Design
Content marketing has been a major digital marketing buzzword over the past few years—but what does it mean, exactly? For those who are unfamiliar with it, it’s basically the practice of sharing free, valuable content with your users—blog posts, videos, content on your website, etc.—to showcase your expertise, to drive traffic, and to increase engagement.
A lot of attorneys are on the fence about whether it’s actually worth their time to generate this free digital content—and we’d argue that it very much is. Here are just a few of the ways in which content marketing can benefit your legal practice.
How Content Marketing Benefits Your Firm
- SEO is changing—and compelling content is key.
Content marketing can actually provide you with a good inroad to improved search engine rankings. Here’s why: Google’s algorithms increasingly focus on rewarding content that the end user finds to be relevant and valuable. As such, you can’t necessarily earn better rankings through the tired old SEO tricks, like keyword jamming. But you can earn improved rankings by developing content that your readers will actually find to be beneficial. In other words, a good SEO strategy is to write primarily for human beings, not search bots—and that’s something that dovetails nicely with content marketing.
- Content marketing establishes your thought leadership.
How does your law firm stand out from all the rest? One way to distinguish your legal practice is to establish thought leadership—showing that you know your stuff and are respected in your field. Being seen as an industry leader will help you earn the trust of your clients, and one way you can develop that kind of thought leadership is by regularly blogging about legal issues. Start publishing your perspectives on legal questions related to your niche.
- You can use content to guide potential clients through the sales funnel.
You may have some readers who aren’t quite ready to pick up the phone and call you for an appointment—and that’s okay. What you can do is help them reach that inflection point. Provide some more general, high-level content that will catch the attention of people who are just beginning to consider their legal needs. And, augment that content with some more refined topics, for those who are closing in on a decision. Use your content marketing to map out the prospective client’s journey.
- Stay in touch with clients.
A final way in which content marketing can help your firm is that it allows you to stay connected to past and present clients—ensuring your firm is always somewhere close to the top of their mind. There are a number of ways you can do this, too—through an email newsletter, through regular social media updates, and more. Of course, a robust content marketing plan will also provide you with plenty of fodder for those communiques; for example, a weekly blog can easily be shared on social media, adapted into an email blast, etc. All of this helps ensure that your clients don’t forget about you, and makes them more likely to reach out when they have a legal need.
Get Started with Content Marketing Today
Content marketing is anything but wasted time and effort; actually, for law firms, it offers a range of benefits, and should be a central part of any digital marketing enterprise.
We’d love to tell you more about the positive effects content marketing can yield for your firm. Talk with our law firm marketing experts today; reach out to Driven2020 and set up a consultation at your next opportunity!