The law firm marketing plan template.

Most law firms don't have a marketing plan. They have a pile of marketing activities. Some ads here, a few posts there, a website somebody built years ago. And leads that show up at random, if at all. A plan is different. It's four choices made on purpose, written down, and repeated every month. Here's the whole thing. It's simple enough to fit on one page.

The short answer

A law firm marketing plan answers four questions: who do you want, what do you say to them, where do you say it, and what happens when they call. Get those four right and marketing stops feeling like gambling. Get any one wrong and even good work fails. The right message in front of the wrong people is money wasted on strangers. This is the same setup as any good digital marketing strategy. It's just shaped for how people really hire lawyers. Some people call it a lawyer marketing plan or an attorney marketing plan. It's the same four questions.

Start with who, not what

Ask most attorneys who their ideal client is. They answer with a case type: "car accidents" or "divorces." But people hire you — cases don't. A marketing plan starts with the person.

Look at your last twenty signed clients. Find the ones you wish you had more of. What do they have in common? Look at income, age, job, and life situation. A family law attorney who wants bigger cases isn't looking for "people getting divorced." They're looking for business owners and people who earn a lot, with property in more than one state. A personal injury attorney who wants brain injury cases learns something even more useful. The injured person almost never makes the call. The family does. That one fact changes who every ad and every page should talk to.

Pick one client type to build the plan around. If you try to speak to everybody, nobody feels you're talking to them.

Say the result, not the service

Nobody wants a lawyer. They want what the lawyer gets them. Think of the DUI client with a commercial driver's license. They aren't buying a defense. They're buying their job back. The mother in a custody case isn't buying court papers. She's buying time with her kids. Your legal work is how they get there. The result is what they pay for.

So your message should say three things. Say what they want, how they get it, and what life looks like after. Use it on your website, in your ads, and in your first meetings. Once you know just who you're talking to, the topics become easy to find. The family lawyer who wants wealthy clients stops writing "5 signs you're ready for divorce." Instead, they write about splitting business assets, vacation homes, and hidden accounts. Those are the questions only their ideal client asks. That's keyword research done with your own case files.

Put it where they already look

You don't have to be everywhere. You have to be where your one client type looks, at the moment they need you:

• Google search, maps, and Local Services Ads — for urgent problems where people are ready to hire: DUI, injury, arrests, divorce filings. Someone searching "DUI lawyer near me" at 2 AM is hiring this week. Law firm SEO wins these searches over time. PPC (pay-per-click ads) buys them while SEO grows.
• Facebook and Instagram — social media marketing for cases people think about before they act: estate planning, family law, immigration. Pick the site that fits your client's age, not the one you like to use.
• Your review profile — people with every case type check it. How many reviews you have, your rating, and your replies decide if the click becomes a call. A review funnel keeps it growing without anyone having to remember to ask.

Two channels done well beat five done halfway. Try to do too much, and none of it works well.

The one-page marketing plan template

Here's the template. Fill in seven lines. Then you have a better plan than most firms ever write:

1. My ideal client: one person, described in a sentence. ("Business owner in Orange County facing a high-asset divorce.")
2. The result they want: one sentence, in their words — not legal words.
3. My two channels: where that person looks when the problem starts. Pick two. Ignore the rest for now.
4. The foundation: a website built to make the phone ring, a full Google Business Profile, and a steady flow of reviews. Every channel you pay for sends people here first. This is what that website looks like.
5. The follow-up rule: every call, text, and form fill gets a reply in minutes, not hours. The firm that answers first signs the case. Speed is part of the plan, not luck.
6. Three numbers I track: calls, consultations booked, and cost per signed case. If a report doesn't tie to those three, it's not useful.
7. The monthly loop: once a month, look at the three numbers. Cut what didn't work. Add one page or one test that might. A marketing plan isn't something you write once. It's a loop you improve month after month. That's the whole difference between firms that grow and firms that guess.

Here's the blank version. Copy it into a document, or print it and fill it in by hand. To get a PDF, press the print button and choose “Save as PDF.”

3 sample plans

Templates make more sense with real words in them. Here are three sample law firm marketing plans, each filled in for a different practice area. The same seven lines work for estate, immigration, or employment law too. Only the answers change.

Sample 1: Family law

1. My ideal client: a business owner in Orange County facing a high-asset divorce, with property in more than one state.
2. The result they want: “Keep what I built, keep time with my kids, and keep this private.”
3. My two channels: Google search and maps for the searches this client types — “high asset divorce attorney orange county”. Plus a growing review profile, because this client reads reviews before calling anyone.
4. The foundation: a fast website with a page for each question this client really asks. Think business value, hidden accounts, and custody with travel. Add a full Google Business Profile. And get reviews that mention privacy and results.
5. The follow-up rule: every call and form gets a personal reply within five minutes during business hours. Each one gets an offer to meet the same day.
6. Three numbers I track: good-fit consultations per month, how many consults become paying clients, and cost per signed case.
7. The monthly loop: first Friday of the month — read the three numbers. Cut the weakest ad or page. Add one new page that answers a question someone asked in a consult this month.

Sample 2: Personal injury

1. My ideal client: the husband, wife, or grown child of someone badly hurt in a truck crash in our county. The injured person is often in the hospital, so the family makes the call.
2. The result they want: “Get the medical bills handled and make sure we can pay the rent while he can't work.”
3. My two channels: Google search and maps for searches like “truck accident lawyer” plus the city name. Plus Google's ads for lawyers for calls while SEO grows.
4. The foundation: a page for each crash type we want more of, a full Google Business Profile, and reviews from families that mention how we kept them updated.
5. The follow-up rule: a person answers every call, day or night. Any missed call gets a text back within one minute. The first firm to answer signs the case.
6. Three numbers I track: calls from crash cases, signed cases, and cost per signed case.
7. The monthly loop: second Monday of the month — compare cost per signed case from ads and from search. Move money toward the cheaper one. Add one page about a crash type callers asked about.

Sample 3: Criminal defense (DUI)

1. My ideal client: a working professional arrested for a first DUI, who needs a driver's license for their job.
2. The result they want: “Keep my license and keep my job.”
3. My two channels: Google search ads and Google maps. People search “DUI lawyer near me” the night of the arrest or the next morning.
4. The foundation: a page on DUI with a commercial license, a page on the license hearing deadline in our state, a Google Business Profile that shows weekend hours, and reviews that mention fast answers.
5. The follow-up rule: calls are answered at night and on weekends, because arrests don't happen during office hours. Every caller gets offered a free phone consult the same day.
6. Three numbers I track: calls, consultations booked, and cost per signed case.
7. The monthly loop: first Monday of the month — check which searches brought calls that signed. Stop paying for search terms that bring calls that never sign.

Notice what's not in any of them:

• No marketing channel the client doesn't use.
• No number that doesn't tie to signed cases.
• No step that takes more than a page to write down. If your firm's plan runs longer, cut it.

Setting the budget

Every firm wants a number. Don't start from a percent of revenue. Start from the cases you want and what you're willing to pay to sign one:

The order you spend in matters as much as the amount. Practice areas with lots of competition, like personal injury, cost more than most. Spend in this order. First comes the base: website, profile, reviews. Then SEO for the searches that sign cases. Then paid ads, once your intake team really answers the phone. Ads that send people to a weak website or slow intake just waste money faster. If the budget is tight, start small and do it yourself. The basics are free to learn. Buy speed later.

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