3 Tips to Avoid Legal Marketing Mishaps

Marketing your law practice is important. There are many ways to do so, and just as many ways not to.

Attorneys frequently struggle with marketing for a variety of reasons. Whether it's a lack of time or a lack of knowledge behind the struggle, if a lawyer fails to market their services or fails to heed the tips below, they may find themselves with quite a bit of free time in the future. Below, you can read three simple tips on how to avoid marketing mishaps for your law practice.

1. Don't Forget Social Media Exists

It may seem obvious to those attorneys that came of age after social media's explosion, but others seem to need constant reminders that social media even exists, how it works, and the fact that everyone in the world now carries around a decent video camera ready to capture lawyers acting inappropriately for the internet's viewing pleasure. You've probably seen a recent clip or two circulating, as there's usually some fresh lawyer's bad act caught on camera every few months.

Additionally, when sending emails and letters these days, you may want to choose your language carefully as even the non-lawyer-internet seems to enjoy seeing lawyers being embarrassed for taking untenable stances. The Streisand effect is real.

2. Recognize Medium Constraints

Depending on where you choose to advertise, your ads need to not just target your audience, they need to give deference to how your chosen platform works.

Video may have killed the radio star, but radio advertising is still alive and well, and probably will be so long as people commute to work. However, you can't advertise on the radio like you would on TV, or in print. For example, radio ads benefit more from creating easy to remember jingles and having vanity phone numbers or easy to remember web addresses.

3. Confusing Action for Effectiveness

Unlike building a baseball diamond in the middle of a cornfield, just because you opened a practice, it doesn't mean clients will come. Even if you advertise and engage in marketing activities, there's no guarantee anything will work. There is no one magic effective marketing bullet.

What works for one attorney, may not work for another. While you need to continually be engaging in marketing activities, you cannot forget to regularly audit those actions to see which are effective and which are not. Whatever marketing activities you plan on engaging in, you need to be able to track each one's effectiveness, otherwise, you won't know what doesn't work, and might keep wasting time on ineffective marketing.

Want information on effective advertising? Let the experts at FindLaw's Lawyer Marketing give you a hand.

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