Bottom-of-funnel (BOFU) content is like your closing argument, which convinces the jury of your argument. Applied to your firm, you use BOFU content to ultimately convince people to choose you as the firm that represents them.
The hallmark of this type of content is to inspire confidence and cultivate the trust you've built with people throughout the multiple touchpoints you've had with them throughout your marketing funnel.
The Marketing Funnel for Lawyers
The marketing funnel is a model that represents the customer journey from potential customers to paying customers. It starts the moment they first become aware of a product or service, to the point of making a purchase, and sometimes beyond. It's traditionally illustrated as a funnel because it starts wide at the top with the largest audience and narrows down through each successive stage until it reaches the 'bottom', which represents purchases and conversions. Here are the key stages:
Upper Funnel Marketing
- Awareness is at the top of the funnel. At this stage, potential customers first become aware of your business, product, or service. This is often through advertising, word-of-mouth, social media, content marketing, or organic search results.
- Interest is the second stage is when potential customers show interest in what you offer. They might visit your website, follow your social media accounts, subscribe to your email list, or download a whitepaper or ebook.
Middle Funnel Marketing
- Consideration: At this stage, potential buyers start to compare offerings with competitors, look at reviews, and more intensely consider whether your product or service is a match for their needs. They might request case studies, view demos, or contact your team for more information.
- Decision is when the potential customer decides to make a purchase. They might be negotiating contracts, considering special offers, or making a final evaluation of options.
Bottom of the Funnel Marketing
- Action: The final stage is when a prospect decides to make a purchase and becomes a customer.
- (Optional) Retention: This post-purchase stage, which is sometimes added to the funnel model, focuses on maintaining satisfied customers after a sale, encouraging repeat purchases, loyalty, and advocacy. Activities can include customer support, loyalty programs, newsletters, and customer-only incentives.
If your audience is reading your bottom-of-funnel (BOFU) content, they've already passed through the top-of-the-funnel (TOFU) and middle-of-funnel (MOFU) phases. They already know what personal injury lawyers do and how you can help them get a more favorable settlement than what they could get on their own.
At this stage of the funnel, they likely have questions about your process, what you need from them (their perceived effort), and the specific benefits of choosing your firm over any others.
Your objective here is to lay out, in concrete terms, how you can help someone in their specific situation.
Practice area pages (the types of cases you take) and location pages (the geographic areas you serve) are great examples of bottom-of-funnel marketing strategies. You should have a specific page for each type of service you offer (e.g. car accidents, wrongful death, slip and fall, burn injuries, etc.).
If your business operates in multiple areas, you'll also want individual pages that target each location (service area) as well. For example:
- Houston Car Accident Lawyer
- Houston Truck Accident Lawyer
- Houston Burn Injury Lawyer
- Dallas Car Accident Lawyer
- ...etc.
Sinas Dramis Law Firm lists the cases that their team has experience handling. Each practice area links to an additional page with more information on the procedure and previous results.
Note: What's important to keep in mind, however, is that people will rarely navigate to these pages from your home page or menu. Instead, they'll search for the type of service they need (e.g., Michigan car accident lawyer) and land on that particular page directly from Google.
A practice area page shows a prospective client that you have experience with their exact situation.
And that's what matters to them most: specificity.
Don't distract users by talking about other types of cases you handle on these types of pages. The odds that someone will need an attorney for nursing home abuse while when they're searching for a car accident lawyer are slim.
People already have a hard time staying focused and being spurred to take action. Adding superfluous details about other types of lawsuits detracts from their perception that you can help them in their unique situation.
Why Is Lower Funnel Marketing Important?
Bottom-of-funnel content is the linchpin of your website's sales funnel strategy. Without a page that directly addresses a prospective client's problem, how you can help, why you're the best to help, and gives them the ability to easily contact you for more info, you're funneling traffic to a brick wall.
BOFU content is your opportunity to be your own sales team and convert interested prospects into clients. This is the time to make your strongest and most persuasive point.
Be Transparent
By all means, extolling the benefits and successes of your firm is ideal here, but don't forget to be transparent as well.
Transparency builds trust.
State your proven track record helping people just like them get the compensation they deserve. In addition to adhering to ethics guidelines with disclaimers that you cannot guarantee results, you should also talk about the sticking points along the way so people know what they're getting into.
For example, let people know what factors influence a settlement amount, speak about standard settlement amounts, how long they take, how difficult the insurance companies can be, and the other not-so-wonderful factors that exist between the start of a case and arriving at their final destination.
Don't Waste People's Time
You don't want every case, and you can't help every single person. Your lower funnel marketing tactics are the perfect opportunity to be transparent about who would not be a good fit for your firm.
This is critically important if you want to limit the non-qualified leads that make their way into your CRM or intake software and reduce the amount of time your firm wastes talking to people with cases that aren't worth pursuing.
Add a section to your BOFU content that will help you land the clients that you're right for and filter out ones you're not.
Social Proof
BOFU content is the perfect time to introduce social proof.
Social proof is one of six principles of persuasion established by Robert Cialdini in his pioneering book, “Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion.”
People trust people they know, respect, or identify with. There's a slight nuance between the three.
People they know: If you operate in a small town where people know each other, social proof in the form of testimonials (both video and written) will resonate particularly well. This isn't as easy to accomplish in major metropolitan areas, but that's okay because of the next two mechanisms.
People they respect: Testimonials, recommendations, or endorsements from well-known individuals work just as well if not better than personal connections — The Oprah Effect. If there are well-known personalities in your area, look for opportunities to have them vouch for you. Note, these aren't always the people you think of immediately like politicians, well-known doctors, professors, coaches, etc. There are often hundreds, if not thousands, of influencers in each major metropolitan area with large followings that you can tap into.
People they Identify With: If either of the above options can't be achieved, focus on getting recommendations from people that your target audience can identify with at a demographic or psychographic level.
For example, if you're in West Virginia and are trying to land workers' compensation cases, don't use a white-collar person as your social proof. Instead, try to get testimonials from blue-collar workers who are just like the people who are most likely to need your help.
It's important to think about who would reach out to you—the person who needs convincing. This isn't always the same person who has been injured, either. Consider a nursing home abuse case; testimonials from elderly people you've helped are good, but testimonials from their families (the people who actually reach out to you for help) are better.
The dependency success has on social proof cannot be understated.
According to data conducted by the marketing software company Semrush, customer reviews are the top-performing bottom-of-funnel content type, along with success stories, use cases, and case studies.
Other Types of Social Proof
Press Coverage
If you landed a large settlement that got press coverage, highlight it where sensible throughout your bottom-of-funnel content. The same applies if you're involved in a high-profile case that is story-worthy (e.g., a wrongful death case due to a police shooting).
You can also maintain a page of positive press about cases you’ve won or people you’ve helped. These can help establish expertise, trust, and authority with people as well as Google.
Being Active on Social
An active social media presence can also provide social proof, as high engagement on your social media posts will demonstrate to others that many people trust and rely on you.
The key here is to make your clients the hero—not your firm. People on social hate advertising, but they love feel-good stories where a local person (i.e., someone they can relate with) was in a bad situation and overcame it.
Types of Bottom of Funnel Marketing
Most firms invest a lot of time in blog posts and other content types to get people to the last stage of the content marketing funnel, so they're ready to convert.
We've discussed the essence of what needs to go into BOFU content, but let's look at the specific types of content mediums you can use to deliver it.
Here are the main content types used for BOFU content:
Service Overview Pages
We've touched a bit on this type of content already.
When potential clients consider your firm, they eventually ask themselves, “Can this firm help me sue a doctor or hospital that didn't diagnose me soon enough?"
Then, they click on your services page to see if you have experience with medical malpractice cases where patients were misdiagnosed, or treatment was delayed due to negligence.
You don't have to use verbiage strictly related to what type of lawsuit it is either. This can help, but when it comes to conversions, you'll want to speak in layman's terms that the reader can understand and relate to.
Create a landing page that answers questions about how malpractice suits work and highlight example settlements you've won for people in their situation.
Client-Generated Content
This is your social proof content. Happy clients are invaluable sources of bottom-of-funnel content.
Written Testimonials/Case Studies
Utilize customer stories, case studies, and testimonials to establish strong social proof that your law firm can achieve results.
Your clients are more than just settlements and numbers—each case is a story. With each case, you connect to hundreds of people who may be experiencing something similar.
That's why you should create case studies that cover client stories. These studies should show people where your clients began and how you helped them triumph over their circumstances (e.g., the hero's journey narrative).
Video Testimonials/Case Studies
The same is true for videos. A video can be a potent tool, especially when you feature a client's testimonial.
FAQ Pages
When clients know what to expect, it's easier for them to take the next step.
Your clients often won't have a clue how a lawsuit really works, what's going to happen, and how quickly things will happen after they contact you.
Use an FAQ page to answer their questions and build trust.
You've undoubtedly had different clients ask the same questions over and over again. Turn those questions into a Frequently Asked Questions page. It can do a great deal in moving a prospective client further along in the stages of the buyer's journey so they ultimately contact you.
This content format lets you address any questions or reservations your clients may have all in one place. However, it's worth noting that you should make these easy to navigate or partition them based on the type of case they're interested in. Even though many elements apply across a car accident case as they do a truck accident case, using language that's specific to their situation will work better.
About and Comparison Pages
Imagine a prospective client of yours with five tabs open in their browser, each on different personal injury lawyers' websites.
They flip back and forth to compare the services to decide on who to contact.
There's a good chance of all firms having similar levels of experience. All of them may offer free consultations and can boast impressive case settlements.
What sets you apart from all the rest?
This is a critical thing you need to solve—it's called positioning.
Use your about page to show your prospects what you're offering that no one else can.
Are you a family-owned firm that treats each of its clients as one of its own? Or do you have an extensive legal team that helps you deliver results faster than any other firm?
Many firms do, too.
Compare yourself to your local competitors and find a way to differentiate yourself.
For example, do you have a team of lawyers who speak Spanish fluently and are of Hispanic or Latino heritage—highlight that, especially if you're trying to win over the local Spanish-speaking demographic.
Katz Personal Injury Lawyers does just that on their About page:
Results Pages
Data can be some of the most compelling evidence.
That's why your bottom-of-funnel marketing strategy is incomplete without data from your past settlements.
You can mention it among your specialized service pages or dedicate an entire page to your successes, as your case results can be the final persuasive piece of evidence that convinces prospects to go with your firm.
Keep in mind that walls of data without context can overwhelm clients. While you may have tons of success you want to share, present only your best settlements.
Consider organizing your results page based on case type, and add context to each case.
Baumgartner Law Firm does this well by selecting the top three settlements in each of their main practice areas.
Best Practices and Mistakes to Avoid with BOFU Content
Bottom-of-funnel content should be precise and compelling to stand up to the scrutiny of your prospective clients.
Here's what to keep in mind to nail your content every time:
Best Practices
Focus on the client: Though you technically champion your successes, you should still focus on making the client the hero.
Your clients aren't focused on getting you another win — they want to know that their problems will be taken care of and a better life after what's happened to them by being compensated fairly. Prioritizing them will demonstrate that you're on their side from the very beginning.
Build trust: A huge part of establishing trust with your audience is making it clear that you care about them as people.
When creating a bottom-of-funnel marketing strategy, ask yourself whether you're framing the audience empathetically and positively. Take time to understand and answer your client's questions, concerns, and needs throughout your BOFU content. When they ask how long something will take, dive deeper to understand what's going on in their life that makes speed so important to them. Use those scenarios in your copy to really resonate with them.
Small shifts that recognize the buyer's journey can make a huge difference.
Highlight case results: Whenever you can reference a tangible result of a relevant case, do so. It makes it more real and authentic. Every person thinks their situation is unique. Use that to your advantage and help them know that you understand that.
Your clients want to envision a future for themselves on the other side of their incident, and showing them what it could be like is a powerful tool for persuasion.
Things To Avoid With Bottom of Funnel Marketing
Don't be negative: Negative words in copy tend to decrease conversion rates by 18.7%. Even when you're saying something positive, including words with negative connotations can have a subtle psychological effect on those reading them.
For example, “We'll get you compensated for your pain, suffering, and lost wages” is ultimately a good thing — but even reading “pain and suffering” can cause users to click less often.
Instead, focus on the positives: “We've helped people just like you get over 4 million in compensation and bring stability and peace of mind back to their lives.”
Don't forget to prompt the reader to take action: There should be no question about what to do next after reading your services page or testimonials.
Your lower funnel content is the last step before they convert, so don't miss out on the opportunity by leaving it up to them to figure it out by themselves.
Compel users to sign up for a free consultation, call, or chat. Make yourself available by as many means as possible. The more friction you can remove, the better. For example, most attorneys make it easy to call, email, or contact them through chat—but adding the ability to text your firm can remove even more friction.
Additionally, make sure you focus on reducing the time it takes to respond and capture them as a lead when they do so. This is where a lot of firms drop the ball and underperform by outsourcing their intake through third-party chat or phone answering services.
Reducing friction = more signed cases.
It's that simple.
Don't make content too general: BOFU content should be the most targeted content on your website.
Users want to make sure that you're the right personal injury lawyer for their specific case. That means you should split up informational pages, testimonials, and results based on the types of cases.
Lower funnel content doesn't have to be extensive, so you can easily publish many different versions of similar resources.
Conclusion
Your lower funnel content closes out a successful content strategy with specificity and persuasion. You should use concrete examples, social proof, and a deep understanding of your client's needs to drive home why you're the best lawyer for the case.
With a compelling call to action and a robust library of content across your marketing funnel, you can convert prospects into clients.
If you want to get started building quality content that attracts and converts clients for your firm, but you struggle to get from good idea to action, Rankings.io can help. Our entire team solely focuses on digital marketing for lawyers and has the experience and results to back it up.
