Consumer direct law firm marketing is a targeted approach to generating new clients. 

Therefore, you need to concentrate your marketing attention where the best potential clients already hang out. In a digital and media-crowded world, this might prove to be more difficult than you imagine. 

Without zeroing in on your specific goals and ideal clients, your law firm may be wasting valuable marketing campaign resources, the overall legal marketing plan, and depleting your marketing budget. 

This guide can provide resources and information for legal entities such as law firms to engage in consumer direct marketing. In addition, we’ll show you tips on engaging in consumer direct marketing and strategies for efficient consumer direct law firm channels. 

Let’s take a look.

What Is A Marketing Channel?

A potential client might research your firm in dozens of ways or venues.

Each of these venues is a possible channel on which your firm might conduct marketing, making it easier for those searchers to find and evaluate you. 

Those channels were almost strictly static items like billboards, phonebook listings, or newspaper ads in the past. Then the channels moved to electronic media like television and radio. 

Nowadays, as the American Bar Association (ABA) puts it, “…it is more important than ever for lawyers to make efficient use of technology and the internet…[to] attract clients to their practice.”

Many established firms built up an established authority years before online marketing channels were even possible. But keep in mind that if your firm’s online presence is less-than-current (or even nonexistent), you run the risk of damaging that authority by neglecting modern channels.

Establish multiple marketing channels to appeal to your ideal client, wherever they might be traveling. And try to keep those channels active as long as possible; you never know when potential clients might be online. 

These consumer direct marketing channels are also useful for other organizations like mortgage lenders, medical offices, or similar professional groups looking for new clients. 

Let’s look at some examples of marketing channels.

Choosing A Consumer Direct Law Firm Channel

What do you look for to find the best consumer direct law firm channel?

Each channel has its pros and cons regarding cost, effectiveness, and return on investment (ROI). The habits of your ideal clients will also determine the effectiveness of these channels — where they travel, virtually or otherwise.

Younger clients, for example, will be much more likely to be reached through social media posts. However, clients over the age of 50 are much less likely to be on Twitter, etc. 

The following is a breakdown of several channels available:

Print

Print refers to ‘traditional’ marketing channels like physical print ads in newspapers, magazines, billboards, business cards, etc. 

You might think these channels are less effective or impressive than an online ad. But don’t overlook the possible benefits of these approaches. There’s a reason they still exist — they can create results. 

Broadcast Media

Like print ads, radio and television ads are somewhat overlooked as marketing channels in the digital age. However, remember that seniors are more likely to stick to these established mediums for entertainment and information. 

Wherever your ideal client might be, regardless of whether it’s new or old platforms, that’s where you need to be targeting. 

Search Engine Optimization 

One of the most favored and effective channels for consumer direct law firm marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), is the foundation of online searches. 

SEO is a method of increasing the visibility of a blog or website to search engines like Google or Bing. Search engines bots will comb or ‘crawl’ the web for keywords on millions of topics. 

The engines then index the content and align it with users’ search keywords when looking for information. The results show up on a search engine results page or SERP. 

Content on your blog with SEO will help rank your articles higher on SERPs, making them more likely to be clicked on.  

Pay Per Click

This tool is often thought of as the alternative to SEO content. The big advantage of pay-per-click (PPC) ads is getting client leads for you quickly. 

But just like it sounds, as soon as the visitor clicks on an ad, you pay for it. As a result, PPC campaigns tend not to be effective long-term strategies; your ad budget can vanish quickly. 

SEO content, if well crafted, usually has a slower build—but it will continue to work for your advertising dollar long after the content is created. 

Social Media

Social media can be an excellent consumer direct law firm channel. Not only can it be effective in reaching potential clients, but it also works well for retargeting visitors who have visited your site before through their platform tracking methods.

Each social media platform generally caters to a specific demographic and age group. Again, knowing your clients’ habits and preferences will go a long way to know which platform to target your message. 

Email

Email can be a great way to categorize and maintain relationships with large groups. For example, maybe these groups subscribe to your newsletter or are part of your customer relationship management (CRM) system. 

Regardless of their source, emails allow valuable content like ‘special offers’ to be sent directly to potential clients. This technique can drive subscribers back to the website and generate more leads. 

Messaging For Your Consumer Direct Law Firm Channel

Messaging is a crucial part of generating new leads and will factor into your overall marketing plan. Your message should be consistent and on-brand regardless of the channel you’ve selected. 

Platform constraints will force you to modify your content like the maximum character limit of Twitter. Similarly, billboards may only be viewed by an audience for a few seconds at a time. As a result, the content of each will have to be adjusted without compromising branding and core message goals.

Regardless of the channel, maintaining cohesiveness in your messaging and brand can bolster your credibility with your audience. 

Managing Your Consumer Direct Law Firm Channel

Each of these channels can make a difference in your quest to generate new leads. 

Managing these channels, the associated modified content for each, troubleshooting, measuring the results, and running the law firm itself can be quite a challenge. 

Kaleidico has fifteen years of experience in marketing that can handle the complex project of consumer direct law firm channels. 

If you’re a law firm interested in consumer direct marketing, marketing strategies for their practice, or starting new marketing campaigns, tell us about your project. 

Email Bill Rice at bill.rice@kaleidico to help implement a strategy or schedule a discovery session with our team at Kaleidico. 

We’ll get your firm on the right track for direct marketing and share our expertise along the way.

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