FIND ANSWERS TO SOME OF THE MOST COMMONLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT LEGAL MARKETING.

At Orion Legal Marketing we offer two main pricing options. We can provide you with a quote for a particular marketing project – such as making a whiteboard video or redesigning your website.

We also offer a marketing retainer service where we manage all of your marketing activities for a monthly fee.

In all cases, the cost will depend on the complexity of the project and your particular audience.

We do offer free consultations so please don’t be afraid to pick up the phone and see what we can do to support your Law Firm, Mediation Practice or Barristers Chambers.

There are many ways to evaluate your marketing investment.

Ultimately it is about monitoring the amount of new business you get either from increased spending from existing clients or new clients using your services for the first time. However, there are many marketing metrics you can use along the way to monitor the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns.

The most appropriate form of evaluation will depend on the marketing activity you are undertaking.

The most effective marketing strategy considers all aspects of marketing, from LinkedIn profiles to letterhead designs and more.

As legal marketing experts, we look at every single potential ‘touchpoint’ that your prospective clients have with your firm or chambers. A future client could visit your website, receive your email newsletter, see your advert in their local magazine or walk past your high street office.

With our keen eye for detail and our combined 100 years’ in-house legal and business development experience, we are perfectly placed to offer a complete marketing solution for your Law Firm, Mediation Practice or Barristers Chambers.

As flexible consultants, we can manage specific marketing activities or take responsibility for your entire marketing function.

Meet Our Team to discover more about our legal marketing experts.

With trained solicitors in our team, we understand the particular challenges faced by the legal sector, and how to restore the value of your legal expertise in a market that is dealing with the impact of deregulation, increased competition and escalating referral fees.

Everyone at Orion Legal Marketing has a successful track-record of delivering results for clients time and time again; offering a knowledgeable, personal and professional service that you can trust.

The team at Orion Legal Marketing have over 100 years marketing and legal expertise between them, and we use that experience to understand you, your firm and the competitive environment in which you operate so we can be sure the advice and solutions we provide work for you holistically. We’re as invested as you are in making sure any marketing activities you undertake maximize your visibility the market and deliver a return on your investment. Ideally, we’d like to help you grow your business in the long term and achieve your goals.

That said, unlike some marketing agencies our clients are not tied into any lengthy contracts with us. For project-based work, e.g. a website or video, after we have scoped out your needs, we will give you a proposal and price up front that clearly explains our charges and gives you the security of knowing exactly what you’ll get from your investment. Where advertising is concerned e.g. on Facebook, we ask that you sign up to a minimum of 3 months to give the campaign enough time to have an impact and produce results. After that we just work on a rolling a 12month contract that you can cancel at any time.

The team at Orion Legal Marketing are invested in you and your firm’s success. If what we do works for you and helps you grow your business, you’ll use us again. It’s that simple.

The term “blog” is short for weblog and is a regularly updated resource of information, news, articles and expert opinion on your website. It is a great way for your Law Firm, Mediation Practice or Barristers Chambers to communicate with prospects and clients and illustrate the breadth and depth of your expertise. Regular blog postings also ensure that the content on your website is fresh and relevant, which is what search engines consider of most value when determining where your website will appear in a list of search results.

Another way blogs can help you get higher ranking on search engines is to do with ‘in bound links’ which again is considered important in search engines algorithms. Compelling blog posts on pertinent topics will encourage visitors to return to your site to read new posts – and may even encourage them to link to your blog, thereby giving it more credence in the eye of the search engines.

Orion Legal Marketing can help you create professional, engaging and timely blogs that easily integrated with your website. Our experienced team can assist with both the creation of the content and also the posting of items to your blog.

As an expert Law Firm, Mediation Practice or Barristers Chambers it is likely you are frequently asked the same questions by clients and prospects. These FAQs are a great starting point for content creation. They can be used across a number of mediums and formats, from blogs on your website, to posts on social media, to short impactful videos. By the very nature of them being FAQ’s they are often a commonly searched phrase on the major search engines so having that content online will also help will help drive traffic to your website.

The team at Orion Legal Marketing can help you create a series of content-based FAQs that you can roll out across various marketing platforms. Our LinkedIn specialists can help you create engaging posts, our white board video creatives can help transform complex ideas into easily understood videos which are loved by Google, and our SEO experts can use that information in your website’s content/tags to help make it more search engine friendly.

Firstly, there is no connection between how expensive a website is and how effective it is. Website prices can be affected by any number of things – bespoke photography, expensive website designers, apps and technical add-ons etc but essentially if your website is not being found by the right people when they are searching for legal services and giving out the right messages when they visit it, then no matter how great the design, your website will not help you generate business.

Your website needs to convey your brand, encourage target prospective clients to take action, and have the right conversion elements to make it easy for them to contact you. All of this can be done without spending a huge sum of money.

Our team at Orion Legal Marketing can make sure that the parts of your online presence that help get your website get found on search engines, drive visitors to your website, positively engages with those visitors and compels them to contact you are all optimised to generate business.

Search engine optimisation (SEO) is the process by which your Law Firm, Mediation Practice or Barristers Chambers website’s content is manipulated to achieve top rankings on major search engines. Each search engine uses its own algorithms to determine the search results it generates. Most use a combination of a website’s content, meta tags (hidden content descriptions that help tell search engines what a web page is about), link popularity, click popularity and longevity to determine a website’s ranking.

Prospective clients who search the internet for legal services typically don’t click past the first page of search results therefore in an incredibly competitive online marketplace effective search engine optimisation is crucial in helping your website generate new client leads.

Orion Legal Marketing’s team of SEO legal marketing specialists can research the top keywords and phrases used to search for your legal services, then optimise your website’s content and meta tags to ensure that your website appears high in the major search engines results.

A lot of people associate social media with teenagers sending selfies or people posting photos of their breakfast/ puppy. But social media is much, much more than that, and it is now a very powerful commercial tool that Law Firms, Mediation Practices and Barristers Chambers can use to create awareness and drive business to their firm.

Social media is about connecting with people who have needs, interests or work that is common with your own. There are lots of different social media platforms but the ones your firm should consider having a presence on (at the very least) are LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. Having a branded profile on these social media platforms increases your firm’s visibility online and allows your firm to engage and build relationships with prospective clients.

LinkedIn is the world’s most effective commercial social network and it should be viewed as an essential business development tool no matter what type of firm you have or who your clients are. Facebook enables you to target people based on the types of things they are interested in using demographic profiling, utilising adverts featuring a video, blog or content. Twitter for marketing is challenging on several fronts: tracking end results, hitting at the right time and getting traction but there are basic rules that can help you use it most effectively.

Whilst all of these social platforms can work for your firm, you can choose to focus on some more than others (although in reality, it is much more efficient to use them as a combination). The team at Orion Legal Marketing can discuss which are the best social media tools for you and how best to use them to communicate with clients, target prospective clients and connect with referrers.

Unfortunately, websites don’t come with expiration dates, but if your Law Firm, Mediation Practice or Barristers Chambers website is 3 years old or more you should review some key signs to decide if it either needs replacing or updating if it is still going to work effectively for you and help bring in business for your firm.

Have a look at your website objectively against the websites of your competition and other firms in your sector. Is it starting to look outdated? If you think it does, so will potential clients and they will extend this opinion to you and your firm. Like clothing fashions, Internet tastes and design trends change over time in terms of site design and users expect websites to keep up with the times.

As well as the aesthetics you need to consider if your website is built on outdated technology. How does it look when viewed on a mobile device? Does it resize correctly and is it easy to access all the key information on your site? Your website will make a bad impression on potential clients if it is slow to upload or hard to use. Old website coding can also expose your firm to potential cyber-attacks and other security vulnerabilities.

Type your area of specialism into Google. Does your website appear on the first page? The second? If not, it needs work! The main search engines judge your website on many things including its current relevance and if your website has not been updated for a while it is possible it is not search engine friendly and therefore not showing when potential client carry out searches for commonly used terms.

Does your website still reflect you, your firm and the service it offers? Firms grow and change, with new hires and modified services. If your website has not evolved with you there could be a disconnect between the two and your online ‘shop window’ may not correctly reflect you and your current legal offering.

Lots of small changes to website best practices add up over time, and even a simple redesign can make a big difference in how your website looks, works and what it can offer to potential clients. With the help of an experienced website psychologist, Orion Legal Marketing can produce a tailored website report that not only looks at the technical aspects of your website but also analyses the psychology behind it, and offers suggestions to help improve user engagement and boost conversion rates.

Based on this report we can identify areas for improvement to ensure that your website continues to deliver a great user experience and converts visitors to clients. A redesign can consist of change to a few key pages, or it can be a complete overhaul, depending on what is most appropriate for your firm and the most cost-effective update for your website.

The term “blog” is short for weblog and is a regularly updated resource of information, your Law Firm, Mediation Practice or Barristers Chambers website. This section of your website doesn’t have to be called a blog, it could just be referred to as “News,” “Updates,” or “Insights”. The key is that fresh, relevant blog content gives you an opportunity to showcase your expertise and differentiate yourself from the competition.

If you want search engines to pay attention to your website, the more quality content you post to your blog the better. The main search engines reward websites for having consistent and fresh blog content. Google states when judging where to rank a website the most important factors, are that it illustrates “Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness” where the expert sources provide helpful and valuable information about topics on which they have authority. People will often find you through search engine queries so it is important that you have fresh blog content relating to the key terms and phrases used on search engines by potential clients.

So to answer your question, blog as often as you can. Many people suggest daily but for legal firms, a few times a week should suffice. Each blog does not have to be a long in-depth technical essay, (in fact, it probably shouldn’t be) – some of the best blogs are short and snappy. What is most important is that the content is relevant and searchable so your key audience can find it.

Sharing content on a blog is easy. But creating and publishing content that communicates your Firm or Chambers’ unique culture and values and demonstrates your particular legal expertise takes a different level of skill.

The team at Orion Legal Marketing can create and post blog content on your website, on all of your social media platforms, and/or select the sites that are best suited to your particular audience. Our bespoke blogging service is tailored around you, your budget, your objectives and your current marketing activities.

Online video is a powerful marketing tool considered to be one of the most influential on the internet. People are consuming millions of hours of video on sites like Facebook and YouTube every day, and statistically, where both video and text are available on the same page, over 70% of people would rather watch a video to learn about a product or service.

Videos are a powerful tool to promote almost anything: your services and testimonials, to explain facts or important legal changes etc; and in your potential client’s eyes, they help to bring your talented legal team to life.

Whiteboard and animation videos are ideally suited to Lawyers, Solicitors, Barristers and Mediators as you often need to convey complex messages and services in a comprehensive and engaging way. By using video, you can bring your legal services to life, create memorable images, build trust and drive traffic to your website.

Orion Legal Marketing can manage your entire video project from the initial ideas stage right through to helping you publish it on YouTube, your website and your social media pages. Once the video is complete, getting it online is key to maximising your success. The right legal keywords and video placement can significantly improve your search engine optimisation. Videos increase the time visitors spend on your website pages – an important factor in the Google algorithm, as it indicates you are providing quality content which people want to spend time on.

Whatever your budget, we can use our legal marketing expertise to meet your needs and ensure that your whiteboard video strengthens your brand and helps you to attract new clients.

Client surveys have become an essential business development tool for most Law Firm or Barristers Chambers and with good reason. By learning what their clients expect and how they perceive the quality of service firms can evaluate a variety of critical issues regarding winning and keeping clients. This information can then be used to create competitive advantage, increase client satisfaction, improve loyalty and guarantee the long-term growth of your practice.

The cost of monitoring client satisfaction through a survey is low, especially when measured against the enormous benefits of improving client relations and increasing revenue from the firm’s current client base. Many firms have found that a client survey can pay for itself just by retaining or enhancing one client relationship.

In fact, there is virtually no downside risk to a client survey, as long as the law firm responds quickly to any negative issues that clients raise. Appearing to ask for feedback and then ignoring it can undo any good intentions.

Orion Legal Marketing can create, review or implement client surveys for you. With more than 100 years’ experience in legal marketing, we know the right questions to ask, can help you understand the results and can transform the insights gained into an actionable marketing plan to help your Law Firm or Barristers Chambers attract a constant flow of new enquiries and retain existing clients.

Website title tags and meta data are the behind the scene descriptions that tell Google what you web page is talking about and what topics to rank your website page for in its search results. So it is important to carefully choose your web page header titles and complete your meta tags, as well as including key words in your copy.

Google’s search algorithm favours websites that are designed for mobile devices (mobile/cell phones, tablets etc) as it marks the mobile-friendliness of a search result and URLs optimised for mobile can receive preferential treatment and a ranking boost.

Therefore, if two pages offer good content at the same quality level on a subject, the one optimised for the needs of mobile searchers is more likely to be treated favourably – ranking it higher. So, if like many ‘old’ sites your website isn’t ‘responsive’ e.g. designed to be read easily on mobile devices, your rankings may suffer in Google’s search results.

From 6 December 2018, SRA transparency rules mean you must display prices and service information if you publish that you work in any of the following areas:

• Conveyancing (residential)
• Probate (uncontested)
• Motoring offences (summary offences)
• Immigration (excluding asylum)
• Employment tribunals (unfair/wrongful dismissal)
• Debt recovery (up to £100,000)
• Licensing applications (business premises)

It is important to track the performance of your website so that you can check it is working properly and make improvements if required. There are lots of different ways you can monitor your website’s performance but some of the key Google Analytics metrics are:

• Users (new and returning people that visit your website)
• Sessions (number of interactions with your site)
• Pages per session (number of pages viewed)
• Devices (viewed by desktop, mobile etc)
• Source/medium and channels (direct, social, paid)
• Bounce rate (anything over 55% seek help!).