Content marketing is a crucial tool to get consumers interested in a service or product. All kinds of brands will work on extensive content marketing strategies to get target markets interested in their new product lines. These strategies can also ensure that brand recognition and status within a market don’t diminish. Service providers like law firms can benefit from effective content marketing, too. It’s all about taking advantage of the 4 Es of content marketing.
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The 4 E’s Of Content Marketing
Many content marketing agencies will work within the theory of the 4 Es of content marketing. These four pillars ensure that you have effective content that will reach people, grab their attention, and eventually turn them into clients. Those pillars are to entertain, engage, educate, and empower. Ideally, brands will be able to diversify their content marketing output to make the most of all 4. Some posts will be purely for entertainment to get people to see the brand in a positive light. Others will be there to create conversations or directly drive people to a website or online store. This is as true for law firms as it is for any retail or entertainment brand. You just have to use the right strategy.
Entertaining Content
Entertaining content isn’t something you have to worry as much about as a law firm. You want to maintain your reputation as a professional authority in your chosen field and post content with greater value. Still, that doesn’t mean you can’t show your softer side and a sense of humor. The right posts can make you seem more human and approachable. They will also keep you making you worth following on social media and keep you in people’s minds. Occasional memes and attempts to jump onto viral trends can pay off. Just make sure you have someone on your social media team who understands the trend and isn’t going to create something that backfires.
Engaging Content
Entertaining content might not be as essential for law firms as commercial and retail brands. Still, if you can get something that’s both entertaining and engaging, it can pay off. Engaging content means posts that encourage people to talk about subjects as part of a community or share posts with people who need to see them. This can help law firms to build a following and gain some credibility. If you’re seen as the go-to source of information and interesting content, you’ll get more people engaging with your content over time. The more followers or subscribers you have, the better the chance of one of them becoming a client. The ability to create engaging content can depend on the entertainment value and educational value, which we’ll look at in a moment.
The hard part comes in maintaining the community aspect of social media and giving back to followers. That’s where it helps to enable comments on blog posts and respond to any comments on social media. Facebook communities are perfect for this. You can connect with people in your area and share engaging content that isn’t directly about your services. Once you’ve strengthened this connection with the community, you’re more likely to have them sharing and commenting on your law firm’s posts, too.
Educational Content
This is where law firms can make a massive difference online and showcase themselves as authorities in a specialized field. The added benefit here is that educational content will then ensure that all that engaging content becomes even more effective. You can share important information and encourage people to share it with others. For example, someone dealing with criminal charges may not actively seek help out of shame. But, they may have a loved one in their support system sending them your posts to encourage them to get help. The right content can also spark important conversations on difficult topics. DWI laws, for instance, aren’t always discussed or well understood. So, if your firm can help people talk openly about local laws and consequences, it could end up saving lives.
Educational content requires some careful content curation, and that is where quality content marketing with an agency makes such a difference. A well-written blog post gives you the space to go into greater detail on specific subjects and changes in local laws. You can also create a YouTube channel with regular informative videos. These can offer a lot of comfort to victims of crime or accidents who need to hear user-friendly advice from a friendly figure.
Empowering Content
The 4th E in content marketing is perhaps the most important of them all for law firms. The end goal of any law firm’s marketing campaign is to turn visitors into clients and get them through the door. The best way to do this is to give them a solution to a problem and the empowerment that comes from taking charge of a situation. If you’re a personal injury firm, you can remind victims that they don’t have to suffer in silence, even if they share partial blame for an accident. With you on their side and a strong case against the other party, they can get compensation and rebuild some personal strength and confidence along the way.
Any post on any social media site can be empowering with the right language, message, and tools for progression. Every blog post and video should end with a call to action, encouraging prospective clients to change their lives for the better. Instagram and Twitter posts should have links to service pages and contact forms.
Making Content Marketing Work For Law Firms
It takes the right marketing team and the right strategy to make the most of content marketing for law firms. Educational content that doubles as engaging content will always help to improve the reputation of law firms online. So, a scheme with a focus on blog posts, community pages, and long-form video content can help. Still, you also want to look at other ways of empowering people with social media content. You can also add entertaining posts when appropriate to improve your follower counts and stop your content from becoming too dry and formal. Work with an expert team to determine the best approach for your firm and see the difference it can make.
