Employment law lead generation can be a complex and challenging process for many employment lawyers, particularly as they look to stand out in an inherently competitive and increasingly oversaturated market. However, it’s also an essential consideration for a firm’s ability to ensure a steady flow of new clients and scale their business over the long term.
Fortunately, there are plenty of resources, services, and employment law lead generation strategies that firms can leverage today to more successfully capture the attention of their target audiences.
Here, we’ll look at just a few of the top lead generation services before highlighting some of the most effective employment law lead generation strategies, as well as how to measure and optimize their performance.
Looking for a more reliable way to track your employment law firm’s leads and streamline the client intake process? Learn how Clio Grow can help.
Meeting employment law clients where they are
From wrongful termination and wage disputes to discrimination and sexual harassment in the workplace, the needs of employment law clients are incredibly varied. Moreover, their online activity—i.e., how and where a user searches for relevant legal advice—will differ depending on the client’s unique situation and mindset.
For this reason, it’s critical that employment lawyers take steps to ensure they can meet their clients where they’re at. This means leveraging all available technology and resources within the firm to identify and understand the demographic and psychographic trends around how people seek out various forms of employment law advice.
For example: A worker facing wrongful termination might start with a Google search like “Can I be fired for no reason?”, while someone experiencing workplace discrimination may turn to LinkedIn, Reddit or TikTok for advice. Meeting these potential clients where they’re at starts with understanding their mindset and the questions they might have, and position themselves as the go-to resource at the right moment.
Best employment law lead generation services
From racking up positive endorsements on popular lawyer review sites to investing in creative marketing campaigns, there are myriad ways for employment law firms to attract new clients with the help of specialized lead generation service providers.
If you’re looking to be less actively-involved with your firms lead-generation strategies, hiring a legal marketing agency might be the right fit for you. Here are just a few of the best legal marketing services on the market today:
1. Rankings.io
An excellent choice for employment law firms looking to boost search engine traffic to their website, Rankings.io provides high-performing SEO services, as well as customized Google ads and website design, all catered specifically to legal professionals.
2. Spotlight Branding
As the name suggests, Spotlight Branding is a creative, results-driven digital marketing firm focused on helping law firms build and showcase their brand through the regular production, deployment, and reinforcement of persuasive content and paid social advertisements.
3. Jurispage
For employment law firms looking to implement a powerful, multi-pronged digital marketing strategy, Jurispage boasts an impressive portfolio of SEO, paid promotional content (PPC), and website design and optimization services with the goal of boosting online visibility and maximizing lead generation.
Top 7 lead generation strategies for employment law firms
While leveraging third-party services and having the right amount of specialized expertise is a great start, it would be almost impossible for any firm to consistently acquire new clients without a strong in-house employment law lead generation strategy. As promised, here are seven of the most tested and effective strategies for generating employment law leads.
1. Content marketing and SEO
Content marketing and search engine optimization (SEO) remains one of the most popular employment law lead generation strategies, and for good reason: When people are in need of legal advice, looking for information related to their specific concern on Google and other search engines is often the first step they take.
But rather than merely optimizing generic content for basic keywords like “workplace discrimination,” the most successful employment firms understand that creating specialized content targeting highly specific queries often leads to much better conversion rates.
For example: Someone who isn’t sure whether they’ve been wrongfully terminated from their job is less likely to search for the term “wrongful termination” as opposed to the question “what counts as wrongful termination?” To effectively target this search, an employment firm might create a compelling blog or video series covering all the possible scenarios that could constitute wrongful termination. This both educates potential clients about their rights and invites them to explore more of the firm’s content, increasing the chances that they’ll reach out for a consultation.
2. Google local services ads and local SEO
Speaking of Google and SEO, employment law firms operating exclusively in certain locations and jurisdictions will often need to implement a more granular, local SEO strategy. For example, instead of merely optimizing content for the search term “wrongful termination lawyer,” a firm operating in Denver, CO might optimize for “wrongful termination lawyer Denver” or simply “employment lawyers near me”, in addition to placing a corresponding advertisement through Google’s local services ad program to maximize results.
With Clio Grow, you can advertise your Employment Law Firm using Google’s Local Service Ads easily, and without breaking your advertising budget as you only pay when people click on your ads to visit your website.
3. SEM
Whereas SEO-based employment law lead generation strategies primarily target organic search results, search engine marketing (SEM) goes a step further by focusing on both organic search and paid advertisements, whether national or local. SEM can be an excellent choice for firms looking to optimize a specific piece of content and target a specific demographic over a fixed timeframe.
According to our latest Legal Trends Report, clients who discover a law firm through search ads are quicker to be retained. These online searchers are often highly qualified leads, as they are Googling specific keywords within the firm’s local area.
However, due to its use of a “pay-per-click” pricing model, SEM can be costly and is typically deployed as a short- to medium-term strategy.
For example: Certain keywords, in certain geographical regions, can be quite costly. So to keep costs low and to only pay for qualified leads, you might consider long-tail keywords like “how to file a workplace discrimination claim Philadelphia”. These leads will be highly targeted, aligned with your location, practice area, and be ready to take the next step.
4. Lead magnets & email marketing
Because those seeking employment law advice will often be uneducated about their rights, most won’t be prepared to retain counsel before learning more about the viability of their case or the process of filing a claim. Lead magnets, or free educational resources related to their situation and provided in exchange for contact information, allow employment lawyers to both educate potential clients and build their trust, while now having their lead contact information (which can be useful for email marketing for example).
Critically, employment law firms must appreciate the sense of urgency and vulnerability many clients will feel at this stage, and that most won’t have the patience or tolerance for mind-numbingly complicated legal jargon. Whether you’re creating a downloadable eBook or video tutorial, it’s important to ensure this initial resource is highly accessible and explains the law and the employee’s rights in as simple terms as possible, punctuated by a call to action inviting the client to take that next, more difficult step of hiring an attorney.
5. Social media and video marketing
In addition to searching for legal advice on Google, people are increasingly scrolling through social media sites like TikTok, Instagram, and LinkedIn for content that may be relevant to their situation. This has led to an expansive online landscape of legal influencers across specializations who excel at communicating intricate legal concepts in a way that is both accessible and entertaining.
Finding creative ways to engage with prospective clients on social media can be an incredibly effective lead generation strategy. More specifically, as demonstrated by popular legal influencers like Billie Tarascio and Jordan Couch, making short, to-the-point videos on your niche area of practice and relevant legal topics is a particularly effective way to capture the attention of new clients and grow a following around your brand.
6. Website optimization
An effective website for an employment law firm will be designed to immediately communicate the specific types of cases the firm specializes in and the services they offer. This includes optimizing for visual appeal and overall user experience, such as mobile responsiveness and site speed. The website should also provide client testimonials, easy access to educational resources, and clear instructions on how to proceed.
According to our Legal Trends Report, 74% of lawyers utilize their firm’s website for marketing. However, potential clients frequently struggle to access crucial information, including details about the hiring process and pricing.
Additionally, and most importantly, leveraging SEO best practices to target new clients by both common employment law search terms and geographical location is essential to drive new traffic to your website. For example, a Chicago-based employment law firm will want to ensure that the link to their website, complete with a short and concise meta description, features near the top of the SERP whenever a client searches “Best workplace discrimination lawyer in Chicago.”
7. Paid lead generation services
As mentioned previously, there are virtually countless paid employment law lead generation services and law firm marketing agencies available on the market today that can help law firms maximize the impact of any of the above strategies.
These law firm marketing agencies can help employment lawyers with everything from paid ads, to organic blog and social media content, and everything in between. And while hiring one or more of these services can be costly, it also allows employment lawyers to outsource creative marketing and lead generation tasks so they can focus on what they do best.
Tip: It’s vital employment law firms track the ROI on their marketing spend. In Clio Grow, you can do just that—come discover how.
Measuring the ROI of your lead generation strategies
When implementing any employment law lead generation strategy, it’s critical to have processes in place for measuring the return on your investment (ROI) to better understand what works and what doesn’t, and how to improve your marketing performance over the long-term.
More specifically, having visibility into all key performance indicators (KPIs) related to each strategy allows you to more effectively measure the cost of marketing against new revenue.
For example: Metrics like website traffic and corresponding conversion rate—i.e., the percentage of website visitors who have been converted into clients—help employment lawyers understand the effectiveness of their website content. Additionally, when using paid search or social advertisements, comparing new business against a metric like cost-per-lead will reveal if the cost of your paid ads is truly worth it.
Of course, the primary benefit of measuring marketing ROI is being able to adjust your strategies over time based on objective performance data. This is why it’s so important for firms to modernize their practice through the integration of customer relationship management (CRM) software, which provides a centralized location for all lead and client data as well as processes for analyzing and refining lead generation strategies.
For example: In addition to automatically tracking the status of all leads across marketing channels, Clio Grow’s CRM also uses automation to streamline client intake and offers an intuitive portal for managing client relations at each stage of the legal process.
Building a strong future for your employment law firm
Overall, employment law remains one of the most competitive areas within the legal sector, underscoring the importance of establishing, deploying, and refining employment law lead generation strategies to stand out from the competition and position your firm for sustainable long-term growth. If you or your employment law firm are in the market for new ways to bolster your lead generation efforts and improve the efficiency of your client intake process, book a demo with Clio Grow today.
