Immigration Legal Services is a niche legal practice based in Ipswich, specialising in immigration law. The business was set up in 2012 and has achieved steady growth which is largely through a combination of word of mouth recommendations and good brand visibility in the marketplace. Their clients are predominantly based in East Anglia and Ipswich.
With an appetite for the next stage of growth, Immigration Legal Services identified the need for external marketing support as an important element of their growth strategy. The main sectors for the business are food processing, care homes, engineering, further & higher education, private schools, I.T. & software, creative, and sports. They wanted to broaden their client base geographically across Suffolk and Essex with a focus upon attracting more commercial immigration work.
Website
immigrationlegalservices.co.uk
Brand Facts
- Immigration Legal Services is a specialist immigration law practice based in Ipswich. Working for both individuals and organisations, they help people visit and stay in the UK safely and legally.
- Expert immigration law practitioners Angela and Sallie use their combined extensive expertise to guide clients through the complicated legal landscape, winning 90% of appeals compared to the industry average of 60%.
- As part of their next stage of growth, they were looking to broaden their scope out across East Anglia and increase their profile with HR functions in larger businesses and owners and managers in SMEs.
Project Facts
- Mackman was approached to work with them on their brand using a firm foundation of insight to improve their client retention and increase their profile within additional ethnic and nationality communities.
- Immigration Legal Services wanted to enhance their underperforming website to generate traffic, inform and educate both private and business clients, and convert traffic to take on additional cases per month.
The Client
Guiding clients through the immigration process
Established in 2012, Immigration Legal Services is a small team of dedicated and experienced immigration experts who act for both individuals and organisations facing immigration related challenges. The team are meticulous in their work, drawing on their deep knowledge of this area of law to alleviate the anxiety and uncertainty of immigration matters.
When Mackman began working with Angela and Sallie, it became clear that their existing website benefited from few online searches that were not directly driven by brand name or via their own promotion. Using insight sessions to work out which customer segments to precisely target, a complete overhaul of the website’s content with a focus on high volume keywords would enable those who really needed immigration support to discover Immigration Legal Services organically.
The Challenge
Immigration Legal Services approached Mackman after recognising a need for their business to become more visible to the kind of corporate clients and individual prospects who need their services. This was particularly timely due to the uncertain circumstances surrounding Brexit for those for whom changes to immigration law present complications.
Our Process
Promoting specialists in their field
Informed by Immigration Legal Services’ business objectives, Mackman worked with them to identify specific marketing objectives which were used to inform the development of their marketing strategy and planning. We undertook insight workshops to identify key audience groups and create personas to inform tone of voice, key phrases, and communication channels.
Secondary research on key competitors both locally, regionally and nationally also fed into the planning process to create a practical working brand toolkit. Great care was taken to show that Angela and Sallie are proud of their ethical approach, providing the best immigration law advice as they guide their clients through complicated legal processes.
Understanding the business: key audiences
We identified that Immigration Legal Services needed to introduce tools and techniques to raise awareness within the diverse communities they help. This was in order to distinguish themselves from the claims of expertise made by individuals and organisations who exploit vulnerable members of society, and ensure that those who need their help the most could find them easily.
Speaking the right language: tone of voice
Establishing a coherent tone of voice was essential to create consistency and cultivate the impression of Immigration Legal Services being expert yet approachable. In a rapidly changing legal landscape, they needed to show that they are driven by a sense of fairness, and a determination to make a difference when representing clients to the UK Home Office.
What does this mean for Immigration Legal Services?
Our workshops with Immigration Legal Services helped us to understand their client base, how the immigration sector operates, and how they have been so successful to date. Using these insights, we tightened their proposition and focused their messages to both explain their unique benefits more succinctly and to significantly enhance their online rankings.
Bringing people to the forefront
It was identified during the site review that there was a lack of human imagery when landing on the home page which made the brand appear faceless, despite helping people from all walks of life every day. Through careful and considered use of stock imagery, we populated the site with an array of diverse imagery to reflect the variety of clients served by Immigration Legal Services, which complemented professional photography of the team and previous clients taken by Bruce, our Creative Director.
The Results
Regular quarterly statistics summaries provide evidence of the immediate improvement in website ranking and users. Before working with Mackman, our SEO analysis revealed that the bounce rate was much higher than should be expected. Over 65% of all traffic left the website without viewing more than the page that they landed on. From March 2018 to March 2019, the website saw a boost of 8% in their share of UK traffic and increased search traffic in London.
It is a privilege to be working with clients that have built an organisation on the basis of their compassion towards individuals who either do not have the knowledge or ability to secure their own rights, or have been disadvantaged, often through no fault of their own.
Patrick Bell, Marketing Consultant
We are really pleased with Mackman’s work for us. Our new website has already brought in more work and presents our business in exactly the way we wanted. It looks great and is clearly functioning very effectively. Mackman bring a wealth of experience and knowledge to their work and this inspires confidence. They are also very nice people to deal with, who care about their clients. They made a huge effort to understand our business in order to help us and it is reassuring to know they are there to support us in the future. We have no hesitation is recommending them to anyone requiring the services they offer.
Angela Cole, Principal and Senior Immigration Lawyer – Immigration Legal Services
