Digital channels have played an important role in most barristers chambers marketing strategies for many years. Although, with audience expectations and methods of communication constantly changing it is important to understand how each development can help grow your chambers brand and reach out to new clients.
Before you start a new digital marketing campaign for your chambers, there are a few things you need to consider first.
Is your website mobile friendly?
This is one of the most important parts of a successful digital strategy. Up to 40% of clients will be using a mobile device to access the website, so it is crucial that your chamber’s site is made accessible for them. Having a mobile responsive design will make the user’s journey much easier by allowing them to find the content they are looking for more efficiently, which increases the likelihood of them getting in touch.
Is your website easy to navigate?
Users should be able to find the content they are looking for easily, otherwise they may end up leaving the website and going elsewhere for the services they require. Defining a website architecture based on each audience type and having clear calls to action and intuitive methods of search will allow users to access the content they need quickly and easily.
Are you regularly updating your website content?
You need to keep your website updated with fresh and interesting content that keeps visitors engaged. If you are directing new clients to your website you want to ensure there is enough relevant content to keep them on the site. An automated blog schedule can help keep your website regularly updated with relevant news from the legal services sector. Take a look at our top tips for making your content engaging and relatable.
Have you decided on a set of objectives?
Before you begin a digital marketing campaign your barristers’ chamber, you need to have a clear set of objectives. Who are you trying to reach and what are you trying to achieve from the campaign? Having goals and objectives defined from the outset will help benchmark campaigns and allow results to be tracked.
Once these four questions have been answered, you can then start your chambers new digital campaign.
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SEO
One of the first things to work on will be search engine optimisation (SEO). Having a solid SEO strategy in place from the start of a project is important to get right as it will affect the long term success of future campaigns. You need to ensure that every page on the website is fully optimised to provide the best results. Using tools like Google Webmaster will identify any broken links and a number of other issues that will have a negative impact on SEO. These free tools for website performance analysis can also help out with SEO.
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Create a Social Following
Social media platforms are now being used by chambers to produce good levels of traffic and engagement. You should invest your time in a small number of platforms and work on building up followers and interaction on those before branching out to more. Social platforms can be used as a means of promoting new news based content that has been placed on the website. Another tip is to make all of your content easy to share by including social plugins on all publication focused pages.
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Research Keyword Structures
Before you put any money into paid search (PPC), be sure to do lots of research on the keyword strings you want to use. Always ensure that they are relevant to your audience and the searches they will be completing for each business area. It is important that you understand the behaviour of each audience type before you put any money into paid advertising as this will help make your efforts more targeted and produce a better return on investment.
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Testing
Testing is an essential part of optimising ongoing campaigns. Try A/B testing to change one element of a campaign to see if A or B is more successful.It is important that only one element is changed at a time in order to assess the results properly. Over time, this allows each campaign to be fine tuned in order to produce better results.
