It is difficult to market a law firm online especially if your initial knowledge about the industry is laden with myths and baseless information about inbound marketing (SEO, Social Media) as part of your lawyer marketing strategies.
In most cases, people tend to raise eye brows when it comes to promoting legal services on the internet, and mindlessly spread rumors and myths, which, unfortunately, are received by many as facts. These myths are the very reasons why many legal firms often fail in implementing a successful marketing strategy and prevent them in trying other possible ways to promote their services.
If you are a neophyte in this niche or if you are someone who have been caught up by too many misinformation about lawyer marketing, consider yourself lucky that you stumbled upon this blog post. The following are the top 5 common lawyer marketing myths that should not be mistaken as facts.
1. Keeping a good legal practice that satisfies clients is enough to keep the business running and successful. This might have worked like two decades ago but this is really impossible to achieve now due to a very high competition in the industry. If you are a small law firm and you just recently started out, there’s no way you can get referrals through word of mouth because you don’t have a client base yet. This is where search engine optimization comes in. To get the word out there, you need to reach your potential clients through target keywords so that they will find you through searching.
2. Promoting legal services through social media and other means of online exposure violates some regulatory rules, thus it’s safer not to get involved in any social media campaigns and related stuff. This is a coward way of saying that I quit. If there’s a will then there’s a way. Though legal marketing is bound to follow some regulations and rules, this should not stop you from creating innovative ways to promote your services. There’s no easy way to success, thus it’s really up to you on how you can use social media effectively without violating any prohibition.
3. Marketing is just for marketers and lawyers need not to get involved in any kinds of promotion. You should know how to identify direct from indirect marketing. As a practicing lawyer, it is actually not recommended to get a direct involvement in promoting your services, but an indirect involvement is greatly recommended. Blogging about your field expertise, announcing the latest news in the industry, speaking in seminars and public conventions, and even participating in online community for lawyers are indirect marketing strategies you can do to increase exposure of your legal business.
4. Word of mouth is the only effective marketing strategy especially for small law firms and solo attorneys. This myth caused some law firms and lawyers to lose their faith in SEO and social media marketing. For small law firms who have no experience when it comes to implementing an effective online marketing strategy, it is easy to get swayed and believe the wrong information. Unfortunately, a myth like this only creates more doubts and confusions. Word of the mouth is definitely not the only effective way in marketing legal services.
5. Lawyers who blog give a bad impression to potential clients that they are too eager to find their next set of customers as they are always aiming to increase income and profits. In contrary, lawyers who blog gain more respect from potential clients than those ones who don’t. Blogging let them connect to their current customers, interact with their readers, and let future clients see their potentials. Lawyers who blog are also perceived as friendlier than those who don’t.
If you are a lawyer, a law firm owner, or a lawyer marketing professional be sure not to fall to any of the myths above and any other myths that you will encounter in the future. Always remember to verify information before taking them as facts.
