Online marketing is a many splendoured thing.

There is a feeling amongst some that in terms of HNWI and private client legal services that nobody ever got a client worth having from a website. After all, rich people don't pick trusted advisors because they've got a smart website. It is much more likely to be a word of mouth recommendation.

However, the truth is that most HNWIs select their advisors based on recommendations from professionals they already work with. As professionals we all inhabit the virtual world and we signal to each other the level of our expertise. The articles we post tell our fellow professionals how little we know, or how much we know. In this context we are not trying to reach the client (and anybody who thinks they are is wrong), we are trying to establish a reputation for excellence amongst our peers. We are all salesmen now, both for ourselves and for our firms, and the forum where we do that is a combination of our social media posts and the firm website and we have to engage with that process. If professionals know you're an expert, and they have a requirement for that expertise it’s likely they will consider a referral.

Ultimately though, the truth is there is no substitute for word of mouth marketing, but that is an organic thing that relies on your employees being good at seizing opportunities and performing well in one to one situations, it can't be measured, there is no graph, or feedback form, it is annoyingly unquantifiable.

That is not to say the website shop window is not valuable, it clearly is, I mean who would deal with a firm where you couldn't look up your lawyer? But it is important to remember, as this article makes clear, that driving traffic is not an end in itself. That traffic must convert into sales, and those sales must be valuable enough to justify the cost in terms of time and money that drives that traffic. The role of the website and online marketing is nuanced and complex in the world of private client and HNWI legal services, but it can't be ignored.