The 3 Goals with any Law Firm's Online Marketing
It's easy to assume that the ultimate goal with an attorney's internet marketing is to get new clients.
But this is shortsighted.
Instead, the ultimate goal is to use online marketing to make a profit.
And for online marketing to be profitable, the cost of the online marketing must be less than the money made from the newly-acquired client.
So there are three goals with every legal marketing strategy.
The first goal is to spend the least amount of money on your law firm's marketing budget.
The second goal is to use your law firm's marketing budget to acquire high-quality cases.
The third goal is to profit from the legal marketing.
I know, I know... these goals seem obvious.
Yet, lawyers continue to pay way too much for digital marketing by pouring money into SEO consultants, internet gurus, and ineffective advertisements.
As a result, solo lawyers and small law firms are increasing their expenses, taking on unnecessary risks, and eating into their profits.
Trust me -- there's a better way!
When I started my own law firm, I promised myself that I would keep my expenses as low as possible. And those that have read the Ultimate Guide to Virtual Law Firms know that I currently pay less than $125 per month in office expenses.
So what's the best way to get new clients on a shoestring budget so you can have a thriving law firm?
Social Media Marketing!
Why solo lawyers and small law firms should use Social Media Marketing.
Let's keep this short and sweet.
With Social Media Marketing, lawyers can promote themselves and their law firm organically.
For those that are new to legal marketing, organic growth is the best growth. It's free and is the purest form of promotion because it means that others are doing the promoting on your behalf.
Sounds kind of awesome, right?
Let's make things more concrete with an example.
When I started my virtual law firm by going solo, I created a "failed" lawyer commercial and released this video on my law firm's brand new Facebook page.
The video didn't go viral by any means, however, it did get 30+ shares on Facebook.
These shares led to over 4,300 people being reached organically.
From one post!
And yes -- I did end up getting some clients from the post so mission accomplished!
Want more insights?
If you're interested in learning more about the marketing strategies behind my law firm's commercial and want to see how it performed, then check out this YouTube video.
In your situation, you don't necessarily have to create content like the one that I created. Just keep in mind that the better the content, the more likely it'll be shared by others.
But no matter the content, there's one CRITICAL thing that every solo lawyer and small law firm MUST do...
The #1 Mistake with Small Law Firm Marketing
Before you post any legal content and start trying to promote your law practice, you MUST have an engaged audience FIRST.
This is the fatal flaw with most attorneys' marketing strategies.
They post something on social media to either a super-small audience or to an unengaged audience (or both), then they give up on social media marketing when they don't see results.
If you don't have an audience, then the odds of getting shares will plummet.
If you have an audience but don't have a strong connection with them, then your audience will not be very motivated to promote you.
To avoid these issues, you need to be relatively active and engaging on the social media platforms that you want to promote your law firm on.
That way you can steadily grow an audience while also building a connection with them.
For example, in my situation, I created my Instagram account almost 2 years before I went solo and started my own virtual law firm.
During that period, I picked up photography as a hobby and connected with other people on Instagram with the same hobby.
I engaged with them and they reciprocated. As a result, my followers increased and my posts performed better on the platform.
After going solo, I posted this video, which was intended to benefit Texas drivers.
To my surprise, people from outside of Texas were sharing my video and posting things like this:
As the video received shares and views, Instagram promoted the video so that more of my audience saw it.
This resulted in the video performing suprisingly well.
But there's no doubt that none of my videos would have performed well if I didn't have an engaging audience.
I'm pretty sure that a philosopher once asked that "if a post is made on social media but nobody is around to see it, then was it even really posted?"
Avoid this problem by building an engaging audience so you can have an incredibly effective marketing strategy for your law firm.
While you don't have to wait 2 years to start seeing results, building an audience takes time and commitment.
But the growth can be exponential, which can maximize your online presence in ways that will keep your law firm thriving!