“70% of law firms have landed new cases through their website.”  Law Technology Today

What is Content Marketing?

There are many ways to drive traffic to your law firm’s website.

I’m sure by now, you’ve heard the term content marketing.  You may have even read a bit (or a lot) about it.  Content marketing is all the rage right now, well . . . because it works.  In short, your firm creates content that is of interest to your prospective clients or referral sources.  You engage your audience by publishing the content on your law firm’s website and sharing it on social media and via email.  Folks see your content and start to trust you as an authority on the subject – in other words, as a thought leader.  The point of it is, that when it comes time to retain an attorney who does what your firm does, it can exponentially increase the likelihood it will be you.

Outline Your Law Firm’s Content Plan

Any successful content marketing effort starts with a solid strategy.   Make a night of it once a month.  Get your staff together once a month for a catered dinner.  Brainstorm to determine your law firm’s business strategy.  Create a content plan to meet those goals.  Then, as a group, revisit the plan to make sure you are sticking to it.  Adjust it as needed.  To create this plan, it helps to answer questions such as:

•What areas does your law firm want to grow?
•Where are the best opportunities for growth for your law firm?
•Who are your law firm’s target clients?
•What are your ideal clients’ issues, needs or goals?
•How can you showcase your content to them?

For lawyers, content that is used to drive traffic to your law firm’s website includes, for example:

•blog posts

•explainer videos

•ebooks

•special reports

•checklists

•whitepapers

•infographics

•audio presentations

•slide presentations (PowerPoint)

That’s content and content marketing in a nutshell.

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In this post, we are going to share seven content marketing ideas for lawyers who want to jump on the content marketing bandwagon.

We promise that they’re going to be tactics you won’t hate, no matter how much you don’t want to deal with this newfangled marketing stuff.

Your website is more than just an online brochure or digital storefront.  Even within the confines of very restrictive regulations that lawyers must abide by, there’s lots of room for your law firm to flex some marketing muscle.  You can turn your website into a traffic-generating powerhouse in ways most of your competitors are not.

Now, granted, you are going to do this on a smaller scale, but the objectives are the very same. To:

♦drive traffic to your law firm’s website

♦establish you as an authority on a particular subject

♦build trust

♦make your knowledge base accessible to colleagues and prospects

The best way to explain what we mean is to encourage you to take a page out of Baker McKenzie’s content marketing playbook.

What are ideal ways to drive traffic to your law firm’s website?

1.      Turn Your Website into the Legal “go-to” Base Camp for Your Niche Would-Be Clients

2.      Turn a Piece of Content into a Magnet for News Outlets

3.      Turn Lawyer’s Jokes into Object Lessons

4.      Turn Your Target Audience’s Most Recent Google and Forum Questions into Content

5.      Turn Professional Inquiries into Thought Leadership Content

6.      Turn Your Content Into Your Firm’s Social Media Posts

7.      Turn Your Content into a Warm Introduction by Emailing it to an Influencer Quoted in it.

Content Marketing Ideas to Drive Traffic to Your Law Firm’s Website

1. Turn Your Website into the Legal “go-to” Base Camp for Your Niche Would-Be Clients

The easiest way to explain this is to show you an example of an actual law firm that has done an exemplary job of “owning” a legal niche: Baker McKenzie

Baker McKenzie, one of the largest firms in the country, is viewed as an authority on all things Brexit – from a legal standpoint.  If you do an online search of the word Brexit and the name Baker McKenzie, you can go on a content marketing journey and learn all there is to know about the implications of Brexit on business, on IT, on healthcare, on employment, on mergers and acquisitions, on intellectual property and the list goes on and on. Baker McKenzie brings this to you via, PowerPoint presentations, webinars, a Brexit Toolkit, a dedicated Brexit blog, videos, checklists, and interactive reports.  It’s endless!

Yes, this level of content marketing is costly – for them.   But, it won’t be costly for you.  We’re going to show you at the end of this blog post just how to get this done for next to nothing.

2. Turn a Piece of Content into a Magnet for News Outlets

The media is always on the lookout for content to talk about, write about and refer to.   Come up with a topic that you can gather some data on.  Set aside an hour and research public data websites that cover your legal niche.  Write a 1 or 2-page report about it.  Include the public data/research findings in your report.  Have someone in your office or a graphic designer put your piece in whatever marketing tactic format you want (flyer, brochure, etc.), and post the report on your website.

Share your link to the report with your local news outlet, via email.  If they can incorporate your research (and reporters always appreciate it when research has been done for them) in a story they’re covering, they’ll add a link to your law firm’s website in their story. When they link to your site, this does two very important things:

• It gives your law firm’s website link equity (a/k/a “link juice”). Links from sites with authority (like news sites) have more power and help improve your SEO, boosting your site’s overall search visibility.
• Their readers, potential clients end up on your website, so you’ve also raised your brand awareness to a slew of your city/state’s residents. Woohoo!

3. Turn Lawyer’s Jokes into Object Lessons

People love to make fun of lawyers – until they need one.  Find 7 of the funniest memes on the Internet.  Comment on why it’s funny or why folks think it’s true. Then, in a light-hearted, non-confrontational, crash course-style, explain its not-so-funny truth, outlining how the underlying action or inaction of the attorney in the joke benefits clients. Then show the downside, i.e., what would happen if lawyers didn’t do X.

You want to create it in such a way where the reader leaves genuinely glad they learned what you imparted.

4. Turn Your Target Audience’s Most Recent Google and Forum Questions into Content

The anonymity of the Internet is one reason people go to the web searching for answers to legal questions.  This is a bonus for law firms.  It means there will always be an endless supply of topics to write about that you KNOW will appeal to your target audience.  They are revealing, in a raw, candid and uninhibited fashion, what they want to know.   There are several ways to find out what questions your prospects want to know the answers to. AnswerthePublic.com, TheLaw.com forums, ExpertLaw.com forums are repositories for legal content marketing ideas.

For example, Answerthepublic.com pulls questions from Google and Bing that people are typing into the search engines to get the answers to.   When you want to know what’s keeping your potential clients up at night on any given day, go to the search bar.  Type in the topic in your area of expertise.  Within seconds, one or more wheels will pop up with their questions. Grab a question, and create content on the subject.

The following image is one of four wheels of 130 questions that came up when I typed the word commercial real estate. Additionally, at the end of the same results page, Answerthepublic.com included 518 alphabetized and categorized keywords based on that same search.

You can also click on the dashboard’s “data” tab to access a table that is easier to read but contains the same information.

5. Turn Professional Inquiries into Thought Leadership Content

Sometimes issues come up in a client’s matter that requires the attorney to consult with a specialist or expert outside the legal industry.  The reverse happens as well. And, it’s from the reverse that you will be crafting thought leadership content.  Locate notes from conversations when you provided legal answers and wisdom to an accountant, psychologist, general contractor, actuary, policymaker, medical health professional, real estate broker, claims adjuster, tax specialist, etc. when he or she called to “pick your brain.”  Organize your notes into a few subheadings and flesh it out into a report of sorts.

Again, hook up with that graphics designer (or not) and get some content created to upload to your website.

Once it is uploaded to your website, you’ll want to email a link to the piece to appropriate subject matter experts in your contacts and your other contacts who work in that field.  You are not asking for referrals. You are simply sharing something you think may be of interest to them.

6. Turn Your Content Into Your Firm’s Social Media Posts

If your firm has a social media presence, remember to share a link to your content on your firm’s Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, and Instagram pages or whatever platforms you have.  To do this, just block and copy the headline of the piece or grab a strong sentence from the body of the piece.  Post it to your page with a backlink to where it is housed on your law firm’s website.

Tweet More Than Once

If you use Twitter, send out a tweet once or twice every day for a week after you publish the content on your law firm’s website.  Write a slightly or starkly different message for each tweet.

Upload the Entire Article on Linkedin

As to Linkedin, if your content is an article, wait a week or two after publishing the content on your site to allow Google time to index it before uploading it to Linkedin. The reason is to increase the chance that your blog post will outrank repurposed content on LinkedIn.  To post on Linkedin, log into your Linkedin page.  Click the “Write an Article on Linkedin” tab located under the “Start a Post” box.  Cut and paste your entire article there.

Change one word in the title.  Reword your opening sentence.  Include several backlinks to your law firm website’s blog in the Linkedin article. Add the author’s name, your firm name, and URL.  At the end of the article, add a note stating where the article originally appeared and Viola! You have a new article on Linkedin for folks to engage with.

7. Turn Your Content into a Warm Introduction by Emailing it to an Influencer Quoted in it.

Sometimes when we are creating content, it’s necessary to refer to a source.  That source can be a magazine article, a video, a blog post on another site, an online article you pulled a statistic from, etc.  When you do that, there are a few things you want to make sure you do.  Find the author and/or influencer responsible for the piece you’ve included in your content.  Email them a brief note letting them know that you wrote a piece and that you included their quote, stat or findings in your content.  Include a link to your site where the content is housed.

If you cannot find their email address online, find their Twitter handle and when you tweet your link to the content, include @Theirtwitterhandle in your tweet.  If you have more than one source, do that with all of them. You can include them all in one tweet if you like.

The “@” symbol signals the person you’ve mentioned, making your tweet visible to them.

So, as you can see, there are many ways to drive traffic to your law firm’s website and to keep your audience engaged while they’re there.  Content marketing is certainly one of the proven best ways to do that.

 

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BONUS

Once you decide what type of content you are going to create and what your topic is, come up with 5 to 10 subheadings that you can flesh out.

The fleshing out is going to be done via audio like you’re dictating to your secretary.  However, instead of talking to him or her, you are going to speak into the voice recorder on your cell phone because it tends to be faster than writing.  However, if you want to write, have at it!

If you prefer not to write, open an account on rev.com, and upload your recording there.  It’s a buck a minute.  That should run you between $2 to $9.

Many of the bigger companies, including law firms use production teams, videographers, expensive graphic designers and content management teams to get their content produced, published, promoted and updated.  However, It doesn’t always have to cost an arm and a leg to handle those mechanics. There are affordable and free tools available to achieve the same quality.

That said, the following is a list of tools that are easily accessible, probably, to everyone reading this that you can use to enhance the content you get written and that you then use to drive traffic to your law firm website:

PowerPoint presentations – FREE

If you have Microsoft Office, you have the PowerPoint program.  Upload your content according to the tips provided here in this video.

Videos – $29/month

Create a video on Promo.com.  Since you will need to create videos at least once every month or two on an ongoing basis, $29.00 a month is a bargain!!!

Images – FREE

If you need images for ANY of your content, including (still images or video), there are several free image websites, but I recommend Pixaby.com, which has over 1.60165 million+ high-quality stock images and videos.

Checklists – FREE

If you have Microsoft Office, you can create checklists (with graphics)

Infographics – FREE

If you have Microsoft Office, you can create infographics (click and replace).

Graphic Designers – $5 and up per piece

You’ll definitely want to sign up for Fiverr.com

Hey There – Pardon the interruption, but, just so you’re clear, check out my disclaimer: Any products recommended by Legal Copywriting Central are vetted; however, I need you to know that I get a commission from Fiverr for purchases made through Fiverr links in this post at no extra cost to you.

There will always be a graphic designer who can produce a quality piece for $5. Make sure you provide the name of your law firm, your URL, email, phone, address, and logo (if you have one).

Web Developer – $5 to $15 per technical issue (e.g., Add a Facebook icon to my Homepage and connect it to my law firm’s Facebook page – this is one issue, which they will complete usually within 24 hours. No muss. No fuss.)

If you do not have a web developer who can upload your content to drive traffic to your law firm’s website, and you are not tech-savvy, Fiverr.com has web developers as well. You need only provide your web host and web platform login info to the Fiverr seller, along with the piece you’d like them to upload (of course, after selecting from those Fiverr sellers with favorable reviews and credentials). They will do the rest.