We all know the legal industry is constantly adapting and throughout these past six months, the changes have continued to come at full speed with new guidelines from the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) taking effect. New opportunities as well as challenges have arisen, specifically from the advertising rule that prohibits solicitors from making unsolicited approaches to members of the public. We now find ourselves asking SME firms “are your current marketing tools enough to stand out from the competition and what could you be doing with what’s available in the world of legal marketing IT?”

Branding your firm is a form of advertising in itself and is the best place to start. However, most firms think that creating a catchy slogan and delivering a good service is all it takes to have a memorable brand and as a result fail to stand out from larger competitors. Think about where you want your firm to be and now ask yourself, are you on the right course to achieve it? If not, then consider and maybe reassess your overall strategy with an internal and external audit. Identifying your firms current position and matching it with what your agreed vision is may be hard, so don’t be afraid to get help from an external source, as it will provide you with an experienced view of what to do next. Remember, addressing all of your brand touchpoints, along with exploring what you want your customers to see is only half of the battle, your branding must also be communicated and adopted within your firm to be completely effective.

When people within the firm are on the same page with its vision to deliver and they meet the expectations set from the top management, it will translate to your clients and the service they receive instantly. Introducing an effective intranet portal is a great way to ensure all of the team is able to get on board with any branding strategies from the start as they can stay up to date with company updates and more. This will quickly become the best way to achieve consistency throughout the firm and in turn the service given to clients – ‘a satisfied client is more likely to spread the word of your firm, resulting in free advertising’.

When done right branding can be a powerful instrument to have, keeping it at the forefront of your firm will ultimately lead to more business as it will attract the attention of new clients whilst keeping existing clients engaged and more importantly it will help differentiate your firm from the countless competitors.

With all that considered, it is fair to say that many firms may have adequate branding in place but miss the trick of using their website and portals as a very low-cost advertising tool. With most offices closed in the UK it is more important than ever to focus on your firm’s online presence, having an outdated website that provides the bare minimum to prospects and clients will simply not suffice.

As well as updating the overall layout of your website and portal to appeal to your audience, think about how much more effective it will be to have integrations that allow both to have a more joined up approach to your workflow, as well as attract a wealth of new clients.

Injecting accurate and meaningful data straight into your PMS is certainly not far-fetched as we have seen many websites utilise webforms to collect valuable client information and enquiries. With this approach the possibilities could be endless, once it is in your PMS it can automatically validate the enquiry against existing entities and create a prospect, whilst simultaneously notifying the nominated fee earners of the new enquiry. Guaranteeing that your firm will never miss an opportunity again.

In addition to this, a sure way to gain a competitive advantage is by finding a way to utilise your websites back office, to allow you to identify which marketing channels are providing quality leads and providing a positive return on investment and those that aren’t. The results can then be captured within your PMS. All of this could ensure your website is a streamlined data driven site that enables your firm to act faster and smarter.

Lastly, in recent years SEO has become arguably one of the most important tools the legal marketing field has to offer in order to stand out from competition, this is because more and more prospects use search engines to find legal services that relate to them and is within close proximity and they may use a wide variation of terms and words to find what they’re looking for. Focus on creating detailed SEO strategies that suit your firm’s requirements as well as the needs of your audience, as keywords are constantly changing, maintaining the SEO on your website frequently is important to staying as the top results. Over a short period of time, you will begin to see the improvements – being able to connect with visitors who are looking for your services and eventually seeing an increase in the number of enquiries made, plus more knowledgeable insights to your target audience.

The legal market is more than equipped to deal with regulations that put certain methods of advertising to a halt. With more legal marketing specialists developing new ways to ensure firms can reach their clients, the only thing left for your firm to do is explore the many options available to you.

– Scott Brown, Digital Services Manager