20 Legal Marketing Ideas for Slow Days

We all have them—slow days. The days when the phone does not ring, the emails are not pouring in, and the work is under control. For some lawyers, these days are a welcome relief from the daily grind. For others, however, these days bring increased concern over the lack of viable client prospects. For everyone, these days provide a brilliant opportunity to tackle small tasks that can create quick marketing wins for your law firm.

Here are 20 online and offline quick-and-easy marketing ideas to help make the most of your slow days. Each task takes an hour (or less) to complete, and most require no advance work.

6 Website Marketing Ideas

1. Review your website bio. Take a few minutes to read your bio and review all associated information, such as professional organization affiliations. Is everything up-to-date? Do you have a current profile photo on your bio? Is your contact information easy to locate?
2. Read your home page. Your home page needs to convey who you are, what your most important service is, and who you want to serve. If it does not, revise the copy immediately. This page often provides a prospective client with their first real impression of your law firm. Do not waste this highly valuable space!
3. Write a new page for your website. Whether it’s a service page, an FAQ page, or something else altogether, focus your time on writing a new page of copy for your site. A single page can be as short as 300 words, so do not think of this as a huge undertaking.
4. Confirm all external links work. Do you include links to your social profiles, favorite web resources or other websites on your site? You should audit each link at least once a year to make sure that they all still pull up the correct site or page.
5. Write a blog post or two to get ahead in your publication schedule. Instead of waiting until the last minute to write for your blog, take the time to craft a post or two that dive into subjects your clients are interested in and you have a passion about. Longer posts perform better in terms of search and reader engagement, so do not be afraid to dive in deep.
6. Review your website metadata. Run your website through a crawler such as Screaming Frog SEO Spider (a free desktop tool) to get a full picture of the title tags and meta descriptions that exist for each page on your site.
   

   Make every title tag and description unique to each page. (Screaming Frog also takes a look at alt data for images, potential link issues, and more, which you can dive into on another rainy day.)

4 Social Media Marketing Ideas

1. Clean up your LinkedIn profile. Do some quick updates to polish your LinkedIn profile. Get a custom URL, so you no longer have the default numbers in your URL. Add a background image that fits your brand. Craft a summary (written in first person singular “I,” “me,” and “my”) that speaks to who you help and how you help them.
2. Read an article or two on LinkedIn or your preferred industry blog. Then, take your invested time a step further and leave comments on each article or post. Your comments should add value: say what you liked and why, or if you disagreed with a part of the post, explain your reasoning. This helps build credibility and shows thought leadership.
3. Build out your social media posting queue. Fill your social media management scheduling queue with current news, relevant blog posts, videos, and other useful items relevant to your audience. Sprinkle in a few posts about your firm (e.g., upcoming events, speaking engagements, office birthdays, etc.). You’ll find you can take care of at least a couple weeks of posts within a 15-30-minute window. (Don’t have a social media management system in place yet? See the next quick win.)
4. Sign up for a social media management system. There are many free social profile management tools out there that you can use. I prefer Hootsuite and Buffer, personally, and use both to manage my Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Google+ accounts.

3 Email Marketing Ideas

1. Build your email list. Do you send out a regular e-newsletter to your email list? Work on building your list by sending a short email to five people you know (friends, family members, colleagues, etc.) and ask them if they’d be interested in receiving your e-newsletter.
   

    If they respond with anything other than “no,” ask them which email address would work best for them and add them to your email list.

2. Send a “what do you want to know about?” email to your list. Write a short, to-the-point email asking your audience what questions they have about current events/your services/etc. Use those questions to guide your next blog posts, answering one question in each post. This is an excellent way to engage with your audience. It shows you want to listen to them and that you are willing to provide insight (without offering legal advice).
3. Create a lead magnet to collect more emails. Repurpose your most popular blog post or article into a lead magnet (a.k.a. a free, downloadable PDF). Offer the lead magnet in exchange for an email address. Make sure to have this free offer highlighted in your website design, and promote it on LinkedIn.

3 Online Marketing Ideas

1. Check your NAP information. NAP (NAP = Name, Address, Phone number) consistency is one of the most important factors when it comes to ranking in search engines for local search results. Review your contact information on Google, Bing, Yelp, and local directories. Make sure this information is consistent and accurate. If you find errors, submit change requests.
2. Ask your most recent five clients for a testimonial. Send an email with a link to your preferred review site or ask that they just reply to your email with a short statement. Do not provide too many leading questions, which will result in all of your testimonials sounding the same. Instead, let your clients know that you are building out your reviews and testimonials and would appreciate feedback from them that they can publish on their own, or you can publish on your website. Provide links in your request to your preferred review sites (e.g., Avvo, Google, Yelp, LinkedIn) to make the next step that much easier for your clients.
3. Research your competition. Look at your top competitor’s website and social media pages. What are they writing about? What are they sharing on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, or other social platforms? Identify if there is something they are doing that you know you can do better. Also look for areas that they are completely overlooking, where you can fill the gap and become the go-to for that niche item or issue.

4 Offline Marketing Ideas

1. Send thank you notes (real notes, not emails) to your top five clients. Write a short note thanking each client for their business. Put the notes in color envelopes with handwritten addresses. The envelopes will catch your clients’ eyes, and the handwritten elements will let them know that someone put real time and effort into sending it.
2. Attend a local networking meeting. If you have a free afternoon and are feeling social, visit your local Chamber of Commerce or search for a local BNI chapter.
   

   It’s only a couple hours of your time, but it may open up a brand new referral source to you. Remember to bring a stack of business cards with you.

3. Review your annual marketing plan. Check your marketing progress against your annual marketing plan. Are you where you want to be? What have you not yet done, but should do immediately? Identify your next priority and tackle the first step to get started.
4. Find a local event in your area to sponsor. You have a cause or event that you believe in. Support that cause while also building goodwill for your law firm. Research what your preferred charity wants or needs. If their website does not offer that information, send an email—they will be ecstatic to hear from you and will get back in touch with you quickly.

Get Marketing!

This list is by no means exhaustive, but it provides you with some great ideas for making the most of even the slowest of work days. Let me know in the comments which quick one you plan to target first. And good luck!

20 Legal Marketing Ideas for Slow Days was originally published on Lawyerist.com.