Before you can start marketing your law firm, you need to understand what types of marketing are out there and decide on which methods you want to use. Luckily, this is very easy because of how in-depth the research is and how often we see advertising on a daily basis.
While a few of the more common types of marketing are described below, be aware that so many more types aren’t listed, and that they may work better for you.
Personalized
Personalized marketing is an increasingly popular and highly effective form of marketing. It’s a bit more involved than just including a friendly greeting with the customer’s name though; it’s all about using analytics to provide relevant information to the right customers.
A good example is discount code. Sure, you could send out the same email to all of your subscribers about an exclusive discount code and it would work, but an email that includes what the discount would be like for popular products or a few of the ones customers have already purchased may entice even more people to browse your offerings again.
So, you know personalized marketing can boost sales, but it also has a hidden benefit: increasing loyalty.
Many people will only purchase from a company with personalized advertising because it makes them feel less like an obstacle between a company and money and more like a person with value. Even better is the fact that you can collect all of the relevant data from at least one of two sources: analytics, as mentioned already, and surveys.
While using analytics can be incredibly effective and is non-intrusive inherently, surveys can provide much more detailed information, can be used to improve your website and products overall and are another great way to advertise.
After all, who wouldn’t complete a quick survey when the reward is a discount code or small amount of store credit to a service you already use?
There are two different types of mail marketing to match our two different types of mailboxes: direct mail marketing and email marketing. Direct mail marketing is when you mail advertising materials directly to your customers.
Sometimes this means you send a flyer or two to every home in a neighborhood while you send a product catalog to your subscriber’s addresses other times.
While many people will consider your advertising as junk mail some may give it a quick read-through. This is when your marketing is most likely to succeed because people are more likely to remember you and may even choose your products over competitors’ during their shopping trip.
Direct mail marketing may be more engaging, but email marketing has something direct mail could only dream of: reach. You can reach more people for cheap or even free with a simple click of a button than you ever could with direct mail and this could result in even more sales.
You could reach both the people who signed up with an email and to new customers who haven’t made a purchase before and increase your customer base drastically if done right. Just try to keep your marketing copy out of the spam or junk folders.
Content
Content marketing is another type of marketing that is gaining popularity and it’s not very hard to see why. You can market your products or brand without being in-your-face about it.
For example, someone who is trying to fix a leaky pipe may find themselves reading a how-to on Home Depot’s website. This information is given to the customer for free (excluding the page’s ads, of course) and may at first appear to have little value as a result, but stop and think about it for a second.
If a hardware store teaches you how to do a repair, you may be more likely to go to that store to pick up any tools or material you may need because the article left a good impression. Now imagine the same thing, but instead of offering repair tips, you’re offering insight on your industry in some way.
People will find your article during research and may decide to buy one of your products later because of it. Content marketing is an incredibly versatile tool that shouldn’t be ignored in your marketing strategy.
Search Engine
Search engine marketing or SEM for short is a form of marketing you see every time you press enter on a search engine. Every link that has the word “ad” or “sponsored” next to it is participating in an SEM strategy. Usually this means choosing appropriate keywords and paying the search engine for an ad slot for those words. The more you pay, the higher your ad will appear in the results and the more visitors you’ll get.
Another important thing to remember is that marketing is just as much about spreading awareness of your brand as it is immediately increasing sales: if you pay for an expensive ad lost but don’t get as much traffic as anticipated, keep in mind that you’ve also increased awareness by showing the right people your name front and center as they looked for a solution to their problem and they may remember that at a later date.
Stealth
Many companies have found success in stealth marketing. The goal is to advertise a product without making it feel like an advertisement. One of the most common types of stealth marketing is product placement, and you’re definitely familiar with this. From seeing Reese’s Pieces in E.T. to playing the Cup Noodles Questline in Final Fantasy XV, product placement is everywhere and has even saved some products from obscurity or even halted production.
Most of the time, though, it simply keeps the brand in mind and can even make you more likely to choose them over competitors. For example, someone may choose to grab some donuts and even a coffee from Dunkin’ Donuts over Krispy Kreme simply because they’ve seen the cup in many movies and TV shows and are therefore more familiar with it.
There are other methods of stealth marketing as well, like the aforementioned content marketing or reviews. This doesn’t mean paying for reviews since that is highly unethical and may actually drive customers away, but instead refers to urging customers to leave good reviews. After all, the higher your product’s rating the more likely people will choose it over alternatives.
