How corporate savvy law firms are embracing the future of legal marketing – London Business News | Londonlovesbusiness.com

At base, a law firm is a business. That is, it’s a company that is beholden to its owners and even investors. At the end of the fiscal year, if a profit is not being made, the firm will either need to reorganize itself or it will need to shutter its offices. This is where effective marketing comes in. But selling your services isn’t the same as selling a retail product or something as simple as cheeseburgers. What you’re selling is brain power and legal savvy.

That said, what exactly is law firm marketing?

Says Exults.com, law firm marketing refers to the promotion of legal services to a potential client base. In 2024, it includes content marketing, influencing, social media optimization, and networking. It also means a strong online presence that increases brand visibility that’s easy to navigate for potential clients.

But is it crucial for law firms to engage in aggressive marketing in the 2020s? Experts say yes. According to a recent report by Forbes, in a world that’s ever-changing on technological level, online and digital marketing applications are becoming more prevalent. The dependence on digital formats was exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic since it pushed many employers and industries to work remotely from home offices.

This shift away from the traditional means of doing business, when combined with the reality of digital marketing becoming one of the fastest-changing sectors within the industry, means that law firms of all varieties find themselves having to keep up and swiftly adapt their advertising strategies.

A few select strategies will likely continue into the near and long-term future. These include an increase in the importance of personalized marketing strategies, along with changes to the role that existing marketing efforts play. A more pronounced emphasis on mobile voice search, pay-per-click advertising, and Google Local Service ads will also continue to blossom while, at the same time, social media marketing as a source of information might begin to shrink.

Establishing and preserving personal relationships

In-person, face-to-face personal relationships in a world of endless screen time are invaluable. Potential legal clients are said to be seeking more individualized content that will meet their personal needs and wants. The consumer’s desire for personalized content is prompting legal marketers to engage in a more personalized or individualized approach in the creation of a digital presence. The overall focus should be less on the business transaction itself and more on the personal connection between human beings.

Trends such as this are believed to place a bigger emphasis on the legal client experience while ensuring that it remains consistent throughout all stages. A continued focus on the client experience should push more legal marketing professionals to embrace individualized relationship management in their marketing and advertising efforts, even after a client’s campaign has officially ended.

How do you go about creating a personalized relationship with potential clients? Seek out ways to publish personalized content about your firm and its key employees. This allows potential clients a chance to feel more connected with your firm.

Utilise but don’t rely on social media in 2024

In 2024, it’s as crucial as ever to maintain a prominent online presence. Each social media platform is believed to serve a different purpose and, therefore, plays its own role in a law firm’s overall marketing strategy. However, while Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram remain powerful digital platforms, their effectiveness when it comes to legal marketing is said to be waning.

These days, social media is almost entirely positioned for social interaction and entertainment, which is resulting in many users passing over marketing and advertising efforts they don’t view as “cut-and-dry content.” With this in mind, if a law firm is looking to use social media as an effective marketing platform in the 2020s, it’s best to manufacture content that reflects people’s habits, demands, wants, and interests.

Says Forbes, it’s best to engage your audience directly, via debates, discussions, or sharing insights. This is said to establish a connection instead of merely posting academic information about your firm which most people will probably skip over and/or filter out. In a word, the best way to approach social media is to be social.

Rising demands for voice search and mobile apps

Even though the utilization of social media as an information and social source might be changing in the 2020s, a law firm’s website is still said to be the most crucial marketing tool when it comes to generating leads. With search engines continuing to improve and evolve with every-increasing capabilities, it’s imperative to adapt and to keep the website optimized, especially when it comes to the use of voice search and mobile app updates.

Prior to the pandemic, the market realized a shift toward mobile searches as people depended more on their cell phones than their desktop or laptop computers. Maybe 2020 in particular served as an outlier with this trend due to more people staying home than ever before, but the expanding “mobile-first mindset” is likely to continue well into the decade. Eventually the number of mobile searches will leave desktop searches well behind now that people are free to move around as they please again.

Naturally, if mobile searches are gaining in popularity, so too are voice searches. A voice search is especially convenient and fast since you don’t have to bother with typing your information into a Google search bar.

How should a law firm meet this new growing demand? Company websites need to be tailored to match voice queries and to pay strict attention both to keywords and tone of voice.

Marketing for law firms, like any other industry, is an ever-changing, ever evolving beast. What was popular just five years ago, pre-pandemic, is now considered ineffectual and perhaps even outdated. Now, with AI and smart voice capabilities, legal marketing must adapt with the times or leave their law clients behind.