How the right legal marketing partner can maximize your law firm’s ROI
At a law firm, the right partner can make all the difference. The same is true in legal marketing.
Many small law firms and solo attorneys opt to work with marketing partners so they can practice law and leave the vital task of drawing in new work to someone who knows what they’re doing. But that doesn’t mean all marketing partners are created equal.
In this post, we’ll share things to look for in a marketing partner and explain how and why they can help you make the most of your marketing spend. That’s important — because money spent on ineffective marketing is money wasted.
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Listen to your goals. |
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Identify the right KPIs. |
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Make performance analytics readily available. |
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Provide a full suite of services. |
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Be adaptable and flexible. |
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What you should take away from this post is… |
At the very least, a marketing partner that provides strong return on investment (ROI) will:
Listen to your goals.
Far too many marketing partners approach each and every situation with a cookie-cutter plan, if you can even call it that. Every client, regardless of size or industry, gets the same recommendation. That doesn’t work well in the legal industry, where the most effective blend of marketing tactics greatly depends on a given market, practice area, and budget.
A good marketing partner will take the time to listen to what you want for your business and will create a customized plan to help you reach it. This ensures that your marketing dollars are used in the best way possible — obtaining what you want. FindLaw consultants, who work only with law firms and lawyers, make a point to start each client engagement with a blank page and prioritize taking the time to find out what a new client’s aspirations are. That way, every plan and approach they devise is customized to the individual client.
Identify the right KPIs.
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are, broadly speaking, indications of how well your marketing is performing in critical areas. Using KPIs correctly is a two-part process, and too many marketing partners forget the second step.
1. Identify and prioritize KPIs.
The first task is to identify the KPIs that matter most. For example, is organic traffic a more important metric, or is the performance of paid advertising the most critical thing to pay attention to?
2. Track and assess KPIs.
Any marketing company can spout acronyms and call them KPIs, but FindLaw goes further by working with you to select the right benchmarks and then providing a candid assessment of how your campaign is reaching them. That second part is what too many marketing vendors don’t provide, and when they don’t, any sense of ROI gets lost.
Make performance analytics readily available.
No marketing client should ever be kept in the dark on how a plan is performing. Good marketing partners readily share performance information and provide context around all the numbers, so that the client (that’s you) can easily and quickly understand how the marketing plan is faring.
For example, FindLaw uses INSIGHT, an easy-to-navigate platform clients can access 24 hours a day, seven days a week. INSIGHT cleanly presents information on calls, emails, and chats generated by FindLaw programs and provides a tidy monthly performance summary. Results are made much more clear when performance reporting like this is accessible and intuitive.
Provide a full suite of services.
There isn’t any one digital marketing tool that works for every client in every situation. Instead, what functions optimally is a blend of tools that work together to deliver on your goals. A marketing partner that only does one thing won’t be able to deliver solid ROI, even if it’s excellent at the one thing it does.
To make a difference in your bottom line, a digital marketing provider has to master multiple methods of outreach and know which ones are going to work well for your specific goals.
That’s why FindLaw doesn’t just do law firm websites — it provides law firm websites as well as pay-per-click advertising, directory listings, social media services, and a host of other tools that will get your name in front of clients with a legal need. Thanks to its vast array of offerings, FindLaw can assemble the exact mix of tactics that will deliver the strongest ROI.
Be adaptable and flexible.
The online world changes a lot, and changes quickly. A good digital marketing partner stays abreast of those changes and works with you to adapt to them. Depending on the length of your campaign and how competitive your market is, it’s completely natural to expect that some techniques will work wonders and others may not quite hit home the way you’d like.
FindLaw’s product offerings evolve with the changing Internet (like enhancements made to the SuperLawyers website, for example, or retooling FindLaw.com).
And, depending on the specifics of your campaign, FindLaw will work with you to play up what’s working and play down what isn’t. That approach delivers a much stronger ROI than a rigid adherence to an original concept that ignores the evidence KPIs are providing.
What you should take away from this post is…
You need a marketing vendor who understands the legal industry and digital marketing tools in equal measure, sees you as an individual and is willing to devise a customized plan that will help you meet your unique goals. Only with such a marketing vendor can you get the ROI you deserve.
To learn more about what small law firms and solo attorneys should look for in a marketing vendor, download our complimentary guide that details what to take into consideration. If you’re interested in learning more about working with FindLaw, please browse our portfolio of services.
Guide
Grow your firm’s online presence and learn the overall value of having a well-rounded marketing strategy.
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