Mical Shand* The marketing world has changed over the years and none more so than for law firms in an increasingly competitive marketplace. It’s now an essential department of every business’s success to develop their marketing strategy to drive business and strengthen their brands.

How you market your business depends on what it is. For law firms, there are some tactics that work better than a small main street shop in town. It’s a matter of learning what those strategies are.

Here are five key tips to use for law firm marketing in 2020.

Hand Out Flyers

Think flyers are an old school tactic that won’t work? You need to think again because flyers are still a workable tool in the law firm marketing armory. A well-designed brochure can still grab someone’s eye as they flip through their mail. It’s all in the design of it.

Use flyer templates to get you started. Add in the basic information you deem as essential. You don’t have a lot of time to make a good first impression.

Start a Blog

Blogs are an excellent marketing tool for companies, and law firms are no exception. It is common knowledge and obviously a ‘standard bearer’ for good marketing to blog.

But to blog also means using your authority, your brand and mostly your content to deliver real value.

You need to select keywords, using tools that are readily available including the Google keyword tool, to select phrases and words that will target your audience. However, never fall into the trap of ‘keyword stuffing’ and delivering content that is there only as a skeleton upon which to place as many keywords and keyword phrases as you can find.

You need to use the blog as your firm ‘voice’, to enable you to deliver real value in an authentic manner. You should also be using social media and authority-source links in your articles and blog items to help generate both added authority and also quality backlinking practices to help boost your firm’s online presence.

Develop an Authentic Brand

Your brand is the face of your company. It doesn’t have to necessarily be the type of law that you focus on. Instead, it ties in with your mission statement. Building a brand helps step you apart from your competition and get you noticed more.

You need to consider what makes your law firm distinctive or different. But take care not to overstate your ‘case’, or to misrepresent what you can do.

However build a story that lets you connect your law firm with your clients (or potential clients) in a manner that creates credibility and a connection that generates real value to your brand and its story.

Once you have a brand, there is much to be done to maintain its credibility. It can be simple, and you can still reach your target audience if your message is clear and strong enough to resonate with your audience.

Make sure your website works towards authority and credibility, including a key factor that can help massively in law firm brand building – reviews and case studies that can help your firm stand out above your competitors.

Think these factors through clearly to ensure you are delivering a quality story that really works for your firm.

Provide Value Over Quantity

Avoid getting caught up in need of constantly producing and uploading content. Although you do want to upload regularly, it shouldn’t come at the cost of the quality of the work. It’s easy to lose followers if the quality just isn’t there.

Ideally you should build your firm ‘avatar’, the ideal client to whom you are directing your quality content. Who are you talking to? What do they want to know? Why should they know? What points need to be stressed? Consider all the angles to your content and write for the audience who are most likely to be exactly who your target audience actually are.

Whether it be a blog post, YouTube video, or a new Instagram post, high-quality content is going to gain you more traction. You want to show that you are a firm worth the viewers’ time and that you have something valuable to offer them.

Add Reviews

Honest reviews are an excellent tactic to boost the look of your firm. Take two companies in the same field. One website has basic information and nothing more, while the other one includes a few reviews from happy clients. The most reviewed firm will always be the one most preferred.

Review stats are interesting. Consider this:

90% of consumers read online reviews before visiting a business
88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as a personal recommendation
72% of consumers say that positive reviews make them trust a local business more
10% of website traffic value is attributed to online reviews
90% of consumers say that their purchases are influenced by online reviews
Product page visitors who read reviews, convert at a 58% higher rate

Ask your previous clients to submit a review about their recent experience. Upload them to your website so new prospects can get a feel of what to expect from you.

Reviews are a powerful tool to gain the client’s trust and to build your law firm brand and authority.

Marketing your law firm is an essential part of a successful business. It’s important to develop a marketing strategy to help keep you on track to reach your goals in 2020 and beyond.

Author Bio:

Mical Shand is a marketing and content writing consultant who prepares content and blog items for law firms and other online businesses. She may be contacted via lawfuel@gmail.com