The Best Way to Market a Law Practice
Law firms, like most other small businesses, need clients to stay afloat, to be successful. And, because of the competition that is out there between law firms, getting clients and marketing your law firm isn’t easy. Today I’m going to give you a little bit of help finding clients. I’m going to tell you what I think is the best way to market a law practice.
Before I begin let me tell you a little bit about me. I’m a criminal attorney. I opened my firm a little over a year ago, and I’ve been making some sort of profit every month since about month 3. I derived my marketing information from a lot of sources, but primarily through trial and error. I’d throw something out there, see if it worked, and if it did, I’d keep it, if it didn’t I’d move on to something else. In that process I learned something very important.
There are several different ways to get clients to your law firm (or any other business for that matter). There is search engine optimization, or ranking highly in the search engines for keywords people use to find you (for me one would be Seattle criminal lawyer, for example). There is adwords, which is paid advertising on the internet. There is print advertising, radio advertising, speaking, and direct mail advertising. But none of those is as effective as the method I find works best – referrals.
Referrals are extremely powerful marketing tools for your business. A referral is great because it tells people that someone trusts you. I mean, they wouldn’t be sending someone to you unless they did right? They are going out on a limb to tell people that you are someone they trust. I can tell you that with many of my referrals, they don’t even need to be sold. They tell me they need a criminal attorney, were referred by blank, and ask what it’s going to cost.
But to have great referrals you need to make a conscious effort to ask for them. Have a system in place that lets everyone in your network know what you do and that you’d appreciate referrals. And when you get a referral, make sure to contact the referrer and thank them gratuitously.
You might get some calls with SEO and adwords, but referrals are what will make you rich. So market your law firm (whether you are a criminal lawyer or not) by asking for business from those you know and those you’ve helped in the past. Usually they be glad to send it your way.
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