There seem to be marketing firms all over the place these days. This is largely because every business of every type now benefits from marketing services in what is an increasingly competitive and cut-throat marketplace. Even marketing companies need marketing!

Law firm marketing is a specialized field that needs extra special care, attention, and expertise. There are many reasons for that, but today let’s take a look at some of the most interesting strategies that are used in particular for law firm marketing.

1. Website Optimization for Local Search

Law firms invariably operate within a contained local market. They aren’t like online food and beverage sales, which can market to all parts of the country and even around the world. It’s hard to export Australian legal services to countries like Bolivia, after all. Therefore, local SEO is an important and effective marketing strategy that successful modern law firms will use.

This involves optimizing the website for geo-specific keywords, building locally searchable profiles on platforms like Bing Places, creating user-focused content centered on local legal issues that people care about, and more. A law firm’s website has to speak directly to its immediate local market.

2. Audience and Local Market Research

As we mentioned above, the local area is typically the limit for most law firms, which means they have to understand their local area well and tailor their services and information to fit that market. It’s important that a law firm is clear on what kind of questions people in their local market have about the legal process, and what legal issues they are commonly facing or are worried about facing.

Since there is typically more than one legal shop in town, effective marketing means understanding what it is that people like and dislike about other firms and then tailoring the marketing content to speak to those preferences.

3. Lawyers Need to “EAT”

The marketing acronym EAT stands for Expertise, Authority, and Trust. These three qualities are undeniably important for those working in the legal profession. Just as they do with doctors, people tend to put a lot of trust in the hands of lawyers, and they will gravitate towards lawyers that demonstrate expertise and authority in their field, which is also helped by integrity, reputation and professionalism. These qualities need to be showcased very loudly and clearly as part of any successful law firm marketing strategy.

4. Google Ads

One of the more classic approaches used by law firms is running Google Ads to try and help them appear at the top of any search. While parts of the market are already engaged with legal services, many people remain unattached or are willing to seek out additional help. Those people will typically start any search on Google, and so ads are an important “front line” strategy.

5. Gated Content

Law firms are known for creating online readable content that can only be accessed once a user provides their email address or possibly a phone number. Once this information is collected, law firms can make use of email marketing or cold calling to try and drum up business in their local area. These digital marketing assets are typically kinds of high-value content like e-books, infographics, and useful legal resources that people may need for all kinds of reasons.

6. Use Legal Directories

If people don’t do a sweeping search on Google, they may instead turn to a legal directory to try and find legal services in their local area. Sites like Lawyerlist, Findlaw, Bestlawyers, and many others are ones people turn to because they feel they are more impartial and offer a one-stop source to seek information on multiple providers.

These strategies, among many others, are part of what makes up the unique business of law firm marketing.

Over decades of development and rising standards of living across much of the world, the general standard of products and services has increased dramatically. Right now, with product quality gaps getting smaller, the all-important element of customer experience has become the ultimate distinguishing factor between competing products and services.

The global COVID-19 pandemic has driven customer expectations higher than ever, and this has formed a number of interesting trends to which companies in Australia and around the world will have to respond strategically to meet change. The following customer service trends are here to stay and successful companies will surely adapt and meet the challenge.

Trend #1: Service Has to be Fast and Simple

This is an age where elegant simplicity reigns supreme. Customers more than ever want to have their issues resolved quickly and without having to repeat steps, have call backs, or have the problem endure beyond their inquiry to customer services. The way companies can respond to this is to minimize wait times for customers, and set clear guidelines and stick to them on issues like when they will call customers back, or when certain steps will be resolved.

Furthermore, if the problem of one customer overlaps from one customer service team member to another, perhaps due to a shift change, communication between team members has to be seamless in order to ensure nothing the customer has done or said already has to be repeated.

Trend #2: Customers’ Brand Perception is Impossible to Ignore

In this information age, people’s trust in marketing messages is at an all-time low. The only sources people tend to trust when it comes to product/service comparison is their tight circle of friends and family. Beyond that, they are usually unwilling to listen. Multiple social media channels are amplifying the negative reviews and negative feedback of customers in ways that enterprises can little control, and a spate of negative reviews can cascade into a devastating loss of reputation.

To respond to this trend, companies will have to find more ways to gain customer feedback at different points in their experience or journey. By collecting more feedback at different stages, they can better identify the weak links in their chains.

Trend #3: AI is Becoming More Capable in Customer Service

Even though many people express frustration at AI-driven systems, the technology is improving fast, and many systems such as online “Chatbots” are able to deal with simple customer questions. As AI learns more about customers’ needs, these systems will relieve customer service departments and teams of at least some of the pressure they face day to day. This will allow companies to refocus their attention on how to deal with more serious issues where human-to-human interaction is the only way.

Trend #4: Customers Want 24-Hour Support

In these troubled times, customers have been increasingly frustrated with systems that seem to make it difficult to get in touch directly with human customer service agents. They feel shut out, and surveys have shown that as many as 72 percent of consumers aged 18 to 64 feel that a text-based service where you could chat to someone in real time 24/7 would give them a better customer service experience. 

Some US insurers like Farmers Insurance are already trying it out, and are finding that people respond positively just because they have that safety net there that they can turn to. With tensions and fears heightened around the pandemic-ridden world, companies will have to find ways to reassure and “look after” their customer base as best they can lest they turn to others who will.