There are a variety of ways in which a website visitor can become your client. But one thing to be clear is even if your website enjoys a fair amount of traffic, that doesn’t mean all those visitors will call for a consultation or fill out a contact form.

In order to bridge the gap between stranger and lead, you need to motivate your web visitors to offer up their contact information. You need to quickly nurture a relationship with these visitors and build a level of trust where an exchange of personal information seems a natural “next step.”

You also have to be willing to understand that when it comes to using digital marketing for your law firm, conversions shouldn’t always come in the form of consultations or phone calls. Many of your website visitors simply aren’t ready to talk directly to an attorney.

Many prospects are still in the research or comparison phase of their buyer’s journey. By catering to their specific needs – and offering them something they value in exchange for their contact information – you then can build upon this relationship and funnel these leads toward becoming a client.

For this, we need to focus on lead magnets and calls-to-action.

Breaking down CTAs and lead magnets for law firms

A CTA, or call-to-action, has one sole purpose: to get people to take an action. Take a look at the CTA below found on the website of Dallas’ Rasansky Law Firm.

The entire call-to-action is this grayed out box with a clear heading, brief descriptor, and button.

But a CTA can’t stand alone. It has to offer something to the web visitor. In the example above, the “offer” is a free consultation. Often times, this offer will suffice.

But not always.

If you want to increase the number of website visitors willing to convert into leads, you’re going to have to develop different types of lead magnets to cater to your many audiences.

Create different types of lead magnets that your many web visitors will value

A lead magnet is only effective if your visitors find value in it. For folks who come to your site ready to meet with a lawyer, a free consultation can be really valuable.

But what about folks who are further up in their buyer’s journey? What types of lead magnets could you offer for someone still in their research phase?

The basic premise of a lead magnet is somewhat simple: it has to be something that your audience wants or needs badly enough that they’re willing to exchange personal information for it.

Again, for some of your visitors, a free consultation suffices. These visitors are ready to find an attorney to address their needs and a consult is exactly what they’re after.

But what about folks further up in the funnel? In other words, what about folks who are just browsing. Perhaps they’re not sure if they need an attorney? Perhaps they’re not sure if you’re the right lawyer for them?

Either way, a free consultation doesn’t speak to them – they’re not ready for that type of commitment. That doesn’t mean, however, that you can’t find a way to turn these browsing visitors into leads (and eventually clients).

That’s why it’s important to diversify your lead magnet offers.

One of the most effective lead magnet formats we’ve seen in action for law firms is the “checklist”. Legal matters are usually pretty tricky and complex. How does a prospect know if they need an attorney? How do they know if they’ve done everything they’re legally obligated to do?

These types of people are looking for answers. Sure, they could schedule a consultation with you to get these answers, but what if you offered them a free checklist to help them find some clarification or peace of mind?

Take a look at this web page from Orange County law firm Law Offices of Chad Maddox. These questions are listed on Mr. Maddox’s main website. But he could have easily had turned these into a lead magnet that’s accessible only after web visitors provided their contact information.

What he could have done was create a call-to-action that speaks to his DUI visitors:

Have You Been Arrested for a DUI?
Download our free checklist designed to help you protect yourself, and your freedom.

As part of the CTA, Mr. Maddox could have included a simple form for visitors to fill out (name and email address, for example) and then, when complete, the visitor would receive this free checklist.

Mr. Maddox would then have this visitor’s contact information as well as the specific understanding that this visitor was likely recently arrested for DUI. That type of information will be invaluable to Mr. Maddox as he reaches out to this prospect to foster a relationship.

The key here – and with any lead magnet – is that you market these offers to the right audiences. A typical law firm has a variety of practice areas. An attorney who represents DUI clients might also represent Personal Injury clients. Your goal should be to create compelling lead magnets for each of your practice areas, and ensure that these lead magnets (and CTAs) only appear on subject-appropriate pages and posts.

A few other creative lead magnet ideas you might want to consider include:

• Webinars
• Infographics
• White Papers
• Case Studies

When creating lead magnets, always think about your audience. What type of content would interest them, and in what format would they prefer it?

To answer that question, first and foremost, you should make sure you develop clear buyer personas. You have to understand who it is you’re trying to target before you try to uncover their search habits or interests.

With these personas complete, you can turn to a tool like The Google AdWords Keyword Planner. The planner allows you to see the volume for keyword phrases your audiences search for. It can also offer related suggestions.

We also suggest you go straight to the source. Ask your past and current clients what they look for when searching for a lawyer. What led them to convert with you? In their specific case, what type of information would have been useful to them?

These answers can help you choose which types of lead magnets – and which formats – to develop.

Also, consider using Buzzsumo. Buzzsumo allows you search specific topics and see how popular these topics are at the moment.

What we did was conduct a simple search on Buzzsumo for “workers comp.” A majority of entries we got back in return aren’t useful to us; however, if we were a North Carolina law firm looking to create content – and a lead magnet – then the entry titled Roy Cooper wants better retirement and workers comp benefits for NC police and firefighters is very interesting.

What if you created a lead magnet (eBook) titled: Understanding the Future of Workers Comp for NC’s Police Officers and Firefighters.

Your first inkling might be to say “but that’s such a very narrow topic and potential audience.” To that, we say exactly. The more specific you can get with your lead magnet, the higher conversion rates you’ll enjoy. Web visitors who are (or know) police officers or firefighters in NC would find this guide to be extremely useful.

Make sure to promote your lead magnets

Let’s continue on with this worker’s comp guide we’ve imagined. Just because you developed it, that doesn’t mean your prospective clients will find it.

You have to do some promotion.

Creating blog posts that tease the information is a good step for your legal SEO strategy. You could, for example, write a blog post that sums up the news article that appears in our Buzzsumo results. Then, at the bottom of that post, you’d add a call-to-action that promotes the guide.

Social media, as well, can help your offer gain more traffic. Specifically, we recommend using paid social advertising for your law firm. Promote your blog post on Facebook and target that post to Facebook users through custom audiences (for example, you should target your post to Facebook users who call themselves police officers or firefighters and who live within a certain radius of your firm).

You can then create a separate landing page on your website for your offer. That way you can also promote that landing page on social media so that visitors who see your ad or boosted post are taken directly to a web page optimized for conversion.

Try not to rely only on free consultations and contact-us offers

Your prospects, at the top of the funnel, may not be ready to become clients today or tomorrow, but that doesn’t mean that they can’t become valuable leads. By using a diverse number of lead magnets that speak to the needs of your audiences, and making it easy for them to convert, you can very quickly and easily grow your list of qualified leads, and nurture these relationships to eventually turn those leads into your clients.