Getting started with digital marketing.

I often get questions from attorneys of where to start with digital marketing for their law firm. I generally have two broad suggestions, which apply to almost every industry.

1. Focus your efforts on things that can be tracked (i.e. that you can collect data on whether they work or not) and then only do those things! It is immensely important to have some sort of system in place to track whether or not a marketing activity is effective. When starting an activity or campaign (such as a social media activity, networking event, etc.) decide beforehand how you will know if that activity is effective (e.g. will result in x new clients, or will result in x new newsletter signups). Then figure out how you will track whether or not it was effective.
2. Focus on a holistic strategy. Too many “legal marketers” focus sole on websites, or SEO, or content marketing, or PR, or advertising. This is a piecemeal, and ultimately ineffective and inefficient strategy. You need a strategy that focuses on the entire client life cycle, or that path that a lead follows to become an excellent client:

A proper marketing strategy will consider each stage of the client lifecycle.

Don’t pay for marketing / advertising / etc. that doesn’t work! I’ve come across of “snake oil” salesmen who take advantage of lawyer’s unfamiliarity with marketing and charge extremely high prices for services that simply do not provide what they promise. Don’t fall for these marketing gimmicks. There is so much that you can do in terms of digital marketing that is free or very low cost, that when approached with a proper strategy, yield significantly better results than lead generation or listing services.

Following these simple principles, I’ve helped law firms cut their marketing budgets in half while doubling the amount of quality and quantity of their leads.