What is Adaptive Content?
Adaptive content is not a new concept, but it is a tool that not many law firms are taking advantage of. Adaptive content can change according to a number of predefined factors, based on the users’ behaviour, location, device and more. These rules can be applied not just to “all” users, but also to individual users. This allows for specific targeting of an individual user to show them exactly what you anticipate they want to see on their screen.
From the user’s behavioural traits, you will be able to identify things such as gender and age, which will also give you more data to personalise your website with. The high level of personalisation that is offered with adaptive content has been proven to generate an improved user experience and targeted results.
What is the Benefit of Adaptive Content?
As well as making content extremely personalised, there are a number of additional benefits to using adaptive content:
Tailor-made Content
Adaptive content is always personalised to the user based on their past viewing history of your website, and also what your website knows about them (e.g. their age and gender). Therefore it allows for tailor-made content to be created specifically for that user.
As a law firm, you can use this to your advantage and ensure that you are offering users from each of your target audiences, the content they really want to see. For example, if you can see that the user is visiting your site from a particular geographic location, like Bristol, you can promote the content on the website to that user to show your Bristol office location and the lawyers based there.
Communication is Made Easier
Adaptive content allows for a two-way communication stream to begin between your law firm and website user. As the website is promoting tailor-made content for each user, it means that a law firm can learn about a user’s specific requirements, enabling targeted content to be served faster. This provides visitors with solutions to their problems, without them having to work as hard to find the content.
Email Marketing Becomes More Effective
Rather than sending out generic emails to all users, adaptive content allows emails to be personalised based on the user’s activity on your website. You are therefore much more likely to motivate the user to return to the website, by showing them content you know they are interested in viewing.
It Doesn’t Age
Adaptive content doesn’t get old, because it is adaptive. It is more sustainable because of the fact that it is constantly evolving with the user, which is the whole point of creating a customised user experience when visiting the website.
It Builds Trust
As you are showing the user completely personalised content tailored to their needs, they are going to feel much more confident in the solutions you can provide them with to help with their problems. This approach would, therefore, also help to build up a good level of trust between the user and your law firm.
It Converts
The main benefit of adaptive content is the fact that it converts quickly. You are showing the user exactly what they want to see, rather than them having to take the time to find the content. Therefore the number of conversions that adaptive content on law firm’s websites will generate will be much higher than on websites not using this approach.
How Can Adaptive Content be Used on Law firm Websites?
Here are a few of examples of scenarios on a law firm website where adaptive content would be beneficial:
Scenario 1: If a user has already viewed the introductory text on a piece of content related to a practice area.
This introduction can then be cut from the page to present the rest of the information to the user, as you know they have already read that piece of text a number of times. You are pushing them towards the more important pieces of content, and therefore closer to an opportunity to motivate the visitor into completing an action.
Scenario 2: Adjusting content based on previous page visits
If a user views a post on “Legal services for university students”, then they click through to view a related lawyer’s profile page, the content on that page can be adjusted to show further ‘related information’ based on their previous page views.
Scenario 3: Showing calls to action, tips or advice based on previous page views
For example, a user based in Oxford visits the construction law practice area page, so a pop up call to action appears giving them the option to call the Oxford team or speak to them through an online chat facility.
Adaptive Content in Practice
1. Individual Behaviour
The journey of adaptive content will begin with identifying the individual’s behaviour. By looking into the type of behaviours of the individual, you will begin to be able to identify traits of each user.
This information will be matched up with the types of personas of each audience, which would have already been mapped out. The detailed personas will each have the areas of content from the website matched up with them, detailing which content will appeal most to them.
In this case, a user might watch an introductory video showing a piece of content. Therefore as they have already watched the video, the adaptive content will shift on the page so that different content can be prioritised to the top of the page, giving the user something new to look at and read.
This type of adaptive content is based on the journey the user has taken through the website. For example, they might have visited the Family Law practice area and then navigated through to a lawyers profile. Therefore the content on their page related to the Family Law practice area will be prioritised on their profile. It will push up their experience in dealing with Family Law cases to the top of their profiles, in order to show the user content they are most likely going to be looking for.
2. User Journey
This is developed on from a sort of “self-service” method, which allows you to actually give the user what they want based on their user journey and behaviour, rather than giving them all the content they want at once and then deciding where to go next. This personalised approach means that the adaptive content can pull together all the different factors and serve the user exactly what they would want to see.
It brings up the argument of library content versus personalised content. You would need to identify if users are interested in a number of different areas, and would rather browse that way, or if you can give them the personalised adaptive content based on their journey and behaviour. The adaptive content route has been known to not only improve the speed to which the user converts, but also offer better leads, and even encourages further engagement with the brand.
3. Third-Party Software Integration
Adaptive content can also work when integrated with third-party software solutions such as Hubspot or Pardot. This approach works as a CRM integrated solution that checks the profile of the user and adjusts the content accordingly to adapt depending on where they are in the sales lifecycle.
Through this onsite nurturing, you are able to create a truly personalised user journey by presenting each user with content you know they are going to be interested in.
Get in Touch
Tela is a creative digital agency. We deliver website, online marketing, lead generation and conversion optimisation campaigns to some of the UK’s leading law firms.
If you would like to learn more about the ways you can include adaptive content on your law firm’s website, please contact Tim Sheed: 01799 524 464 | tim@tela.co.uk
