5 things I learned from marketing in legal tech.

Yar
5 min readOct 27, 2020

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Even though considered very niche, legal tech (short for legal technology) grew to become one of the most competitive tech ecosystems today. Legal tech is no longer just made for lawyers, in-house departments, or other legal professionals, but even individuals with no law background are targeted. One survey report by the American bar foundation surveyed 322 legal techs targeting non-lawyers in the United States.

We already see many startups entering into legal tech making the competition really fierce, however, very few manage to make an impact, and it is not always because their product is bad, but because they don’t really know how to make it succeed in the market. Biggest example would be what happened with Atrium.

However, just like any tech company, applying the right marketing strategy is key to succeed in this tough ecosystem.

In this article, I will share with you 5 points I learned about marketing in legal tech and how they are vital in making them succeed.

1. Know your target audience like the back of your hand.

This is the pillar of your marketing strategy. You must be specific about who exactly you are targeting and how they are going to benefit from what you are selling.

It is certainly not enough to just be targeting “Lawyers”, in fact targeting lawyers, in general, is a common mistake we see in most legal tech startups.

Your target must be more specific, if it’s really lawyers you are after then you need to know which type of lawyers; that is which law do they practice, where do they practice it, and how technologically mature is their regional legal sector.

Maybe your product is good enough to benefit the majority of lawyers or “All the lawyers”, but your marketing strategy needs to build trust in the market, and that happens best when you personalize your content towards the right target.

Your buyer is not always your user

Creating buyer personas applies to legal tech just as much as any other tech, it’s a good practice to do because they help you identify your ideal buyer and how to better help them with what they need.

However, in legal tech, more often than not, the buyer is not the same as the user, and not only that, but the user usually would have an influence on the buying decision at the end of the day. So when that is the case, it is important that you are able to distinguish between your buyer and your user, and adapting your targeting strategy accordingly.

Hence why it would also be good practice to create a user persona, which will idetify that user.

Having the persona character is proven to be very good internally to make sure that all the members of your company knows who are they actually helping with their product.

Here is an article from Hubspot which will explain buyer personas and provide you with a template to help you create them.

https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/buyer-persona-research

2. Your digital presence is vital.

This goes without saying but having a well established digital presence is key when it comes to marketing your legal tech. And it is equally important that you always stay consistent and up to date with your presence.

This might be challenging especially in the beginning stages, since you might not have much brand awareness, but it is vital that you start building your digital presence early on in your legal tech journey.

Here are a few points to consider when doing so:

Focus on the channels that have your target user
This one can be tricky because different regions might use different channels and platforms to network and so It is important that you know which channels does your target frequently use.

Invest in your SEO (& SEM)
Everyone googles things, even your target users hence why it is vital to provide content that is well enough to rank well in Google search results and be present in search results when the relevant search is done.

3. Explain clearly the benefits behind your tech.

Legal tech users are known to be very cautious about the products they use, especially given how they would use your product for serious legal matters. They will look you up and try to understand how your product is going to help their particular situation, if they don’t understand it, they will not take the risk and quickly move on.

“Attorneys are analytical. They’re trained to evaluate situations from every angle and to seek to understand the strengths and weaknesses in every situation. They are skilled debaters trained in logic and critical thinking. You’re not going to sway them with emotional marketing tactics.” — Leah presser (7 reasons attorneys don’t read your content)

Legal tech users back their decisions with sufficient data.

Here are some things to keep in mind when you are marketing your product, you need to:

  • Make sure that your product is proven to work efficiently.
  • Be very clear about the financial benefits it has for them.
  • Show them how it will help their clients.

4. Content marketing: Legal tech users expect actual content!

Think of it like this, “actual content” is content that a lawyer appreciates enough to share from his own profile.

Everything else is just content for Google.

Now producing actual content can be a challenge because it’s not just about getting the legal tech user’s attention, but it is more about producing what is actually valuable towards either themselves, their profession, or their industry. You get extra points for getting all three.

Some examples of what this content could he:

  • Information about different aspects of their practice (not only related to your product)
  • Important updates about the industry as a whole.
  • Studies and research reports (even paid ones)
  • Statistics and analytics about the sector.

Remember that your content needs to be brief and straightforward.

Tldr — applies to lawyers just as much as it does to everyone nowadays, especially when it comes to online content.

5. Invest in designing your material, yes it matters.

Now some might argue that design is not important in legal tech given that the target user is more interested in the content and its usefulness rather than in how it looks. And it might be true, however, I don’t fully agree… Legal tech users (lawyers, real estate agents, in-house lawyers) also appreciate what looks good.

Design is just as important as anything, your content should look neat, easily readable, and with appropriate graphics and visuals.

Don’t overdo it though, it doesn’t need to be overwhelming either. In fact, by simply focusing on the negative space (or the white spaces) you can make your content look way better and much more elegant. Here is an article to tell you more about how white spaces are crucial to the user experience.

In conclusion

You need to understand your target really well in order to be able to help them with both your product and your marketing content.

Personalization can go a long way and it would easily form trust between you and the users.

Your goal should be to ultimately bring more quality users that will grow to trust your product and eventually be your evangelists, meaning better long term results and better marketing KPIs.

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Yar
Yar

Written by Yar

I write about my marketing experiences and ideas in the start-ups ecosystem. I also enjoy writing about productivity and habit formation.

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