Introduction
The intricacies of legal marketing challenge many lawyers and law firms in today’s legal field. Legal agencies need to continually adapt to new and effective strategies to expand opportunities for business growth.
Legal marketing is a term that is often used synonymously with legal advertising. In the past, legal marketing or advertising was much simpler, usually consisting of billboards, print ads, yellow pages, and television advertisements.
In today’s legal market, the game has changed considerably. Formerly successful tactics for lawyer advertising are increasingly growing obsolete and produce diminishing returns.
Lawyers must understand the legal marketing challenges that small law firms face. Some of these challenges are:
- lack of knowledge of the new legal marketing strategies
- evaluating the best legal marketing tools for yielding positive returns
- the right way to leverage legal marketing
- how to avoid unnecessary overspending on legal advertising
- how to convert leads generated from legal marketing to actual clients
LegalMatch is the only thing we use and we don’t pay for any sort of marketing for any of our practices. It’s definitely worth a try especially for someone starting off. Rajinderpal S.
Undeniably, knowing how to positively resolve these issues will impact how successful a lawyer or small law firm markets themselves.
The Complexity of Legal Marketing
Law firms who have embraced existing forms of legal marketing strategies often fall short of reaching their performance potential. Many have become complacent with the traditional marketing platforms that have increasingly failed to produce tangible leads.
Some of these marketing tools include networking, business listings on legal directories, yellow pages, social media presence, free lectures and events, and rankings from various surveys.
The death of the Yellow Pages no doubt launched a digital advertising revolution, and it can be an extremely competitive play for lawyers. But refining SEO (search engine optimization) strategies for PPC (“pay per click”) campaigns is expensive and time consuming. The keyword phrases for law firms are costly because many lawyers compete for highly-competitive search terms.
Today’s SEO strategy can have short term success and potentially low ROI (return on investment), but this approach must be routinely monitored and modified for peak search engine performance. Some attorneys do this work themselves, but most outsource the work to a team of specialists.
Reliable traffic generation means working closely with your SEO team. The more time spent generating a cohesive legal marketing strategy means less time for meeting new clients and practicing law.
Are Powerful Legal Marketing Tools Only For Big Spenders?
Many lawyers think that legal marketing tools are only available for big spenders. Overspending is definitely rampant in the legal community, resulting in diminished returns. But it is a misconception to say that the only effective legal marketing strategy is to spend more cash.
In terms of cost-benefit, LegalMatch compares very well to other marketing sources because the cost is very reasonable compared to the returns. Also, it provides more information about potential clients through the intake forms than any other service that I’m aware of. Andrew D.
Reputable and powerful lawyers win high-profile cases with experience and confidence. Success breeds more leads, more referrals, and more profit. Many previously successful lawyers become complacent and lose this advantage. Lawyers should use readily available marketing tactics to regain their cases and confidence. Anyone can do this, even with a meager budget.
Legal Marketing Tools to Look For
Legal marketing is a science – it should be strategic. The most effective strategies should be targeted, tracked and evaluated to create an efficient driving force in generating new business. Those who understand the complexities of legal marketing know that the brightest and most effective ideas require no lengthy trial and error experience. But with a highly diverse mix of new and traditional ways to market, it can sometimes prove challenging pinpointing the right approach.
LegalMatch is the right company for a modern legal marketing campaign. They provide the tools to target a specific area of law and geographic location, and track which prospective clients result in retained business. LegalMatch goes beyond standard client listings by placing a dollar value of the representation.
Most legal marketing tools used depend on the size of the market and the lawyer’s area of practice. Large and highly competitive markets make things even more challenging. LegalMatch’s system helps attorneys sort through these complexities and grow their law firm.
Make Every Dollar Count
A law firm’s reputation should still be hard-earned through its excellence in performance. However, the right marketing tools can amplify your success to a larger audience. With so much money on the line, it is important to make every dollar count.
Return on investment (ROI) is an important aspect of legal marketing. Return on investment compares the cost of a marketing campaign with the amount of business it generates. For example, if a lawyer is interested in placing an ad online, they will need to calculate how much it costs to place the ad, and how much it costs to maintain.
I signed up for Avvo. I’ve also done Lawyers.com. LegalMatch is superb as compared to them. With LegalMatch I generate about five clients a month. I couldn’t tell you the last time I signed-up someone with Lawyers.com. With Avvo I never know if they’re contacting me because they saw me on the Avvo website or if they’re calling me from doing a little bit of research. Brian E.
With so many consumers using online avenues for commerce, print ads such as those placed in a phone book or newspaper are yielding less favorable returns on investment. Many lawyers are finding that it’s more expensive to keep a print ad, and that the ad isn’t bringing in much business for their practice.
Conversion as a Main Goal in Legal Marketing
Part of the reason why traditional ads are not working well anymore is that they don’t “convert” very well. This means that a phone book ad might help an attorney get some phone calls from interested consumers, but if they don’t actually hire the lawyer, then that ad is not doing well in terms of conversion. This may occur for example if the client was actually looking for a different type of lawyer than the one they called.
Newer alternatives to advertising such as attorney-client matching can help boost conversion rates for small law firms. For example, LegalMatch’s attorney client matching system brings you several steps closer to the goal of converting leads into actual client representation.
This occurs because consumers in an attorney-client matching system tend to be more interesting in hiring a lawyer. In comparison, straight advertising may lead to a high volume of dead-end calls, where the consumer is simply asking for information or is actually looking for a different service.
