There’s some marketing advice that you hear over and over again: create good content, measure your results, build relationships, and on and on. But what about less common techniques that you may not have thought of? Marketer Larry Bodine conducted a survey of nearly 400 marketing professionals and asked them to identify the techniques that worked best for them. Here are three lesser-known answers that may be useful for your firm.
Join trade associations
Most attorneys are involved in at least one bar association or legal group, which is a great way to network within the field. Unfortunately, these kinds of groups don’t do much in the way of recruiting clients and growing your firm. Instead, try joining a trade association related to your practice area. There’s an association for every industry and kind of professional—just pick the ones that your ideal client is most likely to attend. In addition to national associations, don’t forget about smaller groups that may apply to you, like regional groups and groups specifically for women or people of color.
If you’re not sure where to start, ask a client which associations they’re a part of and see if you can tag along to the next meeting. Once you have your footing, it’s important to be an active member, not just someone who shows up to a meeting every once in a while. Volunteer for committees, join the board, and before long, other members are likely to turn to you with their legal woes.
Include videos on your website
If you’ve spent any time on social media in the past year, you’ve probably noticed the increase in video content. That’s not a fluke: it’s expected that by next year, videos will account for 69 percent of consumer internet traffic. And that traffic isn’t just coming from young people watching funny viral videos. That same study shows that 75 percent of business executives watch work-related videos at least weekly. Video has quickly become the dominant digital medium.
So how can your firm incorporate video into your website? You can try filming interviews with attorneys, testimonials from clients, and clips from events and seminars you host. Maybe you can create video attorney biographies, or share clips of partners explaining the significance of case results and legal news. They don’t need to be flashy—even the most basic videos can add dimension to your website and be a valuable part of your marketing efforts.
Don’t recruit your target client
This piece of advice seems counterintuitive, but it’s not so much that you shouldn’t pursue your perfect client—you should just be thoughtful about timing and strategy. Before jumping into recruitment, you need to have every other element of your marketing plan under control. Sure, you can give your card to a potential client, but what happens when they go to your website and find that it’s unusable? Or they never get any sort of follow-up message?
Once you have gotten all of your marketing ducks in a row, then you’re ready to go after your target. And by this point, you won’t really need to “go after” them at all. By consistently using good marketing techniques, the people you want to hire you—neighbors, associates, and other people in your network—will naturally think of your firm when they need legal services. Recruiting new clients won’t take much more than a conversation or two.
