6 Family Law Marketing Strategies Without Spending a Dime on Advertising!

Lawyers can make some pretty big family law marketing mistakes. And it's hardly surprising when you consider that you are an expert in helping couples evolve to a new way of life, apart. You are not an advertising specialist.

Unfortunately many professionals in any walk of life often have no idea of how to properly market themselves and often find themselves being sold advertising products that waste their money. 

Let’s not let that be you!

I do know that you want to attract great clients. But don’t cause yourself financial stress and waste your valuable time by making the wrong decisions.

Jump to read the 6 strategies for avoiding family law marketing mistakes

These 6 strategies are my hot approaches that have stopped cost creep when it comes to marketing my legal services. They are not just my tips but are reflections of the massive learning journey I have had to traverse to be able to understand their value.

Don't discount them!

• #1 Dare to Be Different with your family law marketing.
• #2 Don’t be a Jack of all trades and Master of None. Restrict your marketing profile to a few relevant platforms and services.
• #3 Don’t get so overwhelmed that you just don't do marketing. Your Family Law Marketing Has to Start Somewhere.
• #4 You do need to start your marketing with a professional-looking website. Having only a Facebook or Twitter account just does not cut it.
• #5 Getting Google to LOVE you is one of the most powerful strategies you can implement. And the best news is, you use it for free!

#1 Dare to Be different with your family law marketing

When marketing their services, lawyers make the repeated mistake of making themselves look like every other law firm. Think scales of justice, parliament pillars, law libraries, courtrooms, city skylines, etc. Just look at the images above and below! 

The result is that lawyers wanting to create a successful law practice end up looking exactly like everyone else, and the result is that their potential clients can’t find them.

The image below represents all the images on Page 1 when you search for images using the keyword "Divorce Lawyers"

Do you see what I mean? They are all the same...!

Potential clients will remember, share, and talk about things that are different. The same is true for you and your law practice. The best law firm websites stand out.

To have a successful law practice, you must attract great clients. And for you to have the slightest chance of attracting great clients, you need to have your potential clients be able to find you.

And they will find you only if they see you or your law practice.

DISRUPTIVE THINKING BY BEING DIFFERENT:

According to best-selling author, friendly person, and very fun-guy, Mike Michalowicz, you need to disrupt someone’s thinking to get their attention. And you need to do it in 0.03 seconds if you want them to stop and pay attention long enough that you can tell them about your service.

The only way to disrupt someone’s thinking is to show them something different enough that they cannot miss it. Their brain will see the incongruity and demand to know more.

And without this difference maker, it doesn’t matter how excellent your service is. It doesn’t matter how brilliant you are or how much better you are than your legal competition. If the competition Gets Different and you don’t, they will mop the floor with you.

Want to grow your successful law practice? Attract great clients? Enjoy lawyer financial success?

This 2-minute YouTube video says it way better than me. It is not an add for this service and I have not used them. But it tells absolutely the right story to make a point which is why I have placed it here.

#2 Don’t be a Jack of all trades and master of none

One of the biggest mistakes I made when I first opened up my law practice was that I did not focus on family law advertising. I was so worried that I would not get enough work, that I said I practiced law in all sorts of areas of law.

I had a large (and uber expensive) yellow-pages phone book ad stating: “Need a lawyer? Talk to Val!” Then it listed my areas of practice:

• family law
• personal injury law
• real estate
• debtor/creditor
• corporate, bankruptcy
• etc.

I'm sure that you will agree with me that people who are getting divorced want an expert.

For many who are separating or getting divorced, this could be the first time they go through such a process. They want a top divorce lawyer. They don't want someone who dabbles in an area of law that is very much going to impact their future.

#3 Don’t not market! Your marketing plan has to start somewhere

So many lawyers, particularly those building a solo practice, get so overwhelmed with the idea of everything they have to do to generate leads for their law firms that they do nothing at all rather than get started. Their family law marketing efforts are non-existent as a result. While they think they should get going on having a nice website, or writing a helpful article for their site, they do not find any time to get started.

Becoming a successful lawyer requires that you take action and that action includes you taking at least some steps to market your family law practice. One of my mentors always says, “You cannot move a parked car” and I agree.

So, perhaps you are not ready to implement all of the family law marketing strategies set out in this article. If that's you, start somewhere and implement. It is through action that you will become the successful attorney you wish to be.

Of all the suggestions in this article, choose one thing at least.

Complete that one thing before moving on to the next thing and so on.

Years ago, when I first utilized Solo Build It, the best unknown website based, business building business in the universe, I spent what seemed to be an extraordinary amount of time creating pages for my website with keyword rich content. I will share more about keywords on another page.

Yet, despite me then essentially ignoring the site for years, not adding new content, or even rewriting articles, the articles attracted many people to my website which then, in turn, brought them to my law practice. The dividends of my taking the action created financial well-being for me without me having to expend any extra effort.

So, if you want to grow your family law practice, take action.

#4 Your place to start marketing your divorce law practice is a professional website

Your family law marketing plan begins with a professional-looking website. Even if you have a very simple website with only a few pages, make sure it looks professional. Nowadays your website is the front door to your business. At my law firm, our website is professional-looking and not only shows our values, it is warm-looking and friendly, because that is how we attract great clients. It works.

Because I do not have the interest or inclination to design a website (not to mention my time is better spent elsewhere), I utilized a web designer from Solo Build It!

I spent less than $2,000 to have the site designed WAY better than I could have. My time is better spent helping divorcing clients.

#5 Getting Google to LOVE you is one of the most powerful tools you can use

Although it is only one of many, Google is the most powerful search engine on our planet and you don’t want to ignore it in your family law marketing efforts.

Get Google to love you and your law practice and you will attract clients for free and with very little or no effort.

This is what happened to me.

I rebranded my firm a short time ago. My law firm is very well known as a boutique family law firm via word of mouth, and I am grateful that we continually attract great clients. I currently engage in little marketing effort in order to keep up with the workflow and continue having happy clients. Although I am very grateful for my work, I do not want to be too busy to give excellent service.

After my professional-looking website, the place I have put my attention is Google my Business. It is particularly valuable if people are looking for a divorce lawyer in your region and, managed properly, will deliver you high, if not at the top, in the search results.

Right this minute, I just used an incognito (private) search and Googled “Best Divorce Lawyer.” My law firm, Pathway Legal came up as #1 in the search results. The great thing is that as I write this, I only optimized our Google My Business page several months ago. Great results in a very short period.

Here are the steps I used to get started with Google my Business:

1. I set up a profile.
2. I ordered a Google Map “Pin.” Then Google sent it to me.
3. I created an account on Fiverr.com.
4. I notified this guy on Fiverr and hired him to optimize my Google My Business Page: https://www.fiverr.com/inbox/gmb_special. He gave the instructions that follow and optimized the page. He charged me USD 55.
5. Based on his instruction, I created 5 to 10 short articles about different areas of family law in which I could help people. I wrote articles about child support, spousal support, asset division, court appearances, and parenting plans.
6. Based on his instruction, I sprinkled 2 or 3 keywords throughout the articles (family, divorce, separation, court lawyer).
7. Based on his instruction, I gave him ten photos (I had photos of me, staff, and some unsplash.com stock images. I gave each photo a family law-related description (child support, parenting, etc.).
8. I made him a “manager” of my GMB site for the time he took to do the job, a few days. Then I deleted him as manager. All on his instruction.
   
   

After the site was optimized...

    1. We regularly ask for feedback from our happy clients with a direct review link sent to them.

    2. We answer ALL reviews. We use keywords if possible in response to reviews. If there is a (rare) negative review, we respond non-defensively.

    3. Using a virtual assistant, posts are made weekly and published under the “posts” menu. You can hire such an assistant on Fiverr or Upwork. The virtual assistant will also upload photos regularly.

Bonus Tip: Use video!

Why using Video is important for your family law marketing strategy

You already know that a family law marketing strategy is required if you are planning on becoming a successful attorney. 

Anyone who has turned their mind to marketing so they can grow their family law practice will have scrolled their Facebook, Instagram or Twitter feed. Even as a user, you already know that videos play a major part. In terms of social networks, video is where it is at and where it will continue to be. 

It is with my honour and gratitude that I live, work, and play on the traditional territory of the Coast Salish peoples–Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), Stó:lō and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) Nations.