Online Marketing Guidelines for Law Practitioners and Reaching Out to Prospects

The law industry is much more regulated than others when it comes to online marketing and advertising. Many lawyers might hesitate to do anything online beyond a basic website, worried that being too active, casual or exercising too much influence could lead them to be subject to review and even potential punishment.

Breaking down Complicated Guidelines

Law practice is regulated by state and there are no universal guidelines to follow. Every state’s lawyer association will have specific rules and guidelines regarding online marketing. As a legal professional you should be aware of them and make sure none are infringed.

A practical way of ensuring this is printing out a copy of your online marketing guidelines. Highlight all major points that your office has to take into consideration, e.g. every outbound e-mail has to contain the words “advertising material” in the following regions.

Afterwards make a separate document with the highlighted guidelines, which should offer an easy to read compilation of guidelines.

Finally, try to compress it further into a list of bullet points for quick comprehension. Share this with every person in your office that has to do anything with your website, social media or advertising. This way, you should be able to maintain an active online presence without overstepping any ethical lines.

Let Your Clients Know You

Undoubtedly, marketing has changed significantly since the appearance of the internet. As such, prospects have also become more knowledgeable about what they want and what they are searching for. One of the biggest changes has been a prospect’s need to have a conversation rather than be sold to. This is also true for hiring a lawyer.

While your expertise and experience is high on the customers’ list of priorities, they also want to see the person behind it. Before forming professional collaboration, you also have to build a personal bridge with your potential clients.

In this regard, consider using video content profiling each of your attorneys. Let them introduce themselves and give a short description of what they do and what their expertise is in.

The videos will give your prospects the relief of recognizing lawyer at the first face-to-face meeting, and also provide new clients with a feeling of familiarity.

Considering the nature of legal issues clients might have, making them feel at ease will make it easier for them to reach out to you. Rather than being too intimidated, your potential client should feel like they’re heading into an office full of experienced professionals who can help them solve their legal problems.