How Lawyers Can Use LinkedIn to Grow Their Business

Discover How Law Firms Use LinkedIn to Attract More Referral Partners and New Clients

Revealed: The 7 Steps to Using LinkedIn to Generate New Enquiries

We all know that the legal profession has a major challenge in growing their practices because the majority of their new business comes from referral and word of mouth.

Lead Generation and client acquisition are a problem for any entrepreneurially focused firm who want to take their business to the next level of growth. Unfortunately, unless you’ve got a BIG marketing budget, Google advertising and other social media platforms just aren’t viable options.

With the ever-increasing popularity of LinkedIn within the Australian business community, LinkedIn may provide an affordable, effective and scalable solution to generate new leads for your law firm. I love LinkedIn because it’s ideal for amplifying the good reputation that the firm has already developed through its existing client base.

Here are 7 Steps I’d recommend for your firm to take to leverage the power of LinkedIn and start generating a consistent flow of new enquiries.

The first 3 steps focus on build a strong online presence:

Step 1 – Build a Strong Online Presence

Lawyers Personal LinkedIn Profiles – Update the LinkedIn profiles of all lawyers to promote their knowledge and achievements around their area of law. Each LinkedIn Profile should focus on highlighting the lawyers individual strengths, personality and passion for what they do.
The Law Firms’ Company Page – Create a compelling Company Page for your law firm that promotes the areas of law you specialize in. Provide some case studies to show how your firm has delivered a positive outcome, and perhaps offer a FREE Industry report to prospective clients. LinkedIn also lets you create ‘showcase pages’ for each area of law, which helps your digital marketing and SEO efforts to get to the top of Google when someone searches for your type of legal services.
Promoting Thought Leadership – Create Content that showcases your firm’s area of expertise and provides some general help and guidance to your prospective clients. The purpose of this content is to build up the personal brands of your lawyers, as well as the firm’s brand and reputation.

Now you’ve built a great profile so that when someone refers you and the prospective client or referral partner Googles your name, they will see an impressive profile with some great content. The next step is to get as many prospective clients to see the profiles of your lawyers, to read their blog posts, and to get in touch when the time is right.

Step 2 – Leverage Your Business Network on LinkedIn

The next step is to reach out to your prospective clients and potential new referral partners (if you’d like to expand your network of strategic alliances).

Invite Your Clients to Connect – Go through your database and make sure you’re connected with all your current and previous clients on LinkedIn. The power of LinkedIn comes through the 2^nd degree connections, and so building your network with people who recommend you will help you to attract more clients.
Try to Get 3 Testimonials on LinkedIn – I know this is hard, and there is confidentiality issues to consider, but you’ll attract a lot more clients by building credibility. The best way to build credibility is to have your clients speak on your behalf. So ask for recommendations from those clients that you feel comfortable to ask. Although this takes time, its worth it because those testimonials are on your LinkedIn profile forever, and you can also copy them over to your website, and even your brochures etc.
Reach out to Prospective Clients – Strategically go through your 2^nd degree connections and create a campaign where these people will want to connect with you on LinkedIn. You can use LinkedIn’s Advanced Search function to find your target market. For example, if you wanted to connect with all CEOs, directors and partners from Melbourne, Australia who have a company size of 10 – 50 staff, and are within the Civil Engineering sector, you could do this on LinkedIn. When you’ve done this for a few weeks, you’ll see the power and potential LinkedIn can offer you, so I’d recommend you upgrade to the Business Plus Premium LinkedIn account when you’re ready to reach a high number of prospective clients each day.
Establish a Conversation with Your New Prospective Clients and Referral Partners – Once connected, send them a sequence of 3 messages (that are not salesy or spammy, but rather personal and meaningful). Your objective is to meet them in person, or at least over the phone so they can get to know more about your services. From here, you continue to build the relationship offline – but these clients will also see your updates and blog posts as they come up in their feed – so it’s all about staying top of mind. When they need your services, or know someone who does, they’ll be confident to recommend your firm.

LinkedIn Is a Gold Mine of Opportunity

This process will help generate a steady flow of new enquiries into your law firm, and help you stand out from the hundreds of your competitors that seem to be paralysed when it comes to taking action on using Social Media.

LinkedIn is where the opportunities can be found for Lawyers who want to build their practice.

Interested to Know More?

If you have any questions, or would like to know more about how to use LinkedIn for lead generation, please free to book in a time for a FREE chat for 10 – 15 minutes about how LinkedIn can help your firm:

https://calendly.com/bonnie-5/15min

We also have a breakfast workshop coming up on how to Create a Powerful LinkedIn Profile that Attracts Clients.

http://www.perfectboom.com/events/

Your Thoughts?

If you’ve got any feedback or questions on how this strategy might work within your practice, please feel free to use the comments section below or contact me on 0409 990 606 if you prefer a confidential chat.

I look forward to hearing from you soon.