Learn about the most relevant lead generation strategies for lawyers to get more calls.
Lead generation for law firms can be hard to figure out, especially considering that the skillset of most lawyers is aligned with their main job duties, not sales and marketing. But it’s important to master it to build a successful law firm.
Lead generation is a marketing term that refers to attracting interested people to your business. For law firms, lead generation is about attracting people who think they need legal help and convincing them to hire your company.
Lead generation tips for lawyers |
|---|
Build an online presence in places where people look for legal advice. |
Improve your firm’s authority and trustworthiness. |
Attract people who might have a case that you can help with to avoid wasting time on unproductive calls. |
In this guide, we’ll share 14 lead generation strategies that can work for most lawyers.
A lead is a potential customer who takes an interest in your business. They can indicate this interest directly by reaching out for a quote or indirectly by, say, subscribing to your newsletter or viewing the pricing page.
Lead generation is the process that involves incentivising more people to become leads, either by increasing the number of people who know about your company or by improving the sales copy to incentivise more people to call you.
In digital marketing for law firms, this process often takes the form of:
Law firm lead generation brings in a consistent stream of clients. Running an efficient lead generation campaign means you will not have to worry about finding cases to work on and will focus on putting in billable hours.
Consistency in lead generation for lawyers means security. You will be able to ride through the normal peaks and valleys that occur in every business.
With a good lawyer lead generation strategy, you will be able to capture, stimulate, and retain the interest of potential clients until the sale cycle is complete.
All businesses engage in lead generation sporadically by posting on social media from time to time or by getting a recommendation from former clients. But that’s not enough to create a long-lasting firm. Developing a solid lead generation strategy can help you to:
To create a strategic approach to lead generation, your law firm will have to explore different leadgen techniques, implement the ones that fit your business the most, set goals, and track performance across each lead generation channel.
Most marketers break down the sales funnel into four steps:
Here is a breakdown of what each of these steps might mean in the context of law firm lead generation.
Your goal in lead generation is to increase the number of leads on each stage and convert them more effectively.
With most law firms today doing lead generation, it is only with the right strategies, tools, and tips that you will succeed in generating leads for lawyers that convert. Below are a few tried and tested tips:
Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
The website is the main driver of conversions. | Might require a costly redesign. |
The website lets you control the narrative on the page. | Might take some time spent on A/B testing to get it right. |
Your website is the most important lead generation asset you have. It showcases your expertise, shows how you position yourself as compared to the competition, and can convert prospects into leads.
Your website should:
Audit your website and find growth areas. A complete redesign is only needed if the site was developed 15 years ago and looks outdated. If you think that’s necessary, take inspiration from the best lawyer websites.
In most other cases, you’ll need to change a few things or add a few pages to make it better. For instance, you could add reviews from third-party websites to show visitors they can trust you, or simplify the process of contacting your firm to receive more leads.
Run A/B tests on your site to see which changes result in more conversions.
Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
Landing pages draw in relevant traffic. | You might need to create dozens of landing pages. |
Landing pages focus on a particular case and can convert better than the home page. | Each will require rigorous A/B testing to optimize. |
Landing pages are meant to explain a particular part of your business that interests a customer and convince them your law firm is the right choice for them. Creating and optimizing them can help you draw in relevant traffic and convert it.
Typically, landing pages are centered on one of the services you provide or an area you serve. Here’s an example of a landing page that focuses on an area of legal practice.
It’s best to create a landing page for each major service your law firm provides. This will show website visitors what you can help them with. It can also draw in new potential leads from Google search if you optimize each landing page for keywords associated with it.
A good landing page should share all the characteristics of a good website and explain the topic it covers. Here’s how you can optimize your landing pages:
Law firm landing pages can also benefit from A/B testing, especially if you experiment with calls to action.
Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
Can drive relevant traffic to the website. | It takes multiple months to see results. |
Can improve brand awareness and recognition. | It might require experimenting with your strategy to be successful. |
A website that is optimized for conversions will not produce any unless people are coming over to the website. Only a fraction of your website visitors will access it through a social media link. Most people will find you either on a website that lists local lawyers or through searching the web.
The US population actively uses Google search to find legal services online. Search engine optimization can help you gain visibility in search and direct interested users to your law firm’s website.
Here are the three key areas to focus on if you want to optimize your law firm’s website and generate more leads from organic search.
You might need to spend a long time building links before your site starts appearing in the top ten of search results, especially if your area is more competitive than others.
Monitor performance as you work on SEO to make sure you’re moving in the right direction.
Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
Local SEO taps into a stream of highly interested local traffic. | Requires a lot of reviews for visibility. |
Many optimization strategies also improve other lead generation areas. | It might be hard to dominate search in competitive locations. |
Both lawyer licensing and pure convenience make people look for local lawyers. Many searches for legal services will return local search results like these.
Doing local SEO for lawyers can help you tap into local traffic, increase brand awareness, and get more calls. Here are a few steps you need to take to do this.
The last point is extremely important as high-ranking GBP profiles consistently have a lot of positive reviews. To increase the number of reviews you receive, send out an email campaign to past clients asking them to leave a review on Google. Include a link to your profile to make it easier for them.
Amassing reviews on Google will also help improve lead generation for lawyers, as it boosts your trustworthiness. You can also display some Google reviews on your site.
Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
It can bring in leads right from the start of an ad campaign. | Leads are only coming in as long as you keep paying for ads. |
Typically, advertising has a decent ROI if optimized. | Poor optimization can result in major overspending with low ROI. |
All the attorney lead generation tips above take time until you see results, often a few months. Paid advertising produces results much faster but requires spending constantly to keep the ad campaign running and leads coming in.
There are two major ways you can advertise your law firm: on Google and on social media. Google text ads appear over the organic search results.
Running Google ads for lawyers can be very costly because of high competition. For instance, the average cost per click for the keyword “lawyer NYC” when advertising on Google is $6. Considering the high lifetime value of the client in this industry, the price is worth it, but it can require a large recurring investment.
If you want to try reducing the costs of advertising, try these strategies:
Social media ads are served in the form of images or videos on platforms like Facebook and Instagram. You can control the demographics that can see your ads with a great deal of precision, from their age and interests, to major life events they might be going through.
Нou will need to experiment with the format and the message of the ad before you find what works for you.
Remember that in Canada, you have to follow advertising rules for lawyers or risk having legal troubles.
Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
Improves brand recognition. | Doesn’t help generate leads directly. |
Significantly improves SEO. |
Leads will come to your law firm if they know about your existence and believe you are trustworthy. You can achieve both if you get your name out there on an already existing and respectable channel. Getting backlinks and mentions from reputable websites also significantly boosts your SEO.
Here are three ways you can do this.
It might be harder to track the leads that come to you through these channels, but it improves your brand recognition. You’re also putting your name in front of an interested demographic as people who are watching a podcast on, say, personal injury law, might be trying to understand whether they have a case.
Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
Improves brand recognition. | Doesn’t help generate leads directly. |
Improves brand trust. |
70% of consumers globally are more likely to buy from brands they believe reflect their values. Companies’ conduct is constantly scrutinized and criticized. Working with charities can not only help your community, but also show local residents that your company has morals.
It won’t bring in leads directly, but it might be one of the factors people consider before choosing your company. Make sure to highlight your cooperation and donations on your website and social media pages.
Taking a few cases pro bono can also drive word-of-mouth marketing, especially if the case is widely publicized.
This is mostly relevant for law firms that work with individuals. Corporate clients might not care about your charitable work.
Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
Improves brand recognition. | Not all content helps generate leads directly. |
Improves brand trust. | Requires investing time and resources for quality content. |
Attracts and retains potential leads. |
The creation of quality content remains one of the most effective ways to generate leads. Quality content brings you out as an expert in your niche and as a thought leader. It helps with both discovering your brand and building trust.
Here are a few lawyer content marketing ideas:
You can invite people for a free consultation in the video or leave a call-to-action in your article like this one.
But overall, producing content might not generate leads fast, apart from holding webinars. Mostly, it’s a strategy focused on increasing brand awareness, building an authoritative brand image, and being the first company that comes to mind when a lead has the need for your services.
Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
One of the best ROIs among lead generation strategies. | Works only with people who gave consent for emails. |
Helps retain potential leads. |
In most industries, email marketing takes the form of sending out information about sales and discounts to prompt users to buy. In your industry, that won’t work as people don’t need a lawyer’s services unless something has happened in their lives.
The goal of email marketing for lawyers is to stay at the top of the mind of potential leads and improve their odds of being the first pick when they have a need.
Keep your email frequency low, not more than twice a month. Here are a few email marketing ideas for lawyers:
Here’s an example of what you can include in a newsletter.
Alt: A newsletter created by a law firm.
To get emails in your email list, consider these strategies:
Consider running a campaign among your past clients to ask them how they’re doing. Hearing from a lawyer who helped them once or twice a year can build a relationship, and they will be more likely to recommend your services to friends and family.
Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
Doesn’t involve investing money in lead generation. | It’s mostly unpredictable. |
Generates leads who trust you because they’re referred by someone they trust. |
Hiring a lawyer is a major expense for most people, and marketing might not be enough to convince some. People in need of legal help will trust somebody else’s experience over advertising every day. Especially if it comes from another professional.
Building a referral network with other practitioners of law can be your best source of leads. There are three major ways to do this:
If you’re starting out and aren’t well known in the local circles, few people would answer your request on LinkedIn or in their inbox. Instead of asking them to add you to their network, add them to yours.
Start the conversation by asking what their specialization is and what cases they would prefer to be referred to them. They will be more inclined to ask you those questions back and add you to their referrals.
Ideally, you should network with lawyers who aren’t your direct competitors. This would make transferring cases to each other easier.
Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
Improves brand awareness and discovery. | Most likely requires creating a personal brand, which might not be what you want. |
Helps retain potential leads. | Getting your content picked up by the algorithms might be hard. |
According to SproutSocial research, 93% of consumers want brands to keep up their online presence, and many follow brands on social media for updates. Many people use social media for brand discovery and contact businesses via social media messengers.
Even if you don’t want to try and have your posts go viral to draw in new leads, keeping a presence on social media can help with building rapport with potential clients. Create a unique brand style and post regularly. Here are a few social media post ideas for lawyers.
Consider collaborating on posts with legal industry influencers to widen your reach.
Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
Doesn’t require substantial investments. | Hard to measure and predict. |
Generates leads that trust you, thanks to the recommendation of a friend or a family member. |
Word of mouth marketing remains one of the most effective ways of getting leads because people will trust the recommendation of friends and family more than your advertising.
You can’t directly influence who recommends your law firm, though. The only way you can generate leads from word of mouth is by providing an excellent service. Both in terms of doing a great job on a client’s case and treating them nicely in the process.
Build a relationship with your clients that goes past handling the case. Sending a birthday email or asking for an update in their lives once in a while can go a long way. This will keep your law firm at the top of their mind for when someone in their circle asks for a referral.
Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
Helps start a conversation with leads and convert them. | Requires a significant time investment. |
Helps build a positive reputation. | Not all consultations will result in signing a contract. |
Lead generation for lawyers isn’t only about attracting people to your business; it’s also about converting them. Providing a short free consultation on a lead’s case can cement their decision to hire your firm.
Invite website visitors for a consultation with a CTA displayed in a place that’s highly visible. Consider adding social proof next to it to prompt more requests.
It can take the form of a short call to gauge whether they have a case, if they want to sue, or figure out whether you can defend them in a case. Be professional, be kind to them, and provide valuable advice.
Even if you end up referring some of them to another law firm, many of the leads you talk to will end up being your clients.
Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
This approach produces the most results for the least amount of effort. | You might be missing long-term optimization opportunities. |
In lead generation, it’s best to look for areas that require little investment to produce significant results first.
Areas that you’re already successful in might take a lot of work to produce marginal improvements. Areas that you haven’t invested in at all might take a lot of work before you see any results.
Analyze your lead generation efforts and look for areas that you have invested in before but aren’t seeing the level of success you wanted. For instance, you might have a lot of blog articles on your site that aren’t ranking well. Optimizing them for search can result in increasing organic traffic and generating more leads.
Or you can find that you have a vast database of customer emails that you don’t market to. Starting an email campaign can draw in new leads.
You should also look for the strong sides of your business and lean in on them, whether it’s a professional network or the skills of your employees.
The choice of the lead generation strategies for your law firm relies on multiple factors:
Here is the comparison table of all the lead generation strategies mentioned in this guide to help you choose.
Strategy | Pros | Cons | Use case | Priority |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Website optimization. | The website is the main driver of conversions. | Takes testing to get it right. | Applicable to all law firms. | High. |
Optimizing landing pages. | Drive and covert niche traffic. | Takes testing to get it right. | Applicable to all law firms. | High. |
Search engine optimization. | Drives relevant traffic to the website. | Takes months to see results. | Applicable to all law firms. | High. |
Local SEO. | Drives local traffic to the firm. | Relies on a large number of reviews. | Applicable to all law firms. | High. |
Paid advertising. | Generates leads fast. | Can lead to overspending. | Applicable to all law firms. | High. |
Receives media mentions. | Helps with brand image and SEO. | Doesn’t generate many leads directly. | Long-term complementary strategy. | Medium. |
Work with charities. | Helps with brand images and trust. | Doesn’t generate many leads directly. | Long-term complementary strategy. | High. |
Create quality content. | Helps draw in and retain cold leads. | Not all content generates leads directly. | Long-term complementary strategy. | Medium. |
Email marketing. | Helps retain leads. | Doesn’t draw in new leads. | Applicable to all law firms. | High. |
Referral network. | Generates leads who trust you. | Hard to measure and predict. | Applicable to all law firms. | High. |
Social media marketing. | Improves brand awareness and discovery. | Requires significant investment to do it right. | Long-term complementary strategy. | Medium. |
Word-of-mouth marketing. | Generates leads who trust you. | Hard to measure and predict. | Applicable to all law firms. | High. |
Free consultations. | A conversation starter with leads. | Requires time investment. | Applicable to all law firms. | High. |
Gathering low-hanging fruit. | Optimizes ROI. | Misses on long-term opportunities. | Applicable to all law firms. | High. |
Doing lead generation for lawyers with the efforts of an in-house team is an option that gives you more control over what you do, but requires managing it, which can eat away at your billing hours. Another option is hiring an agency to handle your lead generation effort.
Here is how the two compare.
Doing lead generation yourself | Hiring an agency | |
|---|---|---|
Level of control | Complete control over the process. | Low level of control over the small details. |
Knowledge requirements | High levels of knowledge about lead generation processes. | Only enough knowledge to vet the agency you hire. |
Investment | High to medium investment in hiring an in-house team. | Medium investment in an agency. |
Efficiency | It might take time before you arrive at a solution that works. | Takes less time to see results. |
If you want to explore law firm lead generation with an agency, contact the dNOVO team to get a free consultation.
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