From self-driving cars to grocery line checkouts, artificial intelligence (AI) now plays a significant role in everyday life. AI’s rise to dominance is just beginning, and experts agree that it will one day determine every aspect of social activity, including law firm marketing. Attorneys ignore the threat (or opportunity) of AI at their own peril. Artificial intelligence for law firm marketing is an exciting frontier for those who know how to harness its power. Law firms that successfully incorporate AI technologies into their content strategy will enjoy higher traffic in tomorrow’s post-mobile world.
Statista reports that global revenues from AI-leveraged enterprise applications will reach almost $30 billion by 2025. Law firms are fertile ground for utilizing AI, and its use is exploding in e-discovery, contract review, legal research, and predictive analytics. Artificial intelligence and law firm marketing are also on the rise, revolutionizing the way lawyers capture leads, automate content, leverage voice search, expand natural language processing, and anticipate advertising needs.
Capturing Leads
There’s a lot of client intake and CRM software out there that utilizes AI to help lawyers streamline their lead generation and conversion processes, making sure active leads don’t get lost between initial contact and signing on the dotted line. These include Lawmatics, Clio Grow, and Captorra. Marketing automation software enables law firms to customize client relationship management to fit their size, budget, and unique practice areas. Converting leads into clients is no longer the sole domain of telephone calls and emails — the world of AI software is now an integral player.
Automating Content Generation
As AI’s scope continues to expand, its role will include not only content recommendation via Google rankings, but also the creation of content. Believe it or not, several of the articles you read daily on the internet are generated by artificial intelligence, not human writers. Although currently not viable for most stories beyond stock updates, AI-generated articles and social media posts could constitute a greater share of future content. It’s up to lawyers to utilize artificial intelligence for law firm marketing and decide if there are ways AI-generated content can keep their websites and Facebook pages fresh and updated. While just in the beginning stages, potential future uses in law firm content could include posting blurbs about large settlement awards or updating industry statistics.
Leveraging Voice Search
Smartphone users increasingly rely on AI-enabled voice search for key tasks like determining the weather forecast, getting directions, and locating nearby law firms. Modern content creators must assume that searchers are speaking into their devices rather than using laptops or tablets to type queries into traditional search engines. Searchers today use Siri, Alexa or Cortana to get the information they need, which means law firm SEO must be designed to leverage voice search.
Findstack reports these voice search statistics for 2022:
71%of consumers prefer to conduct queries by voice rather than typing.
Three-quarters of all U.S. households are expected to own at least one smart speaker.
One-third of the United States population uses voice search features.
More than half of all owners of in-home smart speakers use their devices daily.
58% of consumers use voice search to find a local business online.
122.7 million Americans used voice search in 2021.
Artificial intelligence for law firm marketing requires all content to be optimized for voice search going forward. That’s because voice searches are very different than text-based searches; humans who are speaking use longer, more conversational keywords. Keyword strategy must therefore reflect how real people talk. Although this calls for a more nuanced approach to content marketing, new data collection tactics indicate that information gathered by voice may play a greater role in companies’ overarching advertising strategy. Xavis global president Nicolas Bidon anticipates a more fluid experience, in which artificial intelligence and voice recognition move beyond programmatic to a more sophisticated model he dubs “programmatic creative.” Human-to-machine voice search is the way of the future.
Utilizing Natural Language Processing
You can’t talk about voice search without discussing AI-enabled Natural Language Processing (NLP). NLP allows computers to derive meaning from human language, and it’s getting more sophisticated with each passing day. Although often used for automated question answering and keyword tag generation, the technology is most favored for its ability to recommend content, even when access to user information is limited.
As MediaPost’s Publisher’s Daily points out, the Washington Post recently harnessed NLP in its efforts to improve online readership. The results are impressive. Since adopting Clavis — technology that categorizes stories, assigns keywords, and suggests content based on users’ reading history — as part of its large-scale Post Recommends system, the newspaper has hit new online readership records, including 65% year-over-year gains in traffic.
Experts at Northwestern’s Knight Lab insist that there are clear divides between technology such as Clavis and traditional collaborative filters (such as Amazon’s “people who viewed this product” functionality). Although useful in some contexts, collaborative filters remain limited in scope because these filters don’t know enough about content itself to make reliable recommendations. Experts predict that content-based recommendation engines will quickly replace collaborative filters for everything from online newspapers to eCommerce. Artificial intelligence for law firm marketing is already impacted by NLP.
Anticipating Advertising Needs
New AI-based approaches to advertising stand in stark contrast to retargeting, in which users are often hit over the head with ads based on content they’ve recently viewed. In addition to anticipating the type of content users might seek, newer AI models will also determine when users need it, making advertising less intrusive and more anticipatory. In addition, updated AI technology will improve accuracy of programmatic law firm advertising. Programmatic platforms can already change information such as pricing and location based on real-time data signals; these capabilities are bound to improve in the future.
Automating Content Removal
In addition to creating and posting content, artificial intelligence already plays a critical role in swiftly removing it — a role that is bound to expand as social networks and other content providers respond to, for example, growing security threats. Facebook currently uses artificial intelligence to identify and remove threatening content posted by terrorists — and to ensure that such content is never uploaded in the first place. In this same way, law firms could use AI to automatically remove outdated or old content and replace it with new.
Getting Ahead with Artificial Intelligence for Law Firm Marketing
Despite every sign indicating AI’s coming takeover, most law firm marketers remain unprepared for the new virtual frontier. So, it’s time for attorneys to get on board with AI and law firm marketing. Those who embrace the technology will enjoy greater user engagement, and those who avoid it will become irrelevant in the fluid content landscape of tomorrow. If artificial intelligence feels overwhelming, Gladiator Law Marketing can help. We have many satisfied clients who are reaping the benefits of AI every day. To learn more about our services, contact us at 888-683-3212.
