Law Firm Marketing Agency

Law firm marketing is the act of promoting your firm’s legal services to the public. The legal profession is one of the most saturated and competitive industries out there, so it is imperative that your law firm marketing plan be grounded in solid marketing strategy, and that it incorporates all appropriate digital marketing tactics and channels to help your firm achieve its goals.

Targeting Ideal Client 

Your law firm marketing plan should begin by thinking about your ideal client. What do they look like? What are their questions and concerns? What are they hoping you (or a competing law firm) can help them with? Focusing on your ideal clients and then building your marketing content accordingly is important because it ensures that your messaging is developed with their needs and goals in mind.

Emphasizing Website Functionality 

Once upon a time, people turned to their local yellow pages to find a law firm or attorney to help them. But no more. Today, people who don’t already know a lawyer or have a referral at the ready go online to conduct research. This means that a key component, perhaps the key component, of your law firm marketing plan is your firm’s website. Your website needs to be professionally built and maintained to ensure that it presents the proper image of professionalism, expertise, and trust that will entice users to contact your law firm to help them with their legal situation. If your website does not present this image better than competing law firms, you will lose that client to someone else. Make sure that the text, images, colors, fonts, and overall layout are well thought out and designed. You also need to make sure that your site functions properly, including all links and buttons, contact forms, online chat features, and any other functionality that your firm’s site includes. There are several companies that claim to specialize in law firm websites, and it can be tempting to choose one of these marketing companies to work with. But it is important to note that these companies typically use canned website templates which are being used by literally thousands of other law firms. This means that when potential clients visit your website, they struggle to differentiate your firm from so many others out there claiming to offer the same legal services. A far better option is to work with a marketing agency partner to build a fully custom law firm website that incorporates everything you want into your new website and nothing that you don’t.

Prioritizing SEO 

Another reason to build a custom website is that it will help your law firm with your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts. Ranking your law firm highly on search engine results pages is important for any type of business, but especially so for law firms. People usually conduct an online search when they need an attorney, not far in advance because they might need an attorney someday. So it is crucial that your law firm appear high in the results so that when a user conducts an appropriate search, they find you, not your competition. The law firm template websites are not designed with SEO in mind, another reason they are a poor choice for your law firm marketing efforts.

Demonstrating Expertise and Trustworthiness

Demonstrating your law firm’s expertise and experience is another important consideration for law firm marketing. Remember that the potential new clients who are going online to find a law firm or attorney are often confused, worried, or even scared. This, coupled with the previously mentioned fact that they are in need of legal help right now, means that your online law firm marketing efforts need to quickly and effectively put the user at ease, making them feel confident that your law firm is the best choice to help them with their legal issue. Content marketing is a great way to accomplish this. Your content marketing might include regular blog posts that touch on common and issues related to the type of law your firm practices, articles and white papers explaining recent important cases, and webinars or podcasts that go into more detail about specific legal issues. Your law firm might also wish to incorporate some content into your marketing efforts that showcase your team’s volunteer and pro bono work or that celebrates your law firm’s culture. This helps humanize your firm which aids not only with client acquisition but also with new attorney recruitment efforts.

Law firm marketing is important to your firm’s success for many reasons.

Increases Visibility and Online Presence

We’ve already touched on your potential new clients’ need for help right away, and the importance of your law firm demonstrating thought leadership to build credibility and trust. Therefore, making sure that your website and all other digital marketing assets are professionally crafted and designed for SEO purposes is paramount. Additionally, law firm marketing is important because these days consumers have much more control over the decision-making process. They are likely to conduct multiple online searches and to visit several law firm websites before making contact, so they will be comparing your firm’s online presence to those of your competitors before you even know they’re in the market for legal help. Even if your law firm truly offers better representation than competing firms, if your marketing does not reflect this you’ll never have the opportunity.

Demonstrates Success and Authority 

Another important, though too often overlooked component of a successful law firm marketing plan is social proof. Social proof includes things like client reviews and testimonials, case studies, and other methods of showcasing your firm’s previous successes. Consumers increasingly look for reviews and testimonials before contacting a law firm. Make sure that your firm’s attorneys are asking clients for reviews, and don’t be afraid to contact previous clients to ask them as well. This also gives you a great reason to touch base with older clients to see if they have any new legal issues that your law firm can help them with.

Encourages Attorney Recruitment 

Attorney recruitment and hiring is another reason why law firm marketing is so important. Today’s law school graduates have lived their entire lives online. Websites, online searches, and especially social media platforms all play a large role in their lives. In order for your law firm to attract the best and brightest young talent, you must have a robust digital marketing presence.

Provides Tangible Goals and Visible Results

The ability to track and measure the performance of your efforts is yet another reason why law firm marketing is important. Make sure that your digital marketing agency partner helps you identify goals and key performance indicators that will be used to measure success, and then tracks the salient data points and transforms them into actionable marketing insights. These insights can then be discussed and leveraged to make informed marketing decisions going forward to help ensure that every dollar your firm invests in law firm marketing is productive.

The first step in finding the right law firm marketing agency is to decide what you want to get out of the partnership. Are you in need of a new website? Do you want to spruce up your existing site? Need help with SEO? Social media? Targeted pay-per-click advertisements? Email marketing? Blogging? Or perhaps all of the above?

If you know what you need already, you’re ahead of the game. But what if you just don’t know where to begin? Not to worry. This is all too common and a law firm agency deserving of your business should be ready and willing to have these discussions early on and steer you in the right direction.

Perform a Google Search
When picking out a law firm marketing agency, or compiling a list of qualified candidates, there’s no better place to start than Google. Should you automatically partner with the first agency that turns up on a Google search? Of course not. But it is a good jumping point to get started. Learn a little more about the services each agency offers and go with your instinct as to whether or not the services they offer would be beneficial to your law firm.

What do previous clients have to say?
You’ll also want to pay close attention to law firm case studies and reviews. If the site you’re visiting doesn’t have one or the other prominently listed, it’s a good indication that they might lack the experience or reputation necessary to take your law firm to the next level in terms of digital marketing.

Do they have in-house specialists?
Once you’ve narrowed your search a little more, look closer at the people who make up the law firm marketing agency. If the team is only a handful of people with broad titles, it’s a good indication that most of the legwork (development, design, copywriting, SEO, etc.) is going to be outsourced to the lowest bidder. Be wary of this. Having your website or marketing materials broken up and handed off to a series of freelancers can have a negative effect on both communication and quality. Try to find an agency with all of its key players under one roof.

Know your budget
And before you pick up the phone or send off an introductory email or RFP, it’s always best to have an idea of what you’re willing to spend for the services you need. That’s not to say that anything is going to be set in stone at this stage, but it’s important to come to the table with a figure in mind that is realistic for both you and your agency of choice. A law firm marketing agency worth your time and investment will be able to work with you to get you the services you need at a price point that makes sense for both parties.

While you don’t NEED to hire a law firm marketing agency, chances are that those law firms you view as your fiercest competitors already are. We’re talking about the ones with top-notch web design, the most thorough and engaging social media presences, and the ones sitting atop Google’s organic rankings for valuable search terms like “law firms near me” or “personal injury attorney st louis”. Safe to say that in the vast majority of instances, these firms didn’t achieve this digital stature on their own. Unless you have a full-time crew of marketing experts working diligently to tackle every marketing opportunity and challenge that comes your way, a law firm marketing agency might be just what you need to dominate your market.

The right law firm marketing agency should serve as a remote extension of your law firm. They should be a valuable marketing partner and help you navigate the crowded and treacherous waters of law firm marketing. They should be able to identify marketing strategies, boost what’s already working, and rectify what’s not. At Timmermann Group, for example, we have a team of experienced developers, designers, writers, and strategists ready and willing to do whatever it takes to boost your law firm’s presence online and get it noticed by both Google and potential clients.

So do you NEED to hire a law firm marketing agency? No. But most law firm marketing departments (if your firm is lucky enough to have one) are stretched thin enough as it is, and it never hurts to have a team of qualified experts in your corner when you need them. And chances are, your competition already knows this and has taken the appropriate steps to elevate their own law firms. If you want to level the playing field and learn what a qualified law firm marketing agency like Timmermann Group can provide for your law firm, drop us a line and let’s get started.

Many law firms, especially those that have been around for decades, might do just fine based on referral business and word of mouth marketing alone. So there’s nothing WRONG with word of mouth marketing. If it works for you, then have at it and consider yourself lucky. But like any business, there is always room to grow and the atmosphere constantly changes.

Word of mouth marketing can hold your business back from its true potential by limiting it to the speed of conversation. It’s never a bad idea to have a solid digital marketing strategy in place as well as a thorough and engaging website to educate potential clients who might not have an established connection to your firm. It’s up to you to ensure that your website does its job of getting in front of potential clients and generating leads 24/7. And it’s up to you to ensure that every citation and online mention of your law firm is accurate and up to date. Bad citations or flailing websites can spell disaster for law firm SEO.

So while word of mouth marketing and referrals can give you that personal and reliable connection, it’s simply not enough. You need to invest in your digital efforts and ensure that your law firm gets the attention it needs. If you ever have questions about building your online presence or organizing and fixing any rogue online citations, contact Timmermann Group. We’d be happy to help get you on the right path.

Your website is the central hub of all of your digital marketing efforts and it’s important that your law firm’s website is informative, navigable, and engaging. It should tell your story, enhance your brand, and reinforce your missions and philosophies. In more direct terms, your website needs to reflect who you are as a law firm. But the fact of the matter is that it doesn’t matter how flashy or in-depth your website is if it’s not optimized for organic search engine traffic. Without proper law firm SEO, your website isn’t equipped to do its job effectively and your investment is unlikely to pay off.

That’s where Timmermann Group comes in.

Keyword Rankings
If your law firm’s website isn’t ranking on Google’s first page for your most valuable keywords, you’ve got your work cut out for you. When we say “valuable keywords”, we mean those words and phrases that people in your community in need of legal services are searching for right now (“personal injury lawyer near me”, “best law firm St. Louis”, etc.). And if you are ranking, but aren’t working diligently to defend your stake in the Top Ten, then you’re perched with a target on your back and within striking distance of your competitors.

Ongoing SEO Strategy
Law firm SEO isn’t a “set it and forget it” concept. It’s not something you can check off a list, and it’s not something you can drop onto someone’s already full plate. Law firm SEO requires constant monitoring, tweaking, investigating, testing, revising, and reporting. And if you’re not willing or prepared to put forth the time, effort, and resources necessary to climb Google’s rankings, you’re going to lose out to a law firm that is.

Dedicated Partnership
When it comes to maximizing your law firm’s SEO potential, the best way to stay ahead of the curve (and ahead of the competition) is to partner with an experienced law firm SEO agency like Timmermann Group. Our team of in-house SEO experts work alongside our developers, designers, content strategists, and copywriters to ensure that every step of the website build or redesign process is done so with SEO in mind. We’ll help your team discover and go after the right target keywords that will not only get your site noticed by Google but by the audiences in your area who are in need of legal representation and ready to sign today.