How Personas Can Improve Your Law Firm’s Social Media Marketing Strategy
Social media can be a powerful marketing tool for any law firm. But to get the most out of your social media presence, you have to connect with your target audience. That’s where personas come into play.
Using personas, you can supercharge your law firm’s digital marketing strategies and get a better return on your investment. Here’s what you need to know.
What Is a Persona?
A persona—also known as a buyer or marketing persona—is a profile of the ideal client for your firm. Typically, this includes details like:
- Age
- Gender
- Location
- Marital status
- Education level
- Income level
- Interests
- Problems
- Goals
For example, if your law firm specializes in DUI law, your ideal client persona might be single male college students aged 18–22. You could then conduct market research to learn more about that demographic, helping you adapt your social media strategy to reach them.
Law firms with a narrow focus may only need one persona to cover their target audience. Others, with a broader scope of practice areas, may need to create several.
How Will Personas Help You Enhance Your Law Firm’s Social Media Strategy?
When developing your law firm’s online brand, creating personas can make all the difference. Let’s look at some of the main benefits of using personas.
1. Finding Your Audience
Not all social media platforms cater to the same demographics. Once you know who your ideal client persona is, you can focus your efforts on the platforms they prefer.
2. Better Organic Content
Having a clear picture of your ideal client will help you determine what topics are most interesting and valuable to them. This will make it easier to optimize your law firm’s content strategy and brand voice. Without a persona to aim for, you’ll be shooting in the dark.
3. More Effective Ad Campaigns
Personas will also help you craft ad campaigns that target the most likely prospects for your firm. This works for both one-off ads and complex funnels.
4. Increased Return on Investment
Using personas, you can optimize your entire social media brand to focus on connecting with your ideal prospects. This will keep you from wasting time and effort and give you more bang for your buck.
How to Create an Ideal Client Persona for Your Law Firm
1. Define Your Target Audience
The first step to building a persona is learning who your ideal clients really are. Start by looking at your past and current clients. Make a note of any patterns that appear in their demographics. Then, consider who else might need your services. Are there any demographics you haven’t reached yet?
2. Research
Once you have a general idea of who your ideal prospects are, do some research. What makes them tick? What are their interests? What are their problems and goals? You can learn more about your target audience through:
- Internet research
- Social media data
- Surveys and polls
- Client feedback
3. Create the Individual Persona(s)
Now that you have plenty of data about your ideal prospects, it’s time to distill that into a persona. For example, if you’ve found that the best demographic for your law firm to target is married, college-educated female professionals in their 30s, you can put together a persona that represents that target audience.
Then, give the persona a name, such as Sarah Smith or Emily White. This will humanize your target audience in your mind and make it easier to discuss them with your team.
Finally, list the persona’s interests, problems, and concerns so you can use that information to guide your social media strategy.
(If you decide your law firm should target multiple distinct demographics, simply repeat this process for each persona.)
4. Optimize Your Social Media Strategy
With your ideal client persona in hand, you can start developing a social media brand that speaks to them. Of course, this is only the beginning. Track your success over time, pay attention to what works and what doesn’t, and tweak your approach as needed for the best results.
Get Expert Help with Your Law Firm’s Social Media
As with most aspects of digital marketing, creating ideal client personas takes time, effort, and a whole lot of patience. If you’d rather pass the headaches off to someone else, we can help.
At Let America Know, we give trial attorneys the support they need to take their social media campaigns to the next level. Just contact us, and we will design a custom social media marketing strategy that suits your needs.
Learn more about our done-for-you social media program for lawyers like you.