The legal industry is both hyper-competitive and expensive. According to IBISWorld, In 2022, there are 439,740 in the United States alone. That is a lot of competition and marketing dollars. Let’s look at some ways we can market your law firm outside of the standard marketing channels such as SEO, Google Ads, radio, billboards, and TV advertising.
Event Marketing for Law Firms
Compared to running a Google Ad campaign, sponsoring a 5k is really inexpensive. Event marketing is also a great way to directly engage in your local community. Other types of events include conferences, trade shows, and meet-ups.
Marketing cost: $250 – $2,500
Optimize Your Law Firms Google Business Profile
Oftentimes, a Google Business Profile is set up by a marketing agency or in-house worker who just wants to get the task completed quickly. This leaves so much wasted marketing potential. Google Business Profile lets you add details and keywords about your law firm’s services, URL, hours of operation, and which areas you serve.
Marketing cost: Free
Start a Monthly Newsletter for Your Law Firm
This is a great way to keep an open dialogue with your former clients and let them know about new team members, resources, offers, and hires. You can also send automated drip campaigns to follow up a few months after a case resolves to wish them well. These are people who at one point paid for your legal services. A newsletter keeps your law firm top of mind.
Marketing cost: $0 – $250 (depending on how large your email list is)
Submit Your Law Firm’s Website to Search Engines
Onceyour website is ready to be promoted, it should have what is called a sitemap.xml. This is a document that contains all the web pages on your website. Make sure that when you add new pages, your sitemap.xml file automatically includes them.
First, you will need tocreate a Google Search Console Account. Then you will need to submit your sitemap.xml to Google Search console. The benefit of this is that as you continue to expand your website, Google will automatically know about the new pages. You do not have to consistently submit your sitemap.xml file.
You can also submit the same sitemap.xml file to the Bing search engine. You will need to create a free Bing Webmaster Tools account. Similar to the Google Search Console steps, you will need to submit your sitemap.xml.
Sometimes your sitemap.xml file may have a slightly different name. This will depend on the website builder CMS (content management system) and how large your website is. Your webmaster or website builder should be able to guide you in the right direction.
Marketing cost: Free
Do Some Positive Local PR for your Law Firm
Donate some pizza to the local police department. It’s a win-win-win. The officers get some delicious pizza, a local pizza shop gets a nice order, and your firm gets some good PR. If it’s nurse week you can do the same strategy for a local hospital. It’s teachers’ week… You get the idea.
Marketing cost: $100 – $500
Write a Book on a Legal Area of Expertise
This is a great way to become an authority on a subject. You can even break up the book later into bitesize blog content for your website. If you don’t have time to write a book, there are writing services available to help you based on your outline and feedback. This is a great way to differentiate yourself from your competition.
Marketing cost: $500 – $3,500
Join Local Organizations and Build Relationships
Marketing and business are about relationships. Take time to build relationships within your community. Don’t just join a chamber of commerce, be a part of the chamber of commerce. Go to the meeting. Invest in people and build strong relationships. This is the best way to keep referrals coming for years to come. It’s also a great way to create potential business partnerships and resources.
Marketing cost: $200