Digital Marketing

I posted a poll in my Facebook group a few days ago. In my group, I consistently offer free advice and training for my followers to help them achieve their marketing goals.

When I posted the poll, I had a good idea which option of the two would get the best response. When the results came in, they revealed that I had been right. The first option received more votes than the second.

The poll asked my followers what type of free training they would be interested in from me. I gave the respondents two options to pick from. I carefully selected the phrasing of these options for a reason.

The first option gave my followers the choice to learn about my three-step method for gaining new law clients or retainers. The second option gave them the choice to learn about Facebook advertising for law offices.

As you can see, both of these free training options are relevant to my audience of lawyers. They offer attorneys free marketing tips. However, the first option emphasizes the results. The second one emphasizes the plan or process.

It was no surprise that the majority of people that took my survey were interested in results, not the process. About seventy percent of those that answered went with the first choice! That’s not a small number. But why did they pick it?

Your Clients Want Results!

The majority of the people that answered my survey went with the results-based answer because of one reason. No matter what the offer is, people want to know what’s in it for them. Their primary concern is how something will benefit them. The process is secondary.

Attorneys should keep this principle in mind when promoting their offer or writing their web content. Your clients need to know how you can benefit their lives. Lead your content with the benefits, not the process.

As an example, a personal injury law firm might lead their offer this way:

“Get the settlement amount you deserve for your injury!”

This focuses on the result, not the process. If the same business focused on the process they could lead their offer this way:

“We guide our clients through the process of filing their personal injury claim.”

If you had just been involved in an accident, which one would you choose? I’m confident it’s the first one. The first one tells you what the attorney will do for you, not how they will do it.

Use This Trick For Your Law Firm

Take my word for it. I’ve helped many law firms with effective marketing. The highest converting messages tell the client exactly how you’ll benefit them. Your offer needs to be about the client, not you.

Your law firm needs a social media strategy if you want to get clients! You don’t just need a strategy. You need one that works!

My proven social media strategy has helped me gain a following and get new clients. This is the best social media strategy I’ve ever seen! I’m going to tell you how you can make it work for your law office.

How To Get An Audience For Your Law Firm

The first thing you need to do in order to make this strategy work is getting a mailing list. This is easy with my proven process.

I create a single piece of content that my ideal audience would want. A checklist works great for this strategy.

For example, I could create a checklist that attorneys need to have to find clients on Facebook.

Next, create a simple Facebook ad that links to a landing page. This landing page should give the option to enter an email address to download the content.

When the person clicks on the link to download the content, they should be taken to a page that tells them their next step. This next step is to join your Facebook group!

If you have a Facebook pixel set up, then it doesn’t matter if they don’t join your group right away. If you lose your audience at any step of the way, the pixel will send targeted ads to them later to encourage them to join.

Push Your Content Through Multiple Channels The Easy Way

Once you have your audience, it’s just a matter of publishing fresh content. Each day, you should create a new piece of content. In my case, I like to record videos of actionable marketing tips for my audience.

When I have the daily video created, I send it over to my content team, and they do all the work. This means I only spend about five minutes each day creating videos and the content gets promoted by my team.

They push it out on all of our social media channels. We use Twitter, Instagram, Youtube, Facebook, and LinkedIn. We also create a blog post written for SEO from the video.

All of the people on my mailing list or Facebook group from the first step of this strategy will see the daily content.

With one piece of content, we’re able to optimize all of our channels! This is a powerful social media strategy that can work for your business, too.

Make Your Firm Visible On Social Media

Are you ready to turn your law firm’s social media presence into a powerful machine that can help you get clients? Then contact me and let’s discuss a custom strategy for your firm.

Every law firm should have an updated Google My Business profile. Not only does this make it easier for clients to find your law firm’s contact information, but it can also improve your local SEO.

Unfortunately, many lawyers encounter problems with their Google My Business listing.

Sometimes, a glitch in the system makes it impossible to publish changes. Google also mistakenly marks some listings as “closed,” which means clients will think your law firm went out of business.

If you run into any of these problems, you should contact Google for help right away.

Google usually does not take calls to help businesses resolve their issues with Google products.

But, the company does make an exception when the issue involves a Google My Business listing.

Fortunately, Google has representatives standing by to answer questions on this topic.

How To Contact Google For Help

Lawyers can get in touch with a Google representative by calling 1-866-246-6453, or 1-866-2GOOGLE. After dialing this number, you will immediately be asked to enter your Google Adwords customer ID.

You will not be able to speak to anyone until this information has been provided. If you have a Google Adwords account, simply enter your customer ID number, and you will be connected to a representative who can fix the issue with your Google My Business profile.

What If I Don’t Have An Adwords Account?

If you don’t have an account, there’s no reason to hang up the phone. There are two ways to handle this situation.

First, you can spend a few moments creating an Adwords account for the sole purpose of getting in touch with a Google representative. Or, you can use the account number 4914866644 instead.

This account number is linked to an Adwords and Gmail account that we set up in order to make this process easier for our colleagues.

Entering this account number when prompted will give you direct access to a Google representative who will be able to fix whatever issue you are having with your Google My Business profile.

You can’t give Google a call when you are having trouble figuring out how to rank for certain keywords, or you don’t understand why a competitor is ranked higher than you are.

But, you can call Google when you’re having trouble with something related to your Google My Business page.

Every lawyer should take advantage of the opportunity to speak live to a Google representative instead of spending hours trying to resolve the issue on their own.

Toys R Us was a major player in the toy industry for decades. But recently, there have been whispers that the retailer will close all of its stores in the U.S. within the next several weeks.

What happened? Over the last several decades, the world changed drastically, but unfortunately, Toys R Us failed to keep up.

In the early days of the internet, Toys R Us signed an agreement that gave Amazon complete control over the company’s e-commerce business.

Amazon was responsible for building and maintaining the online store as well as shipping out the orders. The partnership was a huge success.

Toys R Us saved itself the trouble of having to learn how to build an e-commerce business, and Amazon profited off selling toys.

But then, Amazon ended the partnership, leaving Toys R Us alone to figure out how to build its online presence for the first time in the company’s history.

This was the beginning of the toy company’s downfall, and it could happen to your law firm as well if you’re not careful.

What Is The Lesson Here?

The lesson in this story is always think about the future.

Toys R Us never thought about what would happen if Amazon ended their partnership, and as a result, they were left behind without a clue as to how to build an e-commerce store on their own.

Think long and hard about where your business is coming from. Is this source going to be around in a year? How about five years?

Lawyers that relied heavily on YellowPages in the past learned the same lesson that Toys R Us did.

No one uses YellowPages to find a lawyer anymore, so law firms that relied on YellowPages to find new customers had to quickly adapt before their business failed.

This shows why it is so important to generate business from multiple sources.

Innovation Equals More Clients

Google, Facebook, and other referral sources are unpredictable. For example, a minor change to Google’s algorithm could make it impossible for you to generate new leads.

Because of this, lawyers must focus on generating leads from multiple sources so if one source is no longer effective, their law firm will not be affected.

Your law firm may be successful now, but that doesn’t mean it will be in the future.

To stay competitive, lawyers must continue to innovate, so they don’t end up like Toys R Us.

Focus on preparing for the future even if business is running smoothly in the present.

Do you have a virtual office for your law firm? Then, you need to know this about Google.

I was recently asked if Google penalizes businesses with virtual or satellite offices. For those of you that don’t know, here’s what a virtual office is.

What Is A Virtual Office?

A virtual office is a service that allows business owners and their employees to work from home or anywhere that has internet access.

Running a law firm can be expensive. Using a virtual office instead of a renting an office space allows legal professionals to cut the expenses of operating a physical location.

A lot of overhead expenses and rent costs are eliminated with this kind of business. Virtual offices are a rising trend in today’s workforce due to their flexibility and affordability.

Unfortunately, Google doesn’t like businesses that use mailbox stores.

This stems from Locksmiths. They used to get a virtual office in every zip code possible, so their business would show up in a Google search no matter which city was searched.

Google caught on and began to penalize companies without a physical location.

How Can You Rank In Google If You Have A Virtual Office?

It’s not impossible to rank with a virtual office, but it’s extremely difficult. If you’re using a virtual office for your law firm, then your Google rank could be suffering.

We found a solution for our clients with virtual addresses that works.

If you have a virtual or satellite office and can afford it, then you can rent an executive suite. Having a physical location for a few months can greatly improve your search rank.

Google won’t penalize you in the searches for having a virtual office when you have a real physical location.

I recommend not going with a Regis executive suite if possible. A lot of people rent these suites and Google has taken notice.

Google is also using third parties to verify physical address locations.

A client of ours recently had a Facetime chat to verify that he really was at the physical location that he claimed his office was located at.

This means that Google is serious about favoring businesses with physical addresses. If you can afford to rent an execute suite, then it’s something you should consider.

Most people looking for an attorney today will turn to Google to help them find one. You need to improve your search ranking if you want to be visible to your potential clients.

As a marketer for attorneys, I find that many of my clients struggle to get into Google Maps for the same reason. Unfortunately, it’s something that’s out of their control.

It’s their law firm’s address.

I’ll show you why Google doesn’t list your law firm in Google Maps based on your address. In many cases, there’s nothing you can change with your address. It’s a good thing to keep in mind when looking to open a second location or if you’re moving to a new office.

Google Maps And Your Law Firm’s Address

Google will show listings in Maps based on the address, not your service area. Let’s say for example that you are trying to rank your law firm for the search term “Orlando personal injury lawyer.”

You serve the Orlando area, but your law firm is in Winter Park. No matter how hard you try to optimize your website to rank for Orlando, Google will not show your law firm in Maps.

Why? It’s because you don’t have an Orlando address. Google uses your office’s geolocation to determine if you’ll show up in Google Maps listings.

About 99.999% of the time when a person looks for “Orlando personal injury attorney” the results in Maps will all have Orlando addresses.

These might not be the best personal injury attorney lawyers in the area, but they are closest to the search. This is why it doesn’t make sense to optimize your website for Orlando when you don’t have an Orlando address.

Here’s What You Need To Do Instead

It’s almost impossible to rank in Maps for a city that isn’t a part of your address.

The good news is that you can still show up in Google Maps! You just won’t show up in the listings for a city that you are not actually located in.

This means you have to stop wasting your time trying to get into Google Maps for a city you aren’t located in and start optimizing for a different area instead.

This is where unincorporated areas come in.

We love to help our clients rank for unincorporated areas. These often don’t have as high of a search volume but come with less competition.

This is perfect for attorneys that want to show up in Google Maps searches but fail to do so because of their address.

An incorporated area is an area that doesn’t have a real address. For example, there are no locations with Orange County as their address in Florida.

Attorneys that serve the Orange County area can optimize their websites for this county even without their physical address mentioning Orange County.

If your address is preventing you from ranking in Google Maps, then there’s no need to feel discouraged. You have the opportunity to rank in unincorporated areas instead.