Fact is: Trends change and customer behaviors shift constantly. Due to the saturation of the extremely competitive legal landscape, generating quality legal leads has become harder over the past decade. Many traditional methods of advertising for law firms tend to fail to generate a considerable amount of new leads. Referrals, as well as recommendations, used to happen face-to-face, but now they are happening online via reviews, social media, and other channels. To ensure the generation of qualified leads, you need a professional website and an outstanding online review portfolio. Therefore, law firms are starting to invest more and more in online marketing. It is crucial to have a website that can be found easily, is trustworthy, and persuades potential clients to take action.
In this article, we will define what a lead is, explain why lead generation is so vital for the legal sector, and ultimately, how you can grow your business.
What is a lead?
To understand what online lead generation is all about and how it can help your business grow, we have first to define what precisely a qualified lead is. Depending on the industry, the term itself can vary, but a lead is someone who has an interest in the product or service you are selling. Usually, it refers to the contact with a potential customer or client, a person who indicates interest in the brand in some way. When some talk about a lead, they mean that the contact is already determined to be a prospective customer, whereas others refer to any sales contacts as leads. A marketing lead, for example, can be a person that received a promotional email from your marketing team because he or she signed up for it online. That doesn’t mean that the potential customer is ready to receive a call from your sales department, though. Whereas a service lead generally qualifies as contact that has already indicated an interest in the service and wants to be engaged by a salesperson with a qualified offer.
What is lead generation?
Imagine the following: let’s say you found a service online that you’re interested in, filled out an online test on what level of the service is right for you, but you didn’t sign up for it in the end. A couple of days later, you receive an email from the company with a 20% discount coupon. In this situation you are considered a lead that has the potential to become a customer if the company makes an effort to reach out, which is precisely what they’re doing.
Generating leads is the process of identifying leads for a business. It occurs when there’s a high possibility that a prospect is ready to become a customer or client. Specific strategies provide prospects with information to get them interested and guide them towards an offer. Once a person indicates an interest in a product or service, it is important to get him or her on the path to eventually making a purchase or signing up. With lead generation, you’re attracting and ultimately converting those prospects into true blue clients. Therefore, generating quality leads is essential for every business to be successful.
Online lead generation and client acquisitions for the legal industry
Generating leads is also essential for the growth of any law firm or legal business, but with less quality leads coming in organically, efforts and cost per lead are increasing. Online marketing is continually evolving but there are cost-effective lead generation techniques that can be especially beneficial for client acquisition.
In today’s modern world, a professional-looking website has the power to be the center of your marketing and online lead generation activities. You can see your website as a 24/7 lead-generating asset. It has to be designed to make it easy for clients to understand the value of your service because with the help of a well-designed website, you can convert a visitor into a lead. Your legal website needs to convey professionalism to connect with potential clients. The legal world is all about showing authority; that is why the language used should be free of jargon and easy to understand. It is hard to show off your skills before a client actually decides to work with you, but you can prove your authority by including awards and press reports or ask satisfied clients to act as testimonials.
Most clients won’t take action without a little push. Therefore, your website needs to be optimized for conversion. Make sure your contact information can be easily found and you offer contact forms that include Call-To-Action (CTA) buttons like “schedule a free consultation.” Last but not least, making sure your site works well on mobile devices is just as important as making sure it works on standard computers.
How to increase online lead generation
The foundation of lead generation is presenting a consistent message throughout all channels and providing value to everyone that engages with your company. Let’s talk about the most effective online lead generation strategies for the legal sector:
- Domain Name
The domain name landscape is continuously changing, and industry-specific reserved domains can help to stay ahead of the curve. Some domain extensions are exclusive to the legal community, which establishes a professional first impression. Since only attorneys or authorized legal institutions qualify for .LAW and .ABOGADO domains, it gives potential clients confidence in knowing they chose a verified and trusted legal resource. Join.LAW is the most-trusted resource to register your own new generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD).
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
SEO will not just help you improve your search engine results; it is also a very reliable way to attract legal leads. Effective SEO takes time, but over time it will increase organic website visits as well as the number of high-quality leads. Some of the proven ways to achieve a better ranking are increasing your security with SSL certificates, optimizing your website for mobile traffic, obtaining quality backlinks, and increasing the speed of your website.
- Content Marketing
Quality content attracts quality leads. Content is the core of any successful online business. No matter the industry, your number of visitors will increase when you take the time to implement a content marketing strategy.
- Online Advertising
Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising is a widely used lead generation method, which makes it easy for prospects to find your website even if you do not rank high in the search results. A study of the independent client feedback platform Clutch found that 63 percent of searchers trust Google ads.
- Retargeting
Only a tiny percent of your website’s visitors will end up using your services. Remarketing helps to increase the number of conversions by engaging people that already showed some kind of interest. Retargeting campaigns target visitors that left the website with specific ads that try to persuade them to come back and take a second look.
- Social Media
Social media platforms are part of our daily life and are used to share experiences or exchange information. Posting useful content can help you attract leads and convert them into clients. Which platform you choose is up to you, but you have to ensure it has the ability to reach quality leads within the network.
- Email Marketing
The significant advantage of email marketing is that the prospect already showed some interest by subscribing to your email list. A newsletter is an ideal way to nurture existing leads and drive your target audience back to your website. The key is to send the right content at the right time.
- Online Resources:
- Blogs: Writing keyword-heavy content provides additional information to your potential clients and can attract people to visit your website.
- White Papers or eBooks: They can establish your credibility and help generate high-quality leads. White papers as well as ebooks are best used as a free download on your website or social media account.
- Industry Reports: Executive summaries or research reports do not only show your authority but also boost your credibility as well as strengthen your online brand.
- Webinars: A free webinar can establish trust because it is used to educate your audience instead of selling your services.
- Videos: People like visual content. A video can help you present your law firm, show testimonials, or explain the services you offer.
Review Sites: For more online presence, it is essential to make an appearance on review pages and online directories like Yelp, Law Guru, or Nextdoor.
