While extensive legal knowledge and experience can make your law firm respected, success depends on garnering new and long-term clients. However, we know maintaining a steady stream of clients in a crowded market can be a challenge. This is where lead generation comes into play. Lead generation for attorneys is crucial to your business’s health and growth because all law firms and independent attorneys need new clients to survive.
Recent shifts in the sales and marketing landscape mean successful lead generation for attorneys occurs largely online. We know it can be challenging to understand the complexities of lead generation strategies. That’s why our experts at Comrade Digital Marketing have put together this guide to get you up to speed with lead generation for lawyers, as well as offer some useful tips to bag new clients.
What Is Lead Generation for Lawyers?
Lead generation for attorneys is the process of getting people interested in your legal services and gradually moving them through a pipeline to become paying clients. It’s important for law firms to generate attorney leads by developing a strong online presence. This is achieved using inbound marketing methods that employ techniques like search engine optimization, paid ads, and content marketing, to name a few.
How Does Lead Generation for Attorneys Work?
Regardless of whether your law firm utilizes search engines, content marketing, or social media, generating leads follows the same basic process:
- Potential clients discover your firm through one of your marketing channels;
- They click on your call to action (CTA) and are directed to a landing page;
- They exchange their contact details and other relevant information for helpful information or offers; and
- You send them a follow-up message with useful information that benefits them and add their details to your email subscriber list for future contact marketing opportunities.
50% of marketers who generate lawyer leads using the above process report higher conversions because it focuses on pre-qualified leads, i.e., target clients who have already shown an interest in their services. This way, you are focusing your energy on those who are actually looking for legal services, versus casting a wide net that may not reach the right audience.
Learn proven strategies to attract clients for your law firm in 2024 by reading our latest blog post.
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10 Strategies to Get More Leads for Lawyers
You can generate quality leads, build a stronger sales pipeline, and identify opportunities to maximize qualified leads if you:
- Have a law firm website optimized to generate leads;
- Create specific landing pages to target leads;
- Build a lead generation funnel for cold leads;
- Implement marketing strategies to boost lead generation;
- Cultivate a strong brand identity to raise awareness; and
- Gather positive reviews to build credibility and trust
- Use online lawyer directories to generate leads;
- Attract legal leads with Google Business;
- Use initial consultations to qualify lawyer leads;
- Attend conferences and other lawyer events
1. Have a Law Firm Website That Generates Leads
Your law firm’s website is one of the most important tools for lead generation. It establishes your firm’s brand and tells potential clients what you do and why you’re different from your competitors.
One of the major advantages of having a polished website is it advertises your law firm 24/7; it’s accessible to anyone, anywhere, anytime.
Key ways to prime your website for legal lead generation include:
- Professional design: Your lawyer website design should look professional, be optimized for search engines, and be compatible with all devices. Loading fast and an attractive design keeps website visitors on your site for longer.
- Natural language: Your web copy should be natural and easy for everybody to understand. You want to encourage legal leads to hire you, not scare them away with industry jargon.
- Communicate expertise: It’s essential to highlight your practice areas and expertise but keep it client-centric.
- High-quality content: Anything that adds value to the reader is quality content. Your website should increase a visitor’s understanding of your services and include high-quality images and graphics that supplement its web copy.
- Clear calls to action (CTAs): Each page on your website should prompt visitors to do something that brings them a step closer to becoming clients.
Want to create an effective law firm website? Then read our guide to get inspired!
2. Create Specific Landing Pages to Target Legal Leads
You can further boost your lawyer lead generation efforts with specifically crafted landing pages. In targeted online advertising, landing pages are stand-alone web pages designed with a single CTA created for a specific marketing or advertising campaign, such as joining your email subscriber list, requesting a quote, or booking a seminar.
They’re where lawyer leads land after they click on a link in an email or ads from YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Google, and Bing. You can improve your lawyer lead generation by creating customized landing pages for:
- Multiple locations: If your law has several locations, you’ll want to create landing pages with specific keywords for each area.
- Firm specialties: For instance, you might have separate landing pages for personal injury, medical malpractice, and animal injuries. This also makes lead segmentation easier down the line.
- PPC advertising: Each of your paid advertising campaigns should have separate landing pages, so you can effectively monitor and track their progress.
In our guide, we discuss how you can create effective and converting landing pages for your lawyer’s website.
3. Build a Lawyer Lead Generation Funnel for Cold Leads
Cold leads are those who have provided you with their contact details via your lead capture forms but haven’t yet shown a major interest in your law services. They’re positioned at the top of the sales funnel and require careful nurturing to increase their chances of conversion.
To convert them into clients, focus on building attorney lead generation landing pages that create the first point of contact. These types of landing pages (lead magnets) establish the first point of contact between your law firm and potential clients. Strong, convincing copy and compelling visuals will help your firm’s landing pages stand out.
You can also:
Implement email marketing strategies to nurture these leads. Utilize email automation tools like Mailchimp, Campaign Monitor, or HubSpot to send personalized messages at the right time. Employ drip marketing to send automated emails based on user actions, emphasizing the benefits of your legal services. This way, you can avoid losing these potential leads.
Invest in retargeting campaigns, which target individuals who have shown interest in your firm. Retarget those who visited your contact page but didn’t reach out by reminding them of your expertise. Also, retarget those who viewed specific practice area pages with ads related to those areas.
Retargeting can significantly increase conversion rates, with data suggesting a boost of up to 161%. Implementing these strategies will help nurture and convert cold leads into valuable legal clients.
Stay ahead of the competition with cutting-edge law firm SEO services – read our expert insights today!
4. Implement Marketing Strategies to Boost Lawyer Lead Generation
Lead generation for attorneys needs to be a good experience for new clients and cost-effective. Together, PPC, SEO, and social media marketing can help you fill your client book with the right types of qualified leads.
How to Use PPC for Law Firm Lead Generation
A great lawyer lead generation tool is Google Local Service Ads (LSAs). These sponsored service placements appear as a strip of highlights at the very top of Google search results pages (SERPs)—even higher than PPC ads.
LSAs are cost-effective since firms are billed per lead (call, text, or appointment) rather than for every click. One of the main advantages of LSAs is they allow smaller law firms to level the playing field because they’re hyper-focused on your specific area. Google’s algorithms prioritize proximity and positive reviews over the known reputations of legacy firms.
To qualify for local service ads, your law firm needs to meet the following requirements:
- Maintain a 3.0 Google Business Profile rating;
- Have a Google Ads account; and
- Pass Google’s background check.
Google’s LSA platform is a valuable funnel for attracting leads and is best used if you want to reach quality leads who are ready to make a call and connect with your law firm.
Ready to boost your legal practice’s growth in 2024? Discover effective PPC strategies for lawyers in our latest article.
How to Use SEO for Lawyer Lead Generation
SEO is one of the most effective digital marketing strategies available today. All facets of law firm SEO—on-page, off-page, technical, and local SEO—should always be up to date because they, directly and indirectly, affect the attorney lead generation game. For now, let’s focus on on-page SEO and content.
Legal clients understandably ask a ton of questions. In fact, as much as 50% of clients find lawyers online. Although most of their searches probably begin by asking Google a couple of questions like “how to win a custody case” or “how to sue an employer for an injury,” they’ll likely end with hiring a lawyer.
Doing keyword research to understand what phrases (keywords) your potential clients are using is important because it allows you to create web content that matches their search intent.
That’s why you’ll find other law firms have FAQ sections on their websites or create blogs that answer specific questions. This way, specific questions their leads have will drive to their law firm’s site. Creating keyword-rich content improves visibility and keeps leads traveling toward the bottom of the sales funnel.
Unlock the power of SEO for lawyers and enhance your online presence. Discover valuable insights in our latest blog post.
How to Use Social Media Marketing for Lawyer Lead Generation
Many law firms use social media to build stronger relationships with leads and existing clients. While you can purchase paid ads that show up in people’s feeds, it’s better to use content marketing as social media users respond better to organic content.
Social media posts must be engaging and interesting, with a focus on visual appeal, as the platforms are mostly designed for video and image-sharing. Generally, your content should link directly back to your website (if you’re sharing blogs) or go directly to a landing page built to capture prospective client leads.
From conducting polls to hosting Q&A sessions or simply engaging in user conversations, there are so many ways to generate interest in your law firm. Platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn are suitable options for lawyers to build a strong brand identity.
Here’s how you can use social media marketing for lawyers for even better results. Check out our guide!
The Best Social Media Platforms To Get More Legal Leads
The platforms you use will depend on your practice area and target audience. It’s helpful to broadly classify social media networks into three different categories according to their primary function: networking (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter), photo-sharing (Instagram), and video-sharing (YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram).
Once you understand their main functions, it becomes easier to create content tailored to each platform.
- Facebook: This social media platform is still the largest, with more than two billion people using it every month. Facebook tends to prioritize friends-and-family posts, making visibility somewhat of a challenge, so it’s best to invest in paid advertising. Read on how you can effectively leverage Facebook for attorneys.
- X (Twitter): In just 280 characters, a law firm can showcase its expertise, share news, and connect with industry peers and prospective clients. X prioritizes engagement, so strategically respond to hot-button issues to showcase your expertise.
- YouTube 81% of US adults use YouTube, and 66% of people say they prefer watching video content rather than reading blogs. YouTube is the second most-visited site after Google, which makes it a great channel to attract attention from the target audience.
- LinkedIn: Perceived as more of a professional networking platform, LinkedIn is ideal for delivering ads to audiences based on their job title, company, or industry. It’s especially useful for B2B litigation leads.
- TikTok & Instagram: Both Instagram and TikTok for lawyers are image and/or video-centric. For those in consumer-focused areas of law, like personal injury, it’s smart to humanize your firm and connect with people on these platforms.
Stay ahead of the competition with cutting-edge digital marketing for law firms. Check our expert insights.
5. Cultivate a Strong Legal Brand Identity to Generate Leads
With awareness as the first step of the sales funnel, building brand awareness on social media is essential. If no one knows your law firm exists, they won’t take any action. A highly effective way for law firms to establish their brand identity is by cultivating their market position as legal thought leaders. Thought leaders establish expertise by publishing articles, blog posts, industry insights, webinars, and podcasts on matters pertinent to clients.
Thought leadership combines marketing with a personal touch for differentiation. Law firms should leverage this lead generation strategy right away by creating informative blog posts and sharing them across social media channels. This cultivates awareness and trust and marks the law firm as an industry authority.
Here’s how you can elevate your legal branding to get ahead of your competition!
6. Gather Positive Reviews to Build Credibility and Trust
Law firm reputation management is crucial for building credibility and trust with potential clients. Social proof, such as positive online reviews, significantly influences a person’s choice of a law firm. According to a legal trends report, 82% of clients base their decision on positive reviews. Lead generation companies all highlight the importance of good reviews.
To enhance your reputation, utilize Google reviews to enhance your online presence and improve search rankings. Claim your profiles on various platforms like Yelp, FindLaw, Google My Business, Justia, Nolo, Avvo, and the Martindale legal marketing network. Furthermore, respond promptly to reviews and actively seek them to strengthen your reputation. Positive reviews serve as trustworthy recommendations, helping you attract more leads and outshine competitors in the legal industry.
Ready to boost your online reputation? Learn how to get quality online reviews with our expert tips.
7. Use Online Lawyer Directories to Generate Leads
Online lawyer directories, including Lawyers.com, Avvo, and Super Lawyers, are powerful tools for garnering new clients. These directories attract clients because they provide a convenient platform that lists a wide range of potential attorneys.
Participating in higher-quality directories offers several benefits. Firstly, you can answer legal questions posed by prospective clients, showcasing your expertise and establishing yourself as a reliable source of information. Secondly, you have the opportunity to submit content as a guest author, allowing you to share valuable insights and increase your visibility among potential clients. Lastly, earning reviews on these directories helps enhance your reputation and credibility.
Engaging in these activities helps you build authority in your specific practice area. While you can certainly post similar content on your own website, being listed on an authoritative site carries additional advantages for search engine optimization (SEO) purposes.
Discover the secrets to effective SEO for personal injury lawyers and attract more clients.
8. Attract Legal Leads with Google My Business
It would be amiss to mention directories without including Google My Business (GMB) which pulls together Maps and Search to create a business directory that tells users who nearby is offering what they want. Given each state has different bar regulations, getting clients out of your locality makes little sense. This is where local SEO and GMB come in.
When a user searches for a law firm nearby, Google checks its local business directory and provides the most relevant results for their location. According to the search engine, a third of mobile searches are location related, which means a massive amount of internet research is locally orientated.
So, for firms that do local business, having a free GMB profile makes a serious difference to their reach and lead generation. It takes less time to optimize a GMB profile than to get a robust digital advertising campaign up and running, so it’s worth investing time in. A GMB listing enhances your SEO and local SERP rankings, increasing leads and raising your profile above competing attorneys.
Learn more about the best lawyer online directories to build your trust and get more leads!
9. Use Initial Consultations to Qualify Lawyer Leads
Initial consultations present an opportunity to encourage leads to connect with you—either virtually or in person—and help determine if they have a case worth pursuing.
You might want to hire someone to conduct these consultations as you likely won’t have time to take them on yourself, especially if you offer them for free. However, we know some lawyers charge a fee to ensure leads are serious about hiring them and aren’t seeking a quick opportunity to score free advice.
You might consider offering free consultation if you’ve recently opened a firm or have gone solo and don’t yet have a steady stream of leads. To make the process easier, some lawyers use a legal chat tool to provide and obtain client information, so they can decide how best to proceed.
10. Attend Conferences and Other Lawyer Events
Attending legal conferences and events is another effective way for lawyers to generate new leads. Conferences allow attorneys to network face-to-face with existing clients, meet prospective clients with new legal needs, and keep up with the latest industry developments through speaker presentations. Some major conferences include the American Bar Association TECHSHOW, the National Lawyers Convention, various state bar association annual meetings, and specialty seminars put on by organizations like the American College of Trial Lawyers.
Beyond conferences, local chamber of commerce meetups, continuing legal education sessions, and industry award ceremonies can also provide lead generation opportunities through in-person relationship building. When attending such events, be sure to follow up with new contacts promptly and provide them with your business card and relevant content and assets to strengthen relationships into new clients.
Why Is Lead Generation for Lawyers Important
Lead generation for lawyers can build online visibility, credibility, trust, and interest from specific market segments. When you focus on lead generation efforts, you hone in on specific website traffic from high-value customers and greatly improve their chances of converting.
With these exceptional targeting capabilities, lead generation is suitable for all types of lawyers, from independent professionals to small law firms and legacy companies. Small law firm lead generation is no different from industry giants — the principles are the same: it’s just the scale and budget that change.
Attorney Lead Generation and the Sales Funnel
A lead is any prospect who has expressed interest in paying for your legal services or knowledge, usually by willingly sharing their contact information via a lead capture form.
The lead generation process includes multiple steps (sales funnel) to influence prospective clients’ journeys to become actual legal clients. A sales funnel starts by sparking the interest of current or potential clients and guiding them through every step of the purchasing process.
The four main stages of the funnel are as follows:
- Awareness: Improving your search engine rankings and providing opportunistic ways for prospective clients to discover your firm and arrive at your website, either organically or through paid advertising.
- Interest: Once you’ve sparked awareness, you’ll need to maintain a lead’s interest. This may entail onboarding them to email campaigns or strategically offering them content such as ebooks, white papers, and case studies over a period of time to demonstrate your law firm’s value and further nudge them down the funnel.
- Decision: At this stage, prospects are armed with valuable information about your law practice and will compare it with others to decide which law firm is best for them. You’ll need to work extra hard to convince them how much more they’ll benefit by working with you.
- Action: This phase of the sales funnel varies from business to business and digital marketing campaigns. For some, it results in a sale, but for law firms, it typically culminates in potential clients scheduling consultations.
To learn more about how a sales funnel works and how to set up an effective sales funnel, read our guide.
Comrade Can Help You Double Your Lead Generation in No Time
With a carefully crafted lead generation campaign, you can not only shape your sales funnel for improved success but also resonate with more clients in your area to outshine the competition. Lead generation for lawyers can yield positive results, but in the end, capitalizing on digital channels still depends on you.
However, lead generation services are just one part of digital marketing. There’s still content marketing, local SEO, and your website to consider. While you’re working on your lead generation strategies, you might want to assign other marketing aspects to professionals for a comprehensive, cohesive approach.
That’s where Comrade Digital Marketing comes in. Comrade is a comprehensive digital marketing agency that can take care of all your online marketing needs. We also offer lead generation services. Our attorney lead generation experts can guarantee a high amount of leads generated for your law firm. Contact us today to learn how we help your law firm attract high-quality leads.
