Marketing in Law Firms

Welcome to another episode of SEO Bullshit. In this article we are going to dive into the subject of Marketing in Law Firms. This leads to the ultimate question I have been pondering for awhile…

“What about marketing agencies that have a niche market?”

By a niche market, I mean, a marketing agency that specializes in one industry. This my friends, leads us to another episode of SEO Bullshit, “Marketing for Law Firms.”

There are two scenarios when looking for a digital marketing for a Law Firm.

1. The digital marketing agency has different cliental from an array of industries.
2. Or, the marketing agency as a specific niche industry. For example, they specialize in law firms.

Which one is better? What are the pros and cons? Or, if any pros and cons even exist? Let’s see shall we.

Digital Marketing in Law Firms

Before we begin our discussion, which one would you choose above? Number one or Number two? and “Why” did you make your choice?

If your chose Number 1:

If you are a lawyer and looking to hire a marketing agency to do your marketing for your law firm it might make sense to pick Number 1. But let’s see.

The main PRO to choosing question Number 1 is that this marketing agency will have an array of skills because they help many clients from different industries. So, they are very adaptable and can have a broader skill set because of being exposed to many industries at a given time. Plus, they should have an in-depth skill set because their clients are from all walks of life in business.  For example, you might have mom & pop shops, photographers; e-commerce and Shopify; products and sales funnels; to very large brands. 

The main CON is that if the marketing agency doesn’t have knowledge within the legal industry, they have to learn all the domain knowledge from you or through research. So, there is a learning curve. 

If you chose Number 2:

The main PRO to choosing question Number 2 is that the marketing agency already has the domain knowledge in law. Furthermore, they have a deeper understanding of the ins-and-outs of law, legal terminology and already knows all the products associated with the legal industry.

The main CON is something you maybe have not thought about. If a marketing agency’s niche market are law firms and they only have lawyers as clients;

Well, they have you as a client as well as your competitors in your local area! 

Marketing in Law Firms: Your Competitors

Now, think about this way. You own your Law Firm and you begin searching for marketing agencies. You find a marketing agency that specializes within the legal industry, and you think, “Yes!” But, what you didn’t imagine is that they represent you and your competitors as well.

To take is a step further, the same questions you would ask a marketing agency is the same exact questions your competitors ask as well. A popular question from clients is,

“What are my competitors doing?”

And, of course, the client wants to copy their competition. And this is exactly what happens. These agencies just copy from competitors.

You may ask,

“Why?”

Because it is easy. Takes no effort and thought. It takes no strategy. As a test, just look online in your industry locally (Marketing in a Law Firm) and you will probably see nearly identical websites and so forth. And, sometimes you will even find word-for-word identical websites, web pages, product pages, and so on.

This is very dangerous and not good for your Marketing and SEO Strategies because remember Google ranks for Branding. What is your BRAND! I am not talking about your niche market. I am talking about your Brand. What does your company, business and culture stand for. What sets your business apart from others.

All this hype with…

“What are my competitors doing?”

And, even using software like Spyfu. You have to understand, most of this is SEO Bullshit. Don’t take what I am saying the wrong way. It’s fine to keep tabs on your competition but to literally copy from them, it’s bad news. And, it bad news for your SEO, digital marketing and for your Brand. 

Marketing Agency Confidentiality

Another thing to think about is marketing confidentiality. For the most part, marketing agencies try to keep client confidentiality at pare but it’s not as confidential as you might think.

Most of the time no matter if it’s marketing in law firms or a marketing company has many different clients, the marketing specialist will share what companies or clients are doing with other prospective clients. The marketing agency might not share the client’s names but will share what they are doing for you.

For example, if you are an attorney and own your legal practice. You might ponder, “Should I Even Hire a Digital Marketing Agency.” You research and pick an agency specializing in the legal field but you did not imagine they could be sharing your ideas, business and website information with your competitors.

The Cookie-Cutter Marketing Agency

One major item of concern and to look out for is the cookie-cutter approach within marketing agencies. For example, when a marketing agency specializes within the legal industry and offering Marketing and SEO packages to only law practices, this is the biggest sin. In order for the marketing company to scale it’s services, they develop a cookie-cutter approach. Meaning, they give the same advice to all their clients. This may get you thinking about or leaning towards either hiring a marketing company versus do it yourself. 

Think about it this way. You are already a business owner. You’re an attorney that has their own firm. So, as a business owner, you want to scale your services, right? The same goes for a marketing company. They want to scale their services. In order to make more money, they need to increase their cliental. Once they have an abundance of clients, then they need to systemize their Marketing and SEO Services. For example, a lot of companies that do web design, most of the time, their finished website is a cookie-cutter site because they want to get the website finished in 1-2 hours to make the most profit. Make sense?