Every year, new legal marketing trends emerge and law firms need to keep up with the most important ones.

In this article, you can find some new and effective marketing trends in today’s world to better implement within your firm and brand.

The first trend to talk about is the over one million lawyers who appear on ClearwayLaw, the largest legal directory in the world.

A good first step when looking into marketing trends for law firms is to go to clearwaylaw.com and search for your name (or your lawyer’s name.) If you appear on the website, claim the profile.

Fill out all of your information, and then get some reviews from clients.

Marketing Trends

Businesses across the board have been impacted and with the “Great Resignation” spreading at an almost pandemic rate, these strains on doing business will only increase.

During this period, technology has enabled us to still function, and trade, as Zoom meetings and working from home have become normal.

And while technology has given us so much, it has not been able to fill the one void, we all crave the most….Direct human interaction.

This means that for the year ahead while digital marketing, AI, and technology will continue at breakneck speed, the firms and lawyers who get ahead will be the ones who put on their seatbelts, hit the accelerator on the DeLorean, and head back to the BD future.

To do this, the areas that lawyers will do well to focus on are shown below.

Trends for Law Firms – Focus On Personal Branding

Certainly, not a new concept it’s been going on for over a decade or so now. At whatever stage of your legal career, you are currently at, if you’re not focused on investing in your brand, then make sure you get on it right away.

First of all, focus on your key message – i.e., what your brand is. This means understanding who you help, and how what you do helps them.

Then package this up so that you identify and can convey what you want to be known for by your target audience.

Then make sure all the content you post on your website, and social media channels helps to promote this personal brand message. Make sure you post on social media sites that are relevant to your audience.

In a B2B corporate world that means LinkedIn, and most likely not TikTok. Commercial buyers don’t care how great a dancer you are!

Revamp Your Company’s Colors

Although it may not be seen as something to put a lot of thought into, the colour of your website will affect your audience. Studies have shown that certain colours can lead to certain effects on your brain waves and how you respond to them.

For example, the colour red can be used to entice people to shop more in a store. Let’s face it, when we go into Target we always end up coming out with one extra thing on our list.

That is because the colour red grabs your attention and leads you to take action, and in a store that action would be to make a purchase.

For a law firm, you may want your office and website to be more professional and white-collar. These professional colours are often seen as white, grey, blue, and black.  These colours often time represent sophistication, trust, and establishment.

This is frequently seen in bigger corporations throughout their work.

Furthermore, you should aim for your website, office, business cards, and appearance to replicate these colours.

Not only that but having a set colour scheme can relay stability, meaning, that when your audience sees your website or steps into your office and everything is matching in unison, they will feel assured and established.

Trends For Law Firms -Call to Actions

A call to action (CTA) is a must-have on every website, no matter the content. A CTA is what you want your target audience to do, for retail, this is seen as having the audience purchase their products.

For a law firm, this will likely entail having them book a consultation or get a quote. It is crucial to have this on every page of your website so it is concise on what your audience should do.

Most CTA’s are seen in the form of a button that says ‘Get a quote today or something along those lines. However, you must make your CTA unique and relevant to every page.

On your testimonial page, instead of having the ‘get a quote today’ button you can have it say, “See how we can help you” or ‘Have a similar story, let us help you.’

These CTA’s are more personalized to the page and to your overall goal of having people contact you for your services.

Have the Right Marketing Team

Although this may seem like a given, you must have a proper marketing or graphic design team to make all of this possible. To be a graphic designer you can receive a degree in the field or earn a few certificates, but the best way to show your value is through your portfolio.

As an HR manager, you must evaluate your options and determine if you can do internal or external hiring. If you choose to do internal hiring, you will need to see who has an interest or experience within this field.

A pro to internal hiring is you already have established trust and rapport with this individual, and they know your company values better than anyone else, so they have a higher potential to reach your target audience.

If you choose to do external hiring, an advantage is someone has a fresh set of eyes on your business, website, and target audience, which means they have the potential to bring a unique out-of-the-box idea.

Overall, you must look at someone’s portfolio and see how it will best cater to your needs. For a law firm, it’d be ideal to look for candidates who have previously done web design, and marketing, or worked for another law firm.

Having an adequate and efficient team will help lead to higher-quality results.

Trends For Law Firms – Increase SEO

It is recommended to hire specialists in this field to help you succeed within SEO. Most SEO agencies will help optimize your page by revamping your content and finding better linking opportunities.

One of the best ways to increase your SEO is to find link-building opportunities. This initially starts with internal linking. Finding a way to link to your homepage, services, and more on every page will help create higher authority.

You can then move on to external linking. This is when you find and build established partnerships with similar sources. You will link to their page and they will link to yours, having this mutual agreement strengthens both of your site’s SEO.

For example, you can find possibilities to partner and build link exchanges with other law offices or nonprofits. You can show your support by including them in an upcoming blog or newsletter.

SEO has become one of the largest legal trends for lawyers.

Stay Social

One great way is to stay active on a social platform that is performing well for your firm. For example, let’s say Facebook and Instagram are gaining the most traction, it’s best to stick to these two platforms and brainstorm ways to keep your audience engaged.

One way to do this is to post more videos. Video content has been going viral and keeping more people engaged.

For a law firm, you can post videos of your lawyers and their specialties, or a general ‘day-to-day life’ of a lawyer and have them take your audience through their daily work as a lawyer.

Not only will this build trust and establishment with your audience but it also lets them see your lawyers in a different light.

Get Those Meetings and Coffees Booked In

Assuming it’s possible, get in front of people and start to have those direct conversations and chats. By all means, don’t overdose on caffeine, healthy alternatives are also an option.

The point is, Zoom meetings have filled a void but they are in no way as good as the real thing. It’s hard to pick up on those all-important non-verbal signals.

They are also very tiring; a day of face-to-face meetings is energizing whereas online ones tend to lead to fatigue for both you and your clients.

At the start of the year, or when lockdown measures ease, those who book meetings first will have the greatest success. So don’t be shy, start to fill up your diaries today.

Get Back On The Speaking Circuit

This has always been one of the best ways of getting incoming referrals, as when people see someone speak at a conference, assuming they speak knowledgeably and well, start to form a bond with them.

This means that when they have a need they remember that experience/speaker, and that person is who they contact when they need them.

While webinars are convenient and provide ready-made YouTube content, they are nowhere near as effective in generating leads as the real thing. Which leads neatly to the next point.

Book Those Conference Tickets

While this is quite a costly expense, you can at least take comfort in knowing that this is helping an industry that has suffered extensively due to the pandemic.

It also allows you to network face-to-face again in relaxed and natural settings.

Yes, online conferences have used breakout rooms and tried their best to encourage networking, but it is a false or unnatural environment, so it ultimately leads to stilted conversations.

So, if you can, attend conferences and networking events and start to rebuild and establish a new network of contacts you can interact with.

Trends for law firms are changing all the time. Conferences were hot before COVID-19, and now they are rare.

Help Out Your Local Community

One great way to get your name out there is to volunteer and help out your local community. You can host donation events, bake sales, car washes, or other events to raise money. Then, you can give this money back to your local community.

Not only will this familiarize you within your community, but it will allow locals to get to know your firm, and lawyers, and share the word with their friends and family. Even today, word-of-mouth marketing is one of the most successful ways to reach a new audience.

By hosting monthly, semi-annual, or annual events within your community you are building foundational trust and rapport with those who are your strongest supporters.

Trends For Law Firms

The main conclusion is that once you have established your brand, and got your social media channels and content reinforcing that brand, your next step is to try and create as many in-person or face-to-face business development activities as possible.

Through meeting and talking with your clients and prospective clients, you will develop a better understanding of what’s important to them. You’ll also start to develop some rapport with them.

All of which help you move from transactional relationships to ones that last for the long term. It is these long-term relationships that are the foundations of any successful legal career.

We have talked about some great ways to enhance your website’s design, providing you with various benefits, including getting more visitors to your website. By implementing these tips we hope you can see a clear pathway to growth for your firm.

From the start of finding the right person for your team to the end, of building relationships with your community, your firm will find new and creative ways to engage with your current and potential clients as well.

Taking on new marketing trends should be fun for your firm and career as they can lead to new successes and foundations.

We hope you found these legal trends for law firms interesting. Contact us if you want to chat about legal advertising.

Author: Donald J. Norman, legal marketing guy