Small Law Firms

Just Do... Anything To Promote Your Firm Online

When it comes to marketing yourself and your practice "doing anything is doing something."

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There are a million things small and solo practitioners have to do to keep the lights on, and in the hustle and bustle of it all, taking time to actually market your practice is one of them. Sure, you know you should do something — it might even help your bottom line — but figuring out where to start when clients and court dates and administrative tasks are all vying for your attention can be a challenge.

Helping lawyers develop a digital marketing strategy was the focus of a recent panel at ABA Techshow, held in Chicago March 7-10. Led by Tim Baran, Chief Marketing Officer at Good2bSocial, and Julie Tolek, founder of Think Pink Law, the discussion was designed to lead lawyers through specific steps they can take to maximize their online presence.

The pair broke their formula down to a simple acronym GAPA — goals, audience, plan, and analytics — to reduce what could be seen as a daunting task into manageable steps. The first step, identifying your marketing goal, seems fairly straightforward: you want more revenue, so you need more clients (to achieve revenue goals), that derive from leads (to achieve client goals), which you get from brand awareness. But as the panel said, integrating it into your already busy schedule can be challenging. Tolek recommends focusing on questions like: What kind of law do you want to do? Where do you already hang out/who do you already know? What do you already do regularly? To more easily identify your goals.

The panel also discussed how knowing your audience is also an important step. Understanding where your target audience hangs out — IRL and online is essential to reach them. The plan for converting your audience involves creating a brand and being consistent. Start with any social platform and answer the questions you hear all the time, once you put yourself out there as an expert you’ll start to see the benefits of increased recognition. Though the panel didn’t have much time to delve into the details of using analytics to track the benefits of your efforts, they did point to Google Analytics and Lexicata as resources for data.

More than anything both Baran and Tolek stressed how important it is to start the process of marketing yourself online, even if you can’t commit to a full plan just yet. Tolek said, “Doing anything is doing something.” Put yourself out there and record a quick video (even if it is in your car), just do a short half hour webinar — the hardest part is just taking that first leap.

Tolek streamed the entire presentation on Facebook — because of course — so you can watch the whole thing here.

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headshotKathryn Rubino is an editor at Above the Law. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).

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