Why Your Law Firm Brand Matters

Building a brand means creating a memorable identity for your law firm. It means understanding your ideal client, crafting a unique message, and presenting yourself consistently across all platforms. It is a promise you make to your clients, reflected in everything from your logo to your customer service. By consistently delivering on that promise, you build trust and recognition, making your firm’s brand stand out from its competition.

How to Build Your Law Firm Brand

1. Know Your Firm’s Audience

Who is your ideal client? Where do they live? What type of injuries did they sustain from an accident? Every law firm must ask these questions in order to design itself to meet those clients’ needs. Certain brands can resonate better with certain audiences, so knowing your audience can help build a brand that is most effective with your clientele.

2. Define Your Brand Identity

This step involves your firm’s core values, mission statement, and the overall experience you want to provide clients. Think about what makes your firm unique and the message you want to convey.

3. Craft Your Law Firm’s Story

People connect with stories. What’s the story behind your firm? Why are you passionate about the law? Weaving a narrative can help potential clients feel a connection with your brand.

4. Develop a Cohesive Visual Identity

Create a consistent look and feel across all forms of media and marketing—website, social media, business cards, etc. This includes your logo, color scheme, and fonts. Consistency fosters recognition, memorability, and trust.

5. Be Consistent

Branding is an ongoing process. Ensure your message and visual identity are consistent across all platforms and touchpoints. From your client’s very first phone call to what they see on your website, everything should reflect your brand the way you want it to.

6. Build Trust

Showcase your law firm’s expertise and build trust by featuring your best verdicts/settlements, client testimonials, and success stories. This can be done on your website, in social media posts, or even in case studies.

7. Track, Report, & Adapt

Branding is a journey, not a destination. Monitor your law firm’s marketing efforts and adapt your brand strategy based on results. What’s resonating with your audience? What can be improved? Brands can change over time to meet their client’s needs.

How Élan Creates a Law Firm Brand

Our Brand Development Process

Following the best practices outlined above, Élan crafts a law firm brand using a tried-and-true process. This process ensures a brand is positioned well from the start, allowing it to grow and mature at an optimal rate within its market.

Define Brand Messaging

Brand messaging is the core of how your law firm communicates with the world. It’s the “what” you say and “how” you say it in order to resonate with your target audience. Here’s how to define your firm’s brand messaging:

Understand Your Audience: This is crucial. Who are you trying to reach? What are their needs and aspirations? How can your firm solve their problems?
Identify Your Value Proposition: What makes your law firm unique? What benefit do you offer that other firms don’t?
Develop Your Brand Voice: This is the personality behind your message. Are you friendly and casual? Professional and authoritative? Choose a tone that aligns with your brand identity and resonates with your audience.
Craft Key Messages: Develop a few clear, concise messages that communicate your value proposition. These messages should be used consistently across all of your marketing materials.
Focus on Benefits, not Features: Don’t just talk about what your law firm does, explain how it benefits the client.
Use Compelling Language: Make your messaging clear, concise, and engaging. Use powerful verbs and emotional language to connect with your audience.

Create a Brand Name

Using your defined messaging, we will help craft a brand name that resonates with the firm, its audience, and any other key stakeholders. Generally, the law firm name needs to be:

Memorable: Easy to recall and spell.
Meaningful: Should connect to your brand identity.
Distinctive: Stand out from competitors and avoid confusion.
Available: Check for trademark availability to avoid legal issues.
Usable: Consider how it sounds and looks when spoken or written.

Design a Logo & Style Guide

Designing a logo is a creative process, but it also follows a logical flow to ensure the final product effectively represents your law firm. Below is a breakdown of the steps involved:

Use Your Brand Message: Using the defined brand messaging, we’re able to paint a clear understanding of your brand essence and guide the design choices for the logo and style.
Research & Gather Inspiration: We’ll look at logos of successful firms in your market and beyond. Explore design trends, but be mindful of creating something timeless and unique. Collect elements, colors, and styles that resonate with your brand message.
Choose a Logo Style: There are different logo styles to consider, like wordmarks (focusing on text), lettermarks (using initials), or pictorial marks (using symbols or icons). Consider which style best suits your brand and target audience.
Sketch & Brainstorm: We’ll sketch different logo concepts using design software, exploring variations of text, shapes, and symbols that visually represent your law firm.
Refine & Develop: Together, from our concepts, we’ll choose the strongest logo concept and refine it while paying attention to details like balance, negative space, and scalability (how it will look at different sizes). This ensures the design is clear and works well in black and white as well as in color.
Select Colors & Fonts: Colors and fonts significantly impact a logo’s message and memorability. We’ll choose colors that align with your brand identity and target audience. Alongside that, we will pick fonts that are easy to read and complement the overall design.
Collect Feedback: While also sharing the final logo concept with you, we’ll review with other key stakeholders to get as much feedback as possible. These insights can help identify areas for improvement and ensure the logo resonates with our target audience.
Finalize & Deliver: We will ensure all logo files/formats are suitable for different uses (web, print, video, etc.). The finalized designs will also be documented in a set of brand guidelines (a.k.a. a style guide). Brand guidelines can help set a “rulebook” for your brand, ensuring anyone and everyone who uses it represents your brand the way you need them to.

Develop Brand Assets

A law firm brand’s visual identity lies not only in a logo and color scheme, but is also brought to life through imagery and video. For a client to truly build trust in your firm, they must get to know you. A familiar face can go a long way when clients are choosing which law firm to work with.

Photography: Élan coordinates photoshoots to capture imagery that will be used throughout a website, social media, and advertising. We will capture the firm’s essence through photos of its attorneys, support staff, and the location in which they all work. These images will represent your brand’s approachability, its confidence, and the hard-working nature of its team.
Videography: Videography does what photography can, but more. Videos can help craft a story that best explains who you are and why clients should choose your firm.

Important Note: Today, search engines like Google prioritize video content over everything else. Videography can help a brand stand out on search engine results pages (SERPs) when other firms fall short.

Social Media Posts: Through only a few social media posts, we can help showcase how your brand will come to life. Social posts aren’t always just pictures, they’re artfully crafted designs that help capture an audience’s attention. These designs can then carry over to ad designs later in a brand’s lifespan.

Build a Website

One of the most important places a brand lives is on a website. A website is the pinnacle of a firm’s digital visual identity. Throughout the entire website, a brand should be premium, consistent, and clear. Oftentimes, this is the first touchpoint a client will have and acts as the medium through which they’ll communicate with your firm.

When developing a brand from the ground up, a new website is required to articulate said brand in the best way possible. Élan’s websites are tailored to each firm’s unique market, brand, and the needs of their clients.

Create an Online Presence

Engage in Social Media: Choose the social media platforms where your target audience is active. Develop brand profiles and create engaging content that resonates with their interests. Use high-quality visuals, informative captions, and relevant hashtags to increase reach and brand awareness.
Create Content: Create valuable and consistent content that educates, entertains, or inspires your target audience. This could include blog posts, infographics, videos, or social media posts.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Optimize your website content and online presence to rank higher on search engine results pages (SERPs). This will increase organic traffic and brand visibility.
Get Listed in Online Directories: List your business in relevant online directories and industry listings. This will improve local SEO and make it easier for potential customers to find you online.
Manage Your Reputation: Ensure each review platform positively reflects your brand’s reputation and messaging. This includes sites such as Google reviews, Apple Business Connect reviews, Yelp reviews, Better Business Bureau reviews, and more.

Promote Your Brand

Once your brand’s stage is set, it’s time to promote it. Advertising, or paid media, boosts brand awareness and captures an audience you wouldn’t otherwise reach through organic media efforts. Paid media can include anything from Google Ads Paid Search to advertising on your local radio station. Choosing the right media mix can grow your brand into the only choice for people’s legal needs.

A Final Note

Quality Brand = Quality Cases

A law firm brand is the reputation and image that a firm has in the minds of consumers. It is built to convey a feeling or idea to a client. A well-crafted brand is what can allow a firm to flourish in a crowded market. A quality brand can:

Build Trust and Recognition: A well-developed law firm brand creates a professional and trustworthy image. People are more likely to choose a law firm they recognize and trust.
Build Advocacy: Strong brands can create a connection with clients on an emotional level. This can lead to positive word-of-mouth marketing and powerful client referrals.
Create a Competitive Advantage: In a crowded marketplace, a strong law firm brand can help it stand out from the competition. It allows you to clearly communicate what makes your firm better than the rest.
Supports Marketing and Advertising: A strong brand makes your legal marketing and advertising more effective. Your brand elements (logo, colors, etc.) can be used consistently across all of your marketing materials, creating a unified message.

When Élan promotes a law firm brand, it’s positioned in a way that will capture both the audience and the case types that the law firm is seeking out. Our clients secure better cases than their competition because of the meticulous branding and messaging we help craft.

Whether it’s a premier high-value personal injury law firm or a high-volume employment law firm, each of our clients grows through pointed branding and effective marketing.

Contact our team today to see how branding can further your law firm’s growth potential.

Élan

How to Build a Law Firm Brand in 2024