Legal marketing in the COVID-19 era: Jamie Obertelli writes for New York Law Journal

August 18, 2021

In our latest contribution to New York Law Journal, Digital Strategy Lead Jamie Obertelli discusses the legal sector’s newfound appetite for innovative digital marketing solutions sparked by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Few industries have been forced to adapt as dramatically to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic as the legal sector. The unprecedented, almost-total disappearance of all channels related to live events and conferences, and the increasing barriers to face-to-face interaction, posed enormous challenges for marketers at law firms across the globe. Organizations that have demonstrated the most resilience to these impediments to new business have done so in part by a dramatic softening of partner resistance to digital innovation.

This growing internal acceptance that the legal industry needs to accelerate its digital transformation has led to a more widespread implementation of solutions such as cloud computing, artificial intelligence, speech recognition tools and contract building software. But it is in-house marketing departments that may have seen the biggest shift in working practices as many were given a wider scope to explore digital campaigns to secure, generate and nurture leads. This has undoubtedly been a step in the right direction for an industry that has long been maligned for its failure to keep pace with other sectors when it comes to digital adoption.

Over the last year and a half, my agency has had an increasing number of conversations with in-house marketing teams interested in, or indeed already managing, search engine marketing (SEM) campaigns. It’s clear that a growing number of firms are now far more comfortable running pay per click (PPC) ads—typically through search engines like Google and Bing—and targeted paid social media campaigns. In a world where in-person events have been severely constrained, it makes perfect sense that previously cautious legal marketers have turned to these avenues to generate leads and attract online visitors.

Continue reading on New York Law Journal here.

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