You are going to waste money in marketing. It’s the same as investing. It doesn’t matter what type of business you run, who you hire or if you Do It Yourself. Mistakes will be made and you have to learn from them. However, attorney marketing is a bit different. Those mistakes can cost attorneys tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands of dollars, not just in marketing budget, but in potential clients lost.
What mistakes are you making? One of the key ones usually begins with the marketing services you have selected. For example, if you are a divorce attorney, do not market on Facebook and certainly do not waste your time with display advertising. Those two options will not generate a single lead yet every year divorce attorneys run ads there because it’s cost effective, for 3 months, and then it’s a waste of money.
Top Marketing Mistakes Made By Attorneys
There are plenty of success stories of organic marketing generating consistent leads. Again, that success varies based on strategy, field of law, area of the country and more. All the success stories do paint a clear picture however, of what not only works, but what doesn’t and why.
- Poor ratings: A large percentage of the leads you generate will be people who have checked you out on Google and other search engines to make sure you are legit and will provide the service they need. If your ratings are poor, those leads will not convert or even go beyond a click on your ad.
- Build content for your client, not to impress other attorneys: Who is your client? There are plenty of law firm websites that offer great information about new laws that are passed, regulations the public should be aware about and more. This information is clearly written by a knowledgeable lawyer and is a great value to anyone looking for information on this matter. But will your average client understand it? Will they even be able to read it? Be Hemingway, not Faulkner.
- Service confusion: A great example of this is family law. If you are a family lawyer, you offer a variety of services including divorce, custody and more. Each of those individual services are going to need to be marketed, not just one and expect people to search specifically for that.
- Why should they call: Your marketing team successfully got your content into the vision of a qualified prospect. So, why are they going to call you? Are you going to offer a free consultation? Yes, your content can talk about your success rate but it also needs to talk about what you can offer them, even if it is a single conversation, which is guidance and clarity.
- Ignorance of CPL: If you have a marketing team that is getting you a $10 CPL, buy them a house. If your marketing team is getting you a $100 CPL, take them out to dinner. There is major competition out there for leads.
- Not doing email: A lead comes in, don’t get their number, get their email. Are you going to call them over and over for their business? No, but you’re going to email them. Build your list up.
- Poor quality leads: You received 10 leads last month from the marketing efforts but the quality was not up to par. How so? Did they call? If so, was it that they did not meet your qualifications as far as budget or services? If you are getting calls from people responding to your marketing efforts, it’s part of the game.
- Not building a lead funnel: Poor leads happen but you cannot judge a marketing pool for 6 months or the first 100 leads. That’s usually the best way to see if something is worth investing in. Remember, if you are willing to put money into an investment, you have to be ready for it to generate a return. There are no marketing services where you can expect leads to occur in month one unless you are willing to pay a top CPL.
- PPC and zero SEO: Law firms that are utilizing PPC services without even some form of basic SEO are missing out on a major opportunity. SEO covers keywords that are not only cost-effective, but generate a hire CTR rate on average. If you’re able to get to page one on top keywords, that gives you even more real estate on page one.
- Location can make a difference: Are you in Fort Lauderdale? Or are you in Pompano? Why not both? If you are licensed in a state to practice law, why limit yourself to your specific area?
- Email to educate: Lemon law attorneys, ticket clinics and areas like that can generate leads from email marketing. Other areas cannot usually see the same success. However, that does not mean the service does not offer value. A newsletter that offers information that’s topical and entertaining keeps you top of mind with thousands of people who may eventually need your services or know someone who does.
- Social media works for a very niche area of attorneys: Again, social media advertising can successfully work for a law firm, depending on services offered and the range of clients you are going after. Social media is an amazing and cost-effective option to reach thousands of people without hours. It just may not be right for you if your client is on Google or other platforms.
- Build more content: Blogs, videos and other content like that is easy and free to build. You can spend an hour a week writing a blog about a current topic and then shoot a video about it and post them both on your website. You do not need a fancy camera or high-production quality and adding the video to YouTube is great for your brand, website and more.
- Stay local-focused with your budget: If you are in California you should not start with marketing to the entire state at once. That’s too much area to cover with a budget under $20,000 for anything other than SEO. You need to build a strong base locally before you expand with your budget. Yes, take advantage of your region, but don’t expand beyond counties until you’re in the top five locally.
- Invest in being responsive: If leads are coming in, are people getting answers? You need to make sure that a phone call is answered by someone, not something. It does not have to be you but it does have to be someone if you want that lead to become a client.
The thing to remember about your marketing efforts as an attorney is that if your competition is offering something, including better responsiveness, then that can be all it takes to give them the upper hand in their marketing efforts. You have to know where your type of audience makes their decisions on attorneys and introduce your content there first. Once you’ve established that, begin to cast a wider net.
