Legal marketing services can drastically boost your legal business. An online search is often the first step individuals and businesses take when they encounter a legal issue. For law firms, a strong digital presence is an essential building block that ensures success and growth.

Developing this digital presence through marketing campaigns yields several benefits. Consistent lead generation is usually the primary goal, but specialized law firm marketing practices can also help shape your brand and reputation, establish your firm as a leader, and generate data that gives you a better understanding of how to serve clients.

The digital landscape has always evolved at a fast pace, but the past few months have seen an acceleration of this trend. Brands are increasingly embracing AI to gain a competitive edge, and many law firms are compensating for the current drop in demand by spending more on marketing.

It’s time to review your marketing strategy, strengthen key campaigns, and look for ways to innovate once you have a strong foundation in place.

Law Firm Internet Marketing Overview

In 2021, law firms experienced a sharp increase in demand for legal services. However, demand peaked and started decreasing in 2022, resulting in an imbalance for the law firms that had responded to the spike in demand by hiring and investing.

While demand levels remain healthy for the legal industry, productivity and lead generation have become key priorities for many law firms in need of justifying their recent investments.

This need to increase profitability translates into stricter expectations for digital marketing campaigns and higher levels of spending on top-performing channels, especially among major law firms.

Legal Marketing Challenges for 2023 and Beyond

Besides facing a drop in demand compared to 2021, law firms have to contend with some new challenges linked to digital marketing:

• On average, businesses spend 9.1% of their revenues on marketing.¹ A survey found that half of law firms spend 2% or less on marketing and that 30% spend between 3% and 4%,² suggesting that marketing spending is relatively low outside of major law firms.
• Generative AI is creating a competitive edge for early adopters. This technology can streamline contract underwriting and e-discovery as well as support digital marketing efforts.³ However, there is a gap in adoption between large law firms and smaller organizations.
• The competition for visibility is harsh, especially with PPC. The market is highly fragmented, with the average legal practice counting 2.4 lawyers.⁴ With so many competitors and a few large players with significant budgets, bidding on ads is a challenge.
• Legal brand marketing entails following strict compliance requirements. Privacy is an issue when collecting data, and lawyers must follow a few rules created by the American Bar Association and state organizations when promoting their services.
• Unless your firm has a dedicated marketing department or works with legal marketing services, visibility and tracking results can be difficult.

Summary

• Law firms saw a drop in demand following a peak in 2021, making profitability more important than ever.
• The fragmentation of the market and the presence of a few major players create a highly competitive environment for digital marketing.
• New technologies, limited budgets, and strict compliance requirements are creating additional challenges.

Experts project a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 2.5% for the legal industry between 2023 and 2030.5

Leveraging Content as a Discovery and Lead Generation Tool

Content remains at the core of a successful digital marketing strategy for law firms. Due to the nature of the services offered, there is a strong need for reliable and authoritative information before the prospect can make a decision. Content is a viable channel for delivering this kind of information while allowing prospects to progress through their legal buying journey at their own pace.

Content for Discovery

Before considering legal representation, prospective buyers often perform broader tasks, such as:

• Researching their rights.
• Reading up on federal and state laws that apply to their issue.
• Understanding the pros and cons of taking legal action.
• Assessing what kind of outcome they can expect.
• Getting an idea of how long the legal process might take.

A strong content marketing strategy allows you to assist users as they perform these tasks while establishing your law firm as a trusted source of information. With enough content available, you can help prospects progress from this early awareness stage to a more advanced stage where they are ready to make a decision.

Content for a Self-Directed Journey

Digitalization is changing how consumers and businesses shop for products and services. Instead of relying on salespeople, users are increasingly completing buying tasks independently.

This trend is prevalent across all industries, and the rise of Q&A platforms where users can ask lawyers questions is proof that modern legal buyers are taking a self-directed and proactive approach to their buying journey.

You can help legal buyers navigate this complex journey by offering actionable content that supports a buying task while recommending a logical next step.

Demand and Lead Generation

A sound content marketing strategy needs to address user needs at every stage of the legal buying journey:

• During the early awareness stage, content should educate users about laws and rights.
• As the prospect acquires knowledge, their content consumption journey should lead them to pieces that demonstrate the benefits of taking legal action.
• You can then connect the prospect’s pain points to specific services you offer and show them why they should use your legal services.

This last point reflects a common strategy used to turn content marketing into a lead-generation channel. However, as law firms face a drop in demand, content can support demand generation earlier in the funnel.

While lead generation focuses on prospects who are close to making a buying decision, demand generation aims to connect with users who are experiencing an issue but who might not be aware that a legal solution exists. By broadening the scope of your content marketing efforts and focusing on education, you can leverage demand generation and capture the attention of a larger user group.

Content and Authority

Another benefit of developing legal content is that each piece will contribute to building your authority and expertise. Getting your content to show up in multiple searches a legal buyer performs or delivering a single impactful piece of content that answers all their questions will shape how they perceive your law firm.

A potential downside of developing digital content to establish your authority is that prospects might use your content to learn about their legal options and ultimately hire a different law firm. You can mitigate this risk by incorporating touchpoints that showcase the services you offer and providing prospects with contact options immediately after demonstrating your authority through your unique expertise or track record.

Ethics and Rules

Law firm marketing is unique because the American Bar Association sets precise compliance requirements for how lawyers can present and promote their services.⁶

It’s best to establish a process to review your content before publication. If you decide to outsource your digital marketing campaign, look for legal marketing services that have experience following ABA rules.

Content Trends for Law Firms

These content trends and formats are helping law firms get consistent results in 2023:

• Developing content that tells stories results in a human-focused approach. Prospects can relate when they encounter stories from clients who found themselves in a situation similar to theirs.⁷
• From responding to questions on legal Q&A platforms to developing comprehensive legal guides, establishing authority and expertise should be a key goal.
• In 2022, 86% of marketers used short articles, and 57% used long-form content.⁸ Short content can be easy to consume during the early stages of the legal buying journey, but don’t hesitate to delve into detailed topics with longer pieces that provide more value.
• With 82% of Americans listening to podcasts on a weekly basis⁹ and the average internet user watching 17 hours of video a week¹⁰, audio and video content are excellent ways to connect with your audience.
• Regardless of the formats you decide to work with, you need to adopt an omnichannel publication strategy to allow prospects to engage with content on their own terms.
• Design your content marketing strategy around consistent engagement. Channels like emails, social media, and content series are effective ways of keeping prospects engaged as they progress through their journey.

Summary:

• Content has many benefits, from establishing authority to connecting with prospects and helping them progress along the legal buying journey.
• As law firms focus on increasing profitability, emphasizing demand generation during the early stages of the buying journey can make a difference.
• Top content trends for law firms include storytelling, video content, long-form content, and omnichannel publication.

Among the marketers who describe their digital marketing strategy as successful, 64% have a documented strategy.11

The Rise of the Social Lawyer

Developing a presence on social media is a cost-effective strategy that can increase awareness for your law firm and help you connect with the growing number of users who are turning to social media to search for services or explore content.

Building a Human Presence

Social media networks have 4.8 billion users worldwide.¹² As these networks continue to expand, individuals increasingly use these platforms to consume video content and seek interactions with brands and businesses.¹³

Joining social networks is about meeting users where they are, but it’s also about creating human connections. Being human and accessible can be a differentiator, and a user who has never experienced a legal issue before will likely think of your brand when the situation arises if they have seen your content on social media.

You can also foster a sense of community by sharing content about local events or programs your law firm sponsors.

Social Media for Discovery, Search, and Education

Social media can help you connect with your audience.

• These platforms use advanced algorithms to recommend relevant content. These algorithms can support discovery during the early awareness stages.
• Forty percent of Gen Zers prefer conducting searches on TikTok or Instagram rather than Google.¹⁴ Your content will show up in searches if users look up legal questions or search for local law firms.
• Social media is an ideal platform for delivering bite-sized information that helps prospects stay engaged with their legal buying journey and gradually gain enough knowledge to make a decision or consume more advanced content on your site.
• For business lawyers, LinkedIn is a trusted platform where professionals often seek vendors and partners besides consuming educational content.

Social Proof

An active community of users who engage with your content or leave reviews and ratings for your law firm can speak volumes about the quality of the services you offer. Social media can build social proof and become a strong factor in helping prospects decide to work with your law firm.

Plus, a person who follows you on social media will be likely to mention your law firm if one of their contacts brings up a legal problem they’re experiencing.

Social Ads

Social media ad spending could exceed $207 billion by the end of 2023.¹⁵ Investing in sponsored posts and ads is an effective strategy.

• Social media networks often allow for accurate targeting thanks to the data users share on these platforms.
• Users tend to be more open to discovering and engaging with new content while scrolling on social media compared to search ads that appear when they’re focused on a specific task.

Summary:

• An increasing number of lawyers are developing a social media presence to connect with their audience and differentiate themselves.
• This human element encourages interactions and helps build social proof and word-of-mouth marketing.
• There are multiple ways to connect with users on social media, including content recommendations, searches, shares from a user’s network, and paid ads.

Over 18% of users check social media to find content from businesses.16

On- and Off-Site Reputation Management for Law Firms

Hiring a law firm is a major decision. Prospects will use your website and your published, owned media to research your firm, but they will also check third-party sources to find user-generated content (UGC).

UGC can take the form of reviews, ratings, and testimonials. This content often shows up in search results and frames how users perceive your firm.

Why UGC Matters

You need to incorporate reputation management into your legal brand marketing strategy.

• This information is likely to show up in search results, for instance, with Google Maps and Google Business search results cards or mentions on social media.
• Prospects will actively look for reviews. All consumers seek reviews before making a purchase, and 96% specifically look for negative reviews.¹⁷

Managing Your Reputation Off-Site

While you don’t have control over what users say about your law firm, there are steps you can take to encourage positive reviews and ratings:

• Claim your Google My Business profile. A full profile will be easier to find for those who want to leave a review, and you’ll have the option to respond to reviews.
• Find and claim your firm’s business listings. Claim your law firm’s profiles on local and industry directories.
• Create social media profiles. A Facebook page is a great place to start since this platform allows users to review local businesses.
• Use interviews, news stories, and legal advice columns. These channels can help you get mentioned in local newspapers and magazines.

Check your state’s rules regarding law firms requesting reviews. The general consensus is that asking for reviews is acceptable as long as you don’t offer compensation or encourage clients to make misleading statements.¹⁸

On-Site UGC and Testimonials

Publishing testimonials on your site humanizes your law firm while demonstrating how your services can address a pain point prospects will relate to. These testimonials will act as a complement to the reputational information available via third-party sources and help establish trust.

You can feature review snippets or create short video interviews. For business law, case studies can be a viable format that shows concrete results.

Make sure to respect the confidentiality rule and clearly communicate that prospects can’t expect the same results when sharing testimonials or case studies.

Summary:

• Users will come across reviews and ratings during their legal buying journey and will actively look for this type of UGC.
• Claiming your business profiles, developing a social media presence, and responding to reviews can encourage users to leave reviews.
• You can support your online reputation with on-site content by publishing testimonials.

For 49% of consumers, online reviews are as trustworthy as recommendations from loved ones.19

Ads, Search, and Visibility for Law Firms

The legal buying journey often entails a series of searches. SEO for lawyers creates opportunities to connect with prospects throughout these different steps and drive organic traffic.

SEO for lawyers should target searches in three broad areas:

• Problem-based searches. These searches often happen early in the legal consultation journey. The user might look up a pain point they are experiencing or seek educational content about their rights.
• Specialization searches. Users issuing specialization searches are aware that they need help from a lawyer with a proven track record in a specific area of law.
• Local searches. Local SEO remains one of the strongest ways to generate leads for law firms.

Legal marketing and SEO campaigns also need to account for recent trends that are shaping the way users search for content and interact with ads.

Google’s Algorithm Changes

Google rolled out its Core Web Vitals update in 2020, emphasizing the importance of fast loading speeds, interactivity, and visual stability.

More recently, the Helpful Content update strengthened factors that indicate quality and expertise, giving human-first content an advantage. For law firms, the Helpful Content update makes demonstrating expertise and authority more important since legal topics fall under Google’s Your Money or Your Life (YMYL) guidelines.²⁰

SEO for lawyers needs to include a mix of strategies targeting UX and emphasizing content quality to maintain or improve ranking positions following these major updates.

New Search Experiences

Google is introducing new search experiences. More than ever, the search engine’s goal is to keep users on the search result page by fully addressing their intent with a mix of visual and interactive results. These result blocks can include business cards, images, videos, snippets, Q&As, and more.

Optimizing your content for these various result formats can give you an edge over competitors who are focusing on traditional web results.

New Search Preferences

Search is changing and becoming more conversational as users increasingly use virtual assistants. The adoption of AI-powered search will likely strengthen this trend in the near future.

You can adapt by optimizing your content for long-tail keywords and unique questions. Adopting semantic SEO, such as optimizing for keyword clusters and related terms, can encourage content discovery.

Structured data is another important element that can help you connect with users via Google’s new Generative Search Experience.

Are Paid Ads Still Relevant?

Data shows that attorneys experience some of the lowest click-through rates for paid ads at 4.76%.²¹ Competition is another challenge, with major law firms deploying large campaigns and leveraging AI-driven bidding to automate their PPC strategy.

However, paid ads remain relevant and can play an important role in increasing awareness and driving traffic to your site.

As more law firms focus on paid ads to drive revenues and offset the lull in demand that follows the 2021 peak, it’s more important than ever to adopt a strategic approach to managing your PPC campaigns:

• Bidding on social ads can help you connect with users while they engage in content discovery activities. Video ads tend to perform well on these platforms.
• PPC campaigns remain one of the most effective ways of targeting users within your geographical service area.
• Get better results by developing landing pages that help users fulfill specific tasks. A landing page that meets the expectations created by the ad will support conversions.
• Testing and analytics programs can help you achieve continuous improvement with your PPC efforts.
• Prepare for a cookie-less future by replacing retargeting with contextual ads.

Summary:

• Recent updates to Google’s search algorithm call for focusing on UX and establishing authority.
• Law firms should also optimize for conversational searches and different search formats that Google is prioritizing in search results.
• Paid ads remain relevant, but competition is harsh, and law firms need to adopt a strategic approach to get results.

Paid ads have an average ROI of 200%.22

Summary

A strong digital presence is essential for the success of a law firm. Legal brand marketing supports lead generation for growth, but it also has other benefits, such as reputation management or gaining better visibility into your audience.

Law firms have to adapt to new challenges, including increased competition from large organizations, the rise of generative AI, and a drop in demand following a peak in activity in 2021.

It’s possible to address these challenges with sound marketing strategies.

• Content remains at the core of digital marketing. From demand generation to lead generation, content can accompany the prospect throughout their legal buying journey.
• Attorneys can deepen the connection they establish with their audience by developing a social media presence. Social media can humanize your law firm, and a strong social community will do wonders for word-of-mouth marketing.
• Reputation management should be a priority since legal buyers actively seek reviews and ratings as part of their buying journey. You need a proactive approach to off-site and on-site reputation management.
• When it comes to SEO for lawyers, it’s important to focus on UX and human-first content, optimize for new formats, and target conversational searches.
• Competition is increasing for paid ads, but law firms can keep driving traffic and getting results by adopting a strategic approach to PPC.
• As digital marketing becomes increasingly complex and competitive, outsourcing legal marketing services emerges as a valuable solution.

How Legal Marketing Services Like Tempesta Media Help

Tempesta Media is a managed services provider that offers a comprehensive and highly personalized solution to your law firm internet marketing needs.

After conducting an initial assessment, we’ll develop a personalized marketing roadmap and use our unique Bullseye Effect solution to build a strategy that incorporates the most relevant modules for your law firm, including SEO, social media, email, content marketing, or paid ads.

We’ll also help you keep up with the latest digital marketing trends with our AI-augmented experts and our advanced solutions that integrate into your existing martech stack.

Our experience with the legal industry allows us to deploy proven strategies to obtain results quickly and give you a competitive edge. Contact us to learn more, or schedule your complimentary assessment to get started!

Resources:

1. Gartner Survey Reveals 71% of CMOs Believe They Lack Sufficient Budget to Fully Execute Their Strategy in 2023
2. 30th Marketing Partner Forum: Assessing the state of law firm marketing & business development – Thomson Reuters Institute
3. 6 in-house legal trends to watch in 2023
4. Law Firms in the US – Employment Statistics 2003 – 2029
5. U.S. Legal Services Market Size And Share [2023 Report]
6. Explained: Update to advertising, marketing rules
7. The top 10 content marketing trends for 2023
8. 13TH ANNUAL INSIGHTS FOR 2023
9. Trends and Facts on Audio and Podcasts | State of the News Media | Pew Research Center
10. Global time spent with online video 2023 | Statista
11. 27+ Content Marketing Statistics To Help You Succeed in 2023
12. Internet and social media users in the world 2023 | Statista
13. 10 social media trends in 2023
14. Is Social Media Search The New Google? How To Boost Organic Traffic In 2023
15. Social Media Advertising – Global | Market Forecast
16. Social Media Marketing for Small Business in 2023: What the Data Tells Us
17. 18 Online Review Statistics Every Marketer Should Know
18. Inside Track: Dilemma: Is it OK to Encourage Client Online Reviews?:
19. 18 Online Review Statistics Every Marketer Should Know
20. Google Search’s Helpful Content System
21. 100+ Google Search Statistics You Need to Know in 2023 – Techopedia
22. 46 PPC Stats to Empower Your Marketing Strategy in 2023