Content is King - The rise of content marketing

There is no doubt that whilst the Covid-19 pandemic created a unique set of challenges for law firms and barristers’ chambers, it has also been a catalyst for change in how organisations market themselves. One such change for the good has been the upsurge and embracement of content marketing.

Content Marketing involves the creation and sharing of material online. This includes video, social media activity, webinars, and website articles. This online content helps organisations to attract, acquire and engage with clients, as well as communicate, more broadly its core values and expertise.

Of course, it’s not that content marketing wasn’t being done pre-Covid, it’s just that the need to connect more online prompted a shift towards this type of marketing. Law firms and barristers needed to communicate regularly and effectively with clients to help them to navigate the implications of the pandemic on, well, pretty much everything. From furlough schemes to remote family law hearings, from business interruption insurance to landlord disputes, there wasn’t an area of the law that wasn’t affected in some way.

Content is King

Using social media channels to share insightful content that showcases your legal expertise is a tried-and-tested method of attracting new work. Increasing your output online attracts new enquiries and raises your overall visibility in the market. The impact of online marketing is also trackable, with google and social media analytics revealing the most popular and engaging content.

An article published in Legal Futures on 24th May 2021 reflects on what the upsurge in thought-leadership pieces published online has achieved for the profile of law firms. “The 2021 Thought Leadership Index found that, by and large, larger firms produced more thought leadership, but there is a core of smaller firms ‘punching above their weight’ with high numbers of posts.”

As you might expect, the big law firms excelled in their thought-leadership output, with Norton Rose Fulbright performing well, producing 1,920 insights over the year (3 per lawyer). However, there was also a strong performance from medium sized niche media and IP law firm Wiggin (8 per lawyer), demonstrating that that online marketing is important for everyone.

Of course, writing thought-leadership articles and sharing them across social media channels takes time, and at the beginning of the pandemic that’s what many lawyers, particularly barristers, had…time.  From our own experience, we were initially inundated with fresh online content for websites and requests to manage the marketing and hosting of webinars. The initial enthusiasm has since died down, but what remains is a greater understanding of what can be achieved by online marketing, and a genuine appetite from solicitors and barristers to continue to use it as a way of engaging with clients and positioning themselves in the market.

If you would like to talk to us about how we can help with your content marketing, please get in touch for a fee, confidential chat.

NatalieRodgers@scala.uk.com 

@Natalie_Scala

https://www.linkedin.com/in/natalierodgersscala/