Prospective Law Clients Not Lining Up at Your Door?  Then Find Them and Knock on Their Doors

Is your firm thirsting for new clients and you already have a law firm website?  If that was an emphatic “Yes” for both, then continue on to learn about how to knock on clients doors like a ninja.

If you don’t have a website, then stop right now and run, not walk, to your nearest website marketing / development company.  Feel free to try our no-risk 14-day trial at Sites For Law Firms if you would like to get started immediately.

Law firm websites are the central hub to all of your online marketing efforts when attracting potential clients to your firm.  Your website is where you can communicate to the world who you are, what you do, and why your firm is the right & best match for your client prospects needs.

How To Find New Clients For Your Law Firm

Now for all of you that already have a website, you’re already moving in the right direction.

There are many ways to grow your clientele and we will list a few tactics here below. However, it’s important to note that the most effective way to attract new clients is by providing excellent service to existing clients.  That’s it.

You can’t replace good old-fashioned quality work and strong client-attorney relationships with marketing tactics. Therefore, make sure your existing clients love you and they will in turn become your very own brand ambassadors that will supply you with referrals.

Here are a few tactics worth noting:

1)    Infiltrate Client Prospect Communities

What type of lawyer are you?  If you serve a specific niche, say “Startup Firms”; then you need to understand where these startup founders and entrepreneurs are located physically and digitally.

An example of a law firm that successfully understands this principal is Walker Corporate Law Group.  This firm specializes in representing entrepreneurs.  Therefore, they strategically sponsor various business building podcast radio shows and align themselves with prominent startup blogs.

The owner, Scott Edward Walker, even moved to the Silicon Valley from New York to better serve his industry. He truly understood his audience and went after it.

Now if you were an auto attorney, you can join prominent online car forums like Honda Tech or CarForums.com.  Do not heavily promote yourself, however, do provide real answers to real auto concerns.

Online communities are intelligent.  Therefore, be transparent and honest.  Ulterior motives are almost always sniffed out and can cause a lot of harm for your firm if you’re not careful.

2)    Learn How To Do Social Media Marketing Better

Every social media platform has its own marketing quirks.  What works on Facebook may not work on Tumblr.  What works on Twitter will definitely not work on YouTube.

It’s your duty to figure out which social media platform is ripe for your prospective clients and how to use that technology to communicate with those individuals.

For example, let’s look at Twitter.

If you are a car accident lawyer, you can use keyword geotargeting when marketing to prospective clients.  In Layman’s terms, if your business is based in Dallas, you can set up Twitter advertising campaigns to show ads for people that live in the Dallas area that have recently tweeted that they were in a “car accident” or were “rear-ended”.

So then if a victim tweets, “Someone just rear-ended me and now my neck hurts” or “Got in a car accident.  Other driver didn’t stop at the red light”, then your ads would immediately show up in that victim’s newsfeed.

See how that works?

If you are a harassment lawyer in San Diego, you can set up Twitter ads that specifically become active when someone in the San Diego region types “sexual harassment” or “workplace harassment”.

These types of location-based keyword-targeted ads do not go off often.  However, when they do, it’s important that you have an advertising plan already prepared to take advantage of the situation.  If you don’t have a plan, it’s a lost opportunity.

3)   Narrow Your Firm’s Focus

If you were a prospective client in need of a medical malpractice lawyer, who would you rather go to if given the options between the following 2 law firms:

Law firm 1 – A general practice law firm that specializes in startups, car accidents, tax law, medical malpractice, animal rights law, etc.  Their last 5 cases were a mixture of lawsuits in all law verticals.

OR

Law firm 2 – A malpractice law firm that has subject-matter expertise in medical malpractice.  They pride themselves in being the best malpractice lawyers out there.  Their last 5 cases were specifically malpractice lawsuits.

It’s a no-brainer.

4)    Expand Your Firm’s Reach Online with Local SEO

Is your firm on Yelp?  Can your prospective clients find you in the Yellow Pages?  Have you claimed your social media pages and have them point back to your main website?

If you answered “No” to any of the questions above, then it’s time to do some Local SEO.

This is a low-hanging fruit that needs to be addressed immediately now that the world has moved online.  It’s easy to set up for yourself.  However, if you want to ensure your online accounts are optimized to give you the highest return, look into a law firm web marketing agency.

5)   Become A Leader in Your Space

In a previous article, we talked about the advantages of creating a law firm blog.  One of the main reasons we recommend this route is so your firm can become an authority in your industry.

The more value you provide and expertise you demonstrate on your blog, the more credibility you have as an expert in your area of practice.  People in need of legal representation trust experts.

6)   Learn How To Do Better Event Marketing

Use sites like Meetup.com to find out when the next free event is for your industry. Most Meetups require you to do a quick introduction at the beginning of the event.  Let people know what you do and make real connections.

The key here is not to profess your services to the entire group over and over and over. Meet everyone, single out your firm’s ideal client prospects, and then build a real relationship with them.

7)    Utilize LinkedIn Groups More Effectively

Join industry groups on LinkedIn and become an influencer in your niche.  If you are a business lawyer, join various business organizations and groups.  Share and comment on content that you have area expertise on.

One important note is to ensure that your personal LinkedIn profile and company page have been fully optimized and have a consistent message throughout.   Each page should link back to your company website.

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Do you have any additional tips?  Let us know in the comments below.