The Shark Tank

A strong marketing strategy is essential for law firms at any stage in the building process to generate leads and bring in new clients. However, there are several marketing “buckets” a firm can choose to utilize depending on where they are in their firm’s growth cycle.

Referral Marketing

Referral marketing is not only a fundamental long-term growth strategy, but it is also a key bucket for new firms to focus their marketing efforts.

If you’re not sure where to start, begin by leveraging the relationships you already have. You should tap into your networks to get your brand out there. Take the potential referral sources out for coffees, drinks, or even a round of golf. Calling on friends, colleagues, and connections is the easiest way to gain leads without spending a ton of money on traditional marketing.

Paid Ads

This bucket often provides the most instant gratification—spend money, get seen, get calls, close cases. While limited for long-term gains in the digital world, paid ads can be helpful when your leads are down or when you need some upfront cases. There are a variety of paid ads out there, including LSAs, Google Ads, Social Ads, and Display. Each type requires different strategies for different practice areas.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

SEO is crucial when you have the resources and are ready to take your marketing to the next level. You’ve already established a good referral stream, or maybe you have solid leads coming in from paid ads. Now, it’s time to build a long-term visibility strategy. SEO can take anywhere from 6-12 months to go into effect, depending on the competition within your market. However, your visibility in your market will significantly increase over time, leading to a night and day difference in intakes and lead volume. People who’ve never seen or heard of your brand before will now see it pop up as an option when searching for related services on Google.

The beauty of this strategy is that it builds long term visibility. Unlike other marketing buckets, your brand will not just disappear when you stop paying to run ads or when you run out of referral streams. For your visibility to decrease in any way, another firm would need to outdo you across technical, content, links, and local SEO strategies. Even then, your brand would just move down the list of options one or two spots in the search results rather than disappearing completely.

Organic Social Media and Offline Branding

Both organic social media and offline branding are designed to complement your brand once you’ve already set up your online presence. This is called brand building. The idea is to put your firm out there and build brand recognition, which leads to trust. These strategies do not tend to bring in immediate leads. Unlike paid ads and SEO, which target people who need you and your services today, this bucket is for people who may be in a bad situation at some point in the future. When they need a lawyer, they might remember your brand!

Moving Forward with Your Firm’s Marketing

Depending on what stage your firm is in, you might need to prioritize one of the various marketing buckets. However, each can greatly benefit your firm in several different ways. Whether you are just getting started or your firm is already established and reputable, there are several ways you can grow your firm and generate quality leads. Growing your firm begins with evaluating what you need to do to bring more people through your door. Using one or more of these buckets is a proven way to advance your firm in the modern world.