Marketing automation refers to the use of software and other technologies to automate repetitive tasks and improve the
effectiveness of online marketing, including email, social media, websites, and any content you publish. Marketing automation is tremendously beneficial in so many ways. A well-designed automation workflow saves time, reduces errors, increases audience engagement, and boosts the ROI of your law practice’s marketing efforts. If you’re not currently using a marketing automation system, it’s time to explore your options. Here are several marketing automation tools that make sense for law firms.
Top Marketing Automation Tools for Law Firms
Concep
Concep is an easy-to-use email marketing platform with automation capabilities designed specifically for law firms. One of its biggest selling points is its powerful native integrations with LexisNexis InterAction and Microsoft Dynamics 365, the sector’s two most commonly used CRMs.
With their integrations, forms, and analytics, you can automate your most common workflows/ processes, such as your events management process – from invites and RSVPs, to list creation and data management, making it easy to connect with potential clients. While its automation capabilities aren’t as powerful as Marketo’s or Hubspot’s, Concep fulfills most law firms’ needs and its simplicity is reflected in its cost and ease of use.
HubSpot is an all-in-one, easy-to-use marketing automation platform for lawyers and law firms of every size. HubSpot
integrates customer relationship management, social media scheduling, automated email marketing, and much more! You’ll get lead flows, forms, drip emails, analytics, and more — all designed to make it easy for you to efficiently grow your law firm’s database with their CRM software. Capture leads, learn who they are and what they’re interested in, and optimize your marketing based on data, not guesswork. HubSpot also offers the added benefit of the Sales and Service Hubs, which means your team can better work together—even across departments. HubSpot’s capabilities make automating important tasks easy, so you can reach prospective clients in a number of ways. HubSpot also offers a free trial so you can try it before you buy.
One of the best-known and most mature tools, Marketo is a robust platform that works best for large law firms that will take advantage of every feature the tool offers. Unlike HubSpot, Marketo’s interface is dated and hard to navigate if you don’t know what you’re doing. Despite that, it is a powerful marketing automation tool for lawyers. The advanced functionality is reflected in the price tag, so it makes sense to explore this option only if you have a sophisticated marketing strategy to execute.
(If you’d like more help on figuring out if an investment in marketing automation is right for your firm, check out this complimentary webinar: What Is Marketing Automation and How Can It Benefit Your Firm?)
Easy to use and affordable, this platform is a well-known email marketing software. They don’t offer comprehensive campaign solutions, but most small law firms are able to meet their email needs with the tool. With Constant Contact, you can create automated trigger campaigns, collect new emails automatically, and send segmented follow-up messages. If you plan to expand your digital marketing beyond email programs, this might not be the business tool for you, especially if you’re not a small firm.
A top-tier tool, Eloqua offers superior service and fees that match. Eloqua integrates with many enterprise systems, such as customer relationship management (CRM) and other third-party applications. With Eloqua, law firm marketers can create targeted campaigns through multiple channels, such as email, social, mobile, web, and search. They can also track and analyze the results of their campaigns with built-in analytical tools. If your firm has an enterprise-level marketing department and a matching budget, this tool could be a good fit.
Owned by Salesforce, this tool allows law firms to easily target communications over several channels and makes client intake easy. Pardot is designed for B2B companies, vs. the B2C functionality that Exact Target offers. If you want to really take advantage of marketing automation to take your lead generation efforts to the next level, this is a good option to explore.
Customer.io is a marketing platform for sending targeted and automated emails, push notifications, and SMS messages to engage and retain your audience. The interface for building campaigns, workflow, and the trigger definition and usage are pretty simple. If you can put in some developer time, this email automation platform offers a customized experience for building marketing campaigns.
A social media automation tool, Hootsuite is one of the more robust options for managing all aspects of social for legal professionals. It’s designed to help marketers schedule content and keep a pulse on what’s happening online with their brand. Generally speaking, Hootsuite has everything that your firm would need to create an impactful social presence.
Takeaway:
If your online marketing has become complex and/or time-consuming, automation could be the solution your law firm is looking for. When used correctly, it’s a great way to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of your marketing. Whether you’re creating posts for social media, sending out an email marketing campaign, wanting to use a CRM tool to organize your prospects, or converting leads from LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, marketing automation platforms make it all possible with just a few clicks.
This blog post has been updated from Oct. 25, 2021.
