A shift in generational workplace trends has encouraged the competition for clients and talents in the Australian legal market to grow fiercer. In the current legal climate, law firms have to rely heavily on marketing more than reputation to attract and retain new talent and clients, two of the requirements for any law firm that wants to grow and thrive. How do you promote your law firm to the point where it is more attractive to talents, like the top earning legal professionals in Australia than or even from the top 55 and top 6 law firms?
Active and effective branding
Legal professionals, especially Gen Z talents, seek flexibility at the workplace, shorter roles and goals, and greater work/life balance, an entirely new dynamic from the 9 – 5 office culture. Conversely, statistics have shown that lawyers’ bios drive at least 80% of the traffic to legal websites.
So, it all comes down to branding. You want to show a blend of both professional and friendly dynamics to increase traffic to your law firm’s website. Most especially, the lawyers’ bios should come across as human and personal and show prospective clients and legal professionals a glimpse of what it means to work with or at your law firm.
If you want to attract clients and the top legal professionals in Australia, you need a unique brand that speaks to the character of your law firm, which you can do best by sprucing up the lawyers’ bios. That said, it is a bit of a tightrope where you want to skirt the boundaries of professional and friendly without moving too much in either direction so, you should exercise caution and seek branding advice where necessary.
Generate content
We live in a time where everyone is an “expert”. It is both a product and an influence of the digital age. For your law firm, this means that one of the reasons both prospective clients and top legal professionals will visit your website is to gauge your knowledge or to gain more knowledge. Therefore, content generation is critical when promoting your law firm.
There are many ways to generate content and you should find those that match your brand. Don’t go so much into content generation that you forget about branding. The goal is to make your law firm stand out, so you should find niche perspectives to approach existing knowledge, expand on existing information, or generate fresh content on topics. For instance, you could discuss legal TV shows such as Suits, which would appeal equally to clients and legal professionals. You can then use that to link to more information on your website, create forums to discuss the knowledge, and many other niche approaches to generate, retain, and convert leads.
Appeal to professionals like the top-earning legal professionals in Australia by showcasing your expertise, and generating content as baseline proof to existing and prospective clients that you have the expertise and experience to tackle their legal needs.
For effective content generation, ensure your law firm invests in SEO. SEO practices are guiding principles that encourage lead generation, retention, and conversion and range from the quality of your website to internal and external links. Generally, your firm should invest extensively in SEO, even going the extra mile to hire professionals where necessary because it is just that important.
Maintain an active and engaging social media and video presence
Almost everything online revolves around social media. Your firm should take advantage of that. You should create a social media presence on LinkedIn, Facebook, Google +, and Twitter, among others. Ensure you engage the community through social media to maintain an active presence and convert leads.
Maintaining your social media presence while following the Australian Solicitor’s Conduct Rules is the challenging aspect of using social media to promote your law firm. One of the more important rules is to ensure you don’t claim to be an “accredited specialist” if you can’t back up that claim or show proof of the same. Additionally, you should pay attention to the information you share and receive on social media to avoid unethical lawyer-client relationships.
Videos are another handy tool to promote your law firm. Videos are an excellent way to get more personal with your target audience and you can expand exhaustively on that. For instance, you can generate tutorial videos, show behind-the-scenes videos to make your law firm more personal and friendly, share testimonial videos from your clients or even the legal professionals working there, and more.
Study your audience
It is important to tailor your marketing efforts to a specific audience. Therefore, your firm should invest in and study your target audience. Does the content you generate appeal to repeat clients, prospective clients, top earning legal professionals in Australia, or clients in a specific profession or age range?
Although you can take a broad approach to marketing, ensure that you always have something for your target audience. For instance, if your law firm deals primarily in real estate law, then you should generate more links, website content, videos, and social media content centered around real estate to make your marketing efforts more effective.
Don’t discount traditional marketing
Although we live in the digital age and your greater emphasis should be placed on digital marketing, you should still invest in traditional marketing such as billboards, print ads, TV and radio ads, and event sponsorship. Traditional marketing is a great way to expand your reach beyond digital media, which has proven very effective in attracting prospective talents like the top earning legal professionals in Australia or new clients for your law firm.
The Bottomline
The goal of promoting your law firm is to outshine your competition and while the guidelines written here are an excellent start, they are just the tip of the iceberg on what you could do. You should invest a modest budget in your marketing efforts to guarantee you cover all your bases in promoting your law firm. Promoting a law firm can be challenging, especially since there are hard rules that cannot and should not be crossed even in interactions with prospective clients. However, when done right, it can be a great way to get ahead of the competition.
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