Just like every other industry, lawyers can benefit from digital marketing. But unlike other industries, there are unique challenges that make digital marketing harder.

Some of these problems are self-inflicted, like leading with the expertise and failing to establish a relationship with a potential client. But there are other problems that influence the industry as a whole, like fear of violating the legal marketing guidelines.

Digital marketing is a tool that can enhance a lawyer’s business and reputation. And thankfully, there are 3 steps that you can take to eliminate these problems and make digital marketing easier.

Start with Your Audience

At the core of every business’s digital marketing strategy is its audience.

One common mistake many lawyers make is jumping straight into creating content. They’ll start writing legal blog posts without even thinking about who their target audience is.

Why does this matter? What’s the point of writing a legal blog post that no one is going to engage with?

Beginning with your target audience in mind will make the rest of your digital marketing campaign easier. Defining your potential clients will make it easier to create content that caters to your audience.

How do you properly define your target audience? By creating buyer personas.

What is a Buyer Persona?

A buyer persona is a customer profile. Think of it as a spreadsheet of the potential client you would like to work with.

Buyer personas are when you have the chance to collect the customer data that will assist your content marketing needs. You get the chance to create personas based on:

• Your customers’ demographics (age and gender)
• Their thoughts
• How they view your legal services
• Why they would need your legal services
• Their pain points.

Buyer personas are more than just imaginary customer profiles. They’re a guide that helps put yourself in the minds of your potential clients.

The more you understand your target audience, the better you can structure your content to their needs. But you can’t do that when you don’t even know what their needs are.

When creating your buyer persona, be as studious as possible. Conduct research on what your ideal customer would want, how they would search for legal services, and what information they would need to know before consulting a lawyer.

Once your buyer persona is completed, proceed to the next step.

Create a Content Plan

You want to use the information from your buyer personas to create an effective content plan. You may be thinking to yourself, “I do have a content plan. I’ve been writing blog posts and landing pages for my website.”

That’s not the same thing. What if you’ve been writing legal blog posts that have nothing to do with your clients’ problems? You’re right back at square one – creating content that’s not grabbing your audience’s attention.

A content plan helps you add the most value to your audience. It makes it easier for you to address your clients’ pain points and explain how your legal services help them.

One of the best ways that you can add value to your clients is to structure your content around their buying journey. As a lawyer, you are a service provider.

You’re providing legal services that can make your clients’ lives easier. And just like every other service, there’ a journey that your clients go through before doing business with you.

Taking Advantage of the Buyer’s Journey

This is the perfect place to start with your content plan. You can design content around:

• Make your clients aware of the legal problems they’re facing.
• Identify potential solutions to your clients’ legal problems.
• Explain how your legal services can help address your clients’ legal problems.
• What can your clients expect while working with you.

These steps should be enough to brainstorm some great topics for your clients.

Next, you want to think about the types of content that you will create for your clients. This is where the information from your buyer personas comes into play.

What types of content will your clients appreciate? Will they take the time to read a legal blog post? Do they need content that answers their questions at their convenience, like a FAQ page?

Are they visual learners and prefer how-to videos?

The answers to these questions will make content creation easier for you. You’ll focus on providing the most quality in your content instead of worrying about what type of content to create.

Once your content plan has been established, you can move on to the final step: deciding how to market it.

Create a Content Marketing Strategy

Again, you may be thinking, “Wait a minute. I just created a content plan. That’s my marketing strategy.”

Again, not necessarily. There’s a difference between creating content and knowing how to market that content.

Does it make sense to create an Instagram account for your law firm if your target audience isn’t on there? And how would you market content like a blog post on that type of channel?

A common mistake that lawyers make is assuming that every social media channel is the same. Each channel deserves its own unique marketing approach; and with the right marketing strategy, you can discover the best one for your law firm.

Developing a content marketing strategy makes it easier to market your content across several channels. It helps you to create unique social media posts for each channel while maintaining the same brand voice.

It also helps establish a deeper connection between you and your potential clients. You can view your social media content as another way to serve your clients.

Studying Metrics

Another benefit that comes with a content marketing strategy is the ability to measure its impact.

Each social media channel comes with its own set of metrics. These metrics can be used to study the results of your content marketing strategy.

You can view what types of content your audience is engaging with, what social media posts are performing well, and which ones aren’t.

You can also take advantage of a method known as A/B testing. This is a method where content creators take two different types of content and see which one receives more engagement.

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