Virtually every law firm recognizes the importance of marketing their services to boost their profile and get more clients. Despite this, less than half (46%) of law firms across all sizes have a marketing budget, and 26% of law firms do not track their leads at all.
This may be because some firm owners think they can do it all and handle marketing on top of their existing work. In reality, it’s impossible to juggle the demands of being a lawyer, a business owner, and a marketer. That’s where hiring a marketing manager comes in – a person who can identify how to effectively promote your firm and attract new clients.
Learn more about how to hire a marketing manager for your criminal defense law firm, how they can boost your leads, and what you should look for in a marketing manager.
What Is A Marketing Manager?
A marketing manager is a professional responsible for creating and executing strategies to promote your law firm’s services and attract clients. These are some of the things that a marketing manager can do to craft a winning plan to dominate your competition:
- Search engine optimization (SEO) strategizing: Marketing managers will research how to improve your search engine rankings for relevant keywords, improving awareness about your firm and generating more leads.
- Content creation: They create or oversee the creation of content that promotes your law firm, such as social media posts, informational videos, and blog articles.
- Networking and event management: A marketing manager organizes events like seminars, conferences, and other networking opportunities
- Branding: They should manage your law firm’s branding across all platforms to ensure consistency in all marketing efforts and communications.
Why Is A Marketing Manager Important To Your Criminal Defense Law Firm?
A marketing manager is responsible for enhancing a criminal defense law firm’s visibility and reputation. By executing the right strategies and identifying gaps in your firm’s marketing, they will be responsible for getting new clients and retaining existing ones.
Here are the biggest reasons why a marketing manager is important to a firm:
- Brand management: A marketing manager will work on creating a trustworthy, authoritative reputation for your law firm, which is crucial for getting potential clients to trust and hire you.
- Differentiation from rival firms: With the sheer number of criminal defense law firms competing for clients, a firm needs to find the unique strengths that set it apart. A marketing manager will highlight these strengths to help your firm stand out and attract more leads.
- Reputation management: With online reviews and social media increasingly influencing a firm’s reputation, a marketing manager can manage feedback, reviews, and other issues to keep online perception positive.
How To Know If A Marketing Manager Is The Right One For You
It’s not enough for a prospective marketing manager to look good on paper. When interviewing candidates, ask questions with these things in mind. They’ll give you a better idea of how they’ll put their on-paper skills to use to help your criminal defense law firm.
- What outcomes do I expect a marketing manager to achieve?
- Does this person have a solid plan to achieve my desired outcomes for the firm?
- Does this person include ways to track key metrics like lead conversion rate in their plan?
- How much experience do they have with making marketing strategies for law firms?
- Do they have the necessary expertise in digital and traditional marketing to execute their plan?
- Do they know what my idea of “the perfect client” is like?
- Will this person work well with me and other people in the firm?
Asking yourself these questions will help you distinguish candidates from each other and see if they’ll be a good fit for your criminal defense law firm.
What Qualifications Should A Marketing Manager Have?
Finding the right marketing manager for your firm is all about identifying how they can help with the current gaps in your marketing strategy. However, there are qualifications that every marketing manager should have to do a good job. Here’s what you should be looking for.
Hands-On Experience
Great academic credentials are always a plus, but it’s hands-on experience that gives a better picture of how candidates put their skills and knowledge to good use.
Ask a candidate to talk more about the past strategies they’ve come up with to promote a law firm. Check out the clients they’ve listed on their CV, as well as the results they were able to get for them. The numbers will speak for themselves.
Great Communication Skills
A marketing manager needs to be a fantastic communicator, as they’ll be the one working on your firm’s messaging and advertising to get more clients. They should have both top-notch verbal and written communication skills, and they should be able to leverage these skills to create compelling content.
Knowledge Of Best Practices and Automation Tools
Best practices for legal marketing change all the time, and staying ahead of the trends can keep your firm ahead of the pack. Look for a marketing manager who studies trends in legal marketing and understands the norms of marketing a firm. Your future marketing manager should also be familiar with the latest marketing software and tools to save time, money, and effort in lead conversion.
Check if candidates understand and use customer relationship management software (CRM), automation solutions, and content management systems (CMS). Knowing how to use automation tools increases the likelihood that a candidate knows how to execute consistent, effective strategies and track results.
Ready To Win More Business? Give Me A Call
Handling cases and running a criminal defense law firm means you have precious little time for working on your marketing strategy. But with 70% of people looking for answers to their legal questions online, having a strong online presence is crucial to getting their attention and being hired.
Leave your firm’s marketing strategy in the hands of an experienced, results-driven criminal defense attorney SEO professional who’ll crush competing firms. Reach out to Josh Brown Consulting at (310) 462-2034 or send us a message through our secure online form now. Let’s get started on dominating search results and getting new clients.