How to Attract High-Net-Worth Clients as a Small Law Firm

Key takeaways:

• Building a network with other attorneys in non-competing practices can significantly increase referral opportunities for law firms.
• Maintaining an active online presence, including a well-designed website and positive reviews, is important for attracting high-net-worth clients.
• Implementing effective digital marketing strategies, including SEO and customized content targeted toward your ideal clientele, is vital for law firms aiming to attract valuable leads.

How do small law firms attract high-value clients?

You might ask, does the average American citizen turn to Google for legal representation? Today, we are going to look at some of the strategies behind where and how lawyers attain high-value leads and how your online brand presence can impact your ability to do so.

Finding referrals and quality leads can be difficult if your small law firm is just beginning its journey or not quite hitting your business goals.

Quality leads begin with awareness, and over time, that awareness of your firm and its practices should grow through both word-of-mouth referrals and your online presence.

Referral Marketing Matters: Let’s Talk Word-of-Mouth Strategy

How do small law firms get large clients? To answer that, let’s consider how clients find attorneys.

Nearly 60% of your consumers will ask a friend or someone they know for a referral. Others will research on their own. Some people do both. It is important to build a trustworthy brand presence to assure customers that you are the best at what they are looking for.

Referral marketing is one of the cornerstones of building a successful law firm. It is dependent on your ability to build strong relationships. There are some strategies you can put into place to build your referral system to begin to attract these potential clients.

Ask for Referrals From Other Lawyers

Most attorneys offer specific practice area legal representation and are not providing services to every client across the legal industry. One of the best ways to establish referrals is to ask other attorneys in noncompeting practices to send clients your way.

Creating a formal attorney referral agreement is an option, but more complex. Often, an informal level of communication and support for each other could go a long way. Consider your network of attorneys. Look to LinkedIn. Who provides legal services in an area you don’t focus on that also does not offer the services you do? Forming a connection with other attorneys is the first step in building a strong referral system.

Share Your Positive Reviews

A positive review is more than a confidence boost for you. It is a way to attract high-net-worth individuals looking for proven attorneys. If you receive a positive review, let others know about it. Send out an email to your client base. Consider creating a piece of thought leadership to post on LinkedIn that shares the story of that client, especially if the win was remarkable in some way.

Sharing your reviews enables others to see not only what you did but also the level of service you provide. High-net-worth clients typically demand a higher level of service and professionalism that such a review can communicate. Reviews and case studies go a long way for users who are actively researching viable support options.

Network at Local Chambers of Commerce

You can reach prospective clients through the local chambers of commerce. Since these organizations create highly sought-after services for businesses within specific communities, they can be an excellent resource for attorneys who can fill those businesses’ legal needs.

You can often join the local Chamber of Commerce in your area as a starting point. Then, find out what local and state-wide events they are hosting. Get involved in local and virtual seminars, research panels, or polls. You may want to find out what specific marketing opportunities the organization offers – many help support their member businesses through direct referrals.

Get to Know Your Community

Next, get into and around your community. Referrals come from personal relationships. You need to establish those to achieve the type of growth your law firm deserves. This can often seem challenging, especially for a small law firm without a lot of time. However, it accomplishes two big tasks.

First, it allows you to gain face and name recognition. People learn about you and what you do, and that in itself helps to create referrals.

It also allows you to directly offer help to other businesses around your firm that may need legal guidance. If you operate a small firm in an office in town, make your way around the very local area to connect with other businesses. Introduce yourself. Develop personal relationships with them.

You want their business when they need it. However, you really want them to think of you when a friend, family member, or their customer needs your services. Then, they can say, “You know, I have this lawyer friend who can help you.”

Even a non-locally based law firm can make this work. Consider creating a podcast or webinar that helps show off your practice and legal skills. You can work to build your community locally and digitally. Speaking into the

High-Value Referrals Will Browse Your Legal Website

Referrals are exceptional ways for high-net-worth legal clients to discover you. Yet, that is not always enough to get them to call. Instead, they research, and to do that, they need to visit your website. The average prospective client will check your website, social media, and even blog more than once before making a decision.

Typically, they are looking for some type of reassurance that you can meet their specific need.

• They want to find a connection with you. Perhaps you have helped others in the same situation.
• They want validation that, yes, you are qualified to help them and that your website shows you are an authority.
• They need to be able to trust you, and as a brand representation of your business, your website can support or limit that ability to trust.
• They need to know your experience. They want to know you have the actual experience on which they can rely.

Your marketing strategy must include a high-quality, well-designed website, no matter which legal industry you are in if you hope to increase your new clients, especially affluent clients.

Let’s talk about how to gravitate to your niche-specific clients online.

7 Online Strategies That Will Attract High-Net-Worth Clients

To attract ideal clients, specifically high-net-worth clients, consider applying some tried-and-true digital marketing strategies. These seven steps will get you to the next level in your marketing efforts.

Design a State-of-the-Art Website

Legal professionals must have a reliable website. However, the firm’s website must have a design that will:

• Make it easy for people to get the information they need
• Easily communicate the professionalism of the attorney and the law firm
• Align with the law practice’s brand
• Utilize search engine optimization (SEO) best practices
• Make it simple to capture leads with clear calls to action

Optimize Your Google Business Profile

If your ideal clients are local to you, your website must show up in the search engine results page (SERP) – the first listings on the search page when someone Googles a service you offer within your community.

One way to do this is to ensure you claim, update, and comprehensively fill out your Google Business Profile. This tool, once known as Google My Business, is an exceptional way of getting right in front of someone who is searching for exactly what you offer.

Moreover, Google Business Profile is easy to update over time, making it a core component of your law firm marketing.

Ask for Reviews

Reviews are a very powerful tool when it comes to showcasing what you do and how you do it. Attorneys and business owners – whether it’s the local deli or financial advisors – need to show prospective clients that they have experience and have already accomplished the needed service in a positive way. Reviews let others tell you about that. In fact, A study found that 88% of online users will check reviews before making an informed decision.

Do you have great reviews? This is often an area where law firms fall behind because they don’t want to breach ethics requirements. You don’t have to. Instead, ask the clients of your law practice to leave a review if they are satisfied with the service you offer.

Unfortunately, legal professionals often receive negative reviews. You cannot solve everyone’s needs.

However, what you do with those negative reviews matters.

You should respond to them without stating any fault and ask the client to reach out to you to discuss. Don’t ignore them. Show your readers instead that you are committed to satisfying clients in a positive manner.

How do you get reviews as an attorney?

Some great ways to get reviews to improve local SEO include:

• Ask your existing clients to leave you one at the end of their case.
• Send an email campaign to your client base asking for them with a direct link where they can leave the view.
• Set up email marketing to follow up with your clients after they work with you, asking for a review after consultations.
• Create QR codes to allow customers a quick way to scan and leave a review on Google Business Profile or Yelp.

Showcase Awards and Accomplishments

Ultra-high-net-worth clients want to work with proven professionals. Your legal marketing efforts don’t have to seem like bragging. Instead, create a bio that outlines specifically:

• Any associations you are a member of
• Any Board of Directors you are on
• Where you earned your law degree
• All awards and recognitions you received
• How many years have you been in practice

It’s common for attorneys not to want to purchase badges – simple logo-like emblems that add to your website. Many organizations offer these, including Super Lawyers, Top Trial Lawyers, and others. While it may seem like a useless cost, Google places heavy emphasis on social proof – something that plays into E-E-A-T (we’ll dive deeper into that in just a moment).

You need these badges to help prospective clients gain confidence and trust in you. Don’t skip this step.

Provide Legal Case Studies Pertaining to Your Target Niche on Your Website

Providing clients with legal case studies is a bold, high-value statement. It lets your prospective clients directly connect with a situation they are going through right now. It then helps them to feel safe in reaching out for the services you offer.

If you want to rank your website in a niche area – such as with wealth management clients, real estate clients, or other areas – you can create case studies about the services you have provided, breaking down the details clearly. This will allow those who visit your site to connect directly with you as the industry leader in that area. Speaking about your practice as it relates to real-world experience helps your potential customers see themselves receiving assistance in a similar way.

Create a Very Targeted Content Plan

Start with answering this question. Who is your best-paying client? Who is your dream client? Lead generation is not just about putting information out there and hoping it will stick. Instead, it’s about creating a content plan that directly targets that person.

With the help of data-based research, you can hone in on the specific needs that this group of clients needs from you. How do you make an effective content plan? Consider these steps for SEO content writing for law firms:

• All of your content marketing efforts must be for human readers. Do not write for the search engines.
• Use headlines clearly to break up information and make it easy to skim a page.
• Complete targeted, detailed keyword research that specifically addresses those high-net-worth clients.
• Work to develop content that targets the specific needs of the demographic you are trying to reach. Always focus on your target audience.
• Create content that is easy to digest and apply to life’s needs. You want your readers to take action.

Link Building and Public Relations (PR)

Another component of your marketing strategy must incorporate link building, which is the process of getting your website linked to websites of high-authority. You can check out our local link-building guide for specific support, but here’s what’s most important.

When seeking a link from a related website or source, its important to know that Google has already determine the value all websites. Google tries to evaluate if a webpage offers what the searcher needs, accurate information, and is a trusted source. To help support the process, they create an unofficial ranking score, called domain authority, that helps to determine where the website should be listed on the SERPs.

If you have links from high domain authority and trusted websites that are recommending your services to readers, it will give Google confidence that you are as good as you say you are. In turn, Google will repay this by improving your site’s own ranking and organic positions. Link building is an essential part of your public relations strategy.

E-E-A-T Matters to Clients and the Google Algorithm

Experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness, orE-E-A-T, is a set of criteria Google uses to determine if a website is credible and relevant to searchers. All of the strategies we created previously will support your ability to demonstrate to Google that your law website (and law firm in general) has the experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness to meet prospective client needs.

Taking Google out of the picture – these are the same factors that high-net-worth clients are looking for in the attorneys they work with – and meeting these expectations is just good business.

Each of the strategies above works to showcase your expertise and help small firms get found by high-value clients via the web. Some specific guidelines cater to these algorithmic standards and help both Google and your clients see you as a “high-value” firm, no matter your size.

Remaining Compliant With the American Bar Association

The American Bar Association requires all attorneys – even those who are small businesses – to meet expectations in their marketing methods. By understanding and adhering to ABA advertising rules, you are meeting those expectations and helping to prove to your clients that you can provide the quality information they need.

Remaining ADA Compliant

Your website should comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act. This means it should incorporate tools and design features that allow anyone, including those with a disability, to use and benefit from your site equally.

How Long Does It Take to Generate High-Value Clients Online?

SEO involves a network of strategies that work together to target your specific goals.

How long it takes SEO to work is dependent on multiple factors. There’s no simple formula. The truth is that a well-designed strategy will take weeks to gain traction, and it can take longer for the overall results to become very obvious. SEO is a long haul, not a short sprint.

SEO Is a Journey: Your High-Net-Worth Clients Are Waiting

Working with Array Digital could be your ace in the hole. Our highly specialized legal digital marketing services have helped many of our clients expand their client base, reach ultra-high-value clients, and become some of the most desired firms to work with across a variety of industries. Let us help you now.

Give us a call at 757-333-3021 or fill out our contact form now.