The Psychology of Legal Marketing: Understanding Client Behavior

What law firm doesn’t want to get more clients? To do this, you’ll need to make more meaningful connections with prospects using effective messaging and legal marketing strategies. If what you’re doing resonates with your audience, they’ll be more likely to hire your firm, which can help you achieve your goals. 

Sounds simple, right? Unfortunately, many factors are involved in understanding client behavior and making these connections. If you miss the mark in just one area, your prospects might consider hiring a competitor. Here is what you need to know about client behavior and how you can harness these ideas to boost your results. 

Understanding Client Behavior

If you want to make a positive impact on the people who are looking for your legal services, it’s helpful to understand the psychology of client behavior. Here are a few things to consider:

How We Make Decisions

Most people who are facing legal issues don’t make decisions in a logical or linear fashion. Something has happened that they need to resolve so they can have some peace of mind. This might be a DUI arrest, the end of a marriage, a contract dispute, or some other legal matter. 

When these types of legal hurdles arise, the decisions surrounding them aren’t always objective. Sometimes, they are based on emotion, such as getting “a feeling” about the law firm that can do the best job. 

Fear of Loss or Missing Out

Humans are hardwired to avoid pain and loss, much more than we are to miss out on big gains. While you don’t want to strike fear into the hearts of your prospective clients, it makes sense to outline the consequences of not taking quick action or failing to have a seasoned attorney in their corner. 

Legal Marketing Strategies to Connect With Clients

The purchasing decisions of legal consumers are influenced by a variety of factors, many of them unconscious. As your firm tries to convert prospective clients into paying ones, here are some of the psychological legal marketing strategies that can make a difference. 

Build Trust

Trust is probably one of the biggest reasons why people choose certain law firms over others. For a client to feel comfortable enough to share the personal details of their legal matter, there needs to be trust and rapport established between the two parties. 

Your firm can build trust in several ways. For example, online feedback and word-of-mouth recommendations can establish trust. Also, having a strong online presence that demonstrates subject-matter knowledge is invaluable. 

Develop Branding

Another aspect of your marketing strategy that helps you connect with potential clients is your law firm’s branding. In today’s digital age, consumers have many choices, and information is available with a few simple swipes or clicks. 

Your firm can distinguish itself from the competition by developing a strong and consistent brand. For example, if you’re a personal injury lawyer, you can brand yourself as the law firm that “cares and gets results.” This is just one example of how branding can make your firm memorable in a crowded field. 

Establish Emotional Connections

Remember, emotions play a vital role in a prospect’s decision-making process. This is particularly the case where legal services are involved considering many potential clients are involved in highly emotional situations. 

When seeking assistance with these situations, it’s critical that a law firm establish emotional connections with prospects. This will involve demonstrating compassion, understanding, and empathy for the client’s situation. 

Make It Convenient

When it comes to the psychology of buying and selling anything, the sales process is something you don’t want to ignore. Specifically, if you make it confusing or cumbersome for a client to contact or sign up with your firm, your prospect will likely get frustrated and move on to someone else. This is the case even if you do everything else right. 

Your website should have many calls-to-action (CTAs) that make it clear and easy to connect with your law firm. If you have a contact form, make it clear and simple to use. Likewise, your site’s navigation should be intuitive enough that a visitor can find what they need quickly. 

Offer Social Proof

Consumers tend to be heavily influenced by the recommendations of others when looking for brands or service providers, like attorneys. With the rise of social media, people have access to many more networks that offer information about service providers and even ways to connect with brands. 

When potential clients see that your firm has a presence on many different sites, like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google Business Profiles, this signifies that you are legitimate. You can offer social proof by having other clients leave online feedback about your services and maintaining a consistent presence on popular platforms. 

Address Potential Objections

While legal consumers are often looking for someone to solve their most pressing issues, they’re not willing to hand that task over to just anyone. Your legal marketing strategy will be most effective if you identify some common objectives and address them in your content and marketing. 

For example, many people who are injured are worried about their finances and don’t think they can afford a high-quality lawyer. By addressing how your fee structure works, you can put their minds at ease and convert more prospects into new clients. 

Our Legal Marketing Agency Can Help You Connect With Your Target Audience

Identifying your target audience is only the first challenge your law firm faces. You then must find a way to connect with the people who need your services the most. At Too Darn Loud Legal Marketing, we understand that the legal industry is highly competitive. Our goal is to help your law firm get found and chosen by its target audience again and again. 

Whether your firm is small or large, new or established, we can help you create an engaging online presence that produces results. Our approach is completely customized, meaning we only recommend the services you need. Contact us today to schedule a free initial consultation and website evaluation.