Marketing Small Law Firms

How Do Law Firms Market Themselves?

As a rule, law firms are able to access all forms of legal advertising media and use these for marketing. It wasn’t until 1972 that attorney marketing became legal again and this may come as a surprise for legal industry outsiders. Today the industry uses things like print and ambient ads, broadcast ads, digital marketing, social media ads, lead generation, SEO and other related methods to reach out to potential clients in need of attorneys.

How Do You Market a Small Law Firm?

For smaller law firms, marketing methods and media usage is the same for law firms of any size or reputation. However, there are special considerations, especially where the differences between small and big firms create a disparity. Bigger firms have the budget, personnel, networks and contacts within the legal establishment to be successful. Smaller firms lack all these and must wisely harness resources to have an effective attorney marketing strategy.

Can Small Law Practices Compete with the Big Law Firms?

Small law firms can and do compete with older, more established or bigger firms in their localities or areas of specialty.

There are various ways this can be done, and there is a growing number of smaller legal firms who have taken up the challenge and have successfully experimented with a number of marketing platforms and systems.

However, in a field that is governed by precedent, as well as established principles of practice (especially those connected to legal etiquette and ethical lawyer advertising), the use of an effective centralized platform for marketing may work better.

Small law firms will have fewer problems and more successful marketing with a centralized platform when competing with bigger firms. Of course, your firm can go it alone battling windmills in the night or it could stand up to the windmills by becoming part of one — and on a centralized platform this is highly achievable.

One centralized marketing platform that is effective and efficient is LegalMatch, the leader in attorney-client matching (ACM) and lead generation services. It provides leads to attorney members through its platform and it does not influence how attorney members run their firms.

With its robust, on-demand platform, it has a constantly growing number of member attorneys and provides a host of benefits. From cost efficiencies to time savings and streamlined communications, LegalMatch is an open lead generation service that cannot be edged out by bigger, more powerful and larger law firms.

Using a centralized marketing platform is likely your best option as a starting attorney or a smaller firm looking for ways to be competitive, or at least have a fair share of clients.

Special Marketing Challenges Facing Small Law Firms

There are marketing challenges that all small law firms face. You may already know them and may be struggling to overcome them.

The process of small law firm marketing has unique ways of reaching its goals. The ideal marketing platform, system or channel may be a combination of things. These should include optimized lead generation and referrals with a high conversion percentage.

In terms of generating client leads, these are some of the challenges that small firms face:

• Lack of visibility in the legal community
• Minimal “cross-over” referrals from other fields
• Limited resources to allocate for attorney marketing and advertising
• Lack of client contacts and networking experience, especially with new, solo practitioners

To address these, most small law firms engage in some form of marketing, most placing a few ads in the paper and the yellow pages, or posting links on social media pages. However, these sporadic, unplanned efforts are not as effective as a well-planned and organized marketing campaign.

Legalmatch was envisioned to address these challenges and boost small law firms. With its two decades of experience in providing its attorney-client matching services, Legalmatch has a 91% client satisfaction rate. Optimized lead generation, one of its primary services, is cited as a success factor of lawyers and their firms.

Attorney lead generation simply means finding potential clients that are looking to hire lawyers. There are many ways to accomplish this, including blog posts and other forms of online content. One thing that LegalMatch does to attract hundreds of potential clients is maintain an online library with over 7,000 legal articles. For prospective clients, an online form and process is available when searching for lawyers.

There are many success stories detailing optimized lead generation for small law firm marketing with LegalMatch. Here are some quotes from a few of them:

LegalMatch has helped me build up my clientele. I went out on my own a year ago, using my name for client recognition. Since I joined LegalMatch last May 2019, I’ve been getting a handful of potential legal clients per month, so it’s paying for itself. From the time I joined LeglMatch, I probably got about 20 clients in just 6 months. LegalMatch helps me get new clients that I wouldn’t normally have heard from. It’s helping my bottom line. Brian E., Sycamore, IL, Criminal Law

After forming my law firm, Berlingieri Law, PLLC, in June 2015, I chose LegalMatch as a platform to attract new clientele. Shortly after becoming a LegalMatch member my law firm expanded its base of clientele in New York and Connecticut. LegalMatch is a tool that Berlingieri Law, PLLC uses to provide legal services to individuals with employment law solutions to workplace problems. Christopher B., New York, NY, Employment & Labor Law

LegalMatch positively impacted my business within a few months of starting my new law practice. I retained several clients from them within the first six months. One of my biggest cases during my first year of business came from LegalMatch. Since that time, it’s given me a steady source of potential clients. Andrew D., Hunt Valley, MD, Employment and Labor Law

Advantages of Marketing for Small Law Firms

Small firms will stand to benefit from an organized and well-thought-out marketing strategy. For most small firms, the most cost-effective form of marketing is web or online marketing. Traditional marketing, like phone book advertisements, is becoming less effective. Mostly since the wide adoption of smartphones and people find it more convenient to look for information on the internet.

Initially, a small law firm may be interested in placing their name in an online legal directory. This can be helpful, but there is a tendency for smaller firms to get “buried” in a long list of attorneys and firms on such sites. Such directories are only a few notches higher than a printed phone book listing.

Client leads may be more effectively obtained with attorney-client matching or ACM. Here, clients present their legal issues to attorneys with relative ease via an online intake funnel. The attorneys can then review case information and select those that may be of interest to them. In this way, communication is made between the lawyer and client, well before the lawyer is hired.

ACM is quickly becoming a preferred option of marketing for small law firms and solo legal practitioners. Without services such as those provided by LegalMatch, small firms would have to expend additional amounts of time and money on less consistent methods of increasing their firm’s visibility and growing their client base.