These are the online marketing goals you need to achieve if you want to win:
- You need to get people to trust you
- You need to stand out from the competition
If you want to achieve these goals, ask yourself the following question: “What would have to be true _______?”
For example:
- What would have to be true for the market to trust me so they want to hire my firm or refer people to my firm when they need legal services?
- What would have to be true for me to stand out from the competition in a good way that grows my firm?
These are the questions we’re going to explore and answer.
4 Categories of Marketing Goals
Your business goals and marketing goals must complement each other if you want to win in your market. Otherwise, you can easily end up in a scenario where marketing is hitting all of their lead goals, but the business isn’t hitting its growth goals.
When setting goals, they should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and timely (i.e., SMART Goals).
Let’s say you set a business goal to grow revenue by 20% this year. After asking yourself what must be true in order to grow my firm 20% this year, you conclude that you’ll need more motor vehicle accident cases involving an injury. You could set both of these as SMART goals for your business.
- Business Goal: Grow the firm’s revenue by 20% YoY.
- Marketing Goal: Increase qualified MVA leads from the website by 30% over the next 12 months.
Note: To determine how much to increase lead growth by, you’ll need to calculate your win %, average revenue per case, average time to settlement, as well as all of your marketing metrics like lead to case rate, website to lead rate, click through rate, etc.
When planning your marketing goals, it’s helpful to think of them by the outcome they drive. There are four basic categories for your marketing goals — creating demand, damming demand, capturing demand, and converting demand.
These categories help you build trust, stand out from the competition, or both. While each type is unique, all of them fit into the SMART goal model.
Creating Demand
Creating demand means proactively educating your target market about your overall category (e.g., personal injury lawsuits), the problems you help people with, how their life could be improved by what you can do for them, and who your firm is in general.
The market you’re going after here doesn’t have an expressed need. You’ll use your marketing to get people familiar with your law practice before they have a legal problem.
This aspect will be the most difficult for your industry since you can’t make car accidents happen. The best you can do is increase the odds that people remember your name or firm if they ever have an accident.
That can be done through educational and entertaining content and promoting it across social channels like Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Podcasts. You can use both organic posts on your social media profiles and social media advertising to generate demand.
Damming Demand
Sometimes people don’t realize they need your firm’s help. When you dam demand, you’re redirecting prospective clients from what they think they want to you instead.
An example is ranking blog posts on Google for topics related to car accident claims with insurance. People think they want to call their insurance and file a claim, but when they click on your site, they learn that they should really speak with an attorney first.
Capturing Demand
You capture demand by being in the consideration set when someone is ready to hire a law firm and are actively deciding which one to go with. You do this by making sure they remember you first (i.e., create demand) and then making it easy for them to find you and get in touch.
An example of capturing demand would be a Google Ad at the top of a search result when someone who’s already been to your site searches for a car accident lawyer later that week.
Another example could be a service landing page that details what you can do for them, how easy you’ll make the process for them, what they have to pay, and a way to get in touch right then (e.g., live chat, a contact form you respond to in under 10 minutes, a click-to-call phone number, etc.).
Converting Demand
Conversion is when someone takes an action you want them to. Converting demand is when someone actually buys what you’re selling.
You’ll know when you’ve converted the demand because you’ll have a new client. Until they sign the paperwork for you to represent them, you haven’t converted them.
Now that we’ve looked at the different types of demand, we have a few goals you can set for your firm.
Master a Marketing Channel for Maximum Reach
How can people love your business and return for more unless they know who you are? Mastering a marketing channel will get you consistent leads without overextending yourself.
Search engine optimization is reliable because it automatically responds to demand, particularly damming and capturing. This tactic successfully redirects people to your services or makes it easy for them to hire you now. When a client types a keyword into Google for a solution, you appear as a relevant resource.
Social media marketing also works for both generating demand and capturing demand. The former is useful when customers don’t want to go through traditional marketing channels. Popular alternatives include searching hashtags or watching TikToks. The latter happens when a customer knows the service they need and wants to review your prices or ask questions. An example of this would be a Facebook ad geared to people who have seen your brand before.
Increase Brand Awareness By Generating Demand in Your Lead Channels
You can increase brand awareness by generating demand in your existing lead channels. If this content is free, even better. Since choosing a law firm is an extensive process, free content helps ideal clients trust you.
Brand awareness informs people of who you are, what you do, and why. These vital details are shown through your marketing channels and get people ready to work with you. Without a memorable personality, you run the risk of being looked over in favor of other law firms.
Examples of increasing brand awareness could be:
- Posting a brief behind-the-scenes video of your firm
- Generating a free infographic for people to share and repost
- Running polls to start a conversation
Make it Easy for People to Contact You 24/7 & Reply within 10 Minutes
Clients hate waiting forever to get an answer, and it’s even worse when they’re redirected over the phone or have to follow up via email. 79% of consumers in a 2019 Legal Trends Report stated a fast response is an important factor to them.
Ask yourself, “Am I meeting this need?”
Social media is ideal for this. Setting up a 24/7 social media response team with a fast turnaround will make you competitive.
Only 32% of people get a response within twenty-four hours. Another 79% of people prefer live chat to email. Ideal turnaround times are between 15 minutes and an hour.
While every other law firm is taking their time—you should be taking their cases.
Another way to give your customers timely responses is with a chatbot. Nearly 70% of customers enjoy this feature for its speedy response. This tool appears on every page of your website to receive questions or feedback.
While a chatbot won’t have the subtlety of a human being, they’re useful for:
- Redirecting clients to relevant pages
- Answering common questions
- Redirecting the particularly frustrated visitors to a live agent
Make sure to use photos of your attorneys instead of stock photos. Generating trust is an absolute must for a smooth client-lawyer relationship.
Expand Your Market by Opening a New Office
How convenient is your law firm to find? If a large part of your client base has to take long commutes or plane trips, consider opening a new office. New offices do well to capture demand in a wider area.
Find locations where you can get your own standalone office. It’s fine if there’s competition in the area (the best places have good competitors). You just don’t want to be in a building with dozens of other firms across various floors and suites.
Having a standalone office makes it easier for you to rank in the map pack on Google when people are searching for lawyers. You can learn about this phenomenon more in a study we published over the effect proximity has on local search rankings for law firms.
Seek Out Qualified Leads in an Underserved Area
The field of personal injury is a competitive one, but there are still niche areas and growing demand. Underserved areas are ripe with opportunities to help people who don’t have many options.
According to Clio, the need for attorneys focused on elder law is growing. This field focuses on aspects such as disability and elder abuse.
The demand for cybersecurity specialists has shot up due to remote work, the pandemic, and cryptocurrency. Environmental lawyers are also seeing a fast-as-average 9% growth rate. Consider finding a personal injury angle you can take with these niches.
Gather Client Testimonial Videos
Chances are you have previous clients who’ve already left positive reviews of your firm on legal directories or your Google My Business listing. These satisfied clients may be willing to sit down and share their stories on video.
Video testimonials are more attention-grabbing than written testimonials. Video testimonials are more attention-grabbing than written testimonials. They have a higher information retention rate than other media. One study found viewers remember 95% of a video’s information and just 10% of written text.
Video marketing is stealing the show for impactful marketing. With video testimonials, you’ll be able to encourage trust in potential clients. People appreciate being able to see others in their shoes enjoying success stories.
The existence of a testimonial automatically shows potential clients you view them as individuals. Since gathering these videos involves follow-up and consent, you’ll instantly stand out from other firms.
Partner with a Digital Marketing Firm Who Understands the Legal Field
Meet your clients’ needs with a marketer that meets yours. A legally-focused firm will understand your industry on a deeper level.
You don’t have to worry about catching us up to speed on the legal industry. We provide specialized marketing with a focus on personal injury firms. Using a mixture of SEO and marketing fundamentals, we can help you develop a digital marketing strategy that increases traffic, gets more qualified leads, and grows your bottom line.
Our dedicated staff responds to all inquiries within 24 hours. If you want to see how we can help you hit your marketing goals this year, schedule a thirty-minute call with us during a time that works best for your schedule.
