The end result of law firm marketing is to generate business. You must plan, execute and execute campaigns that generate new leads and new cases. This includes continuously investigating new emerging grievances and communicating those opportunities to your lawyers. The ultimate goal of marketing a law firm is to gain new business and retain more clients.
Achieving this goal requires meeting several major objectives. For any social media channel, website, or other digital asset to work well, you must dedicate yourself to content marketing. If your firm has a more strategic orientation or is prepared to grow, it would be more appropriate to have 20 lawyers for each marketing specialist. According to the ABA Tech report, less than half of law firms of all sizes have a marketing budget, and only 32% of firms with between two and nine lawyers say their firms have a budget.
Techniques for marketing law firms range from traditional methods, such as referrals and local advertising, to digital tactics such as website promotion and search engine optimization (SEO). In fact, many companies have marketing managers whose main job is to manage relationships with suppliers and monitor results. That's equivalent to hiring a lawyer fresh out of law school and expecting him to represent the country's most famous serial killer in his first case. Advertising in these media can help increase brand awareness so that your company remains a top priority when customers seek legal assistance.
Most smaller companies outsource their marketing efforts to an agency or independent contractor, like me. Smaller firms with fewer than 30 lawyers would do well to have a marketing manager or coordinator handle some of the non-billable client development and marketing tasks that would leave lawyers more free time to invoice. As you can see, the question shouldn't be whether law firms have marketing departments, but what are the functions of marketers within that department. Knowing how to market a law firm cost-effectively can make the difference between a successful practice and struggling to make a profit.
The first is more common in today's economy, while the second is seen more frequently in 8- to 9-figure companies. The United States Bar Association recently updated its rules of professional conduct to provide marketing guidelines to comply with advertising regulations in the era of digital marketing. The overhead would simply be too high, and once the app was launched, your law firm probably wouldn't have much use of a full-time app developer. The director of an individual law firm may handle its marketing personally, while a more prominent firm may have a legal marketing specialist or a marketing department.