Marketing for personal injury law firms requires assigning a budget, building a dedicated strategy, and tracking results. Overall, personal injury lawyers benefit from focusing on a few key marketing initiatives rather than spreading themselves thin across marketing channels and methods.

There’s no end to the ways a personal injury lawyer can market their firms — from Google ads to TikTok videos and blog posts. The wealth of options, however, can overwhelm. Many personal injury law firms delay their marketing efforts or take on too much all at once. 

Below are the seven critical steps personal injury firms can take to build a successful marketing plan, including several essential digital marketing initiatives. 

Step 1: Assign a budget

Personal injury lawyer marketing can take a great deal of time, effort, and money. Set aside a specific budget for your marketing efforts. It is OK to start small and build your marketing strategy year-over-year. You shouldn’t dive into everything all at once — and you simply won’t have the time to. In that respect, it also helps to decide how much time you’ll set aside each week to work on your marketing efforts. 

Step 2: Strategize

In light of your budget, you need to create a realistic marketing plan before diving into any costly efforts. 

Building a personal injury marketing plan includes identifying: 

• Key persona(s): Who is your ideal client — a truck accident victim, cyclist, or victim of medical malpractice?
• Where do your key personas hang out online: Are prospects on Facebook, Threads, LinkedIn or TikTok?
• Specific marketing goals: Do you need more leads, or do you need more of your leads to convert to clients?
• How you’ll track your marketing activities and goals: How will you gather data? Where will you store it? How often will you review it?

Step 3: Consider traditional marketing methods

Generally speaking, you can use traditional or digital legal marketing strategies for personal injury firms. While many digital marketing efforts are essential these days, you might use some traditional marketing methods depending on your goals, region, competition, and personality.

Traditional personal injury marketing methods include:

• TV commercials
• Newspapers
• Radio commercials
• Billboards
• Bus and bus stop ads
• Mailers

Digital marketing methods include:

• Website
• Search engine optimization (SEO) 
• Search engine marketing (SEM) ads
• Social media 

Step 4: Implement essential digital marketing methods

A majority of your marketing efforts will be in the digital realm. Below, we’ll explore the essential focus areas.

Your website

Your website is your digital first impression and should show prospects:

• What is the area of expertise of your law firm
• Who you help
• Your data-backed outcomes
• Social proof through reviews and case studies
• Easy ways to contact you

You want your prospects to have a smooth experience on your website. It should be easy to see what type of experience you have and the types of cases you take on. There should be information about your results, such as your overall awards and your largest settlements and court awards. 

Your website will also be an essential lead driver. Prospects should be able to contact you through your website and see your email and phone number on every page. 

Most likely, you aren’t a website developer in addition to being a personal injury attorney. While you can start with a budget-friendly option to build your first website, also consider hiring an individual or agency to help. 

Your Google Business Profile

Claim your Google Business Profile right away. Many people are going to pull out their phone, open Google and search for nearby personal injury lawyers. You want your profile set up and ready for those leads.

Make sure you maintain accurate information, including:

• The law firm name
• Your website URL
• Phone number
• Street address
• Service area
• Business hours

It never hurts to add a few high-quality pictures of your lawyers, staff, and location, either. People like to be able to put a face to a name. 

Another benefit of your Google Business Profile is that it gives you an excellent place to host client reviews. The more positive reviews you receive, the better your chance of capturing leads. 

SEO

SEO for personal injury law firms is essential because you’re competing with many other local personal injury firms for the top search engine results.

There are two ways in which you should consider SEO: your website and content marketing. In both cases, you need to understand keywords.

Keywords are frequent search terms. They can be brief or long-tail keywords, which are longer, more specific phrases that typically have fewer searches and less competition than a shorter, generic keyword phrase. For instance, “Chicago personal injury lawyer” is a generic keyword, while “Chicago personal injury lawyer for birth injuries” is more specific. 

Identify generic and specific keywords relevant to your practice and assign these keywords to particular pages of your website or content marketing efforts. 

Website technical SEO

Technical SEO ensures search engines’ bots can “crawl” your website, index it, and show it in search results. The better your technical SEO, the more likely your website will appear in the top search results — though this also depends on your content marketing efforts. 

To improve the technical SEO of your website, you’ll want to:

• Ensure your website structure has a clear, logical hierarchy
• Gear each page toward a specific keyword
• Give each page a relevant title tag and meta description based on the keyword
• Write person-first copy that is understandable and compassionate toward your target audience
• Consistently add new, high-quality content 
• Avoid duplicate and low-quality content 
• Make sure every page is mobile-friendly
• Check and improve your page speed
• Submit an XML sitemap to Google

Technical SEO can get complicated quickly. SEMRush, HubSpot, and other digital marketing experts can offer more information, such as SEMRush’s 10-step guide to a technical SEO audit. Many also have free or budget-friendly tools for you to measure and track your website’s SEO performance. 

Content marketing SEO

Content marketing encompasses creating, publishing, and distributing educational marketing materials online, which could include blog posts, social media posts, emails, case studies, infographics, videos, and more. 

Because there are so many options when it comes to content marketing, you’ll want to narrow your focus. Ask yourself:

• How much time do you have to create content? 
• Do you need help creating content?
• Do you want to focus on specific platforms?
• Do you want to focus on written or video content?

If you’re a personal injury lawyer new to content marketing, it can be best to focus on your blog and one social media platform. It might also help to bring on a freelance writer who can focus on execution while you strategize and ideate. 

For your blog posts, you’ll want to identify more short and long keywords. If you’re unsure of where to start, think about the most common cases, injuries, and disputes. Those can be your initial topic clusters. 

Topic clusters are a group of web pages and or blog posts organized around a central topic. They’re great for implementing a linking strategy on your website — you can link all of this relevant content together as well as with other authoritative websites.

For example, you may have a topic cluster around traumatic brain injuries. Along with a comprehensive website page that explains what brain injuries are, how they most often occur and how you handle TBIs in your cases, you could also publish blog posts about:

• Common types of brain injuries
• What damages can I receive for a TBI?
• How to win a TBI case

Make sure every blog post you write is focused on your audience’s needs and provides them with helpful, high-quality information. This approach will bring in leads, and Google might also reward you with higher search results. 

When you undertake a blog, it helps to post consistently. You can start with one post a month, and after you’ve built out more strategy and topics, grow to two or three posts per month. Weigh this against the amount of time you spend on social media, as well. A social platform is a great way to publish small pieces of information consistently and promote your blog. 

Social media

You might be tempted to spread yourself thin, but choose one or two social media platforms to reach your audience and stick with it. Do some research on who hangs out on Facebook, Instagram, Threads, X, LinkedIn and YouTube. Choose the platform where you’re most likely to get your content in front of prospective clients. 

Additionally, consider the type of content you want to make. Some platforms are designed for written content, while others are for video. If you want to lean into video, consider TikTok, Instagram and YouTube. 

For video marketing, you’ll want to consider:

• Types: You can generate a wealth of video content, such as introduction videos, FAQs, client testimonials, and educational content.
• Production: At the bare minimum, you’ll need a high-quality smartphone, a clean, professional background, proper lighting, and basic editing know-how. 
• SEO basics: Videos are just like blog posts — make sure to optimize the titles and descriptions based on keywords. 

Social media isn’t just about posting, though. You’ll need to check in throughout the day or week to interact with your audience. Consider it a place to network in addition to publishing content. 

E. Social proof

Social proof in marketing is based on the fact that people tend to follow other people, especially when they aren’t sure what to do. In other words, your prospects can be influenced by your previous clients. 

Types of social proof include:

• Reviews/testimonials
• Case studies
• Awards
• Endorsements

To gather testimonials, ask your clients for a review after completing their cases. You can use your Google Business Page to gather reviews on your website, a legal directory or a social media platform. The benefit of Google reviews is that they can boost your local SEO efforts and help individuals in your region not only find you but also trust you. 

One review request might not be enough, so you may want to consider an email marketing campaign to follow up with clients. Some may even be willing to sit for a video testimonial, which you could add to your website and social media. 

Like social media, reviews are also a place to connect. You can respond to both positive and negative reviews — and your responses to negative comments could influence whether someone reaches out to you.

Another option is case studies, also known as customer stories. If you won a particularly challenging case, you may want to tell the story of how you overcame the challenges your client faced and won them a significant court award or settlement. 

Step 5: Try paid digital marketing

If you have a sizeable marketing budget, consider paid marketing strategies. Pay-per-click (PPC) is a paid digital ad option across search engines and social media platforms. PPC allows you to target an audience, boosts overall brand awareness of the firm, and is easy to track and measure. 

Types of PPC ads include:

• Search ads: These are the ads that appear at the top of a user’s search engine results, usually labeled “Sponsored.”
• Display ads: These ads are banner- or image-based and appear across websites within the Google Display Network (GDN) and other partner sites/apps.
• Video ads: You can publish short videos on LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, and other platforms. 
• Retargeting ads: Also called remarketing ads, these only appear for users who have visited your website or interacted with your content. 

Another paid ad option is Google’s Local Service Ads, which show up when users search for services in your area. This option is a great way to target prospects in the counties where you practice most often.  

In terms of ad copy, keep it clear and concise. Make it clear who you are and who you help. 

Paid marketing strategies can get expensive quickly, so define your budget, consider your options carefully, and meticulously track your results. Find out where you get the most bang for your buck. 

Step 6: Automate email marketing

Email marketing is particularly helpful for lead nurturing. Once you have a lead, respond quickly and then follow up in the following days and weeks. Automated email nurturing can be a great way to keep in touch with leads who don’t sign on as clients right away. You can send follow-up emails that include helpful information via newsletters or blog posts.

A newsletter is also a great way to stay in touch with referral partners. If you decide to tackle a newsletter, do your best to gear it toward the intended audience and fill it with helpful content.

 

Step 7: Get involved locally

No matter your personal injury marketing efforts, word of mouth is still key. You should take steps to build your reputation within the community. 

Consider sponsoring local events, teams, and scholarships. Is there a big summer event in your region? A youth team in need of new jerseys? Or do you have a great university or community college where you could help a local student? Look at these as genuine opportunities to give back to the community rather than a way to advertise. 

Offer public speaking in your region and connect with the local news outlets. For instance, how often does your local news cover truck accidents or dangerous intersections? You could offer a lawyer’s point of view for those injured. 

Another step is to build referral networks in your region, such as with:

• Healthcare providers like chiropractors, physical therapists, doctors, and rehab centers
• Non-medical establishments like Pilates, yoga studios, and massage therapists
• Lawyers with non-competing practice areas

5 extra personal injury marketing tips

Here are a few more things to keep in mind when forming your personal injury marketing strategy.

• Tip #1: Pick a few priorities and stick with them. Do a few things well rather than spreading yourself thin across numerous platforms and strategies.
• Tip #2: Don’t work alone. Get help from others within your firm, freelancers or a law firm marketing agency. 
• Tip #3: You get what you pay for. If you choose to work with a freelancer or agency, research them carefully, and don’t shoot for the bottom of the barrel. 
• Tip #4: Don’t ignore technology. Whether free or paid, a few tools can help your marketing efforts significantly, such as an SEO plugin, video editing tools, and client intake software.
• Tip #5: Track everything. The only way to know if your marketing efforts are working is to track the results, including the number of leads and conversions, social media followers, and engagement. 

CloudLex partners with personal injury law firms to provide them with purpose-built, comprehensive practice management software. Cutting-edge technology integrates seamlessly with Microsoft Office 365, Google Calendar, Gmail, Adobe Sign, and DocuSign to provide firms with an end-to-end solution.

Request a CloudLex demo today to learn how our Intake Manager and Referral Engine fit into any personal injury law firm’s marketing strategy.