Anna was browsing in a bookstore when, suddenly, the bookshelf she was standing near toppled on to her. She became pinned under the bookshelf and hundreds of heavy, hardbound works of literature.
The bookstore staff were super concerned and helpful. They called an ambulance and Anna was taken to a hospital. She was treated for a brain injury, several broken bones, and many bruises. Anna stayed in the hospital for a couple of days. She missed weeks of work and had to hire someone to help her around the house and with her children.
The bookstore’s insurance representative called Anna and offered her a settlement. Should she take it? Would it cover her lost wages, medical bills, and other expenses? Unsure of the right move, Anna picked up her mobile phone and Googled “personal injury attorney near me.” She also texted a few friends to see if they had a referral. Then, she turned on the television and saw an advertisement for a personal injury law firm promising “we will fight for you.”
Was Anna led to your personal injury law firm in her moment of need? If you are marketing your personal injury law firm, you have certainly increased the chance that Anna found you — and hired you.
Personal Injury Law Firm Marketing Strategy and Plan
If you’re just starting to market your personal injury law firm, you must create a legal marketing strategy. This process will help you identify key information to ensure your marketing efforts are effective. They include:
- The service(s) you want to market. You may be a general personal injury law firm or you may focus on niche cases, like workplace injuries, faulty medical devices, or bicycle accidents. Be sure you and your team are clear about what you want to market.
- Who you are trying to reach with your marketing. This will depend largely on the service(s) you identified above, as well as geography. Both help create a personal injury law firm client “persona.” For example, if your practice focuses on filing personal injury claims against a specific pharmaceutical company, your client persona will be people who likely took the drug in question. Gender, age, and even location and professions could factor in.
- How you help. People contact personal injury law firms when they need assistance. Think about and list all the ways you help clients. You can use past great outcomes to illustrate the point. Examples include recovering millions of dollars in settlements for car accident victims or your track record of success in fighting insurance companies over policy limits.
- Who your competitors are. Learn about other personal injury law firms that offer the same services to the same targets to find ways you are different. You can also learn from their marketing — avoid their mistakes and emulate what works.
- What to say about your service. Using the above, create messaging about your service that you will use whenever you are marketing your personal injury law firm.
After you have the strategy, the next step is to create a legal marketing plan for your personal injury law firm. The plan is the actual marketing tactics you will use. It will also help you stay organized and on task by identifying roles, processes, timelines, budget, and, importantly, how you will measure success.
Three Ways to Start Marketing a Personal Injury Law Firm
With digital marketing comes a wealth of marketing tactics to choose from. There are some nuances to marketing a personal injury law firm, though, that make certain marketing tactics better options. Personal injury law firm clients are most likely not familiar with the law or how the legal process works. Chances are they or a loved one are experiencing a devastating trauma or injury. They want a personal injury attorney they can easily find and who is helpful, knowledgeable, and shows empathy and understanding.
Here are the three most effective tactics to start marketing a personal injury law firm:
Website
Whether the potential client found you by an online search or went to your website based on a referral, the personal injury law firm website has many jobs. As mentioned above, it must clearly communicate how you help people.
The website must also be optimized for mobile. Personal injury consumers are the second highest group of legal consumers to use their mobile devices to conduct a web search, according to Thomson Reuters. “Sixty-two percent of personal injury consumers use their mobile devices to conduct a web search regarding their legal need, 10% higher than the average. In addition, nearly half (48%) use a mobile phone to make contact with an attorney,” Thomson Reuters reports.
Another important website feature for personal injury law firms are calls to action. These can be links, click-to-call telephone numbers, chat boxes, contact forms, etc. The goal is to turn a potential lead into a client by making it easy for them to contact you.
Advertising
There is a reason so many personal injury law firms advertise on billboards and television — repeated exposure to your target audience makes you the first personal injury law firm they think of when the need arises. Those types of ads are “traditional,” along with advertisements in newspapers, on radio, etc.
Digital advertising can also be effective. Some options include pay-per-click (PPC) ads on Google or on social media, Local Service Ads (LSAs) on Google, and boosted social media posts. Be aware that online advertising in the legal industry is very competitive — especially for personal injury law firms. Working with an experienced, creative marketing team for digital advertising will save you money and earn you a better ROI.
Content
Any information you share on your personal injury law firm website, in advertisements, in marketing emails, on social media, and in thought leadership, like blogs, articles, videos, and webinars, is content. Helpful content that showcases the personal injury law firm’s expertise strengthens the firm’s reputation, builds relationships, and, importantly, supports search engine optimization (SEO). Whether a potential client finds you through search or is vetting you after a referral, showcasing what you do with consistent, accurate, descriptive content will increase the chance of that lead becoming a client.
Use some or all of the many marketing tactics available to personal injury law firms to help Anna and people just like her find you, trust you, and, ultimately, retain you.
