“These are the new leads. These are the Glengarry leads. And to you, they’re gold.”

You may recognize this mantra from the Alec Baldwin movie Glengarry Glen Ross. 

This work of fiction got one thing right—leads are the lifeblood of a law firm’s business. Without them, there’s no new business.

But the problem is law school doesn’t teach lawyers how to generate leads. 

And with many law firms not having their own marketing department, this becomes a problem that’s always in need of a new solution — how do we generate more leads?

Digital marketing is the answer, as you’ve suspected, which is why you’re here reading this blog post. Am I right?

I’ve written this guide to uncloak the mysteries surrounding lead generation for law firms so you’ll have an actionable plan to produce more legal leads. 

I’ll cover many digital marketing topics, but will provide links for you to perform your own additional research. 

If you like what you see, reach out to Kaleidico to schedule a Discovery session where we can explain things more casually in a phone call. 

What is a Case Inquiry, or a Legal Lead?

A lead is a person who has successfully filled out a contact form on your website showing interest in your product or service.

Depending on what information you ask for in your contact form, a lead may submit important info such as:

• Name
• Email address
• Phone number
• A detailed message explaining their specific scenario

In the past, legal leads were generated primarily through Yellowbook ads, referrals, TV ads, radio ads, print ads, and direct mailers.

However, thanks to search engines, primarily Google, digital marketing has superseded old-school “traditional” marketing, and now the majority of leads are generated through online channels, such as:

• A company website
• Emails
• Landing pages
• Social media pages
• Q&A sites and forums
• YouTube and video sharing sites
• Internet ads
• Lead generators
• Webinars and virtual events
• Google Maps

Why Generate Leads Online, Instead of Traditional Methods?

One phrase I hear a lot in digital marketing is “meeting the audience where they’re at.” 

Well, your audience is online. And are most likely viewing on their mobile phone. Is your site mobile friendly?

I’m not saying that traditional marketing methods don’t work. It’s still pretty common to hear radio ads or see TV ads. However, digital marketing is more sophisticated and allows for more clever targeting capabilities. 

For instance, a bench with a lawyer’s face on it is being shown to thousands of people who don’t need a lawyer is “passive” advertising.

Instead, opt for “active” advertising. 

For example, your Google Ad only appears when somebody is searching for legal advice. See the difference? You’re only paying for ads that show to people who need your service. 

Digital marketing also gives you data and analytics that can be used to finetune your marketing efforts. You’ll be able to see the exact number of people who see your ads, clicked on your ads, visited your website, how long they stayed on your website, etc. 

With digital marketing, every interaction from your prospective lead is tracked! And that’s good for generating online leads, because you’ll know which tactics are working, and which aren’t.

Digital Marketing Analysis Examples for Attorneys

“Hmm, somebody clicked on the Google ad, went to our website, but then left immediately.” 

A high bounce rate indicates your website is poorly designed, or didn’t match your visitor’s expectations. Perhaps a website redesign is in order, or the meta-description was misleading.

“A person went on the website, read a couple of pages, and then partially filled out a form, before abandoning it.” 

This tells you that your contact form is clunky, or is asking for too much personal information. Maybe you should opt for a progressive style form, which is more of a quiz, than a questionnaire.

“We A/B split our landing pages to see which page converts better. It looks like people prefer landing page A.” 

What is it about the two landing pages that make page A convert better? Is the copywriting different? Is the contact form button a different color? Is the call-to-action (CTA) for landing page A more direct?

I could go on and on. But the point is, everything in digital marketing is trackable and can be analyzed and optimized. This is what digital marketers excel in — data analysis and incremental improvement. And traditional marketing can’t match it.

What Does the Lead Generation Process Look Like For Your Clients?

People turn to Google to find lawyers first. Second, maybe referrals from friends and family.

They’ll search for phrases such as:

• Lawyer near me
• Divorce lawyer near me
• How to sue for alimony
• How to sue for malpractice
• How to beat dui
• Malpractice attorney

After they’re searched, hopefully, they’ll stumble upon your website, ad, or blog post in the Google search, click on your website, and fill out a contact form.

Then they’ll wait to hear back from you.

Sounds simple enough? Hardly!

There’s a lot of research that goes into choosing the correct keywords to enter on your company’s website, blog posts and ad copy. Let’s explain these concepts more clearly from the lawyer and marketers’ point of view.

How Do Law Firms Generate Leads Online?

Most lead generation for law firms use multiple websites, or channels. This creates a sales funnel that attracts visitors to your website. It gets them clicking through your website’s content, coaxes them into filling out a contact form, and then gets contacted by your legal team.

Since your company’s website will be the main traffic hub attracting prospective leads, let’s look into how a website can be optimized for lead generation for attorneys.

Website Design, Function, and Aesthetics Matter

It all starts with your website. 

Remember earlier how I mentioned bounce rate? That’s the percentage of people who immediately click off of your website (usually after only a second or two).

So let’s address the reasons why a website scares people away before they fill out a form:

• Outdated or clunky design
• Not mobile-friendly or mobile- responsive (half of internet traffic is on mobile phones)
• Too many annoying pop-up ads
• Useless scrolling banner images and/or cheesy fake stock photography
• Website isn’t SSL certified (people don’t want to submit personal info through an unsafe website)
• Misleading or inaccurate expectations based on an ad’s headline or a blog post’s meta-description
• Slow loading content
• Broken links
• Low-quality content
• Not placing the most relevant or important information “above the fold” (meaning they don’t have to scroll down the page to find what they’re looking for)

People Need Calls-to-Action (CTAs) to Fill Out the Contact Form

If the website hasn’t scared off the visitor and they’re spending time on the website (which is trackable) then you’re off to a good start. 

But you still need to encourage people to fill out a form.

Kind of like every YouTube video where people say “comment, like, subscribe, comment, like, subscribe.”

Sounds simple, and it is! People need a verbal reminder or nudge to fill out that form. So sprinkle CTAs throughout your website’s copy. 

Put a CTA at the bottom of every blog post. Put a CTA in the top corner of the website next to a contact form. In your emails sent to lead, also include CTAs. 

Make Information Easy to Find

Create individual landing pages for each of your law firm’s products or services. 

Then include these pages on the homepage of your website, so visitors can quickly find the info they need. The quicker they find the info they need, the longer they’ll be on your website. 

Sounds counterintuitive, but it’s not, because people are incredibly impatient. Searching for more than two seconds is frustrating for the average web browser.

In addition to separate pages for your loan products, make sure your website has these pages to improve its searchability:

• About us
• Contact us
• Blog
• A directory of attorney and staff bios

SEO

Adding separate pages for your company’s specialties, mission statement, and attorney bios not only makes your website more organized and functional — it also improves its visibility in Google searches.

That’s what search engine optimization (SEO) means — essentially, “make my website appear high up in Google search result pages.”

When people search for a specific attorney’s name, your company’s website should appear in a Google search. 

Or when they search for specific keywords “malpractice lawyer” or “divorce lawyer” or “criminal lawyer,” Google will match these phrases with words on your website to predict a suitable match. 

SEO is a science and an art that can’t be explained in a short section.

To simplify it — the more quality keywords, relevant and authoritative backlinks, and improved Google ranking a website has, the higher up it will appear in Google searches.

One simple way to improve SEO is through content marketing.

Content Marketing

A sizable portion of your audience isn’t just Googling for a “lawyer near me.” 

Often they’re searching for a very specific scenario, such as “How to sue for delayed diagnosis.” 

This is why blogging is so important for a law firm’s website. 

Besides the cost of paying a writer, content marketing and blogging is essentially free advertising — and it lasts forever.

Once an article is published, it can attract hundreds or thousands of web visitors over the course of years. This is known as “evergreen content.” 

Adding new blogs is also a legitimate way to add more backlinks and keywords to a website to improve its SEO. Content marketing and SEO go hand-in-hand.

PPC Ads and Landing Pages

If content is “free” marketing, then PPC ads are “paid” marketing. You’ll want to use both.

PPC ads, just like blogs, revolve around carefully chosen keywords. To help determine which keywords to target, keyword planning will be necessary.

Once the keywords have been chosen, advertisers will need to bid on keywords in Google Ads manager. As you can imagine, the keyword “lawyer” is pretty expensive. This is why keyword analysis and research is so important — so you can find underused, and cheaper, keywords to focus on.

Let’s assume you found the right keywords. The next step would be writing copy for those little Google text ads that appear in Google searches.

Once you’ve written the ads (you should write numerous variations of PPC ads) you’ll need to direct those ads to a specific webpage on your website (a landing page). 

This landing page should match the expectations set by your Google ad’s text. 

For instance, don’t write an ad about malpractice, and then send them to a criminal law webpage, they’ll click off immediately.

As I mentioned earlier, these landing pages can be A/B split. This means you can create two different versions of the same page, and test which version collects more leads. 

Over time, your Google Ads and landing pages can be optimized to become lead generation powerhouses — if you’re able to analyze the data and make those tiny adjustments.

Can Lawyers Pay for Qualified Leads?

Yes! Lawyers are legally allowed to pay for leads or to pay a lead generation agency for leads.

The American Bar Association’s Rule 7.2 states that “a lawyer may pay others for generating client leads, such as Internet-based client leads…”

There are some additional rules that lawyers and lead generators must follow, though.

For instance, a lead generating agency cannot be paid to recommend a lawyer’s services, as it breaks a previous rule of Rule 7.2, which states “lawyers are not permitted to pay others for recommending the lawyer’s services.” 

Agencies writing ads for lawyers encouraging people to use that lawyer are allowed, but paying people money to write false Google reviews is not allowed, for example.

I recommend every lawyer reads Rule 7.2, as it contains important ethical and legal regulations you should be aware of before marketing your services online.

But to summarize — yes, lawyers can pay for leads online! (This is how Kaleidico makes money!)

What is a Lead Generation Service?

Lead generating services are digital marketing companies that create strategies and sales funnels to collect the contact information of people interested in buying a product or a service.

In short, Kaleidico is a lead generation service! 

We work with law firms to:

• Create strategic marketing plans that target specific audience segments
• Use SEO to improve a website’s ranking
• Create blogs, content marketing pieces, and PPC ads to attract visitors to our clients’ websites
• Redesign or revamp our client’s branding, logo, and website design to impress their audience
• Use progressive forms, or lead paths, to collect the lead’s contact information
• Analyze our progress and metrics, and continually optimize results

In addition to lead generation agencies, there are lead generation websites such as Thumbtack, Google My Business, Avvo, Nolo, and Lawyers.com, where lawyers can create profiles to put their name and face in front of new potential clients.

Ready to Start Generating Leads for Your Law Firm? Call Kaleidico! 

Kaleidico is a lead generation agency for law firms, mortgage lenders, and fintech.

Our team is made up of experienced strategists, account managers, web developers, content writers and editors, SEO and PPC specialists, and a graphic designer.

We can help redesign your website or develop a custom lead generation program to fuel your law firm’s business. 

Are you an attorney struggling to generate enough leads? Schedule a discovery session to learn how Kaleidico can help you create more legal leads.

Photo by Negative Space from Pexels