Secrets of Online Legal Marketing in India

Introduction

Online marketing is one of the most difficult tasks when it comes to the legal sector because of the already existing legal structure. Rule 36 of the Bar Council of India Rules has put a legal restriction upon advertising the work online. Namely, there are five things which a lawyer is allowed to advertise, i.e. Name of the firm, address, telephone number and email id, Details of enrollment, registration, areas of practice, and qualifications.

But not all marketing campaigns are producing a perfect result, but that does not mean you are going on the wrong track. In this article, some ways of online legal marketing will be discussed. A right strategy in the place with the right target audience can help achieve targets. Advertising is one of the most used marketing strategies which can be done through various methods.

Read Also: How to get more clients online in India 

The essence of online legal marketing

Every business runs with the help of clients, and online legal marketing helps to get clients because it increases your brand position. Branding has many unturned aspects that are not only limited to letterheads or business cards and winning marketing awards. Every law firm should have a fundamental strategy.  Primarily have the fundamental image of what you want to market.

Communication is the key to marketing. Be sure as to what you want others to know about you be it your capabilities, areas of expertise, team, etc. There must be a goal that is sought to be accomplished by online marketing. Some of the tips are:

1. Having a website that is fast and responsive, maybe enabled by bots that generate instant responses.
2. The website should be mobile friendly and compatible with devices (android and iOS)
3. Finding out about the law firm or lawyer should not be difficult, the online presence should be significant
4. The website or social media handle should not be boring and non-appealing. It should be attractive and have a designer outlook. But that is not all.

Ways of online legal marketing

1. Social media marketing:

Social media marketing and advertising are two different concepts. Social media marketing can be done in an unpaid manner.  Social media flows with the technology, and technology is improvising at a faster pace,  always leaving scope for improvement and a chance of being creative in marketing the products. Social media can be a big-time failure if not used appropriately. The return from such sites is not quantifiable as there is no fixed yardstick to measure the success of this approach.

Social media can be used to build referrals. What I mean to say by this is don’t expect your reader of the post to be your client (which may or may not happen), but it should create such an impact that you earn a referral for yourself. Increase the list of people who suggest your names. Not all the clients that a law firm or lawyer has are proper clients, and some may be friends, relatives, colleagues, or acquaintances, and their referred clients. So, this is how social media will help create awareness about you amongst the potential readers to act as a referral for the law firm.

What should you share on social media? Current cases, any landmark judgment passed by the Judiciary, any new legislation made, or any interesting amendments, take polls on legal questions, pose questions ethics v. law, and many such ideas to engage clients in your social media page.  Conducting surveys, organizing online polls will help you determine the actual user engagement.

2. Search engine optimization

This is a process in which the website traffic is increased by increasing the visibility of a website to users of web search engines. This is an unpaid method, i.e. natural. First understand who the target audience is and what search is are you trying to optimize like image search, video search, content search, academic search. The local area of your residence, business is where your target area is. The reason that follows is, whenever a person wants to see a lawyer, most searched is “lawyers near me” so such optimization can help give a boost to the marketing strategy. The business profile (search google my business for desired results) of google eases up this task for you and helps you create directory profiles.

By way of SEO, you are increasing your visibility and increasing presence by google maps. Google has access to the location of the individual (if enabled), and it filters the searches accordingly. Having an online presence in online directories can also give beneficial to increasing SEO.

3. Blogging and content creation

Blogging is a very significant tool in marketing. It is important to blog about the right thing. Blogging at the right time with the right content at regular intervals is the key.

Primarily understand your target audience, is it meant for lawman or layman, because layman may not be interested in a supreme court judgment about divorce until and unless it is of significant importance to them. So, lawmen can be the target audience in this case. However, the language used by the framers of the constitution is too complicated to understand, and thus simplifying law is for the layman’s target content.

Keep a list of topics considering what your competitors are doing and what topics are covered by them, identify the frequently asked questions, and prepare what needs to be addressed first, it will help create better content. There are many topics of law of which even today are not addressed properly, add them to the list. You can also engage in designing courses, creating educational infographics, providing online teaching on subjects of expertise. There are many sites where there are questions put forward by the users of the internet; answering them also comes under the domain of content creation. Email tracking, sending newsletters, and follow-up are a few methods to keep in line with the existing and previous clients.

Conclusion

It may so happen that even after doing everything right, the engagement on social media handles or website viewership is not high. It is nothing to get disappointed about, but it is about generating new potential ideas to get clients and have patience because this success cannot be quantified.

Read Also : 3 Habits That Can Help Lawyers to Get More Clients