4 Lead Generation Ideas to Revitalize Your Attorney Marketing Strategy

Lead generation acts as the heart of your law firm, pumping new business into your practice so you can keep the lights on. As something so essential to the success of your practice, lead generation can’t be left to wither and die on the vine. If you’re seeing a decrease in the number of leads coming your way, implement these lead generation ideas to revitalize your lead generation strategy and enhance your attorney marketing efforts.

1.      Redesign your call to action

A good call to action on your website’s homepage and within blog posts can generate a steady stream of leads for your practice… but only if it catches attention. Take a look at the call to action on your website and assess: does it pop out to you when you squint your eyes?  Known as the “squint test,” this assessment can help you determine if your call to action button is noticeable enough to produce results. If that box or banner isn’t the most eye-catching thing on the page when squinting, redesign it until you can’t help but see it.

While redesigning, keep in mind that the best calls to action are compelling, simple, and concise. Keep things basic—include only the most necessary form fields for gathering essential information, and feature as few distracting details and buttons as possible.

2.      Make an offer they can’t refuse

Whether it’s a video sharing some valuable legal advice or top-rated blog posts, offer something that people really want—in exchange for an email address to store for attorney marketing purposes, of course. For instance, your divorce law firm could offer a free video of the ins and outs involved in filing bankruptcy and receiving alimony payments, and enable users to watch it after entering their email address.

3.      Write evergreen material

Evergreen content is material that remains continuously relevant to readers. Crafting evergreen text can not only cut down on the amount of work you have to do later (since you’ll have a cache of fresh content to spin rather than completely rewriting), but it also helps to consistently attract traffic and leads for months and even years, essentially maximizing the return on your attorney marketing investment.

Therefore, consider evergreen potential when deciding whether to write about a certain topic. A post about bankruptcy trends during the Great Recession, for example, won’t remain as constantly valuable as one about the five most common mistakes to avoid when filing bankruptcy.

Learn more about our custom content development services!

4.      Try paid social media advertising

Your firm can experience significant traffic from free social media activity, but sometimes shelling out a bit of cash can take you to the next level of lead generation. Look into Facebook ads for your attorney marketing, which can be incredibly affordable compared to newspaper advertisements—just a few dollars per click. Promoting Tweets on Twitter is another option.

While these shouldn’t be your first go-to options, particularly if you’re on a shoestring budget, they can be something to reinvest in every once in a while to inject some life into your leads lists.

Attorney Marketing: Using Social Media For Lead Generation (Infographic)

At Optimized Attorney, we understand the need to create lead generation; otherwise it would be difficult to stay in business.  That being said, social media can be a very effective tool for your attorney marketing needs.

Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ can help your law firm gather leads and attract more prospects when utilized properly.

According to the infographic by Wishpond,, 77 percent of the Business to Consumer (B2C) marketers have said they have acquired a customer through Facebook.  In addition to that statistic, 26 percent states that Facebook is the leading source of referred social media traffic to websites.

Check out more statistics on the infographic below.

Infographic by Wishpond

Using-Social-Media-For-Lead-Generation-Infographic

4 Simple Ways to Boost Your Online Lead Flow

We often delve deep into advanced marketing tactics here on our blog. However, from time to time it’s wise to revisit some baseline tips that can form the backbone of any sturdy, long-term legal marketing strategy. As 2017 takes off, let’s review four simple steps and best practices in a few key areas that any attorney can use to begin improving his or her web presence and overall lead flow.

  1. Master Your Local Domain

Local ranking factors have been steadily increasing in importance for years now, and that will continue to be the trend for the foreseeable future. Your website will likely always be the hub of your online marketing efforts, but you can improve your law firm rankings—and therefore visibility and potential client numbers—by expanding your local presence, too.

Local search is a massive topic that deserves in-depth analysis and effort, but here are a few primary facets that you will definitely want to examine.

  • Claim your listings. To start, search Google My Business, directories like SuperPages.com, and other sites that offer business pages. Even if you’re sure that you’ve never created a listing for your firm before, search anyway! You may find a listing that wasn’t created by you, but that you are able to claim and update.
  • Be consistent. Ensure that the data you enter on one site gets precisely replicated on your other listings. Google wants to ensure that it delivers accurate results, so encourage it to look at your listings by making them consistent.
  • Strive for citations. A citation is a mention of your firm’s name, address, phone number, and other pertinent business information on other areas of the web. Though citations oftentimes do not contain a link to your website, they can help Google verify that your firm exists and that you’re a top attorney in your area. You can typically get citations by creating pages on sites like Yelp or Foursquare, investigating your local city, county, or state bar association website, and so forth.

Expanding your local presence is extremely important and should be a top priority. The interplay between your attorney website and your local listings can have a massive impact on law firm rankings if you pay attention to the process early on.

  1. Focus on the User

You already know that your firm’s website needs to be optimized. For example, does your site have proper page titles and a coherent link structure? Things like backlink profiles, keyword research, and competitor analysis should all play a part in the initial strategy of building a site and getting it noticed by search engines.

That said, don’t forget that Google is concerned with delivering the best user experience. It wants to provide results that are engaging to humans, not bots.

An overly optimized site will be uninteresting and off-putting to people looking for genuine legal help, so focus on building a portal that can offer real assistance via quality content. A combination of well-crafted articles and educational multimedia elements will always be appealing to those in need of a knowledgeable, trusted attorney.

Google knows how long visitors stay on your site, so give potential clients a reason to explore what you have to offer without bombarding them with bot-centric optimization. If you can convince visitors to spend time investigating your genuinely useful information, you’ll have a better chance at ranking well in the future and improving your lead flow.

Download our free guide and learn about the importance of key performance indicators (KPIs)

  1. Get Social

If we’re looking for a bird’s-eye view of marketing strategies that could potentially have an impact on your web presence, we can’t forget to talk about social media marketing. While it’s true that the popularity of your firm’s Facebook page won’t directly boost your Google rankings, the indirect benefits of an active social presence can result in more attention being paid to your site by Google.

Let’s revisit the importance of user experience that we touched upon above. The more people you have interacting with your site, the more likely Google will take notice, and search engines seem particularly interested in web traffic resulting from social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.

Therefore, you should definitely put some time and effort into cultivating a unique and interesting social media presence. Try to think of content that potential clients (or even current and former clients) would be interested in, and might potentially share with their own networks. You can blog about these topics and share the posts on your social feeds.

The ultimate goal of your social strategy should be the generation of shares, links, and traffic back to your site, which in turn will help generate leads. Google wants to know that your site is an authoritative, engaging area for users, and a respected social media presence can certainly help you get there.

  1. Test, Analyze, Revise, Test Again

You wouldn’t set off on a long and arduous journey without a clear goal in mind, would you? Similarly, be sure that you know what you want to achieve with your law firm marketing and measure your results accordingly.

Be sure to have reporting platforms in place to track your web traffic. Where does it come from? Are people searching for “best injury attorney in Seattle” more likely to submit a case evaluation form than those typing “Seattle injury lawyer”? How many site visitors are you receiving from your local listings compared to your social feeds?

While in-depth analysis of this nature is often performed by attorney marketing agencies, you can start today with a free tool like Google Analytics. It’s important to know how potential clients are reaching your site, what they’re doing while there, and which are most likely to become new leads for your firm. Without proper reporting tools, you won’t have any idea.

Once you have results to analyze, you’ll be able to tinker with various strategies and continually improve your suite of legal marketing efforts.

Full Circle

This post was designed purely as an overview of some broad, overarching tips that every attorney should keep in mind for 2017 and beyond. While examining the minutiae of technical legal marketing strategy is absolutely imperative, we can’t forget the basics, either.

Even if you’re just beginning to think about how to improve lead flow to your firm, the steps above should present some low-hanging fruit that can be tackled right away. Remember that attorney SEO and marketing techniques are always evolving, but these basics will be important for years to come.

How Good Client Leads Can Disguise Themselves

A client lead can come to you in different ways. Maybe they’re the result of a referral, a contact made at a speaking engagement, or an introduction made while networking with colleagues, either personally or professionally. Despite how the connection was made, a lead represents someone who could become your next client. However, hot leads can first appear as cold leads, and time is not often spent pursuing these relationships as they appear to be dead-ends. This can be a vital business mistake.

Let’s take a look at how good client leads can disguise themselves, and why leads of all shapes and sizes should be checked out, no matter what the first impression may be.

A Good Lead Can’t Always Explain Their Needs

Most people faced with a legal situation have little knowledge of their legal rights and responsibilities, and may have a hard time explaining their case to you. If a lead’s explanation of their case sounds dry or incompatible with your services, make sure you do some discovery before you chalk them up as a dead-end. Often, with a little investigation on your part, a case that first appeared to be a bad fit could be extremely beneficial to your firm.

A Lead’s Contact Can Go Unnoticed

A random email from a sender you don’t recognize can be categorized as SPAM; by both your ISP and members of your firm. Make sure you check your SPAM filter for random emails sent from unfamiliar addresses that aren’t delivered via contact links from your website or social media pages.

Some of these emails might be SPAM, but others can be legitimate contacts from someone seeking your legal services who acquired your email from an alternative source.

A Good Lead Can Be Hard To Connect With

If a lead is proving hard to connect with, whether by phone, email, or text, keep trying. Someone in the throws of a legal situation likely has their hands full with moment-to-moment issues; e.g. doctor’s visits for personal injury victims, etc. Don’t give up trying to connect with a potential client just because they don’t call you back after the first voicemail.

TIP: Directly, but subtly, let the lead know that legal matters do have critical time frames, and that a claim can be jeopardized if too much time passes. You don’t want to appear pushy, but you do want to let a client know you can help them before it’s too late to pursue the case in court.

Want to increase your chances of landing client leads? Our marketing team can help supply you with professional content, manage your social media marketing, and much more. Get a hold of us today!

Online Legal Marketing Tactic: Use Lead Magnets for Targeted Leads

A lead magnet is an irresistible offer in exchange for a website visitor’s contact information. Its purpose is to gather targeted leads (qualified contacts) and increase your credibility as an expert in your niche. A good lead magnet can generate hundreds or even thousands of email addresses, making it a great online legal marketing tactic.

Follow these rules of thumb to craft a compelling lead magnet for your firm, and build your email list quickly.

Determine your target market

Get specific—exactly who are you trying to attract to your email list? If you don’t know who to appeal to, you won’t know what types of materials to create. Nail down:

  • Age
  • Geography
  • Education level
  • Average income
  • Marital status
  • Occupation
  • Values
  • Social media platforms that they frequent most
  • Interests and hobbies
  • Biggest problems (what issues could you help them solve?)

The more you know your target market, the better you can tailor your online legal marketing materials to fit their specific needs.

Consider your target market’s wants and needs

After determining your target market, you should have an idea of what they’re interested in and what types of offers they’re unable to refuse. Remember, lead magnets are supposed to be irresistible.

If you are still stumped, look at blog articles you’ve posted and see which topics have performed the best among your audience. Consider the types of questions or concerns that clients raise during consultations or via your website’s live chat service. What are their biggest problems? What would make them realize that they need your services?

There are countless easy-to-make lead magnets for your online legal marketing strategy, such as:

  • Guides: a divorce and family law firm could offer tips for helping families, particularly children, adjust to divorce
  • Cheat sheets: a checklist for items to address before getting divorced
  • Quizzes or assessments: Are You Ready for Divorce?

No matter what type of lead magnet you decide upon, it shouldn’t be long or complex. Easy to make, easy to digest is the way to go.

Download our free guide and learn about the importance of key performance indicators (KPIs)

Brainstorm a specific, instantly gratifying offer

One of the greatest lures of a lead magnet is instant gratification. Recipients get something valuable for nearly nothing (just their email address), and in the age of the Internet, they can get most of these valuable items right away.

If you’re offering a guide or cheat sheet, make these materials into a downloadable PDF file. Simply write the file in Word, add your logo and contact information, and spruce it up with some images or simple font tweaks (different colors, sizes, bolded text). Then, save it as a PDF file. Once your website visitors plug their email address into the lead magnet opt-in field, they can receive an email with a link to the PDF or could be rerouted to a page of your website that hosts a link.

Same deal with a quiz or assessment—you can use a resource like Interact to build the online quiz and then host it on your website. Once visitors take the quiz, they have to enter their email address to receive the results in their inbox.

Word of advice for these online legal marketing materials: keep in mind that whatever you’re offering should solve a specific problem for your particular audience, and that readers should immediately know the value of your lead magnet. Advertise the outcome clearly!

Poor Example
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  • Although this sample does start to employ the idea of scarcity, which can help attract subscribers, it doesn’t say what the checklist will do for subscribers. For most readers, this wouldn’t be compelling enough to make them enter their email address.

Good Example
Don’t get cheated during your divorce. Be prepared—grab our exclusive checklist of essential pre-divorce steps. Available for a limited time!

  • This is a good lead magnet for several reasons: it clearly outlines the value of the piece as well as what the lead magnet is: a checklist of pre-divorce steps. It also employs the term “exclusive,” which implies that subscribers will receive something special that only a small group of people are privy to, and the phrase “available for a limited time” to trigger a fear of delaying and missing out.

Write the content

Honing in on the specific outcome/value of your lead magnet should make writing the content much easier. If your firm is offering an “exclusive checklist of essential pre-divorce steps,” such as in the example above, create a one- to two-page PDF document that briefly describes each step. For instance, you might include things like:

  • Open personal checking and savings accounts, and start saving money for necessary legal fees
    • Having all of your funds tied up in joint accounts with your spouse can make divorce more difficult, especially when it comes to hiring a great attorney or affording day-to-day expenses.
  • Consult our experienced divorce attorneys. We’ve spent 10 years helping people in our community through tough divorces. Call us at 1-800-123-4567 for a free consultation today!

Advertise your finished product

On your website, blog, social media pages… hit all avenues to get the word out. Before you know it, this online legal marketing strategy could earn your firm dozens of qualified email addresses for your contact list.

Want more traffic and leads from your law firm’s website? Request a free website evaluation now!

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