How Can Free Information Help Lawyers Get Clients?

Attorney marketing often revolves around the idea of offering free and helpful information to potential clients. While offering free help may feel counterintuitive to some, it’s an important and effective way for lawyers to attract clients and convince them to trust a particular law firm. Individuals seeking legal counsel are often experiencing one of the most uncertain periods of their life, and the reassurance provided by free yet valuable legal information can be the deciding factor in whether or not they choose to hire one lawyer over another.

Offering free information about the legal industry, a specific practice area, or another topic relevant to your target market is one of the best ways to build trust with a potential client; it also allows the attorney to show off their skills. The trust this breeds is what can give a potential client the courage to become an actual client.

When a company offers something of value at no risk, customers are more likely to feel personally invested.

The same rule goes for law firms and potential clients. Money is a common concern for most people, which is what makes freebies an appealing part of many marketing strategies. However, offering something for free isn’t enough. The offering must also be of value to the consumer in question.

The key then is to figure out what is considered valuable to potential law clients. In many cases, the answer is simple: information. Someone seeking legal help probably has questions; if an attorney or law firm can offer clear and trustworthy answers to some of their biggest questions, the client is more likely to feel invested on a personal level, which is the first step to building trust with a client.

Offering free information to potential clients gives lawyers something even more valuable: opportunity.

Providing free and valuable information to potential clients gives lawyers the opportunity to display their experience, credibility, and industry authority. These factors are incredibly important to a client’s decision to hire, but can be difficult to display without making personal contact. Offering free information allows attorneys to show off in a way that feels both natural and helpful. This practice offers just as much benefit to the attorney or law firm as it does to the potential clients exploring the offering itself.

Providing free information doesn’t have to be hard. Valuable information may include:

• Blog articles: Blog articles are one of the easiest ways for an attorney to show off their industry authority in a way that visitors will find helpful and valuable. Blog articles can cover a wide range of topics, from answering common questions to explaining legal jargon and even offering examples of common legal missteps a client could make without seeking legal help.
• Social media posts: Posting valuable and relevant information on a professional social media page is another good way to provide free information. Similarly, engaging with visitors who comment on posts or message your account is a good way to build one-on-one connections and build the trust it takes for a potential client to hire.
• Videos: Like blog articles, attorney videos can cover a broad range of topics. For those who do not enjoy writing—or simply don’t have the time in their schedule to sit behind a keyboard—recording a quick video answering common questions or providing basic legal explanations can be a time-efficient way to create something valuable and original. However, it is particularly important for attorney videos to meet professional audio/visual quality standards, so you might want to hire outside help unless you have a lot of experience with professional video editing.
• FAQs: If your current website, Google Business Profile, and/or other social media accounts do not include a Frequently Asked Questions section, it should. This is one of the first places a potential client will go when they are seeking the information they need to decide on their next step. Unlike blogs, social media, and videos, an FAQ list doesn’t need to be updated on a regular basis, making it an easy and fast way to provide free yet valuable information to potential clients.
• Free consultations: If your firm offers any kind of free consultations, make sure visitors to your website and social media profile know this right away. The fear of paying lots of money in attorney fees can prevent someone from seeking the legal help they need.

To learn more about how free information can help attract clients, or for more ideas about what kind of information to offer, reach out to a legal marketing professional.