Does Gamification Have a Place in Law Firm Marketing?

To see how much gamification is a part of our lives, just search for TED talks or TEDx talks on YouTube, and you will find speakers giving advice about how to gamify this or that part of your life. A generation that sees itself as averse to the boring concerns of the older generations has tended to view many aspects of life, from time management to personal finance, as live action video games in order to make the drudgery more palatable.

Gamification in advertising, however, is older than the Internet. Generation X and millennials eagerly participated in the McDonald’s Monopoly games as children, and as disappointed as American kids were during the 1988 Winter Olympics that Debi Thomas received a lower score in figure skating than Katarina Witt of East Germany, Debi’s bronze medal meant that anyone who visited a McDonald’s would get a free small soda or milkshake. Meanwhile, their parents collected tickets from supermarket cashiers to participate in sweepstakes. Gamification in advertising connects with humans’ competitive nature and desire to win. Does it have a place in law firm marketing? Perhaps, but it is no substitute for good, old-fashioned legal blog content.

Legal Actions Are Not Fun and Games

Gamification is not just for burger joints and other companies that sell consumer products. Health apps and even the United States Army have included user-participation games in their content. The limits of gamification strategies in law firm marketing are obvious. Rebekah Carter of web designer depot lists six strategies for gamifying content marketing and most of them are completely inappropriate for law firms. Clearly, leaderboards have no place in law firm marketing. A choose your own adventure game might be good for a family law firm site to help people envision how the divorce process will look, if you have the budget to hire a web developer. In general, though, getting a favorable ruling or settlement in a lawsuit is not like winning a game. It is downright offensive to reduce things like probate, child custody disputes, and personal injury claims to entertainment.

Rewards and the Chance to Earn Rewards

It isn’t appropriate to offer prospective clients prizes for engaging your services. “File ten lawsuits and win a vacation” sounds like a bad lawyer joke. You can, however, reward prospective clients who contact you. If you are in a practice area that serves clients experiencing financial hardship (such as family law, bankruptcy, or personal injury), you can give coupons to local businesses to clients who schedule consultations; everyone who is considering filing a personal injury lawsuit could use a 25 percent discount on their groceries. You could even enter the people who submit contact forms on your site into drawings for prizes such as restaurant meals. It is a way of showing your customers that you appreciate them while brightening their difficult day with a prize.

Winning Content Does Not Have to Involve Games

The legal content writers at Law Blog Writers will create original blog content that makes your law firm’s website a winner.