your firm.
  • Testimonials/reviews/case studies are crucial to building trust and convincing leads to get in touch or hire you.

Curated Social Media Presence

Your presence on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn should go beyond mere listings for your practice and truly engage with people looking for legal help or to share a referral.

Your firm’s accounts need to be regularly updated with helpful content and monitored in case potential clients ask you questions or leave comments.

They can and should perform similar functions as your website – generate leads, provide useful knowledge, make it easy to get in touch – but they also let you talk directly to potential and current clients.

Use your law firm’s social media accounts for:

  • Articles and blog posts on law topics and even legal news.
  • A place to share your marketing videos.
  • Answering client questions, outreach, lead generation.
  • Connecting with others in the legal field and establish yourself as a true thought leader on relevant topics.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO takes time but its worth it

Use targeted keyword-researched content to drive organic search results toward your website and listings online. While it does take considerable time, research and knowhow, the payoff can be well worth it.

Paid Search/Pay-Per-Click Advertising

Employing a local and demographically targeted paid search strategy can set your firm apart from other lawyers. Pay-per-click for law firms can provide great exposure and a great ROI, but it can get pricey, especially for lawyers, because of competition. You need to know how effectively use keywords and geotargeting parameters as well as how to create a compelling ad to generate qualified leads.

Local Services Ads/Google Screened for Lawyers

Like regular pay-per-click advertising, these Google Screened ads for lawyers are fully vetted listings – great for building trust – and work on a pay-per-lead pricing model.

They provide excellent ROI as they ensure you have high visibility at the very top of the search results page.

Paid Social Media Ads

The extensive demographic databases of the social media platform will give you the ability to micro target as well as mass target the people you are trying to reach.

YouTube Brand Channel and Ads

Use the world’s second largest search engine to increase your visibility, engage through video content, and build trust.

YouTube establishes you as reliable source of information

Having your own law firm YouTube channel lets you establish yourself as a reliable source of legal information, and you can easily share your content across platforms, all for free.

YouTube is also a great place to feature Spanish-language and other content if you serve clients whose native language isn’t English.

Paid YouTube Ads let you reach an even broader audience and can be a solid way to increase your exposure quickly.

Email Marketing

Use this creatively to inform, build trust, stay in touch and even generate referrals. A regular email newsletter can help you expand your client base, boost conversions and keep past clients in the fold.

Email campaigns have high ROI

Email campaigns have one of the highest ROIs – $38 for every dollar spent in 2020, according to HubSpot – of any marketing method and remain a crucial tool in any digital strategy.

Now you may be wondering: Do I need to spend money and time on everything on this list to be successful? Of course not. You can start with just a few (a great website, social media, one or two paid ad types) and build from there.

An experienced law firm marketing agency can also provide solid guidance on how to start small and adapt intelligently as your needs change.

Step 2: Use Analytics to Identify Effective Strategies

Here’s what separates growth marketing from ordinary marketing.

Once you’ve deployed all the tools in your legal marketing toolkit, you need to go back and see what’s working best – that is, what’s attracting actual paying clients and driving new engagement – and then optimize and double down on those avenues.

That’s how you get the increased value for spend that’s made growth marketing all the rage.

It’s also why you will probably need an experienced digital marketing firm that understands growth marketing and the ongoing analytics that drive this supercharged growth model.

Advanced technical tools for marketing pros

Here are some of the advanced technical tools a good growth marketing pro will employ.

Website Tools

  • Google Analytics: Track and report website traffic. Can also closely monitor user engagement on your website.
  • Landing page optimization software: Used to optimize the all-important landing page to increase conversions.
  • Content Management System: Create, manage and modify your website content.

Email Marketing

  • Deliverability software: Helps make sure your emails are getting into inboxes and seen.
  • Email analytics: See who actually opens your emails and who clicks through on links.

Social Marketing Tools

  • Buyer persona tools: Figure out who your idea audience is.
  • Editorial tools: Help you schedule posts, pick peak times to send, etc.
  • Social media analytics: Will let you know how your content is doing.

Overall Marketing Analytics and Management

  • Campaign management software: Connects various marketing efforts for consistency, analytics and management ease.
  • Track conversions: Used for websites, digital ads, social and even email.
  • Customer relations management: Track customer engagement with marketing; trace sales to initial advertising sources.

Step 3: Keep Trying New Things

Of course, the mantra of this type of marketing is always adapt, adapt, adapt.

A great marketer will continually try and test new tactics, monitor key performance indicators, and change as needed to always stay ahead of the competition.

Use Marketing Growth Strategies to Expand Your Law Firm’s Client Base

Ready to use some new techniques to grow your practice and make your marketing budget go further?

We’ve helped a lot of law firms like yours, and we can help you, too. Talk to a law firm growth marketing specialist about the best strategies for your legal firm. Fill out our contact form or call 800-692-4037 right now for a free consultation.

Marc Apple

Marc Apple

Digital Strategist

I like inbound marketing strategy, creative design, website development, analytics, and organic and paid search. That's what I write about.