Did you dash out six blog posts, slap them on your legal tech website, and call your content marketing game good?
Are the only visitors to your website the occasional tumbleweed?
If so, I’m sorry about that. My bad.
Like so many other website content marketers, I’m guilty of promoting the importance — nay, the necessity — of legal tech vendors consistently producing interesting, original content.
And it’s true. Building up your online resource center and keeping an active blog:
- Attracts more site visitors, earns trust, and nurtures long-term relationships.
- Demonstrates your legal technology business has staying power.
- Works to complete 70% of a sale for you.
Those are no small shakes. Which is why I, and other legal content marketers like me, shout from the rooftops that creating blog posts, case studies, white papers, emails, landing pages, videos, infographics, etc. is critical to attract and convert buyers of your legal technology product or service.
But alas, we often talk less (and in a much quieter voice) about the hard work and lengthy amount of time it actually takes to make content marketing work well.
Legal Tech Website Content Marketing: Neither Easy nor Quick
We tend to skip over the time and effort website content marketing requires. As a consequence, what you may hear sounds more like, “It’s easy to convert website visitors into customers quickly. All you have to do is create and promote fabulous content. New clients will line up to sign up!”
But “easily” and “quickly” are not how website content marketing works.
The likelihood of someone reading a blog post or experiencing a single piece of content and then automatically signing up to buy your product or service is nil. None. Nada. It never happens.
But they will, perhaps, sign up to join your email list. Or, they may bookmark your site. Or, at a minimum, take note of your company name. You don’t earn immediate sales. But you do earn trust, a little at a time, with each piece of content a prospect finds valuable.
Website content earns trust, a little at a time, with each new piece a prospect finds valuable.
That sentence contains a few important qualifiers:
- People must find your content,
- Your content must be valuable to them (which is a whole other conversation for another time).
But hey, when you nail that part, you’re finally on your way, right? At last! The bottom line can only go up and up!
Not so fast. You’re on your way, yes, but you’ve still got a long way to go.
Legal Tech Website Content Builds Trust Over Time
You have to repeat the entire process, over and over again. Create content that provides value. Make sure your audience finds it and loves it. Then, do it again.
And again, and again. And then do it some more. Nurture your email list, attract new website visitors, and continue building like-ability and trust.
The good news: Not every business has the stamina to maintain a healthy content marketing program.
Simply by building up your website’s content library with useful articles, white papers, etc., you come out on top of competitors who have yet to invest in creating content or who quit after publishing six blog posts. (Which is way more common that you’d think!)
You don’t just come out on some metaphorical top, either. You come out on top in search results because you have more helpful content to find in the first place.
Don’t Just Sell Legal Technology. Earn Loyal Customers.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll keep saying it: Buyers won’t just call up and suffer through a sales pitch. They learn all they can online first. Research shows that around 70% of the buyer’s journey is complete before people reach out to a salesperson.
Prospective buyers expect to find out most of what they need to know and are already contemplating buying your services before they ever contact your sales team. Ergo, you need to get written content out there to educate them and earn their trust.
It will take months, and it could take years. But eventually, your audience learns they can rely on you for quality information. You start building your brand through positive associations. Consistently publish fresh content and earn a reputation as the go-to resource in your industry for the latest news and events.
Your audience learns they can rely on you for quality information.
Website Content: Demonstrate Your Staying Power
Website content isn’t the only way to gain leads. Your business may shoot through the roof after investing in paid search marketing strategies. Combining website content marketing efforts with other marketing strategies is smart.
But high quality website content is one of the best ways to build your reputation and nurture relationships.
When visitors see you’ve invested the time and effort to create a useful online resource center filled with helpful guides, white papers, case studies, data sheets, etc., and it’s all connected through a healthy blog that answers their immediate questions, they know you’re serious about helping them meet the challenges they face.
It becomes obvious you’re not a fly-by-night operation, which is important when almost 94% of lawyers rate the reputation of the vendor as important in their decision-making process.
Content marketing builds reputations as well as relationships over time. When prospects learn they can trust your words, they also learn to trust your business. Then, you don’t just make sales; you earn loyal customers.
