Like in other industries, lead generation plays an indispensable role in getting more clients and cases for attorneys and law firms as well.
But, contrary to public perception, generating leads for a law firm is not very easy, and many attorneys are not familiar with various marketing techniques for the purpose. That is why they often rely on lead generation services which develop various strategies for meeting different requirements, making it easy to connect with prospective clients.
Unfortunately, not all legal businesses can take advantage of such companies. In such situations, knowing about the various lead generation strategies can be highly beneficial and can help you get better leads with a bit of self-marketing.
That’s why, in this guide, we’ve explained all about lead generation and the best strategies that attorneys can use to get more clients. So, check out these methods right now!
Lead Generation Fundamentals
To learn about the most effective lead generation techniques, it is vital to learn about some basic concepts related to lead generation. So, let’s take a look.
1.) What Is Legal Lead Generation?
Legal lead generation is the process by which a legal practitioner or firm attracts new clients for its business, generally through a variety of engaging activities and methods. Many attorneys and firms rely on digital marketing for this purpose, but there are some conventional methods that work just as well.
Using these methods effectively results in opportunities where such target audiences may contact you or your firm for legal assistance and may become paying clients.
Legal lead generation also involves techniques like paid search optimization, the use of social media platforms, organic search tools, and others. All these methods help drive prospects to you, and to a certain extent, the lead generation process is quite similar to that used in other industries. Legal businesses and lawyers also use a marketing funnel, which determines the manner in which prospects convert into clients.
2.) The Lead Generation Marketing Funnel
The attorney lead generation marketing funnel can be divided into three stages, which include:
a.) Awareness
This is the beginning of the funnel in which prospective clients learn about the existence of your legal business. They may have found an article written by you online on a legal topic or may have come across the logo of the firm in an advertisement.
b.) Consideration
The middle stage of the funnel occurs when the prospects become interested in the various legal services you offer. This is the stage where they need to be convinced that yours is the most suitable law firm for their needs.
c.) Conversion
In the final stage of the marketing funnel, various prospects need to be persuaded to take action and get in touch with your firm. Generally, it will involve asking them to fill out a form, provide their contact information, or set up a consultation. This is the stage where the actual conversion will happen.
3.) Working Of The Lead Generation Process
An effective lead generation process requires multiple marketing efforts employed by an attorney or a legal firm. These efforts convince prospective clients to provide their contact information, for which legal businesses need to communicate their offerings and services to the target prospects effectively.
In simpler terms, the lead generation process can be viewed as an exchange. The prospective client provides their contact information in exchange for a high-value offer from the legal firm. Such offers can take the form of a discounted or free case review or consultation or as freebies like a book or an ebook. You may even send an email newsletter to provide information on various legal topics once you have their email addresses.
The lead generation process can happen on the website of the law firm, on its social media pages, or through other digital or traditional channels. But, providing value to the potential client is vital for that to take place. And once their contact information has been obtained, you should have all the marketing strategies in place to convert them into paying clients.
Now that we’ve cleared up the basics, let’s look at some of the actions you can take to generate leads for your legal business.
Effective Lead Generation Actions For Law Firms
1.) Modernizing and upgrading your law firm’s website
Any credible legal business has to have a website that serves as the centerpiece of all its legal marketing efforts. The website serves some standard functions, such as communicating the legal areas of practice, expertise, and services offered. Additionally, it provides visitors with the successful results of past cases, which can be helpful in conversions.
Most importantly, the website is where the results of your various marketing efforts will be most visible. Since it plays a central role in generating leads, you need to optimize it to maximize its conversion potential. The best legal practitioners and firms utilize various techniques and methods on their websites to track which marketing efforts are generating the most leads.
This information can then be used for optimizing such efforts for converting prospects into established clients.
For instance, a family lawyer handles several types of cases, such as custody, alimony, child support, and others. You can create a separate section on the website for each type of case. Once that is done, you can use call tracking to know about the visitors in each section and how they arrived there.
2.) Updating your Google Business profile and pushing for positive reviews
Setting up a Google Business profile can be highly beneficial for attorneys since it makes it easy for potential clients to find you online. To make the best use of this profile, make sure to provide complete information and keep it up to date. Additionally, you can ask clients to post reviews online, which will serve as social proof.
And once the reviews are submitted, strive to monitor and respond to them regularly. You can also add images of your office, team, or community events which can help convince prospective clients. Finally, keep measuring the effectiveness of your Google Business profile which will help gauge the ROI of this marketing channel.
3.) Communicating with prospects through the landing page
The landing page of any business, including legal ones, is vital for reaching different sections of the target audience. Landing pages are those that visitors first see after clicking on the marketing CTAs, ads on social media platforms, or a referral website. The most important function of a landing page is to provide information to the website visitors depending on their needs.
That is why it is important to have a dedicated landing page that lists the various services offered, mentions client testimonials, and provides other information. For a law firm, it is a good idea to have separate landing pages for the different types of cases it handles, such as prenuptial agreements, child support, etc.
But creating an effective landing page for lead generation efforts is not an easy task, and there are several things to keep in mind. For instance, the language should be clear and accessible and should suit the target audience. This can be achieved through proper keyword research and checking out questions related to the topic.
Similarly, the landing pages should have clear CTAs designed to persuade prospects to contact you.
4.) Having a clear CTA
Once the prospective clients visit the landing page, you will need to use a targeted CTA to convince them to perform a particular action. There should not be any ambiguity regarding the CTA; it should be completely clear and directly lead the prospects to where you need them.
Law firms can use various tools to determine how high-quality leads can reach them. These can include flow charts, infographics, informative videos, and others. They may have the same or different CTAs, but generally, CTAs used for legal businesses are different from others.
5.) Making use of social media
Like with other businesses, social media can be a very powerful tool for lead generation for lawyers. It can be used as a platform to share knowledge, which translates into authority and helps people know about the firm. To use various social media platforms, attorneys need to be active, opinionated and post content regularly.
Besides regularly posting content, you should make an effort to respond to various reviews and comments as soon as possible. Quick responses can help improve the reputation of your firm, whether thanking a client for a positive review or responding to a negative one.
Additionally, such platforms can be used to answer questions relating to your field of expertise through posts, videos, or live streams. With a decent library of content posted online, the chances of prospective clients looking for you increase tremendously. And once that happens, lead generation forms and call tracking can be used to find out which topics are generating the most interest.
This data can then be used to come up with topics for developing future content.
6.) Utilizing content marketing
Creating good quality content is essential for law firms since it provides proof of your expertise to prospective clients and leads. This proof can be provided through blog posts on various legal topics, and the content can also help improve search engine rankings. Publishing content regularly makes it easier for leads and prospects to find the website.
Good quality content helps convince prospects of your experience and knowledge, making them turn to your business for their legal needs.
7.) Testing and tracking offline advertisements
Besides digital marketing channels, traditional offline channels can be highly effective for those in the legal industry. And monitoring the effectiveness of offline marketing campaigns is not very difficult. In this case, you can also use call tracking, test out new tactics, and analyze the results easily.
This makes it easy to know which legal leads are generated through the different tools and also helps analyze the ROI of each campaign. Such information can be highly valuable for knowing whether to invest in a particular approach or to try a different one.
Hence, attorneys and lawyers can know which marketing campaigns drive various offline and online leads. Now, let’s look at some of the most effective lead generation strategies for attorneys.
Best Lead Generation Strategies For Attorneys
1.) Search engine optimization (SEO)
Search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the best techniques for lead generation for almost any type of business, including legal ones. This method involves optimizing your own website so that it shows up on the first page of the search engine results when potential clients conduct an online search.
Such searches generally contain keywords related to your business, like legal terms, and proper optimization will help your website appear in the results near the top. The first step in SEO is proper keyword research, and tools like Google Ads Keyword Planner can be used for the purpose.
These help users find the most popular keywords related to their industry, helping save a lot of time and effort. Such tools can also show the number of searches per month for specific keywords and even the cost per click on ads with such terms.
After researching the keywords, the next step is to optimize the website using these keywords in various blog posts, articles, and other content. The most effective areas where these keywords can be placed include the title tag, meta description, page URL, and others.
2.) Email marketing
Email marketing is another one of the most popular marketing strategies for lawyers. With the help of an email list, those in the legal business can create and send out emails to existing and potential clients and improve engagement levels.
It is also a cost-effective strategy for reaching different types of audiences easily since it is cheaper than other advertising methods like billboards or print ads. You do not need to be concerned about printing costs; all that is required is to develop an effective email marketing campaign.
For this purpose, you need to choose the right email marketing software, as there are several options available, such as Mailchimp, ActiveCampaign, and Klaviyo. To know which one suits your needs best, it is a good idea to check out the free trials and demos of the various options.
After selecting the software, it is time to create an email list, followed by a form or landing page. Once these are created, the software generally provides a code that needs to be placed into your website to embed the form. Generally, such forms are placed in the footer or sidebar. You can even create pop-ups and exit-intent forms using various tools if those are required.
Then, it is time to send the prepared email message to the present and potential clients who are included in the list. Not all recipients will open marketing emails, but even in that case, it is a good idea to prepare follow-up messages for maximum effect.
But, keep in mind that email marketing should not be used as an isolated tool separated from other marketing activities.
3.) Social media marketing
With billions of people spending countless hours on various social media platforms every day, it is an excellent tool for marketing purposes. In fact, it is among the most used marketing channels for those who want to promote their legal practice by getting good-quality leads.
That said, social media marketing for legal businesses is different from other types as it makes use of content that is helpful to clients instead of focusing on sales promotion. And while it can be used to promote your services, it should be done less frequently than in other forms of digital marketing.
Generally, posts should focus on providing visitors with information about how they can solve their problems. You can use your expertise as an attorney to provide insights that can help convince visitors that hiring your services will benefit them. Similarly, experiences from past cases can be shared where the outcome was favorable for the client.
Apart from that, reviews and testimonials can be a great way of persuading prospects by acting as social proof. These also make them more comfortable about working with your firm. Content shared in emails or newsletters can also be posted on social media and on various legal websites.
This helps drive traffic to the important pages while making potential clients aware and up to date regarding your legal business.
4.) Content marketing
We’ve already mentioned the importance of content marketing for attorneys, and it is a powerful tool in the arsenal of all lead generation companies. Content marketing helps attract the right audience to your website and social media pages, increasing the opportunities for conversions.
But, for that to happen, it is important to create high-quality content that visitors find engaging and helpful. The content can take several forms, including articles, blogs, audio and video, and others, and you can even make use of readymade templates for the purpose.
To create content that users will appreciate, you need to put yourself in their perspective and think about the problems that they are facing. These questions can help create hyper-targeted content that may offer solutions to problems that the prospects are facing. You can also use various search engines to look for topics for developing content.
Additionally, SEO blog posts can be used to create content for generating qualified leads for your legal practice. And these tend to compound over time, generating even more traffic and potential clients. You can also study and analyze the content posted by competitors, which can be used to reverse engineer their marketing strategy.
5.) Paid ad campaigns
The techniques involved in inbound marketing, such as SEO, social media marketing, and content marketing, can help get great results for a law firm. But, inbound marketing is a long-term approach and has to be supplemented with outbound channels that can get quicker results, such as paid ad campaigns.
Paid advertising includes tools like Facebook Ads, Google Ads, and others, and you can either create a campaign yourself or hire marketing specialists for the same. While the latter option is an investment, it can effectively boost your lead generation efforts in the short term.
Tools like Facebook Ads provide an easy-to-use interface that allows users to decide various factors, like the budget for the ad, creatives, and the pages used for promotion. The best thing about paid ad campaigns is that they can be used for both B2B and B2C clients.
Pay Per Click or PPC campaigns are the most commonly used paid ad techniques, and like many other marketing activities, it requires proper keyword research. Paid campaigns are highly targeted, and keyword research helps determine what exactly the potential clients are looking for.
Those running such ads for some time should also conduct a periodic audit of the various search terms, as these can change over time. Hiring professional services for this purpose can be very beneficial since they have specialized knowledge of every industry and can identify opportunities easily.
Additionally, in the case of paid ads, the timing and context are important, and ads that are most relevant to the search queries of the prospects are most effective. Such ads should be timed to appear when the user types in any query related to the keywords.
6.) Marketing funnels
The working of a marketing funnel has already been explained above, so here we’ll just focus on how to make use of them for your legal business.
Marketing funnels can come in handy for increasing conversions after the traffic has been driven to your website or social media pages. Potential clients go through the various stages of the funnel before a conversion can occur, and they become willing to hire your services.
In the first stage, they become aware of a legal problem that they might be facing, which may be related to finances, relationships, or careers. When that happens, they start researching various attorneys and law firms, which is the next stage of the funnel. And the final stage of the funnel is when they pick a firm or lawyer to help them out.
Each segment of the marketing funnel will require a different approach for lawyer lead generation. At the top of the funnel, you should focus on marketing efforts that attract all types of audiences while ensuring relevance and quality. Tools like social media, audio and video, blogs, and others can be used for this purpose.
In the next stage, segment users that visit your website by providing freebies and incentives like guides, checklists, and case studies in exchange for their email addresses. And with their contact information, you can start reaching out to them, offering your services, or a free consultation.
Using the various engagement techniques and convincing the prospects of your expertise by using social proof and testimonials will result in conversions, completing the final stage.
7.) Conferences and events
Another effective lead generation strategy for attorneys and law firms is speaking at various events. Participating in regional or local industry conferences or even large-scale national ones can provide excellent opportunities with several benefits. Besides letting prospects know about yourself, such events help build confidence in them regarding your expertise and knowledge.
These events can also be great for engaging new audiences by answering their queries and interacting with them on various legal topics. Also, other individuals and businesses in the same line of work are generally present at such events and can help grow your professional network.
Presentations can further be used to establish thought leadership and authority in your area of practice and help place yourself ahead of the competition. All this ultimately leads to more visits from various potential leads through organic search engine results.
Searching for events relating to legal practice being held close to your location can be done online, and many websites are specially built for that purpose. There may be both in-person and online events. Once you’ve determined an event you’d like to participate in, simply contact the organizer.
8.) Asking for referrals
Lawyers and law firms can get great results by using referrals, and such leads often have a higher conversion rate than those from most other sources. Providing high-quality service to clients leads them to leave positive reviews and refer your services to others.
Referrals or word of mouth can be very effective in convincing people and work better than advertisements and other promotional techniques. But, getting such referrals requires a proactive approach and asking clients to provide reviews while also responding to such reviews quickly.
While providing good service will help clients remember your business, do not forget to provide them with a business card. These are easy to carry around and can be passed on to others, helping them know about your services and contact details.
You can also take advantage of marketing automation to generate referrals consistently. Several tools can be used for this purpose, such as Sendfox, which can help set up an automated routine that asks clients for a referral. The basic functioning of all these tools is the same, with emails being sent to a client who has benefited from your services, asking for referrals.
9.) Becoming a guest on a podcasts
Podcasts and audio content have become immensely popular in recent years and are among the most consumed forms of online content. This makes them perfect for your lead generation purposes.
As with other methods, there can be multiple approaches to using podcasts for generating attorney leads. The first and generally the simplest method involves becoming a guest on other podcasts.
Platforms like iTunes and Spotify often host law-related shows, and you just need to reach out to the hosts. But another method is to start your own podcast, which requires some investment in getting audio equipment like headphones, microphones, mic stands, etc.
Besides the equipment, the firm will require audio software for recording the podcast episodes, and learning to use them will require some time. Fortunately, there are several resources available online for this purpose.
After recording the episodes, simply upload them to popular platforms, such as SoundCloud, Google Play, Amazon Music, and others. Additionally, you can use the RSS feed of the recorded episodes on its original platform and syndicate it to others for greater awareness.
Final Thoughts on Attorney Lead Generation Strategies
For any law firm to be successful, it is necessary to utilize multiple methods for lead generation to get clients quickly and effectively. Without proper lead generation strategies in place, the chances of inconsistent revenue are considerably higher, which can be detrimental to any business.
However, before implementing the various lead generation strategies mentioned here, we recommend undertaking proper research. Doing so will provide useful information regarding the audience you are targeting and which methods will suit your legal business the most.
Then, plan your approach carefully, and do not hesitate to use various online resources and guides that are available for getting results. This will ensure that the business gets maximum ROI with minimum wastage of resources.
On that note, it is time to wrap up this guide. Until next time!