Growing a Personal Injury Law Firm With Effective Marketing
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Growing a personal injury law firm takes a variety of skills. Legal training and experience are important. Business savvy and interpersonal skills are also key. One of the important elements of any legal practice is effective marketing.
If you’re like most attorneys, you didn’t spend time in law school learning about marketing. You may have taken torts advanced torts, but they didn’t teach you much about how to grow your legal practice or manage the business side of your practice. Marketing is the activity of communicating to potential customers what you have to offer. Effective marketing is critical to the success of any law firm. Here are 5 tips for growing a personal injury law firm with effective marketing.
Here is how to grow a personal injury law firm with effective marketing:
1.Do Great Legal Work
The first step to growing a legal practice with effective legal marketing is doing great legal work. Law firms rise and fall on their reputation. When you serve each client well, you build a reputation in your community over time. The first step in great legal marketing is to do good legal work for your clients. In turn, they may ask for your help again. They may refer you to friends or family or leave you a positive online review. The best marketing message for your personal injury law firm is satisfied clients who can speak about your services.
Even though great legal work is important, a personal injury law firm isn’t built by a referral network alone. Not everyone who needs a personal injury attorney has a friend who has used a personal injury attorney in the past. Satisfied customers are the foundation of your legal practice, but they are only one part of growing a firm.
2. Understand that Marketing Has Changed
Not too long ago, if you wanted to market your law firm, you took out an add in the yellow pages. If you wanted to be the leading personal injury attorney in town, you paid to be on the front or back cover, or at least you bought a full-page advertisement in the attorney section. Today, most people don’t find their personal injury lawyer by picking up a phone book.
Most people find their lawyer through an internet search. They type “personal injury attorney” into Google or another search engine and look at the results. To grow your practice, you must keep up with the changes in legal marketing. Even online marketing continues to grow and change quickly. Understanding and embracing these changes is critical to staying ahead of the competition in the competitive personal injury landscape.
3. You Need a Website
To start with, you’re going to need a website. The website needs to state the basics — What is the name of your law firm? What services do you provide, and where are you located? There are many things that go into making a great website. Some of these things are content-related. For example, your law firm should explain in detail the types of cases that you handle and the services you provide. There should be a section that introduces the public to the various members of the firm.
Growing a personal injury law firm through an effective website is a detailed and complex undertaking. There are so many things that go into creating a digital footprint that is effective to reach potential clients. Just some of the things to consider include:
- Does my content reflect the various terms that someone might use to search for a personal injury attorney?
- Do I have articles about legal topics that potential clients want to learn about, like how long settlements can take, or what to do about car accidents in your leased vehicle?
- Are there rich images on the site that help explain what my law firm does? Are images compliant with accessibility requirements?
- Do I use effective meta titles and descriptions so that my pages appear attractive and easy to understand in search results?
- Is my content localized? Am I reaching readers in my target area?
- Do I have an XML sitemap so that Google can crawl and index my pages in search results?
- How fast do my pages load? Are users discouraged waiting for slow pages to load?
- Is it clear to the reader how to contact the firm? Do they have multiple options to contact the firm like phone, email and instant message?
If some of these terms seem unfamiliar to you, it’s beecause effective legal marketing is detailed and complex. The law firms that invest in effective legal marketing and understand the many facets involved may reap the rewards and grow their legal practice.
4. You Need More than a Website
Effective legal marketing is about more than a website. In the online space, you should be aware of how things like third-party websites with client reviews may impact your online presence. In addition, paid search and targeted answer boxes may all be important to what people see online about your firm.
5. It’s not all about digital
In addition to what you do online, what you do in the community matters, too. Even though your phone might live in your pocket, there’s still a significant percent of people who don’t spend much time online. You still have to find a way to reach these clients. Community sponsorship programs, scholarships and other outreach can be an important part of the puzzle.
Effective Personal Injury Law Firm Marketing For Growing a Legal Practice
Effective personal injury law firm marketing requires thought. It also requires an investment of time and resources. It can show the community what services you have to offer. When done effectively, law firm marketing can grow your legal practice. Personal injury law firm marketing can be a new horizon that helps your law firm reach new horizons.