The Importance of Branding in Legal Marketing

The brand name is your business voice. It speaks out about what your business is and what you are. A strong brand image plays a pivotal role in connecting with the audience. The Stackla 2021 report shows that nearly 88% of consumers consider authenticity to be crucial in deciding their brand. Therefore, it is imperative to focus on branding in legal marketing to grow your business and boost credibility. 

Branding helps make your way to stand out of the saturated market. Search on Google, and you will see top listings of the best law firms claiming to be the best. If you don’t have a strong brand reputation, the audience doesn’t incline on you. 

Building an impactful brand requires coherence and consistency on social media, websites, and physical offices. Unfortunately, branding goes overlooked without a solid plan for law firm brands. But what exactly do you need to build a strong brand image for the legal firm?  Here’s what we have summed up for branding in legal marketing.

Here’s what we have summed up for branding in legal marketing.

What Do You Mean by Branding in Legal Marketing?

The brand is a vision, reputation, and identity. It’s evolving as an authenticity factor for law firms in your customer’s minds. Distinctive branding is a way to show a significant presence in the digital world to a loyal retail audience. 

Branding comprises:

• Written identity and visual tone
• Business values and core strength 
• Design choices 
• Consistency 

It is more than just an eye-catchy logo for business cards. When the audience sees your brand, they understand the values and authenticity you represent to them. Many legal firms are confused between branding and advertising. Well, branding in legal marketing is about shaping your unique identity so that potential clients can connect with you and trust you with their problems.

Establishing Your Brand Identity

Establishing a distinctive identity for legal firms helps to stand apart from others. A strong brand reputation is all about expertise, credibility, trust, and empathy with clients. Consistent practice and delivering values can create long-lasting impressions in your targeted audience’s mind.

Here are a few tips that help to establish your identity when you focus on branding in legal marketing-

• Develop a Unique Proposition:- Find out what differentiates you from other legal firms. Create a value proposition that allows you to hit the target audience.

• Build Strong Online Presence:- Show your expertise through valuable content on online platforms. Leverage omnichannel marketing to engage with the audience.

• Define Brand Voice and Messaging:- A brand message strictly communicates with the audience. The brand message includes slogans, taglines, and a compelling message that shows the core values of your business.

• Establish Visual Brand Identity:- Create an impactful visual identity that reflects your legal firm values. It includes typography, logo, color palette, and visual elements.

• Get Reviews and Testimonials:- Testimonials and reviews on websites and social media platforms show your credibility. Try to collect reviews from your previous clients.

• Connect in Community Outreach:- Show active participation in various community events. Sponsor different local organizations to establish a reputation.

Building Your Brand Reputation

Brand reputation is the cornerstone of your law firm. It becomes paramount important to protect your brand reputation once you establish it at any cost. Your brand story should convey a direct message to the audience beyond the website. Start including valuable information on the website and social media profiles. 

• Start making video content on YouTube and social media channels.

• Leverage the power of content marketing because visitors love to gain more and more information. Start practicing SEO optimization in your content to impress Google.

• Delivers exceptional service experiences to your client. A survey report shows nearly 86% of customers are likely to visit the brand for a second time if they get a positive response from the service provider. Therefore, you should emphasize solving customer problems and giving them the best answers.

• Remember, customers can detect odd behavior if you are trying to hide services from them. Be honest and stay transparent with your audience to build trust. Establishing a trust can provide you with long-term benefits. Stay open with clients and promise only what you can provide to them. 

• Stay active on social media platforms. Monitor and manage your online presence. Use social media management tools such as Google Alerts. This helps to track competition and control reviews. It also helps to know what people publish or say about your law firm.

Implementing Your Strategy- Branding in Legal Marketing

A differentiated brand strategy helps to grow your firm much easier. That’s where implementing the right brand strategy is crucial for your firm. When you portray what you are and to whom you are targeting, half of the battle of building a strong brand wins.

To begin with, create a brand style guide that explains how your law firm presents itself to the audience through photography, colorful schematic logos, and more. 

• Create an imposing brand story. 
• Set unique guidelines for the brand logos
• Outline how the fonts of law firms are used
• Define your brand voice 
• Include compelling images

In addition to the above practice, create a brand advocacy program. This brand advocacy always attracts an audience to your services. Brand advocates can influence customers and employees. This helps to spread positivity about brands much faster than any other mode.

• Define your advocates and determine whom you want to target. Look after influencers and advocates who can help with branding in legal marketing.
• Select the best brand advocacy software to share, like, and report your content. 
• Maintain a strong presence online through blog posts and other ads. 
• Start promotion and referral programs to cater to audience attention.
• Stay real and approachable to your audience.

Measuring Your Brand Success

When you are at the peak of building a brand for legal firms, it is vital to check conversions. Measuring a brand’s success is useful for generating measurable outcomes. 

To measure your brand success, you need to keep all KPIs in mind including:

• Marketing budget
• Conversion rate 
• Website Traffic 
• Cost per lead 
• Email marketing
• Marketing return on investment 
• Client Acquisition 
• Client satisfactory rate 

Here are some tools that help to measure all the above-listed KPIs for brand success measurement-

• Google Analytics 
• Hootsuite
• Sprout Social
• Buffer 
• Survey Monkey 

The data you collect from the above tools help to create a compelling brand strategy to improve brand value. 

Final Thoughts on Importance of Branding in legal marketing

Branding in legal marketing  plays a significant role in conversion. The process of building a brand reputation consumes a lot of time. But legal firms can build a strong brand reputation with the right strategy and understanding of the targeted audience.

All things said and done, it’s important to abide by certain rules when branding and advertising your law firm. To know more, check out Lawyer Advertising Rules: 7 Things You Need To Know Before Advertising on Social Media.