A Guide to Law Firm Marketing - LinkedIn Edition
When we think about law firm marketing, we tend to think about dollars spent on paid acquisition.
We think bidding on keywords, running ads - dollars spent leading to new clients.
But what if there was another way to generate clients? One focused on building an engine of growth, one that gains momentum over time but might at first be small.
An approach that took my client from:
One to two leads per month through LinkedIn and around 1.5k followers to
30-50 leads per month and around 9k followers on LinkedIn?
Or another client to 100k+ impressions per month and 100+ QUALITY leads per month?
My own LinkedIn graph in the last week, ran an experiment with my own profile (much smaller than most of my clients’ profiles).
Leads that are semi-warm because of continual re-engagement through the LinkedIn feed.
That’s LinkedIn marketing.
What is LinkedIn Marketing?
LinkedIn marketing, in the legal marketing or law firm marketing sense, is the process of generating case leads through your LinkedIn network, which is made up of 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 3rd+ degree connections. The people who reach out about a case came across your profile on LinkedIn and decided to reach out because they feel that you can help them solve a problem.
Why LinkedIn Marketing?
Because people buy from people they trust. When someone has a legal issue, they will not hire just anyone to help them - it has to be someone who they trust, which is why people tend to ask friends first for lawyer referrals.
This matters for you, the law firm marketer, because you can use this effect to your advantage. You can be that top-of-mind lawyer who’s on the tip of everyone in your network’s tongue - the first person that everyone in your network has in mind for your practice area. Say you have 10k+ followers on LinkedIn - if just a fraction of your network was asked at any given point in time (say per week) for a lawyer referral and your name comes up, say 1%, that’s still 100 potential case leads per week.
This is what happens to clients - a fraction of their network gets asked for the name of a lawyer for a particular problem and their name always comes up first.
Through this effect, the larger your LinkedIn audience, the greater the number of potential leads per month.
Sounds great. I have a LinkedIn network - how do I get started?
Simply start storytelling about the problems you can help solve THROUGH past cases.
You see, law firm marketing is not about bombarding people with cool visuals and personal life-focused posts. These posts might get you likes and traffic, but it’ll be the WRONG likes and traffic.
The right approach is to story-tell about problems that you deal with for clients. Talk about past cases and how you helped save someone from a negative outcome or helped resolve an ongoing pain. For example, say you’re an immigration lawyer. Talk about how you stopped someone from getting deported or helped them get an EB-2 visa through your years of experience working on EB-2s.
And no, your first post might not get you leads. Perhaps not even your 10th post, but you will be growing your audience assuming you’re writing the right targeted content and building that engine of growth.
Did all of this - still no leads. What am I doing wrong?
Here are some common mistakes:
Not growing your audience - don’t just wait around after you post. Engage with people who comment, add other professionals in your field to your network and interact with their posts. Be in the community.
Not posting the right content - yes, a cat picture will get likes but they won’t be the right likes. The wrong traffic will not lead to leads - I mean, getting the attention of people who don’t need an O-1 visa won’t get you O-1 visa cases. Wrong eyeballs means the wrong or no leads.
Not story-telling and guiding your reader through how YOU helped solve a problem for a past or current client. You need to be presenting yourself as the problem-solver in your story-focused post. Talk about the decisions YOU made and how YOU navigated obstacles that popped up.
Have questions? Email me at jason@ksjmarketing.com or follow me on LinkedIn.
Tags: #lawfirmmarketing #legalmarketing #lawyermarketing #lawyer #lawyerlife
