Behind every successful family law marketing campaign is a well-thought out strategy.
You can’t keep your law firm running without attracting, capturing, and converting clients. Great advertising alone won’t cut it; you need to establish your firms credibility and authority for long term success.
With a proactive legal marketing strategy, your firm can build an effective, professional brand and generate new leads.
We built this comprehensive guide to help you optimize your family law marketing effort, build credibility with customers, and turn leads into clients.
Let’s dive in.
Identifying Your Firm’s Target Audience
When it comes to marketing for family lawyers, one of the most important things you must do to optimize your firm’s efforts is identify your target audience.
The first step in gaining clients is to have a clear vision of who those clients are.
In a highly competitive industry, the last thing you want to do is waste valuable time and money marketing to the wrong audience.
Creating Segments Based on Demographics
The first thing you can do is narrow down your audience based on personal characteristics. Think about characteristics like:
- Demographics – Age range, gender, location, marital status. What is their average income? Do they have children?
- Educational Background – What level of school have they completed?
- Profession – What industries do they work in?
- Lifestyle – What does a typical day in the life of this person look like? Do they have particular hobbies? Do they frequent social media, Internet, or other entertainment/news mediums?
Use these characteristics to establish personas for your target audience.
These personas should dictate every move you make, from writing blogs to targeting selections on ad platforms.
One of the best ways to get started is by looking at your current client base. Consider asking a few questions:
- What are your most popular legal services — divorce, child custody/support, mediation?
- What questions do potential clients often ask?
- What kind of information are they seeking out?
- What are their main problems or challenges?
Your value proposition should be relevant to one of the main problems your target audience struggles with. Ensure your value proposition speaks to them directly and demonstrates how you can solve their problems.
Differentiate Your Firm with a Strong Value Proposition
(Source: Shopify)
Now that you have a relevant target audience, you need to determine why any one of these potential clients would choose your firm over your competitors.
Before you invest time and money into a family law marketing campaign, you need to develop a unique value proposition that is relevant to the needs and problems of your target audience.
When trying to come up with relevant value propositions, you can start by answering a few important questions:
- What is the story of your family law firm?
- Why do you feel family law is important?
- When it comes to representing your clients, what do you feel most passionate about?
- What are your firm’s strong suits?
- What do your past clients appreciate most about you?
- What are a few of your most successful case outcomes?
You can use the answers to these questions to distinguish yourself from other firms, create a unique brand identity, and give potential clients a clear vision of what it is you can offer.
Offerings that are too scattered or varied can dilute your firm’s identity.
Once you’ve provided clear messaging about your brand and your services, the real challenge becomes telling clients why it matters. Do you take an innovative approach in your field? Do you put a strong emphasis on ethics compared to other firms? Are your services more affordable? Do you offer more personalized communication?
Whatever the answer, that’s your unique value proposition.
Offer Live Chat
One way you can offer greater value is with immediacy.
What better way for a potential client to gauge your value than by speaking with you directly?
According to Intercom, website visitors are 82% more likely to convert to clients if they’ve chatted with you first.
Any person visiting your website will naturally have questions. The thing that makes live chat so powerful is that it allows them to get answers to their questions immediately.
There are a few major benefits live chat can offer:
- Increased conversions – Live chat gives you the opportunity to hold your potential client’s hand, making it easier for them to get the details they need and book an appointment.
- Adding a Personal Touch – Being able to schedule an appointment from the convenience of a keyboard offers a significant amount of value. Having the help of a human being who can cater to your needs and answer any complex questions you might have takes that value one step further.
Utilize Lead Magnets
Lead magnets are excellent family law marketing tools that allow visitors to obtain useful and informative long-from resources in exchange for contact information.
This strategy can be extremely beneficial, though it only works if the content your customers receive is worth the hassle of them inputting their information.
Here are a few examples of lead magnets to include on your website:
- How-To Guides – You can think of these as downloadable blog posts or separate landing pages for people that are willing to leave their email addresses. A good example of a how-to guide might be “How to Prepare and File for a Divorce in California.”
- eBooks – eBooks are long-form gated content, offering more thorough guides surrounding common questions. One example might be “Child Custody: a Complete Guide for Parents.”
- Whitepapers – Whitepapers can be a bit heavy depending on your client base, though there are some legal topics that can be difficult to cover in how-to blog posts and checklists. Consider creating well-targeted whitepapers
- Webinars – These are live, virtual events that offer instructional or educational content between speakers and attendees. They are essentially virtual seminars, which can be used to share information, build niche authority, or promote a firm’s products or services.
Generate Leads with a Professional Website
The most important tool in your law firm’s marketing arsenal is your family law firm website.
Unlike legal directory ads or social media profiles, your website is an ever-growing asset. It’s a piece of digital property that you have complete control over to build how you see fit. The more time and effort you put into it, the more you get back.
Treat your website as the centerpiece of your firm’s marketing efforts. After all, it’s where you’re directing your potential customers and putting forth your best content.
There are a few elements that are important to address when it comes to your firm’s website.
A Stellar Technical Foundation
Leveraging enhanced performance can help you satisfy both your visitors and Google.
Consider the fact that mobile visitors will comprise a majority of your traffic. They’ll appreciate lightning-fast loading times and user-friendly navigation.
Beyond that basic optimization, we’ve developed a five-point web design structure that makes building a great website easy. Consider the following elements to optimize your site.
You Need a Lot of Content
The more content your website has, the more traffic you’ll likely generate. We recommend having at least 25-50 pages of meaningful content to generate traffic.
Your family law firm site should have:
- Pages that describe the services you offer
- Testimonial and review pages
- Team member pages
- Informative blog posts with targeted keywords
Content is an important factor in search engine rankings, and having a greater volume of relevant and purposeful content can be beneficial.
A Robust Digital Footprint
A website can only be productive if potential clients can find it.
Developing a larger digital footprint includes:
- Optimizing your Google Business Profile
- Creating social media profiles
- Listing on all of the quality directory sites
- Submitting press release
No matter how attractive your website is, not taking the time to build out your digital footprint with these elements will diminish your results.
Automated Social Media Posting
The more you can automate your processes, the more time you’ll have to focus on what truly matters.
The extraordinary thing about automated social media posting is that you don’t have to spend thousands of dollars each month to work with a dedicated social media company. Instead, you can use cross-platform tools like Buffer to post across numerous social media channels simultaneously.
Employ Modern Technology
While we won’t get too in-depth about the complexities of modern web design, there are a few basic elements of modern website technology you need to employ on your family law website:
- WordPress – If your website was not built using WordPress, now might be the time to switch over. This content management system is used by more than half a billion websites, and it just so happens that a majority of its themes are mobile-friendly.
- SCHEMA Markup – Also known as structured data, this is code or language for search engines that help them categorize page content.
Your website is at the mercy of search engine rankings. By using the latest technology around, you create a better user experience and display value for search engines.
Make Use of Tracking and Analytics
You can’t truly know how well your site is working if you don’t have the data in front of you. Integrating tracking and analytics on your website, such as Google Analytics, keyword tracking, and phone call tracking, can tell you how effectively your site is performing.
Establish Your Firm’s Credibility
One of the best ways to build credibility and respect for your family law firm is by demonstrating that your work is caring, consistent, and reliable.
Allowing your past successes and strong client relationships to speak for your reputation can help affirm your credibility for those who might be on the fence.
There are a few important tools you can use to improve your firm’s reputation.
Client Reviews
More positive reviews = better credibility.
Think of reviews as “at-a-glance” snippets that allow people to see whether or not they can trust your firm.
According to Fan and Fuel, 92% of consumers say they hesitate to make purchases when they can’t find customer reviews.
When it comes to the credibility of a business, it’s clear that reviews are hugely influential.
Ensure that people can find reviews on your website and on third-party platforms, such as Google, Facebook, and Trustpilot.
Here are a few ways you can generate reviews for your firm:
- Build a dedicated review landing page for your website
- Ensure your firm is listed on popular review platforms (Google, Facebook, Avvo)
- Instruct clients on how and when to write reviews
Digital reviews are a significant element of your online presence and can have a tremendous influence over whether or not prospective clients choose to hire you.
Testimonials and Success Stories
Client testimonials and success stories and more in-depth versions of reviews.
These showcase detailed examples of your past work, such as how you exceeded client expectations with superb work or solved specific problems with specific solutions.
If your firm had a positive impact on a client and added value to their life, ask them to feature their story. Note that there must still be a degree of privacy here. Client testimonials must present a mindful balance. They should not advertise sensitive information nor guarantee outcomes for other clients.
The more testimonials you are able to showcase, the easier it will be for potential clients to visualize themselves working with your firm, so they can have the same positive experience.
Become an Authority with Content Marketing
The legal knowledge you’ve worked many years to acquire can be translated into engaging and informative content to increase your search engine rankings.
People love unique and compelling content, especially if it adds value to their lives.
You’ve already locked in a target audience with your value proposition. Now is the time to produce content that they can share and engage with.
Blogs
Having a blog on your family law firm website that corresponds with your services can attract potential customers that are looking for answers to their important questions.
Think of your blog as more than just an additional feature of your website and instead as a tool for communicating your important thoughts and ideas with your potential clients, establishing yourself as an authority.
Consider this example:
A mother is curious about the ins and outs of her state’s child custody laws. She searches for the answer on Google, comes across your blog, and finds the information you’ve provided helpful.
After conducting more research on child custody, she continues to find more valuable content from your blog. Your law firm becomes her go-to resource for any child custody-related questions she might have. Eventually, when her child custody case comes around, and she needs to hire a family law attorney, she remembers your firm’s name and gives you a call.
Beyond personal examples like this one, quality blog posts offer a low-cost way to increase your organic search presence and drive traffic to your website.
When writing blog posts, there are a few things to keep in mind:
- Keep your blog content relevant to your family law firm
- Use a cluster or pillar model to organize and transform your blog
- Optimize your content for SEO
While there are an infinite number of topic ideas one could come up with, here are a few examples of talking points to get your creative juices flowing:
- How is Child Custody Decided In *Insert State*?
- Do Grandparents Have Visitation Rights?
- Common Mistakes People Make During a Divorce
- How Much Does Divorce Cost?
- What To Do If My Ex Won’t Pay Child Support
Having an active blog is an excellent way to bring in more cases. However, if you want to go above and beyond, there are other important types of content to consider.
Videos
Videos are great for engaging audiences quickly.
Many successful law firms have high-quality branded video content, which helps showcase their firm in a more personalized way than blogging.
A quality branded video should acknowledge your value proposition, demonstrate your authority and credibility, tell a story about how your firm came to be, show behind-the-scenes shots of your office to establish trust, and maybe feature words from a few of your key personnel.
Good2BSocial created a fantastic guide with exceptional video marketing examples from successful law firms. Here are some of our favorites:
- Bracewell Legal Bites – The ‘Legal Bites’ series from Bracewell’s firm dissects current industry trends, offering unique insights and perspectives on legal changes and answering common client questions.
- Oremland Law Group IG Stories – Adam Oremland takes a more entertaining approach, creating fictional personal injury storylines that blend quality information and comedy.
- Jones Day – Why Choose Us – This video targets potential hires instead of clients, providing lawyers with a glimpse into the culture and lifestyle of Jones Day employees.
- Berardi Sizzle Reel – A sizzle reel can offer a quick insight into who you are and what your firm provides. The team at Berardi put together an excellent example of a one-minute sizzle reel packed full of helpful information.
Use the videos above as a source of inspiration to create compelling video content for your firm. No matter what type of video you choose to create, stay focused on making it insightful and authentic to connect with prospective clients and industry professionals.
Infographics
Infographics are a fun and eye-catching family law marketing strategy that provide a visually-captivating way to showcase processes or stats. There are infinite ways to curate these low-cost pieces of marketing material.
Feldman Law Office has a great example of an infographic labeled “What a Florida Family Law Attorney Can Do For You.”
This quick and digestible infographic breaks down the role of a family law attorney and how they can be of assistance in certain family disputes, such as domestic violence, child custody, child support, and divorce.
Here are some examples of infographics to draw inspiration from:
- AZ Lawyers – This infographic from AZ Lawyers gives an overview of modifications in child custody law.
- The McKinney Group – The McKinney Law Group from Clearwater, FL, has a helpful infographic about how to prepare for an internal consultation with a divorce lawyer.
- Steinberg Law Firm – This insightful infographic gives potential clients a start-to-finish overview of what they can expect from Steinberg’s personal injury attorneys
When developing ideas for infographics, provide information that your target audience will find valuable, use catchy headlines, and hire professional designers to create visually-appealing graphics.
Webinars
Webinars are very beneficial for creating authority, giving you a chance to showcase your expertise and educate your target audience. You can use webinars to discuss recent changes in the law or educate clients on development in your particular field.
To a potential client, a webinar acts as a testament to your dedication to their needs. What could be better for your brand image?
The two things people struggle with most are coming up with webinar topics and formats.
When coming up with webinar topics, consider the pain points and challenges of your target audience. What are some common problems they experience that you can deliver solutions to? What questions do clients often ask before they hire you? What should people know about the legal process in your specific field?
Once you’ve developed a topic for your webinar, you must then select a format.
Luckily, you have a few popular formats to choose from:
- Masterclass/Presentation – This is one of the most familiar webinar formats. In this scenario, your students are your potential clients. You teach them about your topic of choice using supplemental guidance elements, such as infographics, slides, or bullet points.
- Conversational – With this format, you can sit down with a few invited guests and converse. In this situation, your audience is a fly on the wall, listening to you expound on relevant topics.
- Q&A – We’re all familiar with the question-and-answer format. It can be worth soliciting questions in advance, so you can prepare in-depth answers.
- Moderated Panel Discussion – In this scenario, you bring together a group of experts to discuss a relevant topic. You can either act as the moderator or be part of the conversation.
- Guest Interview – Think of a guest interview as a more structured version of the conversational format. Invite a leader in your field to sit down for an interview. Prepare a set of questions for which they can provide compelling answers to keep the audience engaged.
- Debate – There is no doubt that society loves debates. With this format, you can moderate or join. Just make sure you choose a firm topic and maintain relevance throughout.
As for the actual length of your webinar, statistics show that most viewers prefer 30-45 minutes in length.
Zoom and GoToWebinar are two great examples of webinar software with optimized securities and feature-rich platforms.
Drive Traffic with SEO
Around 96% of people seeking legal advice began their searches online.
While word-of-mouth marketing and referrals are still important, search engine discovery is the current dominating force for getting in front of people online.
Implementing a well-thought-out SEO strategy is a major investment. However, SEO for family law firms is something that can compound over time, increasing its own value. And as with many other investments, it can take time to see results.
While SEO is a massive topic that requires an entirely separate guide to dig into, there are a few basic things to consider when it comes to optimizing your website for search engines.
Keyword Research
One of the best ways for a family law firm to scale SEO is by creating content that uses relevant and specific family law keywords.
The keywords you need to find are those that have volume. It is the number of times a particular phrase is used with certain search intent during a certain period.
Volume helps us identify how valuable keywords will be in a marketing strategy by giving us an understanding of whether or not they are highly searched and how they fluctuate.
Volume isn’t everything, however.
The major mistake many family law firms make is using high-volume keywords that are too broad or obvious, such as “child custody” or “divorce attorney.” With such high competition for these keywords, great results aren’t realistic.
A better method is to search for niche and specific keywords without the same level of competition, such as “military divorce attorney” or “contested vs. uncontested divorce.”
You must also consider the fact that keywords have a location attached. When someone is searching for local services, the location takes just as much precedence as the intent. So, while a more refined search won’t deliver as high a search volume, it can increase the leads you capture with focused targeting.
SEMRush and Google Keyword Planner both offer an excellent list of tools for finding keywords.
Beyond keyword relevance, search engines pay close attention to what’s called “domain authority.”
This is essentially the measurement of a website’s authority and trustworthiness. There are three main areas of SEO to focus on here.
On-Site Optimization
On-site optimization lies in the technical realm of SEO. You can think of it as optimizing the content and code on your website to enhance your search engine results.
While it certainly isn’t the most exciting aspect of SEO, it is crucial for building a solid foundation.
We can break it down into keyword or content-related SEO and non-keyword-related SEO.
Starting with keyword and content-related SEO, it’s important to note that search engines are far more sophisticated than they used to be. You can’t simply boost your rankings by flooding your page with keywords.
Your content needs to be relevant and fit user intent. Pages that meet the highest criteria standards for search engines have:
- In-Depth Content – Content that is thorough with relevant and substantive resources and text.
- Unique Content – Content that has not been duplicated from your website or another website.
- Authoritative Content – Does your content offer a reputable source of information on a relevant topic?
- User-Friendly Content – Is the content on your site easy to navigate? Is it easy to read and digest? Is it cluttered with affiliate links and ads?
- Content Aligned with Search Intent – One of the most important factors is to deliver based on the expectations of the searcher. Align your content with search queries to improve your rankings.
As well as meeting the criteria above, there are several elements of on-site optimization that can don’t observe keyword characteristics. These non-keyword-related SEO elements include:
- Mobile-friendliness – Does your website offer a responsive design when viewed on a mobile device?
- Page URL Structure – Keep your URLs definitive and concise, ensuring they are accurate, relevant, and compelling so that both users and search engines with have a clear understanding of what to expect when they land on that page
- Page Metadata – Metadata tells the search engine what your page offers, helping boost your search result relevancy.
- Page Load Speed – How fast does your page load compared to others? You can find more insights regarding page load speed for your site through Google’s PageSpeed Insights.
- Link Use – Are you using BOTH internal and external links on your page? If so, do they point to other relevant and authoritative material?
Optimize Your Local Search Visibility
As you start implementing an SEO strategy for your family law firm, it’s imperative to understand that the distance or proximity of the searcher is one of the most important ranking factors.
Over the past five to 10 years, Google has evolved exponentially. The search engine understands individual search contexts better than ever. The intent and location of a user’s search will take precedence over everything when it comes to local services.
For example, let’s say somebody from Phoenix, AZ, searches for “Divorce Attorney.”
Google will display results for divorce attorneys residing in Phoenix, AZ.
These results come in the form of Google Business Profiles.
Creating a Google Business Profile
If your family law firm has yet to claim a Google Business Profile, this should be your first order of business. It is an asset that we can’t emphasize the importance of enough.
A solid, well-optimized GBP page can transform your practice in unbelievable ways. It is a free profile law firms use to manage their online presence on Google.
When it comes to your Google Business Profile, the best real estate you can control in Google’s search engine results is what’s called the “local 3-pack.”
It’s exactly what it sounds like — a pack of three local search results based on the searcher’s location and query. If someone were to type in “family law firm in Boston,” they would likely get three suggestions from Google at the top, as well as their proximity to those firms.
There are plenty of family law marketing ideas and methods you can use to secure your spot on the Google Local 3-Pack, and LocalIQ wrote an excellent guide about it.
While securing 3-Pack real estate requires some time and effort, you can start by squeezing the most value out of your Google Business Profile:
- Fill Out Each Section of Your Profile – Google provides several sections for you to take advantage of on your profile. Utilizing each one of them can maximize the likelihood you appear in local searches. Add a business description, relevant categories, service areas, images, reviews, call tracking, and anything else that is made available to you.
- Take Advantage of Posts – Your GBP has room for you to create posts, keeping your profile relevant and up-to-date. Create a weekly habit of sharing blogs, posting company updates, and linking to your website pages.
- Utilize the Free Google Website – Click the “Website” tab in your GBP profile to collect and publish all of the information you’ve filled out on a free website that Google will build for you. Not only will it display all of your firm’s important details and contact info, but it also offers another digital space to place additional links.
When you fill out the above information properly, including your website, social links, business name, address, and phone number (NAP), Google will recognize your firm as a distinct entity. This entity acts as a bundle of data that ‘s explicitly tied to your business.
Note: always maintain a consistent NAP across any piece of online real estate.
Listing on Lawyer Directories
According to a survey from Thomson Reuters, around 30% of people who require legal services look to lawyer directories.
This shouldn’t come as a surprise in the high-speed internet era, where law firms attract clients by establishing a strong online presence. When you get listed on a lawyer directory, you can better leverage powerful marketing tools.
Beyond building trust with your clients, helping potential clients find you, and establishing expertise, lawyer directories can make your family law firm easier to find with backlinks.
There are hundreds of directories to choose from, each of which attracts specific types of illegal clientele. A few reputable directories you might consider are Avvo, FindLaw, Justia, and NOLO.
Data Aggregators
Data aggregators, such as Foursquare, Data Axle, Neustar, and GPS Data Team, collect and distribute business information to directories and websites across the internet. In fact, many directories work exclusively with data aggregators, meaning you can’t submit your information to them directly.
Manually submitting your firm’s information to directories can take up a lot of valuable time. Why not allow data aggregators to do it for you?
The important thing here is that every last detail that makes up your online entity is the same.
Structured Citations
Familiar with YellowPages.com?
That’s a popular example of a structure citation, and there are hundreds more.
A structured citation is a place where your NAP sits in a listing format.
Some popular ones include:
BrightLocal put out a list of the top 50 citation sites for reference.
Essentially, the more structured citations you can get listed on, the better your online visibility will be.
Unstructured Citations
Unstructured citations offer equally powerful mentions, referencing important NAP details. These are mentions of your business on third-party blogs, external websites, and other digital locations.
For example, if an online news website reference a local law firm’s NAP, whether complete or partial, it would be an unstructured citation.
Here are a few sources to help you land unstructured citations
- Web 2.0 Properties – Sites like HubPages and Medium allow people to post articles, wherein you can include your firm’s information.
- Press Releases – Distributing press release content to third-party outlets is an excellent way to get more unstructured citations. PRNewswire is one of the best press release distribution services.
Having a well-rounded balance of structured and unstructured citations tells search engines that your firm is reliable.
Putting in the legwork to obtain both can be incredibly advantageous.
Take Advantage of Social Media
The American Bar Association reported in its 2018 survey that small firms using social media for professional purposes saw a 42% uptick in clients.
Family law firms that are not taking advantage of social media are losing out on a massive pool of potential clients. As more and more firms focus on integrating social media strategies, resisting social media marketing altogether could give clients the impression that your firm is outdated — if they are able to find you at all.
Though social media can establish thought leadership, attract prospective clients, engage your target audience, and create brand awareness, it is a monstrous aspect of marketing to take on.
While you might consider hiring a social media specialist down the line, there are a few basic tips you can start with:
- Share original infographics with useful stats and facts
- Weigh in on conversations about relevant news and topics
- Create and post informative videos
- Share news updates or valuable blog posts
- Respond to comments and queries
It’s important to be on as many platforms as you possibly can.
The key here is not to spend every waking minute tending to each platform. Instead, simply having a profile on each platform can add benefit to your SEO.
Buffer put out a list of the top 20 social media sites your firm can be on right now.
Get on as many of these as you can. They offer a wonderful source of unstructured citations and backlinks, strengthening your online presence.
Start Growing Your Family Practice Today
For a family law firm to find success, applying the right marketing principles is crucial.
Compelling websites will give potential clients an accurate portrayal of your practice and the services you offer, social media platforms can help you build stronger relationships, and SEO optimization can help new clients find you while solidifying your firm as an authority in the field.
While your family law marketing efforts may not win you hundreds of new clients overnight, consistently implementing these marketing elements over time will deliver success.
