Back-to-Business Marketing Checklist for Law Firms After Summer

Have you seen them yet? Back-to-school ads are the harbinger of fall. They start to pop up as soon as the 4th of July fireworks have faded, reminding us that the sand in the hourglass of summer is running out. While you do not need to put away the flip-flops quite yet, late summer is an excellent time to audit and reset your law firm marketing efforts to position your firm for a strong fall. 

For over three decades, PaperStreet has worked with firms to smoothly transition from one season to the next, both on the calendar and metaphorically. Law firm marketing is equal parts planning and doing. For most firms, the world spins a little slower in the summer. This makes it an excellent time to review and plan. Grab some sunscreen or a spot in the shade, and work through this checklist. 

Audit Your Law Firm’s Website

Summer is a great time to do the law firm website audit that you have been putting off. The great part about this task is that it is best done when you are not sitting at your desk. The majority of legal services searches originate on a mobile device. If you want to experience your website as a prospective client would, audit it on your cell phone while disconnected from Wi-Fi.  Make detailed notes for later reference as you work through the audit.

Look for the following: 

• Check for outdated attorney bios and staff information: Make sure every attorney bio, staff profile, and headshot reflects who is actually part of your firm today. 
• Review practice area pages for accuracy: Confirm that your practice area pages accurately describe the services you offer and reflect any recent changes in the law. 
• Test contact forms, chat, and calls to action: Submit every contact form, click every call to action, and test your chat feature to make sure prospective clients can easily reach you. 
• Improve page speed and mobile performance: If your website is slow or difficult to use on a phone or other mobile device, visitors are likely to leave before they ever contact your firm.

The only way to truly understand how well your website works (or perhaps doesn’t) is to experience it the same way your clients do. If you find this experience frustrating, chances are that visitors to your website do as well. Your audit notes will make a great foundation for your fall plans.

Refresh Your Content and SEO Strategy

As you audit your website, pay particular attention to your content. While the ideal content is evergreen, remaining accurate, relevant, and valuable to readers over time, it still requires occasional review. Also, every law firm has at least one zombie page lurking somewhere on its website. It’s the page that still announces a “Happy New Year 2021,” talks about COVID-19 procedures, or proudly welcomes an attorney who left years ago. 

Use your audit to:

• Identify potential updates to high-performing blog posts: Refresh your best-performing articles with current information, stronger calls to action, and answers to questions clients are asking today. 
• Review keyword rankings and identify new opportunities: Look for keywords where your rankings are already close to page one, as small improvements can often produce big gains in visibility. 
• Publish content around seasonal legal issues: Create content that addresses the legal questions your prospective clients are most likely to ask this fall. 
• Strengthen internal linking and local SEO signals: Add links between related pages and keep your local business information consistent to help both search engines and prospective clients find their way around your website.

Think of stale content as the legal marketing equivalent of the office Ficus that everyone assumes someone else is watering. Years later, it may be half alive, but it is still there. This is one of those situations where taking time to identify the problem is half of the solution. 

Re-engage Prospective and Former Clients

When business is plentiful, and everyone in the firm is busy, it is easy to put client relations follow-up on the back burner. If you are having trouble keeping up with the demands of what is already on your plate, most people don’t go looking for seconds. However, everyone has heard the story about the ant and the grasshopper and what happens when summer is over. 

Use your summer audit to: 

• Follow up with leads that went quiet over the summer: Reach out to prospective clients who never moved forward, as their legal issue may still need attention.
• Reconnect with former clients through email newsletters: A short, helpful newsletter keeps your firm top of mind long after a case has been closed.
• Encourage new online reviews and client testimonials: Ask satisfied clients to share their experiences while they are still fresh, making it easier for future clients to choose your firm.
• Stay active on LinkedIn and other relevant social platforms: Consistent activity on the platforms your clients actually use helps reinforce your firm’s credibility and expertise.

Cultivating the leads that you already have is far cheaper than generating new ones. Turn your satisfied clients into goodwill ambassadors for your firm. In the age of the internet, sending out a firm newsletter no longer requires postage or even folding. This kind of marketing has power. Think about what would happen if next year every existing client sent you one lead. 

Evaluate Your Advertising and Analytics

Summer is a great time to revisit or perhaps learn to understand your legal marketing analytics. Using the information generated by Google Analytics and other tools does not require a degree in statistics or data science. If you have not already, it’s time to learn the basics. After you have mastered that, it is time to look at where you are to plan where you want to be. 

Consider the following:

• Review Google Ads and Local Services Ads performance: Compare your spend to the leads you are generating, and pause campaigns that are not producing results.
• Analyze website traffic and conversion data: Look beyond visitor counts to see which pages are actually turning visitors into phone calls, form submissions, and new clients.
• Identify top-performing referral sources: Find out where your best clients are coming from so you can invest more time and money in what is already working.
• Reallocate budget based on results rather than assumptions: Let your marketing data guide your spending decisions, not habits or hunches.

Think of Google Analytics as your website’s fitness tracker. It records every step visitors take, tells you where they linger, and points out where they’re giving up and heading for the exit. All of this is great information, but only if you act on it. 

Prepare Your Firm for a Busy Fall

While it is premature to declare summer over, it is time to lay the plan for the day not long from now, when summer vacations are over, and children are back in school. With law firms, the tell-tale sign of the change of seasons isn’t the first frost of the season. It is the first staff meeting after Labor Day, when you look around and realize almost everyone is there. 

Use what is left of this summer to get ready to hit the ground running in the fall:

• Update intake procedures and response times: Make sure every inquiry receives a prompt response, because even the best marketing cannot overcome poor client intake.
• Coordinate marketing campaigns with upcoming events and holidays: Plan your content and promotions around seasonal events to keep your marketing timely and relevant.
• Set measurable marketing goals for the remainder of the year: Define specific goals that you can track, whether they involve website traffic, leads, consultations, or new clients.
• Create a content calendar to maintain consistency: A simple content calendar helps ensure your website, blog, and social media stay active even when business gets busy.

It’s okay to spend the rest of the summer like the grasshopper, as long as you are planning like the ant. When you are ready to put your plans into action, the staff at PaperStreet is here to change your summer marketing review into a fall legal marketing plan that will keep producing leads for your firm from now until New Year’s and beyond. Contact us today to get started.