Five Public Relations Outreach Strategies That Can Benefit Your Law Firm

Date: October 18, 2023

If you’re wondering how to grow your law firm, the key lies in promoting it effectively. To generate new leads and increase brand awareness, it’s essential to make your firm’s name stand out in the minds of potential clients. One effective way to do this is through press coverage gained by digital public relations (PR) efforts. 

Effective digital PR relies heavily on building and maintaining solid relationships with journalists and media outlets. While nurturing your current relationships is important, expanding your network by establishing new ones is also necessary. This is where PR outreach, also known as media outreach, becomes essential, as you can reach a large audience and create a lasting impression by being featured in the media, whether in print or online. This can help you set yourself apart from competitors and attract new business.

What is PR Outreach?

Reaching out to relevant journalists or media outlets to highlight your attorneys and law firms as experts in their field, establish connections, and enhance brand recognition, mainly through media coverage, is known as PR outreach. Although the essence of PR outreach has stayed the same over time, the expected outcomes, channels, and tools utilized for media outreach have definitely evolved. 

In the past, law firms should have placed more importance on gaining backlinks, focusing instead on securing coverage in traditional media outlets. However, times have changed, and obtaining backlinks, ensuring coverage in digital media outlets, and using social media to contact journalists have become necessary for generating new leads. This task may be quite challenging despite the numerous options available for PR outreach nowadays.

Ways to Expand Your Law Firm’s PR Outreach

Suppose your law firm is in the early stages of its PR strategy and is contemplating hiring a digital PR agency like 9Sail. In that case, there are some media outreach tactics that your firm could try and use to begin establishing relationships with journalists.

Utilizing Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

When starting your PR outreach, knowing how well you are connecting with your target audience can take a lot of work. That’s where SEO comes in. Working with an experienced law firm SEO agency like the team at 9Sail can provide valuable insights into your current keyword rankings. 

Understanding your law firm’s current ranking in keyword searches can aid in crafting a more precise outreach message to journalists. This can result in securing media coverage on the keywords that matter most to your law firm, leading to more significant lead generation and establishing your firm as a thought leader.

Staying Updated with Current News

It is crucial for the partners and attorneys in your law firm to remain informed about the latest developments in your specific area of practice. Keeping up-to-date with current news and trends can help your law firm draft a media pitch that is both timely and relevant to your law firm, which is crucial for catching the attention of reporters and journalists.

One effective way to achieve this is by incorporating a recent event or providing a unique perspective on an existing story. By doing so, your law firm’s expertise and knowledge on the subject may stand out to the journalist and have a better chance of being picked up by media outlets, as publications tend to constantly compete with one another to provide their audiences with the newest information by experts.

Experiment with Different Channels and Content

Although emails are a common way to contact journalists, utilizing other channels such as social media, phone calls, and networking events is important. Additionally, it’s helpful to experiment with the content of your email outreach, and a few examples are listed below.

• Press releases
• Offering a sneak peek of an interview with an attorney, partner, or CEO with something relevant to say on a timely news subject
• A reference to the journalists’ previous work and how it ties into your law firm

When writing a pitch email, it’s crucial to demonstrate how your law firm and attorneys can provide value to the media outlet. Journalists highly value exclusivity, so offering unique content can help your email stand out. However, it is important to avoid giving away all of your information and instead encourage the reporter to reach out for more details.

Share Your Story with More Than Just Words

Infographics and videos are a powerful tool for conveying information. They can provide journalists with a straightforward summary of your law firm’s message, making it easier for them to understand and share. With so many pitches and press releases flooding their inboxes daily, journalists are more likely to notice and engage with pitches that include compelling videos or data-driven infographics. 

Short-form videos, like TikToks or Instagram Reels, can be a powerful tool, as they can quickly capture a journalist’s attention and draw them to share your law firm’s story without requiring them to read the entire pitch and engage them with your law firm’s social media content.

Produce Blog Content

Picture a scenario where a journalist reaches out to your law firm to gather more details about the services you provide or to get an expert’s view on a current news topic assigned to them by their editors. Your law firm can provide them with a few quotes from partners and attorneys but can also offer them more insights on the subject by sharing a blog post your firm has written that correlates. 

By offering these journalists blog content related to the subject they approached you for, you can demonstrate your attorneys’ and law firm’s expertise and reliability. Additionally, it may encourage the journalist to contact your law firm again for further questions or clarifications that occurred during their research, potentially helping your firm establish a relationship with the journalist. Furthermore, the blog may be a reference resource in the journalist’s article for their readers, expanding your audience.

Looking to Get Started on Your Law Firm’s Digital PR Outreach?

While these digital PR outreach strategies are just some things that will help gain media coverage, it is also important to follow up with journalists to ensure your pitch stays at the top of a journalist’s mind. 

If your law firm is looking for help with its digital PR outreach, reach out to our team of experts today! We are more than happy to help get your law firm’s PR strategy started to help generate new leads and become a thought leader in your legal space.