When discussing influencer marketing, the legal industry might not come to mind. However, as influencers continue to establish significant rapport with consumers in other industries, legal professionals can benefit from influencer marketing, too.
Influencer marketing has enabled marketers to leverage recognizable faces for advertising and promotions. Most Americans use smartphones to shop online, and influencers have influenced their purchasing decisions. The same can be true for clients seeking legal help.
Forward-thinking lawyers are using influencer marketing to strengthen their legal service promotions. But the question is, are legal influencers worth it?
Understanding Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing is a digital marketing practice that uses product or service mentions and endorsements from influencers—social media stars with significant following who are considered highly influential in their niche.
This advertising technique works by connecting and collaborating with influencers. For example, you’ll pitch a series of short-form videos related to personal injury marketing to a well-known legal influencer. However, this is easier said than done. You can’t just connect with a random legal influencer, pitch a marketing idea, and expect them to accept the offer.
Influencer marketing is more than just connecting and pitching. While many influencers are celebrities, not all of them are. Influencers can be anyone and anywhere, making outreach quite challenging. Moreover, influencers seek value in the partnerships they form.
The legal industry has its own influencers. These individuals can be legal bloggers, marketing experts, or professionals with significant social media followers. Before connecting and pitching, you must find the right legal influencers to collaborate with. It’s essential to remember that influencers can influence your potential clients, so their legal knowledge and practice should be credible and trustworthy.
The Advantages of Influencer Marketing for Lawyers
Influencer marketing is beneficial when done right. You can get more than just promotional content, service mentions, and endorsements with the right legal influencers and campaign executions.
Let’s examine the advantages of working with influencers for lawyers like you.
Establishes strong client relationships
Client relationships are significant in influencer marketing for lawyers. These relationships are essential to your law firm’s long-term growth and success. Strong client relationships can make your existing and potential clients feel more connected and secure with your brand and services.
Influencer marketing can help you establish strong client relationships. By leveraging legal influencers’ followers, you can reach your target audience who highly needs legal services. You can engage with prospects seeking legal assistance in real time.
As such, legal influencers will convey your messaging, branding, and services enthusiastically, honestly, and reliably to help you convert more prospects. They enable potential clients to discover your offers and understand how you can provide the services they need. This way, their followers can see your brand’s humane aspect.
Expands visibility and brand awareness
Social media is saturated with various advertising and promotional content. That’s why some clients may prefer hearing opinions and recommendations from their trusted influencers.
Collaborating with influencers can provide access to their followers, who are more likely to show interest in your legal services. They can make it easier for you to promote your firm since they already have an established following. Consequently, their established following can quickly expand your visibility and brand awareness.
Suppose the legal influencer you collaborate with has over 10,000 followers. These followers can see the content promoting your law firm. Once they see the promotion, they’re more likely to engage with it because they trust the influencer’s opinions, resulting in more brand awareness.
Builds social proof for trust and credibility
Influencer marketing helps you build social proof to establish your firm’s trust and credibility.
Since many users trust influencers, they can build your firm’s social proof by reviewing your services. These reviews typically include your services, the costs, and their overall experience working with you. They’ll recommend you to their followers if they find your legal services beneficial.
Another social proof an influencer can provide is an authentic endorsement. Endorsements are authentic promotions where legal influencers vouch for your law firm’s lawyers and services. They can be paid or not, but most of them are unpaid. Collaborating with influencers can offer more endorsement opportunities and strengthen your authority.
For example, Augusta Precious Metals, a leading gold IRA company, has partnered with Joe Montana, a former football quarterback, to be an ambassador for their brand.
Although he was a paid ambassador, it built more trust with Augusta’s prospective clients.
Targeted and authentic content creation
Influencer marketing involves targeted content creation that focuses on personalization. With influencers, you can develop and publish personalized content tailored specifically to your target audience’s needs and preferences. They can also deliver authenticity that ensures engagement.
Authentic content can be as simple as hosting contests and giveaways. These types of content offer opportunities to create more client connections.
Targeted content creation also aims to maximize online users’ attention. Most social media users have short attention spans, making it less likely for them to read lengthy posts. Concurrently, they may immediately skip content they don’t find valuable in the first few seconds of reading or viewing it.
Influencers can develop targeted content, such as short-form videos, that users will watch until the end.
For example, they can make a 15 to 60-second video about what to do when someone is wrongfully accused. This quick and detailed video may include a part where viewers are encouraged to consult your law firm. Although it’s not lengthy, the video is attention-grabbing and can provide valuable information within seconds.
Creates more partnerships
Influencers often work with multiple brands, giving them opportunities to build a professional network. When you work with one, their professional network may bring new opportunities and partnerships to promote your law firm.
For example, someone from their network might be looking for a keynote speaker or a sponsor for one of their events. Your influencer may recommend you to this connection. Once you become a speaker or sponsor, more legal professionals or potential clients will know your law firm’s brand and services. Thus, these partnerships can benefit your firm’s growth in the long run.
How To Develop Influencer Marketing Campaigns for Lawyers
Like other marketing strategies, developing influencer marketing campaigns is hard work. A campaign won’t be successful without elaborate planning, assessments, and implementation.
While influencer marketing tactics are unique to each business, there are universally accepted practices that are ideal for all. Understanding how to execute these practices is the key to achieving the best results from influencer marketing.
Know the kind of influencers you need
Knowing what kind of influencers your law firm needs is the first step in creating a campaign. Determine who they are based on your marketing needs. Do you need a mega-influencer to reach a wider audience or a micro-influencer that balances professionalism and authenticity? The choice is yours.
If you’re unfamiliar with the types of influencers, you can use influencer platforms. These platforms sort influencers based on followers and reach. This way, you’ll know if the influencers have celebrity status or enough followers to work on small-scale campaigns.
Social listening is an option if you can’t invest in an influencer platform. It involves researching what online users say about your firm and services on social media. It also lets you know the most trusted legal influencers among potential clients.
Furthermore, it’s essential to search for standard influencer rates. Some influencers may be represented by agencies or work independently. Independent influencers are usually nano-influencers, while talent agencies manage mega-influencers. Nano-influencers are typically cheaper because mega-influencers may require expensive rates due to their celebrity status.
Outline a management strategy and prepare a budget
Now that you know your required influencers and their standard rates, outline your management strategy and prepare a budget. Ensure to factor in the planning, outreach, implementation, and tracking time. Include a contingency plan for potential pitfalls, as some influencers may fall behind or make errors due to multiple partnerships.
Then, set a budget based on your marketing requirements. Preparing an influencer budget enables you to align costs without exhausting funds for other purposes.
Additionally, consider launching an ambassador program if you have enough time and money. Ambassador programs can help cultivate long-term relationships with influencers to foster brand awareness and endorsements.
Determine your campaign goals and messaging
The next step is deciding your campaign goals. Setting campaign goals will help you develop content strategies that guarantee conversions. It’ll also enable you to stick to a plan so the campaigns will not get sidetracked.
Messaging is as significant as your campaign goals. While creative freedom is essential for influencers, you don’t want them to publish unrelated content. Remember to outline your brand messaging so influencers will know the kinds of promotional content that align with your objectives.
Boost Your Client Acquisition With Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing is worth it for lawyers like you. With proper planning and execution, you can guarantee an influencer campaign that will boost client acquisition. Similarly, following the best practices enables you to collaborate with the right legal influencers that can foster growth and success.
