The legal sector has always been vital to retaining a strong client base. For years, legal firms used stale messaging that did little to produce lasting and compelling impressions. In many cases, they could rely on their bench's strength, their personal relationships, and knowing they had huge money. And then, there came a major shift due to the pandemic.
The challenges of redefining and improving your law firm brand are growing in the current environment. Fortunately, no law firm is facing this problem alone. It's possible and rewarding to build a law firm's brand during a crisis, and it can help your firm become more resilient, agile, and ready for whatever comes your way in the future.
Spoiler alert! It is more than just the logo. You should spend a lot of time and effort to build a successful legal brand for the best outcomes.
But the question that arises is, how can you differentiate yourselves, your unique selling point, and the attributes of a lawyer that culminates in your brand?
The answer to this question lies in your legal brand identity, which is what makes up your marketing plan. We hope this law firm branding guide can answer your questions and give you a fresh perspective on branding in the legal industry.
A staggering 88% of people who search for a business on their mobile device call or visit that business within 24 hours. Missing out on potential customers because you're not available online and on mobile devices is a costly mistake.
Pay-per-click advertising on social media platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn is relatively inexpensive. Your law firm brand can benefit from even the smallest paid advertising campaign. You're expanding your reach with each impression.
Attorneys are viewed as experts by their clients. There is a desire to be educated, informed, and enlightened, rather than just sold to. To meet this client's preference, law firms have begun to focus on content marketing. You can engage potential clients and encourage them to contact you about your legal services by creating blogs, newsletters, videos, surveys, and webinars.
Your law firm's website, like any other, should be optimized for search engines. The most important part of this is having a responsive and user-friendly website that utilizes the correct keywords.
Consumers are always on the lookout for evidence that a company is worthy of their trust. You can achieve this by using content marketing. Answer their questions and put them at ease by putting out relevant content. If you want to inspire confidence in your customers, you should post case studies and case victories on your website.
Let us first understand what a brand is.
Your brand is the image that customers have of your company, so define it carefully and early on before the market does it for you. As a result, your company's image will be exactly what you want it to be.
In a nutshell, a brand is something that promotes awareness by immediately appealing to our emotions and eventually helps to attract new customers to your business.
Now the question that arises is, what is law firm branding? And how can you actually make that happen?
You can see your law firm's brand in the logo, font, website, and color scheme, for example. You can also see it in the physical building itself, which is the most manageable portion of the process.
But the other most important part of this puzzle is creative messaging and intent. The same law firm branding strategy and messages are no longer popular among potential clients. The market is evolving, and you need a customer who expects more. Legal branding that is relatively welcoming and attracts attention to differentiate itself from the competition is all you need.
Law firm brand strategies help develop a brand identity and positioning for a law firm. In addition, it provides the framework for how to develop your marketing and communications messages and how to position your law firm in the marketplace.
Can a lawyer be trusted with their reputation as a trustworthy firm? It may be confusing for you, but it's actually very simple.
Around 77% of everything we and our customers buy is not just because of the content. The feelings precede the content. Generally speaking, your client base doesn't want to buy based solely on your substantive skills but rather your experience. It makes the client feel comfortable with you and your lawyer.
Since the firm cannot elicit confidence directly, the idea is determined by the brand of the lawyer. Self-confidence is a powerful selling point. It simplifies pitching, networking, and the ask.
As a result, you can boost your customer’s self-esteem. Stress has a direct, unfavorable association with self-confidence. A rise in stress means a decrease in self-confidence. This is true even for the most self-assured attorneys.
As a lawyer, you should look for ways to help your clients deal with stress and boost their self-confidence. Step one is to become conscious of one's own state of stress. The next step is to figure out how to lower their stress levels and boost self-esteem.
In brand development, there are fundamental principles that are critical when creating an effective brand. This includes clarity and consistency.
Take a moment to consider the following questions about your brand:
The content of a brand's statement is the key to clarity. Your message will be lost on your audience if you aren't crystal clear in your delivery.
It is essential for each lawyer to discover their own distinct and significant qualities. In order to create a strong brand, it's important to know exactly what makes each of you stand out from the rest. As a result, you'll have a distinct brand identity that reflects your true self.
If you want your brand to be easily recognized across all marketing platforms and touchpoints, you need to maintain brand consistency. A more uniform brand experience is created for both current and potential customers.
Brand consistency is essential to fostering long-term customer relationships. It's easier for consumers to identify a consistent brand because it's more familiar and trustworthy. This is a great way for customers to get to know you and your company better.
No matter what position your team holds within the organization, employees must represent the basic principles of the brand in order for the brand to be consistent. A few of the ideas below can help you overcome these problems and gain the benefits of brand consistency.
Get started with these 5 law firm branding strategies.
A solid law firm brand is built on the personal brand recognition of each of the firm's lawyers. The more you and your coworkers know about who you are, the better. It is common for people to believe that they know who they are, but they often avoid painful aspects of their own lives.
To be fair, that's understandable, but a strong brand can only be built by digging deeper and learning more about yourself. As a lawyer, you must know enough about your own motivations and abilities to be able to articulate how you can help your clients.
Make a list of what your clients can expect from your law firm's reputation. This must be distinct from other law firms and clearly define your brand identity. The heart and soul of this process is the creation of a personal connection story by attorneys themselves. A law firm's brand promise can be effectively shared if it is communicated properly.
Your brand promise, or USP (Unique Selling Proposition), will become clearer after you've written your full story. Your firm's unique selling proposition (USP) is a succinct statement of what your firm can do for clients and potential clients.
It doesn't matter if your firm has one lawyer or twenty-five. Your brand is a promise to your customers, and if you want them to hire you, they need to know exactly what they're getting into when they hire you.
Many attorneys said they target people who are willing to pay. While this seems pragmatic, your law firm could have an expensive advertising campaign to follow. You need to narrow down the target market to the minimum. When you target the entire population, nobody is interested. And if your message is weak, it will not sway the people who actually want your services.
In order to establish an emotional connection with your audience, you need to do some research on them. The more you can learn about your target audience, the more successful your outreach will be.
The best place to begin is to reflect on your law firm's most satisfied clients. What were their personality traits in common? Create a profile of your law firm's ideal client by jotting down these points. As a result, you will be better able to identify your target audience.
It's now time for your law firm to condense everyone's personal story and firm brand into a few key points. A law firm's brand is based on the impressions others have of it. Sharing your brand's message with your target audience is the goal of all marketing. Consistent and unified delivery of these core messages is essential. Your personal brands and core values must be reflected in them.
When it comes to your company's message to the world, you and your team must all sit down and really think about what you want to convey. A simple, "We care and we are good at what we do so hire us" just won't cut it.
Conciseness, authenticity, uniqueness, and wit are all important components of messaging that captivate your target audience. Brainstorm with your team, then focus on the most important aspects of your brand's message.
The last and most important step is to establish your law firm's name and reputation. This would entail the creation of a company logo, business cards, a website, and a social media presence.
This is usually the first step that lawyers want to take. There is satisfaction in having tangible evidence of one's efforts while out in the field seeking new customers. By starting here, you'll undermine the rest of the process. The final product must be based on a promise stated above as part of your law firm's brand. Your website, logo, and business cards will all be worthless if you don't use them.
By breaking down the branding process into manageable chunks, you can save both time and money. Hire a brand strategist after you've written some copy and had it critiqued. In addition to saving you time and money, this ensures that your brand's voice is heard clearly.
The following law firm branding examples are undeniable and need to be considered strictly during your legal firm brand strategy.
Your creativity isn't limited to the standard logo shapes, colors, etc., you can go in any direction you want. Emotions are what we're going for, so we'd like you to experiment with different fonts, sizes, and colors to come up with the perfect logo for your law firm. Visual representations of justice, integrity, equality, and the like can be done in many different ways. The best way to begin anything creative is to look around and draw inspiration from what you see.
In order to meet the needs of a particular market, law firms often choose a target market, gather general information, and develop a basic overview of the services they can provide. Everyone is doing this, so let's go a little deeper and make your law firm brand stand out.
How? With a buyer persona!
With the aid of a buyer persona, you can better understand and identify your ideal customer. In the process of creating buyer personas, it is important to put yourself in the shoes of your potential clients and gain a better understanding of how and where they obtain information when they need legal services.
This way, your time will be better spent focusing on your ideal clientele, and you'll spend less time dealing with those who don't fit your criteria.
For your law firm to succeed, it must have a strong brand. Your law firm's brand voice will be shaped by what you say and how you say it. Every time you speak, your voice reflects your company's values and identity to the public. Things like logos, imagery, and other forms of visual communication are only one part of the equation. How everything is communicated forms the other part of your brand.
With a brand voice, you can consistently portray your company's identity and personality across all communication channels, including social media, your website, business cards, etc. Your brand voice represents your individual identity communicated through your branding language. This program cuts through the noise to grab customer attention immediately.
Your company's unique selling proposition is what sets you apart from your competitors, and branding is the practice of putting that out into the world. You can't successfully build a unique brand for your firm unless you can figure out what distinguishes it from the other similar law firms in your area.
While establishing an image of the brand, it must consistently be applied across the customer interaction points of each product. A customer touchpoint is where the customer comes directly to your brand before purchasing anything or during a purchase of your product. The best way to achieve this will involve developing a set of guidelines on the design and application.
Start by identifying the:
Don’ts
Do’s
It's important that you get in touch with branding experts for help. Branding professionals can evaluate your law firm and perform business analysis to find out which works best for you. They can also create visual assets including a website and everything else related to branding.
Building a strong law firm brand requires dedication, careful consideration, and a well-defined strategy. Work on developing a central and consistent way to portray your law firm's unique differentiators so that you can better understand your buyer and your goals.
As time goes on, you can expect things to change. To attract the right clients, law firms must embrace the process of self-discovery that comes with it. As outlined in this article, it's important to be deliberate in your approach to branding.
Looking to Grow Your Brand Online?
J
Great information on legal branding.
K
This blog provided a lot of useful information for those who are planning to create a law firm website.
A
I would definitely love to use some of these strategies in my law firm.
A
I strongly recommend this blog to those looking to brand their legal firm.
R
Good read! I always enjoy your blogs.
a
this content has so much information. Good to read this post.