What is a Client Persona?

When it comes to marketing, attorneys need to decide what it is they hope to accomplish before they try to do it. Part of creating a plan is deciding whom to target. How can law firms identify and target the ideal market? By creating client personas. What is a client persona? It's a fictitious character who has the characteristics of your target audience. Client personas are the generalized versions of the people you plan to advertise to. Every element of your website should be fitted to the persona you are targeting.

Creating Personas to Target

Start by asking yourself what type of cases you want to handle. Do you want the ones that are most rewarding, the ones that provide the most legal challenge, or perhaps the ones that are most profitable? Once you have decided what types of cases you want to handle, you need to determine your target audience. Personas are simply characters who exemplify the target audience you want to reach.

Identifying the personas that are most likely to bring in these cases will help set the foundation for all of your marketing. You should consider the demographics and specific types of legal problems you wish to solve when you are constructing these characters. Do you want to attract 20- to 30-year old DUI clients, middle-aged executives looking to create a retirement plan, or perhaps jilted spouses seeking to play hardball in a divorce?

How Do You Create a Website to Target a Particular Persona?

If you want your law firm website to funnel the right clients to you, it has to be written and designed for them, not for you. All of the text and messaging on your website must be written with the persona of your ideal client in mind. Think about your ideal clients:

• • What would they want to see on an attorney website?

• • What would help them know they are in the right place?

• • What can you give them to show that you are the one to help them with their legal issue?

• • What questions will they have and how can you answer them?

You are a problem solver. Make sure readers know that when they visit your website.

What Do I Do With the Personas?

Once you have created your persona or personas, they should become the target of your website and your other marketing efforts. Your site design, colors, content, and images all should be chosen based on the knowledge that they will resonate with your ideal client. Some firms and companies go so far as to create visual images of their personas and post them at strategic points around the office to keep the firm’s target client top of mind at all time. Here is an example of a persona that a criminal defense firm could use for a particular type of drunk driving client.  

You can easily create a simple persona like this one

How Can You Target Multiple Personas at Once?

Lots of attorneys and firms serve more than one type of client, so how can you target two at once?

• • The first step is to clearly and directly welcome each of the personas you are targeting to your website through top-level messaging that shows all targeted readers that they are in the right place.
  • The second step is to divide your website into separate and clearly demarcated sections, each targeted to a particular type of client.

Do you need help creating an online presence focused on capturing your target audience?

Our legal marketing specialists can help you target the right persona or personas so you can drive the right business to your law firm. Contact us today to learn more.