It’s a tough playground for employment law firms and having a strategic digital marketing plan will help you stay relevant in a crowded market. Getting new clients goes way beyond just the usual ads or sales pitches; it’s about building a strong pipeline for continuous growth.  Over the last five years, the employment law sector in the U.S. has witnessed a steady increase in revenue at an annualized rate of 2.7%. This has culminated in $25.5 billion in 2024, with a projected rise of 1.6% this year. Employment law clients are increasingly on the lookout for lawyers with specialized knowledge which has led to the emergence and growth of boutique firms and solo practitioners who possess deep expertise in niche sectors.  Theree are 5 fundamental strategies your  firm must leverage to create a strong groundwork for growth and sustained success:

1. Market Analysis

For employment law firms aiming to stand out in an aggressive market, the journey begins with a thorough market analysis. This involves examining the competitive landscape closely to understand your rivals and uncover potential opportunities to secure a competitive advantage.  Determine the following:

• Where are they advertising online and offline?
• What kind of messaging are they using?
• Where are they driving users online? To their company website or custom landing pages?
• Do they have an interactive live chat on their website and landing pages?
• Do they have an active blog?
• Do they run TV or Radio ads?
• Are they using video as a lead magnet?
• What keywords are they vying for?
• What backlinks have they amassed?

Begin this process by conducting a detailed analysis:  examine your competition, your marketing roadmap and budget. Set specific, quantifiable goals for your digital marketing efforts. This might include calculating the required number of new clients each month to maintain profitability or establishing achievable growth targets for the year.Armed with this data your firm can budget for a  digital marketing strategy that supports client growth. 

2. On Page, Technical, Off-Page and Local SEO 

At the heart of a successful digital marketing plan is a strategically optimized website. SEO refers to both on page, technical and offpage SEO. While On-Page and Technical SEO focus on optimizing the website itself, making it more appealing to both users and search engines, Off-Page SEO is about enhancing the site’s reputation and authority in the broader online community. Each type plays a crucial role in a comprehensive SEO strategy, working together to improve site rankings, draw traffic, and achieve the website’s marketing goals. Below is a quick breakdown:

“Your website should be a hub of accessible information and resources for potential clients, reinforcing your expertise and the value you offer.”

Develop niche-specific, segmented content that establishes your firm as a subject matter expert, addressing the precise legal needs of your diverse client base through blogs, practice area pages, and other resources. Implement local SEO strategies like Google Business Profile (GBP) Optimization, local news citations, local directories etc. to improve your visibility in local search results, making it easier for potential clients in your area to find you.

3. Precision-Targeted Lead Generation Campaigns

With proper targeting, you’ll ensure that you’re consistently reaching your exact target audience. Without it, you’ll be wasting money.  

• Don’t just target “employment lawyers near me”. Be specific about your area of expertise
  • i.e. Employment discrimination law services, wrongful termination lawyer, sexual harassment lawyer etc.
• Test ads targeting specific services you provide, even without the term “lawyer”
  • For example, “sexual harrassment at work”
  • Use Negative Keywords: Regularly update your negative keyword list (see below) to ensure your ads remain relevant to your target audience.

Match Types

Google offers several keyword match types that help control who sees your ads based on the searches performed. Here’s a breakdown:

Broad Match is the default match type that reaches the widest audience. When you use broad match, your ad may show on searches that include misspellings, synonyms, related searches, and other relevant variations.

• • Pros: Maximizes your ad’s exposure, potentially bringing in more traffic.
  • Cons: Will result in lower relevance of traffic because the match is very broad, leading to higher costs without targeting the most interested users.

Phrase Match offers a balance between reach and relevance. Your ad is shown on searches that include the meaning of your exact phrase or close variations of that meaning.

• • Pros: Filters out traffic unrelated to your services, while still capturing a broad audience interested in employment law.
  • Cons: Might miss out on some relevant searches if the variations are not closely matched.
  • Best for: Targeting specific services like “workplace discrimination advice” or “employment contract review” where the order of words matters.

Exact Match is the  most specific and restrictive type of keyword matching. Ads may show on searches that have the same meaning or intent as the keyword, including some paraphrases or related searches, but the focus is much narrower.

• • Pros: Drives the most targeted traffic to your site, which can improve conversion rates.
  • Cons: Limits the volume of traffic because the ad is shown to a smaller, more specific audience.
  • Best for: Employment lawyers targeting very specific areas of practice or who have identified high-converting keywords and want to focus their budget on these.

Negative Match allows you to exclude your ads from showing on searches with certain terms. This ensures that your ad doesn’t appear for searches that are not relevant to your services.

• • Pros: Increases campaign efficiency by reducing wasted spend on irrelevant clicks.
  • Cons: Requires careful consideration to ensure you’re not excluding potentially beneficial traffic.
  • Best for: Filtering out unrelated job searches or services not offered by your law firm, such as “free legal advice.”

“Understanding and effectively utilizing these match types can significantly enhance your lead generation efforts, ensuring that your ads reach the most relevant audience interested in employment law services.”

4. Message Matched Landing Pages

Message matching is a marketing technique used to create a seamless transition for users from a paid advertisement to a landing page. The core idea is to ensure that the messaging, design, and overall feel of the landing page closely align with the ad that the user clicked on. This alignment includes matching headlines, key phrases, images, and the overall theme, making the user feel that they have landed in the right place.

The purpose of message matching is twofold: to enhance the user experience and to increase the likelihood of conversion. When users click on an ad and find a landing page that reflects the promises or claims made in the ad, their trust in the brand increases, making them more likely to engage with the content, fill out a form, or make a call. 

Pro Tip: Create dynamic text placement in landing pages with a landing tool like Unbounce in conjunction with Dynamic Search ads.

When running ads, you can’t simply send users to a one size fits all website but to a message matched landing page. The benefits of unique landing pages are manifold. Strategically developed landing pages increase conversions, because they serve as a basis of message-matched ads, can easily be A/B tested, enabling you to find the most effective messaging, CTAs and creatives to get the best ROI.

“Landing pages are the most important, overlooked, misunderstood, and difficult-to-master aspect of ad campaigns. We’ve seen cases where ROI increased 3X simply by creating new landing pages”.

5. Social Proof

Practice areas like Employment Law have a much higher need to focus on the psychological aspect of marketing related to personalization, trust-building, education, accessibility, and transparency to effectively connect with their clients. Understanding the emotional aspect of legal issues in marketing terms ,and tailoring marketing strategies accordingly is also crucial in this context. Social Proof isn’t just a “nice to have” self-promotion tool – in a competitive field, it serves as tangible evidence of a law firm’s expertise and successful results. These endorsements enhance trust, ease doubt and provide “social proof” to prospective clients and can be incredibly persuasive. Social Proof examples include Google business reviews, testimonials, case studies, business awards and certifications, legal directories and beyond.

“Social proof functions as a decisive factor, providing prospective clients with the assurance they need to choose one law firm over another.”

Pro Tip: The Right Tools in Your Toolbox

There are some must-have digital marketing tools that you will need to properly manage your marketing efforts including:

• Keyword tools like Google Keyword Planner or SemRush
• Tracking tools like GA4, CallRail
• Landing page builders like Unbounce 
• Automation tools like Intaker that help to qualify leads, and Zapier to automate leads to your inbox in real time
• A customer relationship management tool (CRM) like Lawmatics or Zoho for Law Firms