To get qualified leads, personal injury lawyers must invest heavily in marketing and advertising, because personal injury is an extremely competitive industry. In major cities, you can’t turn off the TV for 30 mins or walk down the street without seeing an ad for a personal injury lawyer.
Personal Injury lawyers can’t afford to miss any opportunity to stand out in the crowd, including on the internet.

Table of Contents

There is a good chance that you might already have heard or have been using advertising online to generate leads for your personal injury law firm. We’ve put together the ultimate guide with personal injury marketing ideas and help you run a successful Digital advertising campaign, bringing qualified leads into your firm.

What is Digital Marketing?

Digital marketing, a.k.a internetMarketing is the process of promoting, advertising, and advocating a business and its product or services over digital media. This includes using tools that help drive website traffic, engagement, leads, and revenue.

Digital marketing is a very broad term that includes various marketing strategies: tactics such as content marketing, search advertising, search engine optimization, paid media, email marketing, and more.

Why Should Personal Injury Law Firms Use Digital Marketing?

Digital marketing has become an increasingly popular strategy for businesses that are looking to target the modern audience and generate revenue, especially personal injury law firms.

Because, as of June 2020, there were 60,500 searches for Car Accident Lawyers in the US (by the way, how many of these queries did you get?). If you need a hyperlocal number, there were 200 searches for “Car Accident Lawyer” in Suffolk County, New York.

Let’s take a look at search interest in “personal injury lawyer” on google over 12 months.

Fig 2- personal injury lawyer

Source: Google Trends

From Nov 2019, there is continuous growth in search interest for personal injury lawyers across the US.

If you, as a personal injury lawyer, want to generate leads for your practice, then you need to craft your online presence on Google and other media channels like social media, law directories, etc. so that when prospects search for a lawyer, they find you.

As far as digital is concerned, here are a few personal injury lawyer marketing ideas that you can use to generate leads for your personal injury practice.

Generate Qualified Leads with Search Engine Advertising

Google search ads is a paid advertising platform that falls under the marketing channel known as pay-per-click (PPC).

PPC Marketing is where you pay per click on an ad. It allows you to build a ppc campaign in the search results of Google.When running a PPC marketing campaign for a personal injury lawyer, you can pick the keywords that are relevant to your practice and trigger relevant search ads every time someone searches for the keyword from your list.

For example: if you pick “Bronx car accident lawyers” as a keyword. our ads will be shown when someone types the word “Bronx car accident lawyers” into Google.

The more focused your paid search campaigns are, the more clicks you generate —leading to more leads and more clients. This is why Google search ads have become increasingly popular among the legal industry.

Here we highlight essential aspects you should consider before starting search ad campaigns:

Decide your targeting

The thing about Google is that it lets you build a highly targeted campaign based on your marketing strategy. You can target your audience based on demographics (age, gender, etc.), geographic location (country, state, city, county etc.), device (devices such as a mobile, desktop, tablet, etc.), and various other targeting options.

Just as an example – you may want to target people above the age of 25 years in Houston and bid higher for the ones who use a mobile device to search for a lawyer.

You may want to stick to the basics first because it is easy to get lost in all the various targeting options that Google gives you. And preferably go manual targeting instead of letting Google decide the targeting for you.

Do your keyword research

You should do your research on ‘Keywords’ before starting search ads..The success of your campaign depends on your ability to identify keywords with relevance and intent that match what your target audience use when they search for your business online.

To begin with, narrow down your research and find an answer to the specific questions like What are the keywords you think are going to drive better results? Eg. “Personal injury lawyers” or “car accident lawyers in Houston.”

Those searching for a “Personal injury lawyer” might be in research mode whilst someone searching for “car accident lawyers in the Houston” might be looking to make the decision right now. Google’s keyword tool is the right place to start digging for answers.

Budget and Bidding

You must first decide the objective of your campaign that suits your overall marketing strategy. For example, to begin with, you may just want to focus on getting more clicks. You should only go for the “maximizing clicks” objective.

If you want to focus more on the customer acquisition, then you should go for the “Target Cost per Acquisition” bidding strategy.

If you are willing to spend the time optimizing, and wish to have maximum control over the campaign, you can stick to “Manual CPC bidding”, this bidding takes effort and research but can drive maximum results.

So, how does this work? Someone types something into the Google Search box. This is known as a ‘query’ and for every query, you land on the result page. The page starts with certain ads that are closely related to your query, generally, there are 3 to 4 ads, below it are the ‘organic results’ (more on it later), and then again a few ads at the bottom of the page.

How does Google decide how to rank these ads? Well it has many parameters including keywords, ad relevance, and the amount you are willing to pay for every click, but for now, we’ll explain one of the most important aspects

Google Search works using an auction mechanism, the price of which is based on who is willing to pay most for higher ranking ads. The Google keyword tool provides you with the estimated cost per click for each of these categories. Based on these estimates, you can calculate how much your competition is paying for the clicks. You can also use SEMrush to get these insights.

Fig 2- budget-and-bidding

Fig – Budget and Bidding.

The keywords related to personal injury are highly competitive and therefore have a high cost per click.

Real-time insights and optimization

Once you decide your budget, keywords, and your campaign structure, it is time to measure and evaluate the performance of your campaign. Based on the objective you selected in the campaign, you have to monitor KPIs such as (but not exclusively) no. of clicks, conversion rates, impressions, and click-through rate.

An important factor here is your “Quality Score”, you should focus on creating and testing various ads copies for a set of keywords, then measure which ads perform better. Well optimized ad copies with higher ad relevance will always give you the best return on your investment and reduce your cost per click.

You should also monitor the “Bounce Rates”, “Time Spent”, and “Avg. Session Duration” on your landing page connected to the search ads, these metrics give you insights into the landing page experience and help you improve it.

Increase Brand Awareness with Legal Directories

It may be easy for your friends to find you on Facebook. But is it easy for a plaintiff to find you on the internet without knowing your name? Personal Injury attorneys are always either busy preparing for cases so that they can get their clients a settlement that they deserve, or on the look-out for new cases.

You already know that there are 60,500 searches for car accident lawyers on Google every month. Based on the above data, there are three things you can do to grow your lead pipeline.

  • Optimize your legal website for search engines for Google to tap these searchers. SEO is time-consuming and a long term strategy.
  • Advertise on Google Search (which is CPC model) targeting these keywords. However, in the United States, it can cost a personal injury attorney $140 every time someone searches and clicks on the ad for the keyword “Personal Injury Lawyer near me.”
  • You can leverage personal injury legal directories that already rank for these keywords by posting your profile there, which is FREE on almost all the leading directories.

Someone with a huge marketing budget and patience could do all three. However, for someone who wants to get steady and adequate case inquiries faster, especially solo attorneys and small law firms, the third option could be perfect.

If you are reading this article, then chances are you already have a profile on at least one personal injury legal directory, and so do your competitors.

Remember, the more websites you are present on, the more the chances of being visible to your prospective clients. Also, the more relevant information you share, the more you increase your chances of showing up on a search and being connected to potential clients.

However, to generate leads, you need to stand out from the competition in the crowded legal directories space and convince your potential clients that you are the right fit for their case. But, how to do this, you ask?

Here is how to boost your profile on legal directories and stand out from the crowd:

Having a well-optimized profile can increase your visibility on directories, resulting in more clicks and more leads. Also, it can help you build your brand. So you should focus on the following elements of your profile and make sure these basic blocks are in order.

Your Profile Picture

Invest in getting yourself a high quality, professional headshot. Upload the picture in the exact dimension a law directory recommends. Also, name the image using your name and law firm name. Because Google indexes these and can show it as a result whenever someone searches your name.

The headline

Remember three pillars of any marketing channel – Attract, Convince, and Convert. Your headline helps you grab the attention of potential clients on these directories and is an essential part of your profile.

Instead of making the headline about yourself, make it about your potential client. Include the keyword that the plaintiff searches the most in the headline if the word limit allows you.

Keep it short, clear, creative. Hire a copywriter if you struggle to come up with one. If you don’t know a good copywriter then don’t worry, there are many websites where you can find copywriters within the range you’re willing to pay, such as Upwork or Fiverr.

About you

Here, you focus on convincing potential clients. So keep this section brief and interesting, pay attention to a keyword (include the keywords that users are searching for). Some directories’ “About Me” sections allow you to use photos, rich media (videos, interactive maps etc.), links, etc… So take advantage of these features so your audience knows who you are and what it would be like to work with you.

  • Include years of experience, skills, education, personal injury practice areas, credentials, and awards you received. Keep it relevant to your audience.
  • Most importantly, talk about the cases you have worked on recently. You don’t have to include all the cases, just a few high impact, high personal injury claim value cases.
  • We observed that most of the lawyers don’t update their profile; therefore, they lose the profile search rank. Update the cases you’ve won, credentials, and awards every 3-4 months.

Upload videos

Video is worth a thousand pictures; there is nothing that can be more convincing than a brand video. Invest in producing a professional video as it is a perfect medium to set yourself aside from the rest of the pack, again websites like Upwork and Fiverr can come to your rescue here.

The video should tell a story, so instead of creating it about your law firm, make it about your clients. Introduce your potential clients with your past clients and let them talk about how you helped them or their loved ones get the justice they deserved and win the personal injury claim.

Client testimonials add a human element to your services and help demonstrate the effectiveness of your work.

  • Include your name or your law firms name, and practice area, in the title of the video
  • Embed the video from YouTube so that you track the views and other analytics to gain insights.
  • Make the thumbnail of the video engaging; try not to keep it blank.
  • Include the ways to get in touch with you like phone number, address, and email.

Reviews

We cannot overemphasize the importance of reviews. By sharing reviews, you convert potential clients into a lead. Ask your previous clients to leave a helpful review on these directories. The higher your number of reviews, the higher your chances of ranking above your competition.

Ask your clients to keep the reviews short instead of making it a story, request them to send you a copy before they post it online.

Accurate ways to reach you

Once a potential client decides to contact you, you must have the correct information so they can easily reach you. Incorrect contact information can result in a lost opportunity. It’s unlikely that your potential client will look up the right information elsewhere.

Having accurate contact information helps your broader online footprint, making it easier to find you when they search online. Include contact information such as email, phone, website, location of all your branches, including Google Maps… Provide your social media handles, including Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc. so they can look you up, that will help them establish trust.

Remain at the Top of Your Audience’s Mind with Social Media Marketing

Social media impacts almost every aspect of our daily lives – work, politics, breaking news, and more. It’s used globally by companies and consumers – and is one of the most effective channels to connect with your target audience.

Because of its rapid adaptation in modern culture, social media marketing has become a global
phenomenon and an influential part of the marketing strategy for almost every brand and business around the world.

A report from We Are Social says that there are 3.196 billion users active on social media networks, which is 42% of the global population. Moreover, the average American spends approx. 2 hours per day on social media, according to the same report citing the Global Web Index.

As a Personal Injury lawyer, there are many things you have to do to keep and get new business. One thing you cannot ignore is Social Media marketing for law firms. Whether or not you are part of the conversation, it’s critical to participate and engage in a meaningful way.

Social Media today is used for various reasons: connected to your family and friends, building your network, staying up-to-date with what’s happening in the world, and researching just about anything, i.e., a holiday, new product or personal injury lawyer. According to another Global Web Index report, 42% of people use social media for researching businesses.

Thus keeping all this in mind, let’s outline a few things that will help your personal injury law firm have an impactful social media presence and a robust digital marketing strategy:

Know your goals

It’s essential to chalk down what you want to accomplish with social media before investing your time on social media networks.

It could be that you want to attract more clients, building awareness about you or your firm locally, drive people to your website to learn more about your firm, or it could be all of them. You should set up social media dashboards like Hootsuite.

Monitor search terms, hashtags, topics that your potential clients are talking about. For example – You may want to know when someone asks a question about an injury due to a dog bite and the claims process, you can do this by following #dogbite or #Harzardousworkplace in your city.

Be seen

Leading social media networks like LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook work on algorithms that typically reward posts or pages (for LinkedIn and Facebook) based on the amount of engagement; it can be a like,
share, or comments about the post or page.

To be seen amongst the clutter of posts and information, the content must be current, compelling, and engaging. Then it becomes a cycle when you post something that gets likes and comments that reach out to more and more audiences increasing the chances of more interaction.

Then, of course, you see the analytics to measure the success of each post and your online presence as a whole.

Visual content

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but on social media, it is worth far more. Most of the social media networks have word limits, so there is only so much you can communicate via text – but images and videos can give you a chance to overcome those limitations by communicating visually.

Social media posts with images, videos, or GIFs tend to get more engagement than text posts. All social media networks have evolved into visual-first platforms.

Facebook encourages video posts and ads, Twitter allows users to upload multiple images, and it has stopped counting media URLs against the character limit. You don’t have to always get a photoshoot or a graphic designer to create high-quality photos and videos, you can use websites like Shutterstock for stock photographs, illustrations, and videos.

Being a personal injury lawyer, you can post images and videos educating people about steps potential claimants should take if they are in an accident, or how to prevent accidents, how the legal process works, etc. Informative content that helps them in the event of distress.

Law firm page

Social media networks like Facebook and LinkedIn help your law firm build awareness, share updates, and strengthen social media marketing for your law firm. You can use Facebook and LinkedIn to choose the type of page you want to create.

It will allow you to prominently display key snapshots of your law firm, highlight activities and your law firm’s milestones, publish results of cases you win for your clients, their stories, and more. Create a calendar of the social media posts that you want to publish at least 30 days in advance, it will help you come up with ideas well in advance instead of scrambling for posts on time.

The timeline offers more branding and lead gen options; the large cover image has plenty of real estate for your branding, images, and call to action so you can get the attention of your potential clients and get them to your page.

Especially on Facebook, comments made on your company page will appear on users’ timeline, shared with their friends. “Likes” will also appear on their page, keeping your firm in their minds.

Facebook lists

The Facebook list allows you to organize a list of different topics, influencers, clients, and prospects you may want to follow. It means that you can target a specific segment of your audience by delivering posts to a particular group.

You can also track the analytics of each group of people. So you can measure if a particular group of people is interacting less than another group.

Boost a post

Start small, let’s say $50 for one of your popular posts, preferably one that links to an action-oriented, information-packed landing page; it could be a blog post too. When we say, action-oriented people should provide you their email id, or other contact details that can become a lead you can nurture.

Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin make it super easy to do. After you publish a post, simply click the Boost Post button and follow the instructions to customize your target audience, spend, and duration. There are the following ways to choose your audience:

  • People who like or follow your page
  • People who like your page and their friends
  • People you choose through targeting by location, age, gender, interest, and behavior. You can go pretty deep here.

Of course, targeting differs from channel to channel, but you can target the audience you think is a perfect fit.

Tools

Just like legal technology makes lives simpler for personal injury lawyers; similarly, there are many social media management platforms to manage your different social media platforms easily. Tools like Hootsuite and Sprout Social let you monitor social media posts by keywords, hashtags, and more. It also helps you schedule and post content on multiple social media accounts all from one dashboard.

Tools like Feedly are an excellent way to categorize the content you want to keep eye one, and it helps you to know what niche influencers are talking about, so you stay on top of the trends.

Test and optimize

All the social media platforms will give you access to analytics, showing how your post is driving engagement.

They provide you with valuable, actionable data and show exactly what is working on every post you publish. This data includes the number of impressions, reach, engagement, clicks (if you are directing them to a blog or a landing page), and the geographic and demographic data of your audience who engage with your post.Experiment with your posts, post at a different time of the day, change the call to action, modify, copy, images, and more, to figure out what exactly drives the most engagement.

Conclusion

Sustainable Personal Injury marketing depends on how many strategic lead generation sources you build. Some sources will give you brand awareness, and some will give you qualified leads.

PPC advertising can be one of your best digital marketing channels irrespective of marketing objective, but only if it is done right and optimized on a daily basis to ensure you get maximum ROI from your advertising dollars. Focussing on legal directories as well as SEO will give its due return in time.

Converting social media presence into a lead generation machine takes time and discipline. Still, by following social media practices, you will be an accomplished social media marketer in no time – the success over social media will translate into your offline business development and your law practice health as well.

At least, you will build meaningful relationships with other individuals who might need your help for themselves or their loved ones.

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