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Originally Posted On: https://www.upfirm.co/step-marketing-guide-for-personal-injury-lawyers/

 

While you might think that advertising your personal injury law firm is a waste because people will come to you anyway when they get injured, the truth is that marketing is a tool that does far more than find clients for lawyers.

Effective marketing can improve brand awareness, educate prospective clients, and build your firm up as a reputable leader in the industry.

That’s why most law firms that have marketing budgets allocate between 2 and 15% of their revenue on marketing output.

If you want to start your personal injury lawyer marketing journey, this guide is for you. Keep reading to learn everything from marketing terms, steps, and ideas that will benefit your firm.

Law Firm Marketing Terms

Before you can start planning and executing a marketing strategy for your law firm, you need to understand the basic marketing terms.

Depending on your firm’s goals, you might find that there are other marketing terms you’ll need to familiarize yourself with. This shortlist is a good place to start, especially if you are new to personal injury lawyer marketing.

Marketing Leads

A marketing lead is a prospective client for your law firm. This isn’t just someone who visits your website.

A lead is someone who takes an action that shows they are interested in your services. For example, a person who fills out a contact form or calls your firm directly is a lead.

If you want to generate leads, you need to understand what makes someone a lead and how you can motivate them to connect with you.

Conversion Rate

Your conversion rate is the ratio of people who visit your website or see your ads to people who eventually become a lead. You can track the conversion of one page or your entire website.

To figure out how well your marketing is converting leads into paying clients, check your client intake process.

Client intake involves attracting and hiring new clients from the first interaction they have with your firm to when they decide to work with you.

The client intake process can be divided into eight easily digestible steps:

1. Attracting a new potential client
2. Receiving contact information
3. Pre-screening a client
4. Checking for conflicts
5. Scheduling and meeting for an initial consultation
6. Collecting key information with an intake questionnaire
7. Creating a fee arrangement
8. Completing new client onboarding paperwork

If you pay close attention to your overall client intake process, you’ll find opportunities to increase your conversion rates.

Call-to-Action (CTA)

A call-to-action (CTA) is a clear request for any website visitor to follow. CTAs are essential throughout the entire marketing process.

On your website, a CTA might be a button that leads to your contact form or a button on a paid ad that links to your website.

For all marketing materials, it’s important to always have a CTA that can lead to more conversions.

Landing Page

A landing page is a website page built to get visitors to do a specific action, such as:

• Clicking a link
• Booking a consultation
• Filling out a form
• Making a phone call

The goal of a landing page is to get potential clients to convert. To define your success with landing pages, you need to set a clear conversion goal. Do you want more consultations or filled-out forms?

When you have a goal in mind, your marketing team can help you measure the data to verify what percentage of people complete the desired action.

Some of the key components to have if you want a landing page that converts are:

• Creating a seamless experience
• Including trust signals
• Focusing on website usability
• Minimizing form fields
• Making sure the call-to-action button works
• Staying compliant with the GDPR

Over time, you’ll figure out what works best and what isn’t working at all for your landing page. Track these efforts so that you can make adjustments as needed.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO refers to optimizing websites so that they appear at the top of search results when relevant keywords are researched by clients.

Keywords and keyword phrases will represent the topics you build your website pages around. As a personal injury attorney, you could use targeted keywords that use personal injury attorney plus the location of your services.

Your keywords and semantically similar variations of the keywords must appear in key places on the webpage so that search engines can determine whether or not your website is relevant to the topic that was searched.

SEO for personal injury lawyers is critical if you want to compete in your area with other attorneys that provide similar services.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC)

In your personal injury marketing plan, you might find that PPC advertising is an essential tool. Pay-per-click ads are paid models in which you pay a set amount each time a visitor clicks on your ad.

Steps to Personal Injury Lawyer Marketing

With the right marketing approach, you can develop a plan that helps your law firm grow.

Use these steps to help you achieve your personal injury lawyer marketing goals.

Create a Marketing Budget

Taking time to think out your marketing budget will help you succeed. This should be an area of your law firm business plan, but if you don’t have one, get started with creating a budget now.

You’ll need to invest in your law firm’s marketing initiatives by determining how much revenue you need to make your goals a reality. Consider how many cases per year you have to bill to meet your business revenue goal.

If you’ve just launched your personal injury practice, you might not have a lot of marketing dollars to work with. Your budget amount will also depend on how competitive the space is.

Law firm marketing technology can help your firm grow, but you’ll need to factor in these potential costs when making a budget. The same goes if you plan on hiring a marketing company.

Once you’ve created this budget, stay within its limits and watch your bottom line continue to grow.

Build a Law Firm Website

A law firm website might be what sets the tone for a client relationship. The website might be the first thing they see, so this is your chance to make a lasting first impression and convert visitors interested in hiring a personal injury lawyer.

Building a well-designed website takes professional skills so it’s always best to hire an expert if you’ve never built a website before.

The best practices for making a high-converting website are:

• Putting your website visitors first
• Making your contact information easy to find
• Making your website easy to use
• Creating the essential pages
• Using HTML headers

For the design aspect, always use quality photos and put your logo on the website. Make sure there is a page where your services are clearly listed. If your firm or lawyers have specific recognitions or awards, highlight these on your website.

Most importantly, make sure your contact information is displayed where it is easily noticeable and accessible.

Ensure Your Website is Optimized

We’ve discussed how important SEO for personal injury lawyers is, but let’s dive deeper into how it can help.

When you have a great website, you’ll want it to be seen by potential clients. If no one finds your website when searching online, your website isn’t optimized for search engines.

Get the most out of a beautifully designed website by following SEO best practices. Search engines like useful and quality content. Plus, it’s what your prospective clients are looking for.

As well as using general keywords, make sure you sprinkle long-tail keywords on your website pages. Using longer keywords instead of just saying “lawyer” will give you the best chance of competing with similar law firms.

Claim Free Online Profiles

Getting that stamp of approval from major search engines like Google is going to let clients know you are a reputable business. To track potential clients in a specific location, set up a Google Business listing.

Your profile will help customers understand what services you offer. Be sure to provide a useful description and clear contact information. The listing should include:

• A description of your law practice
• Physical address of your practice
• Types of personal injury cases your firm services
• Your service areas
• Media assets (videos and photos)
• A link to your website
• A phone number for visitors to reach you directly

With a business profile, you can leverage Google’s Local Service Ads. This powerful tool helps with search engine appearance and lead generation.

Google Screened badges can earn you trust because clients will know that you are qualified to offer personal injury legal services.

You will have to add this tool’s fees to your marketing budget, but you only pay when a lead contacts you through the ad.

Although Google is one of the most important free profiles to have for search engine optimization, consider other opportunities to claim free online profiles, such as review sites and your local state bar listing.

Create Social Media Profiles

In this day and age, attracting clients through social media is a useful way to increase your conversion rate. You have to go where the clients are, and a lot of them are on social media.

Figuring out which social media platforms are best for your law firm can help you build an online social media presence. Some of the most popular networks to choose from are:

• Facebook
• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Instagram
• YouTube
• TikTok

Although you can have more than one social media profile, you don’t necessarily need all of them. That’s a lot of profiles to manage and more is not always better in this case.

You should figure out where your ideal clients are and choose your social media profiles based on that information.

Following legal profiles on Twitter is a great way to engage in thoughtful conversation and show clients you know what you are talking about. Facebook is useful for campaigns and to position yourself as an authoritative business.

An effective law firm LinkedIn page is beneficial if you are targeting an older crowd. Make sure your page is separate from your personal LinkedIn profile.

Manage Online Reviews

Gaining online reviews from real clients is a great way to market your business for free. However, it’s important to know how to manage your reviews effectively. When seeking legal counsel, clients are going to look through your reviews.

It’s impossible to avoid getting negative reviews, so don’t get discouraged if you get one or two when the reviews start pouring in. An ongoing stream of negative reviews is likely to turn clients away.

Knowing how to handle negative reviews can get you points with potential clients. For example, if you respond to a negative client review with an instant solution, lawyer seekers will see that you take the initiative to maintain good client relationships.

To gain enough online reviews to matter, make it a habit to ask for reviews at the end of every case, especially when a client is satisfied with your work.

Check your state bar to ensure asking for reviews doesn’t break any rules about staying GDPR compliant.

To get the best reviews from clients, improve your customer experience. You can do this by conducting customer satisfaction surveys for past clients that encourage them to provide feedback.

Consider Content Marketing

Put your legal knowledge skills to the test with content marketing. Blogging and general content marketing is a great way to build your brand and authority as a personal injury lawyer.

Plus, blogging is a great way to optimize your website for search engines by using related keywords.

Creating content shows off your expertise in the field of personal injury law. Clients are going to have general questions and concerns about their rights and the legal process, so it’s up to you to provide helpful answers.

You can build trust and confidence within your pool of clients by demonstrating that you have authority in personal injury law.

You can start by building a blog on your website that answers common client questions and explains legal-related marketing topics. The content you write needs to have a clear focus and a consistent brand voice.

For content inspiration, check out these legal blog examples.

Starting a legal blog takes time and consistency that you might not have as a busy personal injury lawyer. Luckily, marketing agencies that focus on SEO best practices can help you build your blog.

Invest Time in Networking

Spending time networking with other legal professionals is great if you are getting value out of the conversations. You must know where to spend your energy and time on networking if you are focused on brand building.

Create a conversation strategy that leads to referrals because referrals from other attorneys in different practice areas and like-minded professionals go a long way.

The obvious referral partner for a personal injury attorney is a chiropractor who can send clients your way after they get treated for a car accident injury.

You can also try public speaking to sharpen your advocacy skills and get your law firm’s name out there.

Seek out opportunities to share your expertise at community hubs like educational institutions, non-profit organizations, and bar associations. The local and state bar associations usually need speakers, so that’s a good place to start.

Not only will this strategy make you more visible, but sharing information about properly handling personal injury claims can build goodwill within your community.

Learning how to market your brand to build referral relationships with other attorneys is an investment to consider if your goals include business development and growth revenue.

Know Your Audience

Understanding your target audience is important, but it’s more difficult in the legal industry than in other industries. A personal injury lawyer should target someone who has been injured, but there is no age range or specifications for injury.

However, if your services focus on something specific like construction accidents, you can narrow down your target audience that way.

Knowing your audience will dictate where you are advertising, including what social media platforms you use to connect with your targets.

Developing client personas is a great way to identify and understand the needs of your ideal client. Consider the types of cases your firm specializes in and what environment injuries occur in the most.

Everything you create for your marketing strategy should serve prospective clients. Always have them in mind when updating your website, writing a blog post, creating an email campaign, etc.

Measure Your Marketing Efforts

No matter how you decide to market your law firm, you need to measure everything. By tracking your efforts, you can see if you are getting a return on your investment.

Without measuring, you won’t know which campaigns are bringing in new business and which need to be tweaked or scratched completely. Identifying the non-performing marketing tactic will help your strategy succeed.

The only way to find out if you gained more conversions or built up a lot of goodwill is if you look at the numbers.

You can track your digital marketing efforts by implementing website tracking tools or hiring a marketing firm to handle the analytics for you.

Personal Injury Marketing Ideas That Work

Now that you know the steps it takes to market your personal injury law firm, you can start implementing strategies that work.

Both paid advertising and organic brand building are important for success. Building your brand through paid ads and organic methods can be done with traditional marketing or digital marketing.

These personal injury marketing ideas can help your firm utilize traditional and digital marketing, paid ads, and organic brand building.

Build a Multi-Channel Presence

Building a personal injury website is key to a multi-channel presence. It’s a requirement to leverage online marketing methods, such as:

• Pay-per-click ads
• Social media campaigns
• Organic traffic

With a website in place, you can choose the channels you want to target. Multi-channel marketing can get expensive, so it’s important to focus your efforts on a few channels at a time.

Depending on your audience and your unique goals, there will be some channels better suited for targeting than others. Start with the channels you know will work and then expand to other channels as you see fit.

It’s important that your messaging is consistent across multi-channel marketing, but you also need to be strategic about how the channels work.

For example, Instagram is the best place for images while LinkedIn is better suited for informative articles. But if a prospective client sees both, they should be able to tell that they came from your firm because of your branding and messaging.

You can also test out Facebook ads for your personal injury law firm. Facebook has a beginner-friendly ad tool for lawyers who want to try their hand at paid social media ads.

Facebook’s user database will target your ads to a specific group of people based on your goals. This is a great tool for gaining brand awareness or finding new leads.

Create Paid Google Ads

Google is going to be a dominant advertising channel for a personal injury lawyer because people typically only look up lawyers when they need one.

You’ll want to make sure your firm is visible on Google searches when an accident victim is looking.

There are three main advertising formats on Google that you can use to increase visibility and gain more clients. Let’s dive deeper into local service ads, text ads, and local map ads.

Local Service Ads

Local service ads (LSAs) are newer ad formats introduced by Google and shared directly on the search engine results page. Personal injury attorneys should take advantage of this type of ad because it is not available for every business type.

Local service ads appear on the top of the page on mobile and desktop devices. Compared to other advertising formats, LSAs are effective in driving qualified leads to convert.

Before you can create this type of ad, you have to go through Google’s screening process and a background check. The time it takes to get screened is worth it because you can benefit from:

• Budget-friendly advertising
• Only paying for qualified phone calls
• Disputing unqualified prospects
• A quality user experience

Local Service Ads will take content from your Google My Business page to create the ads. This is just another reason why it’s important to have accurate information on your business profile.

Text Ads

Text ads are the most common type of Google search ads. To run successful text ads, your Google Ads campaigns must be strategically set up to find qualified traffic in the right geographic location.

Text ads are the most expensive Google search ads, but might be worth the money to gain qualified leads. Target clicks can be hundreds of dollars for personal injury attorney-related keywords in certain local markets.

To get started with Google text ads, follow these steps:

• Create a Google Ads account
• Complete competitive keyword research
• Study ads and post-click experiences
• Create a list of keywords that your prospects are looking for
• Write compelling ad copy that differentiates you from the competition

It seems simple enough to execute a text ad campaign, but if you want to do it right, it’s recommended to hire a marketing partner who understands Google ads.

Local Map Ads

People looking for legal representation likely want to work with a local personal injury law firm. Google’s map ad listings help drive traffic to your Google My Business profile.

Local map ads work with Google text ads to place your law firm in a Google Maps search. That’s why it’s important to use high-traffic local keywords.

When a local extension is included in a search text campaign, your business profile will show up on Google Maps for relevant keywords.

Prospective clients who click your profile from Maps can visit your website, call your practice, and even get directions to your firm’s physical location.

Create Awareness on Social Media

Another personal injury law firm marketing idea is to use social media to create awareness. Social media users spend a lot of time-consuming content and using different channels as sources of information.

Social media isn’t going to be a place where your audience has a high level of intent to find legal counsel, but it is still a useful tool to ensure future clients are aware of your firm.

You can use social media to educate large groups of people and, over time, generate cases.

Providing value upfront to a social media audience before asking them to complete an action is the best strategy for each channel. Consider these ideas when creating social media campaigns:

• Educate people on what to do if they are injured due to negligence
• Inform the community about the process to follow after a car accident
• Provide details to inform visitors what makes personal injury cases valid
• Spread public service messages about high-frequency accident areas

People will see the difference between a personal injury law firm that has a client’s best interest in mind and a law firm that will do anything to get anyone’s business.

Rank Higher With SEO

We won’t stop talking about search engine optimization because it’s one of the most important strategies that can organically build your brand.

By now, you should know that SEO is the ongoing process of helping a law firm’s website rank higher for relevant search terms and keywords. Gaining leads through SEO takes longer than using paid ads, but it is essentially free.

There are different factors that search engine algorithms take into consideration when organically ranking websites. One of those factors is the type of SEO you use.

Technical SEO, local SEO, on-page SEO, and off-page SEO are all components of an effective search engine optimization strategy for your personal injury law firm.

Technical SEO

Google prioritizes user experience by considering how quickly and conveniently users can find what they are looking for on your website.

To make technical search engine optimizations on your website, you need to consider:

• Security
• Speed
• Ease of use
• Indexability

A safe and speedy website will enhance the user experience. Google will know what pages to bring searchers to if your website can be thoroughly indexed.

Some tools, such as page insights and speed tests, can make this process less complicated. Running your existing website through the necessary tools can show you where you need to improve.

Without a technically sound website, you won’t be able to execute a search engine optimization strategy that works.

Local SEO

A user looking for a lawyer will have some form of local intent. Google will consider proximity indicators when providing a list of search results.

For instance, if the question typed into Google includes a city or “near me” phrase, the results are going to be different than they would be if the question was not as defined.

Always prioritize local ranking factors to improve search engine optimization. On-page content personalized to the local market and backlinks from regional websites can help with this.

On-Page SEO

Just like creating awareness on social media, it’s fundamental to have content on your website that uses relevant keywords and provides useful information about your personal injury law firm.

Let’s break it down by page.

Your home page should have an overall summary of your law firm so that visitors immediately know what they can expect from your services.

If they want more specific information, they’ll go to your services pages which should have the types of personal injury cases that your law firm handles.

A detailed About page should contain the firm’s name, business location, attorney profiles, awards, and achievements. You can even include a CTA that leads to your contact page so visitors have that information right in front of them if needed.

Building a blog on your website is a great way to improve on-page SEO optimizations. Use the blog to create helpful personal injury law content and answer FAQs about common case types.

Make sure your Contact page has all of the information a visitor might need to email, call, or visit your location in person. To compete with other personal injury lawyers in the area, offer a free consultation.

Many attorneys attract clients this way, but it’s important to be clear if there are any conditions to a free consult. If there is a time limit, for example, state that in your copy.

When creating content on any page of your website, it’s important to simplify the legal jargon. The common person should understand what you are saying without a law degree.

For every page on the website, you also need to include title tags and meta descriptions with relevant keywords.

To create a seamless website experience, interlink pages on your website so that helpful information can be easily found.

Off-Page SEO

Other websites across the web may be representing you through backlinking. Google takes other websites that link back to pages on your website into account for rankings.

Off-page search engine optimization can increase your credibility when done right. To get started with these optimizations, try these best practices:

• Create and manage social media profiles that link to your website
• Write guest blog posts on well-reputed websites
• Get featured in other articles or blogs for your work as a personal injury lawyer
• Gain recognition in the personal injury field by winning cases worthy of the headlines

Building relationships across different networks is a great way to generate organic backlinks and build credibility with Google. You can pay for link placements, but make sure you check that a website has a high domain authority.

If you continue to write informative and reliable content on your website’s blog, another website might use you as a resource.

Keep in mind that benefitting from search engine optimization strategies can take months or even years.

Create Videos

Building a blog is only one content marketing method effective for personal injury firms. Creating video content can also lead to business growth and generate quality leads.

Videos are memorable, engaging, and constantly consumed on social media and the web. Plus, you might just go viral at some point for a really good video.

For a personal injury firm, videos are a great way to:

• Introduce your firm and the people who work there
• Showcase your expertise
• Build viewer trust
• Generate more leads

Start by creating videos that can explain complex legal concepts in terms that anyone can understand. This is a great way to engage people in the local area and position yourself as a leader in the field.

If you want to create video content, make sure your budget is adjusted for it. You’ll want to invest in high-quality videos because these content assets can create a lifetime of value for your personal injury firm.

Shoot a new video once a week using the blog posts you’ve created as an outline for what to discuss. If you have an especially high-traffic blog post, start with that.

Including a video on your landing page, home page, or practice area page is also a great way to boost your conversion rate.

In addition to posting videos on your website, utilize social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok where people are consuming video content daily.

Invest in Retargeting

Client acquisition costs can get high but retargeting is a cost-effective form of advertising that focuses on your website’s bounced traffic. Retargeting is powerful if you have a multi-channel marketing strategy in place.

When you have multiple platforms where prospective clients can find your website, you end up increasing website traffic. Those who bounce away will see retargeting ads on various platforms that you have a presence on.

Retargeting works best as a long-term marketing strategy for law firms that already have a following. For example, if your website sees at least 100 monthly visitors but has a high bounce rate, this strategy is for you.

Your retargeting ads will remind visitors what you have to offer and hopefully bring them back to your website to book a consultation.

They can also keep your firm at the top of people’s minds so that you are the first thing they think about if they need to hire a personal injury lawyer.

With Google Display Network, you can retarget website visitors across millions of websites through display ads.

Sponsor Events in Your Community

Although digital marketing is at the forefront of business advertising these days, it’s important not to forget about traditional and experimental marketing methods.

Sponsoring events in your local community is a great way to broaden your reach and earn you some brownie points. After all, your audience is most likely going to be the locals.

Some event ideas or organizations that you can sponsor are:

• Walks for a cause (road safety, workplace safety)
• Marathons
• Industry conventions
• Local sports teams
• Bike safety classes

While event marketing won’t bring you immediate clients, you’ll improve your brand awareness. If your main goal is to get your name out there, this is a great way to do it.

If you have a high-income rate, consider giving back and building brand awareness by starting your own charity. If you don’t have the budget, participate as a firm in an already established charity.

Submit Your Firm for Awards

Clients do like to see awards on personal injury law firm websites, especially if they see them on other lawyer’s websites in the same geographic location.

Pro Bono recognition and national awards for personal injury attorneys mean you are recognized for your role as an industry leader.

Submit your firm and your best attorneys to meaningful and vetted lawyer awards to impress prospective clients.

Take Your Personal Injury Lawyer Marketing Up a Notch

Personal injury lawyers might have a hard time narrowing down their marketing techniques because their target audience is not looking for legal help until they need it.

Using the right marketing terms, steps, and ideas is key to success. We know this personal injury lawyer marketing guide is a lot to digest, but we’re here to help.

At upFirm, we focus on law firm marketing specifically. Our marketing agency is dedicated to helping law firms like yours deliver personalized ads to prospective clients.

Connect with us now to set up a brief introductory call.