Should your firm’s digital agency be sector specific?

Curated Media and sister company Moore Legal technology is unique in that few other agencies do what we do: provide content and digital marketing services to the legal industry, and the legal industry alone. Our team is almost entirely made up of digital marketers with law degrees and many staff have worked as solicitors in previous lives. We know the profession inside out. It’s this first-hand experience coupled with more than a decade of marketing expertise that gives our clients the enhanced assurance that law firms need when choosing an agency.

The range of services now offered as standard by full-service digital companies is vast:

• Web design and development
• Content marketing
• SEO
• SEM / PPC
• Social Media Marketing
• Email marketing

… the list goes on.

With so many digital marketing and communications agencies out there, all claiming to be experts in multiple sector areas and having the relevant in-house niche specialists, offering a virtually identical set of services, knowing which to choose can be a dichotomy for lawyers. Where to begin? What to look for?

This blog looks at why working with a digital marketing agency specific to the sector is a particularly advantageous start point when it comes to law firm marketing.

Your Money Or Your Life

Marketing of professional services (law firms, financial institutions or insurance companies) has always required a distinct approach to that of consumer goods and services. Google standards now acknowledges this too, following the decline in branded searches and now crawls sites tracking for quality of content as opposed just the right keywords or phrases. The rationale behind Your Money Or Your Life (YMYL) pages is that if use of your services will significantly impact the end “users happiness, health or wealth”, your site and its content must go the extra mile, be meaningful and clearly defined in all respects. Having bespoke content and sites designed according to SEO and UX best practice is vital to law firms considerably more so than other industries. Therefore working with the right agency is considerably more vital for successful law firm digital marketing and strong online identity and authority. At Curated Media MLT, our strength lies in getting the right components in place to ensure good search rankings, better conversion rates and qualified new business leads by appreciating how highly-specialised and complex the legal industry is, and how distinct its digital strategy must be.

Eye On The Law

Being focussed on law alone, we are ahead of the curve and well-informed on all aspects of the sector. Our legally qualified team focus everyday on meaningfully interpreting:

• Legal news and its implications
• Challenges facing the sector and evolving trends
• Law Society updates and any changes to professional bodies’ regulations
• Recent case law, any statutory or common law changes

Relationships and strategic partnerships with legal stakeholders and influencers are also key to our client offering being the right choice for law firms. Speaking and understanding the language of lawyers enables us to rapidly offer the right digital marketing solutions and alternatives that will work hard for their business more so than multi-sector agencies can.

… And Digital

The rapid evolution of digital marketing shows no signs of waning, with new trends, platforms and applications emerging on what feels like and almost hourly basis. No one could have predicted the extent to which digital technology would simultaneously transform both professional and personal life. As well as keeping ahead of legal news and developments, we are engaged with the latest relevant digital marketing trends. Being able to identify those that will combine the right mix needed for an integrated digital strategy comes from our understanding of the nuances of the legal industry and ensures our offering is aligned with a law firm’s business objectives. Not all digital marketing developments are created equal.

Support In-House Marketing 

The traditional marketing mix has had to make a lot of room for digital marketing. Overarching marketing strategy must now place emphasis on digital or where possible, include a separate strategy for digital activity. As discussed in colleague Chris Davidson’s blog, the number of in-house specialists required for effective law firm digital marketing include SEO, Data & Analytics, Content strategists & writers, PPC, web designer, graphic designer ... mean doing just that makes a lot of sense. Working with a digital agency that understands the vagaries of the legal sector compared with others; the challenges faced by different types of firms, be that small private client, major UK commercial or personal injury. In-house marketing teams have numerous other responsibilities additional to digital meaning the ability to deliver a tailored and comprehensive digital strategy is often limited. If the investment can be made when efficiently executed, digital can revolutionise your firm’s potential to generate new clients and a digital agency can compliment in-house marketing efforts.

Law firm marketing is in a league of its own. To be delivered successfully, any activity must be supplemented with the requisite legal knowledge and background. When an agency has a sincere understanding of the nature of the profession as we do here at Curated and MLT, there’s an assurance – we inherently know what will and won’t work for our clients’ businesses.