There’s no denying that we now live in a digital world. Businesses that want to get and keep clients must establish a strong online presence and visibility.
Solo law practitioners who are just starting lack the advantage of bearing a more recognizable name and a large marketing budget. Fortunately, these factors don’t hold weight when establishing an online brand as they did in traditional marketing practices.
Even so, lawyers who want to stand out in the ever-crowded legal community must strategically market their startup solo practices. Some digital marketing tactics will produce better results than others when done right, depending on the type of law you practice. Ultimately, the goal is to determine what platforms and methods work best for you and maximize on that.
And the best part is that there are also free, low-investment, and equally effective strategies that you can use when you don’t have a large marketing budget yet. Let’s look at five methods to take your solo law firm where potential clients are looking.
Before You Start Marketing
One of the most common mistakes solo law practitioners make is approaching marketing blindly and without a plan. This sets you up for failure from the beginning because you’ll be playing a game of trial and error. You could also end up wasting a lot of resources on strategies that don’t bring in the expected results.
To prevent this and save yourself money, ensure you understand the following before you start marketing a startup solo practice.
Marketing Goals – What do you hope to achieve with your marketing efforts? Is it brand awareness? Generate more website traffic? Establish thought leadership? Determining your marketing goals before getting started will ensure you’re sharing relevant content and are investing in strategies that will grow your practice. Remember, your marketing goals should match your overall business goals.
Ideal Client Persona – It’s impossible to create a successful marketing strategy when you don’t know your target audience. Learning the features of your client persona like age range, occupation, problems they’re experiencing, and location helps you tailor your marketing efforts accordingly. This means you’re marketing to people with the pain points you’re addressing.
Marketing Budget Available – When you know how much money you have for marketing, you’re more likely to prioritize the most promising tactics. Working blindly without a budget will see you spend on unnecessary and, most likely, ineffective marketing strategies.
Competitor Research – Finally, research your competitors' marketing efforts to find out what’s working for them and potential areas you can out-perform.
With this information, you can now start marketing your startup solo law practice through one or more of the following practices. At Key Dynamics, we encourage our partners to diversify their marketing strategies by combining online and offline methods.
1. Build a Law Firm Website
A website is a comprehensive way to introduce your solo practice to potential clients on the internet. The homepage summarizes what you do in clear and concise words, compelling potential clients to find out how you can help them from the rest of the site, like service pages.
A law firm website will create awareness of your solo brand, generate traffic through search engine optimization (SEO), explain your processes, establish trust, and convince qualified prospects that you’re the right fit for their legal issues. It’s like a sales representative that never sleeps.
Tips for a Successful Solo Law Firm Website
Creating a site is not just putting up several pages of what you do and hoping that potential clients will find and interact with you. There’s a method to establish a website that helps you get clients. Start with the tips below:
Include a blog page on your site where you constantly update new content
You’re a lawyer and not a marketer. Consider seeking the services of a copywriter who’ll combine strategic writing with the best marketing practices.
Give the site a personal touch by including your photos and brief professional information about yourself.
Ensure fast loading speed and easy navigation for technical SEO
The content should be insightful, valuable, and well-thought-out
The site design must be responsive to display correctly across multiple screen resolutions.
2. Invest in Social Media Marketing
The number of global social media users in 2020 was more than four billion, a number expected to rise to six billion in less than a decade. More than half of these users have a profile on more than one social platform, which means increased reach and impression of your content.
Social media channels like Facebook and LinkedIn allow you to personally connect and interact with your potential clients. It’s also cost-effective because you don’t need any investment to build a profile and start publishing relevant content. You can also run paid ad campaigns targeting a qualified audience to deliver faster results.
How to Use Social Media for a Solo Practitioner
Social media can be extremely valuable for building a personal brand when done right. Here are some essentials to keep in mind when marketing your solo practice on socials:
Avoid stretching yourself too thin by being on many social platforms. Select two or three befitting channels and focus on growing your solo practice there.
Don’t just post your content and leave. Engage with other users by replying to messages, commenting, and participating in relevant conversations.
You can post the same message across channels but tailor it to the platform. For instance, short-text informal posts may perform better on Twitter than on LinkedIn, which is more formal and sometimes visual.
Use your socials to generate traffic to your website through content marketing. This way, potential clients can access more information on what you do and see whether you’re the right fit.
Use tools like Sprout Social to monitor conversations or mentions of your law firm. Doing so helps you understand what people are saying about your law firm and find room for improvement.
Use original or customized graphics more often.
3. Optimize Content for Search Engines (SEO)
Search engine optimization (SEO) allows potential clients to find you by ranking your online content among the top search engine results page (SERP) entries. When users search for your legal services online, they’re likely to use common phrases like “business formation lawyer in Washington” or “how much does a personal injury lawyer cost?”
These are keywords and phrases.
SEO involves using such words and phrases within your content so that people looking can find you. But keywords are not all there is to SEO. You must understand search intent and, most importantly, create valuable content.
How to Do Solo Law Firm SEO Right
Here are a few things to keep in mind when doing SEO for your solo practice:
Optimize both your website and social content by using relevant keywords and phrases the right way
Conduct local SEO for your content as well by using keywords that specify the geographical areas you serve
Use both short-tail and long-tail keywords to reduce competition.
Optimize titles and metadata for individual pages
Include FAQ pages on your site where you briefly answer common questions clients ask you
Use free tools like Google Trends, search results page, and Answer the Public to find out what people are searching about your services.
For SEO results to start showing, search engine tools must crawl your website and determine on what searches to return your content. This can take several months before potential clients start seeing your content on search results.
If you’re looking for faster results on search engines, pay-per-click (PPC) has a similar concept but is a paid tactic. Results will also stop showing once you cease paying for the service.
4. Google My Business (GMB) and Other Directory Listings
Suppose your solo law practice serves a particular geographical region. In that case, you have so much to benefit from local content and SEO.
Google my Business is a tool that allows you to fill in your business information, including the NAP (name, address, phone number), physical address, brief description of services you provide, hours of services, product images, and so on.
When a prospect searches for location-specific legal services like “family lawyer near me” or “commercial real estate lawyer in New York”, search engines return your firm’s complete profile.
There are also other legal website directories with a database of law firms. Claim your listing on several well-recognized directories like Findlaw and Avvo.
Best Practices for Lawyer GMB
Ensure your business details are accurate and match the information you’ve provided on other platforms, such as on your social profiles
Add high-quality images showing products, physical location, or business premises.
Use Google Posts to publish relevant and valuable information like a launch, expansions, industry news, and so on.
List your GMB in the correct services category and add a link to your website.
5. Targeted Direct Mail Marketing
Supplementing your online presence with offline marketing practices is the next best move for a solo practitioner.
Direct mail marketing is a strategy that uses offline material like letters, postcards, brochures, packages, and other tangible items to create brand awareness, engage with customers, and retarget qualified prospects.
Statistics show that 73% of Americans prefer receiving direct mail material because they can read it anytime compared to digital products.
One reason direct mail is so effective is its ability to connect with recipients more personally. Most importantly, you can use direct mail to take clients to your online platforms like a website or social profile.
At Key Dynamics, we use a scannable QR code that’s easy to track and takes potential clients to a personalized landing page (PURL).
How to Achieve Marketing Goals With Direct Mail Marketing
Some of the best practices for direct mail marketing we recommend for our solo law practices at Key Dynamics include:
Automating your direct mail marketing campaigns for more personalization, accuracy, and mass marketing to a larger audience
Using creative designs, rich colors, and quality paper on your offline marketing material to stand out
Having accurate data and comprehensive research at the core of your direct mail campaigns
Partnering with law firm direct mail marketing companies that offer a 24/7 automated call center for when you're out of the office
Conducting retargeting campaigns with qualified prospects
Test the most efficient tactics and determine what’s working through third-party analytics tools.
Are you ready to take your direct mail marketing to the next level? Reach out and receive a sample of our campaigns, along with an estimated prospect database that your company could expect to reach on a monthly basis. On average, our direct mail campaigns bring a 3-5% call return rate.
At Key Dynamics, we welcome any feedback, advice, or business consultation our clients may have. Our dedicated team is always available to answer any questions you may have. Drop us a line: hello@keydynamics.com or give us a call today at (888) 855-0402.
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