By: Steve Nober
Throughout 2020, I’ve been sharing strategies to help you get the best ROI from your marketing efforts. I want to help lawyers increase their probability of success.
As we get ready to close out 2019 and look ahead to 2020, let’s review some strategies for success. What are your objectives for the coming year? I’ve created a checklist to help you assess where you are — and where you want to go — in a highly competitive marketplace.
Are You Ready to Succeed in a Highly Competitive Market?
As of July this year, the legal media spend in the U.S. was over $300 million. The average legal spend per capita is $5.21 but in some markets, the average is over $17 per person. Legal advertising is highly competitive, including in your local personal injury market.
There may be one or a few big spenders who seem to corner your local market but that doesn’t need to stop you from being competitive. The keys are to find open opportunities and to streamline your spending, directing your budget to approaches that bring results.
Are You Targeting Your Marketing to the Right Audience?
To get the best ROI from your marketing dollars, you need to have the right message in front of the right audience at the right time. Who are the people most likely to convert to clients? Determining and analyzing your target audience is crucial to planning marketing campaigns that work. To stay competitive in your market and practice area, you need to run efficient campaigns that are driven by responses – and the first step is setting your target demographic.
Identifying your target audience plus unlocking insights into your target audience’s likely lifestyle preferences is an effective starting point for your campaigns.
Once you’ve created your most likely target audience, you need to narrow down the probable media consumption habits of your audience. What stations are they likely to watch? Are they more likely to watch a daytime talk show? Local evening news? Are they more likely to watch TV on a Monday or Saturday? Which network or channel?
If you’re planning a radio campaign, which stations or formats are more likely to be preferred by your target audience? Would they be more likely to listen to talk radio during drive time or sports radio on the weekend?
Digital advertising provides you with increasingly granular opportunities for targeting and reaching your intended audience at scale. You can segment audiences based on a wide variety of variables, including geography, interests, and ad or website engagement.
Are You Tracking Responses?
Figuring out the optimal amount of advertising to run and the right media platforms to utilize is a challenge and to get it as close to perfect as possible, you need to track and analyze. Knowing where calls are coming from is important. Knowing where calls are not coming from is even more valuable.
Turn your marketing into a science by knowing where responses are generated, and which calls lead to signed contracts. Measure every response to make smart decisions with your marketing. You can use unique phone numbers for each station, spot, daypart, day of week, or length of ad. You may prefer to run commercials with vanity numbers and complement with unique tracking numbers at times. The key with either approach is consistency. You need to track your responses regularly to get the data you need.
Are You Putting This Great Data to Work?
Once you’ve been tracking responses, what are you doing with the response data? You should be analyzing the data and using what you learn to make swift changes to your marketing. Analyze response data weekly or more frequently. Then, make strategic changes quickly in order to optimize marketing channels and bring you the best return of investment.
In order to optimize the best channels for your campaigns, apply this information to make adjustments to your media schedule on a weekly basis. With digital, the adjustments might be more frequent. Don’t leave the meter running on your campaigns without hitting your objectives.
Looking Ahead to 2020
As you look ahead to 2020 and beyond, it’s key to remember with legal marketing, it’s not necessarily about quantity as much as efficiency. The media you’re running should be directed to what brings you results, whether you’re measuring by cost of call, cost of lead, case cost or some other objective. The bottom line is to get the right message in front of the right people at the right time.
You can accomplish this with tracking, analysis, and optimization. Performance matters. If case costs are too high, campaigns are not sustainable. Your marketing dollars should be directed to approaches that bring you results.About The Author:Steve Nober is the founder and CEO of Consumer Attorney Marketing Group (CAMG), an advertising agency that works exclusively with law firms. CAMG delivers the full spectrum of offline and online media, applying response-driven marketing to local and national campaigns in the Single Event and Mass Tort space. CAMG strives to be at the cutting-edge of legal marketing with innovations such as the monthly Legal Marketing Index®, CAMG’s exclusive legal infomercial format, and the nation’s first call center dedicated to intake of sex abuse cases. You can reach Steve at 1-800-200-CAMG
Attorneys – Check it Out!! LET STEVEN HEISLER, “THE INJURY LAWYER”, AND THE LAW OFFICES OF STEVEN H. HEISLER BE YOUR GO TO INJURY ATTORNEYS IN THE STATE OF MARYLAND. If you have a client who has been in an accident, job injury, or any other type of injury in Maryland, don’t hesitate to call or email Steve personally to discuss.Steve has received referrals from numerous attorneys throughout the United States and will gladly provide references. sheisler@injurylawyermd.com410-625-4878 (HURT)877-228-4878 (HURT)www.theinjurylawyermd.comCell- 443-854-2471
Quick TipBy: David M. Ward
If you wanted to attract Martian clients, you’d learn to speak Martian or hire someone who does. The same goes for any group of clients.
But I’m not talking about translating a foreign language. I’m talking about speaking to prospective clients in ways they will not only understand but relate to.
That means using examples, idioms, and market-specific references that resonate with them. It means using the words they use to describe their world and making statements they agree with.
If you target blue-collar workers, you would talk about long hours, coming home tired and sweaty, bosses who take advantage of them, union issues, and so on.
If you target medical professionals, you would talk about escalating costs and regulations, declining revenue, legal issues, risks, stress, and the like.
In other words, the kinds of things they talk about among themselves (and to themselves).
Most people are attracted to people with whom they have something in common and to people who understand them. You may have nothing in common with your target market but you can show them you know what it’s like to walk in their shoes.
Read what your target market reads. Pay attention to what they talk about, especially the things that irk and frustrate them.
If you want more Martian clients, learn to speak Martian.About the Author:David M. Ward is an attorney and marketing consultant to attorneys. His website is The Attorney Marketing Center where he offers a free newsletter about marketing, productivity, and personal development.
That’s it for this week. I’ll have a brand new issue for you this time next week. Also, if you have any questions or comments about the content in this newsletter please email me at sheisler@injurylawyermd.com ~SHH
