Many small and medium-sized law firms are struggling to find enough customers, especially if they are not advertising online. Unfortunately, digital marketing is complex, and coming up with a comprehensive strategy can be hard. With the help of a digital marketing consultancy, you can develop a great website and figure out which search engines and social platforms you should advertise with. LinkedIn ads are a good option for many lawyers.
However, ads on their own won’t help you to gain new customers because most people aren’t ready to buy right away. Instead, you’ll need to nurture your leads by helping them with a problem and demonstrating your expertise. Read on to find out more about how advertising on LinkedIn works and whether this could be a good option for your business.
Are LinkedIn Ads Worth It?
LinkedIn advertisements are often more expensive than similar ads on other social media sites, so some marketing specialists avoid them. However, they can be a great source of leads and clients for attorneys in certain fields, especially those who work with other business owners or professionals. Because LinkedIn members aren’t usually looking to purchase a service right away, you might have to develop a sales cycle.
This means that your link needs to take leads to your website, which has to be informative, interesting, and relevant. If you don’t yet have a website or you’d like to improve the content you’re posting, speak to a digital marketing expert. They can show you the various advertising options and help you determine which one is most suitable for you.
The Type of Service You Offer
LinkedIn users generally go on the platform for a specific purpose, which might include finding out about their career options, finding a new job, or discovering opportunities for personal or professional development. If you work in a branch of the law that is compatible with these aims, for example, employment law, business law, intellectual property law, or the laws surrounding estate planning, advertising on LinkedIn could be a good option.
However, attorneys working in personal injury or criminal law might not have much success on LinkedIn because the customers they are hoping to attract often won’t be searching for lawyers on this platform. Instead, these attorneys might do better on Google or Facebook, and other social media sites.
Thinking About the Sales Cycle
Someone who browses LinkedIn is unlikely to require a lawyer right away, but they might be able to benefit from legal help or advice. In other words, they are at an early stage in the sales cycle. For this reason, the best ads on LinkedIn don’t immediately try to sell people something. Instead, they are designed to inform people about important legal topics related to the attorney’s field of work.
Once a person clicks on your ad, they might be taken to your website, where they can find a lot of helpful information about the topic they are interested in. If you post regular blog updates, informative articles, and even podcasts or videos, people will linger on your site and be more likely to contact you. The ultimate goal of a LinkedIn ad is to get the customer to request a consultation, but they will only do that if they perceive you as helpful and experienced.
The Type of Ad
There are several types of ads to choose from on LinkedIn, and not everyone will work equally well for every lawyer. The simplest ones are text ads, which appear on various pages including the member profiles, the search results, and the group pages. There is also sponsored content and video content, which means that your articles or videos will be promoted and shown in members’ feeds, even if the users aren’t following you yet.
This is a particularly good option for you as an attorney because it positions you as a thought leader in your field and gives you a chance to show your audience how experienced and helpful you are. Finally, there is sponsored in-mail, which is content sent directly to your prospective customers’ inboxes when they are online on the platform. Direct mail can be targeted to the individual.
What Monthly Ad Spend Is Best?
As mentioned, LinkedIn ads are often expensive, so you might have to spend more on this platform than on others. Your digital marketing consultancy might advise you to budget $2,000-5,000 per month to start with because this allows for an ad spend of $66-165 per day. However, you can start with a lot less, especially if your firm is small and you only need to find a handful of new clients per month.
How Can a Digital Marketing Consultancy Help?
Most attorneys have worked hard to perfect their knowledge of the law, but they might not be experts at marketing their skills. By hiring a digital advertising expert, you can delegate this task to someone highly trained and focus on what you’re good at instead: serving your clients.
Your marketing specialist will collaborate with you to come up with a unified brand for your business, and they will explore all advertising strategies to help you find the best ones. Over time, they will evaluate whether the current methods are working and adjust the strategy as necessary.
Unifying Your Online Image
When you post a text, video, or content-based ad on LinkedIn, the style should be similar to what you have on your website and your social media channels. Projecting a unified image is important because it gives clients a sense of who you are and what you stand for. That’s why your marketing consultants will discuss your goals, values, and preferred esthetic with you before starting to work on your account.
If you don’t have a logo and a color scheme yet, they will help you come up with one, which you can use on all your channels. What’s more, they will speak to you about the kind of language and images you’d like to use. Do you want to appear down-to-earth and personable, or would you prefer to demonstrate competence and professionality? This will influence the kind of content you post and the way you present your brand.
Exploring Various Marketing Tactics
Digital marketing is a broad field, and the most successful companies don’t just use one strategy. Instead, they might advertise on multiple platforms, collaborate with other businesses, and use both paid ads and free marketing on social media platforms. Your consultants will start by laying out all the options and suggesting the ones that could work for you.
Because there are so many platforms, people who have a limited budget usually do their best to focus on two or three sites that best fit their business. For example, a lawyer looking for businesses to work with might select LinkedIn, but a lawyer who works with individuals might do better on Facebook. Both of these professionals could use Twitter as their second social platform since this platform is used for both leisure and business purposes.
LinkedIn ads can be a great source of high-quality leads for some kinds of law firms. However, it’s best to get advice from a digital marketing consultancy before getting started, since there are many advertising strategies, and not all of them work equally well for all businesses. Message us at Local Business Marketing Solutions to find out more about the various online ads and which ones could help you receive a steady stream of leads.
