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The Five Most Common Pitfalls of Attorney Advertising

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The Law Firm Marketing Company

Attorney advertising is a tough field to master. You must stay current with other law firms and make sure that your online presence is up to date.

Our Consultants choose the right company and product for your needs. We make recommendations that get you the results that others just promise!”

 

— Mary Ann Fasanella, CEO

PHILADELPHIA, PA, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, November 13, 2017 — 5 Pitfalls Of Attorney Advertising

When you are an attorney, you will always have a long list of things to worry about: challenging clients, a never-ending schedule, and a market so competitive that your ability to generate new clients can make or break you.

Attorney advertising is mainly tricky due to the legal guidelines for attorneys marketing to their prospective clients. This means that practices should only market heavy if they are raising awareness for situations that a lawyer is needed—rather than keeping a consistent online presence that builds a user’s confidence in your firm over time.
To make matters more difficult, when heading your practice, you may often also assume the role of CEO and business owner, complete with the responsibilities of managing your finances and staff—all while directing your marketing efforts. That is waaaay too much for one person to handle.

Marketing is an expansive and complicated field that takes tons of practice to master—and it’s continually changing.
With that said, a single practitioner or attorney that wants to expand their marketing efforts will need to dedicate a lot of time to master the skill of marketing.
To summarize, when you are learning the ins and outs of your market- mistakes will be made.
However, mistakes can be avoided if you have the right help and knowledge. Here are five pitfalls to avoid which will improve your law firm marketing.

5. Lack of Specificity in Web Design

What does your current site say about you and your company? For starters, take into consideration things, such as:
· How much are you willing to give toward your presence (i.e., a cheap suit vs. a custom-made suit)
· Whether your practice is doing well or struggling
· If you’re willing to try new things or stuck in your old ways

These judgments can all be made by a visitor before they even know your area of practice
This means that it is not only essential to have a website that has a low bounce rate (users leaving quickly) but also compelling that makes them stay and read, find assurance, and pick up the phone to call your firm.
Your website may be the first impression for your potential client before they even meet you! For this reason, it should be the very best representation of yourself and your practice that you can provide.

Keeping up with the competitive and modern web design techniques can be tricky, especially in the conservative background of law firm advertising. Visual tastes evolve—take a look at this website from the 90’s for proof. You do not want to be visually outdated like that website- update your website!

4. Not Diversifying Your Advertising Strategies

“There’s more than one way to skin a cat.”

Although it is extremely cliché, it is crucial that the one may is not always the only way. In the realm of attorney advertising, many digital marketing factors have proven a positive ROI feedback.
These marketing vehicles include:
· Pay-Per-Click Advertising (PPC)
· Social Media Advertising (Youtube, Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram)
· Organic Lead Generation (Inbound Marketing)
· Email Marketing

Although the internet is a noisy and intimidating place, it is the most powerful marketing tool in the world—if you want to compete and not be left in the dust of your competitors, you must enter the internet realm!
Like a diverse stock portfolio, variety in your workplace is extremely important. Utilize all that marketing has to offer by using email blasts and social media campaigns to market your firm. The best defense is a lack of weak points, so being well-rounded is key in growing your firm.

3. Ignoring Facebook

Facebook is a strong pillar of the world of digital marketing and advertising. Why? Because on a daily basis, more than 131 million American adults use it. That’s more engagement than 1.5x the Super Bowl's annual audience in a single day!
Facebook reels in data from its users that ultimately makes it a clear opportunity for one of the most targeted and cost-effective advertising platforms in the world based on potential reach and the specificity of user targeting.
Unfortunately, in the realm of social media, unpaid content distribution, known as organic reach, for business has been dramatically scaled back. This means that paid ads are the one real way to crack into this market.

2. Forgetting to Measure Your Marketing Performance

Whether you are spending a ton of money on campaigns or thinking of new creative ideas (blogs, emails, social media posts, etc.), none of it will matter if you are not tracking your progress. This data will show you what is and what is not working for your firm.

When you track your leads, you are not only seeing your company's success but also your success! It also shows your ROI and the value of the money you spent.

For example:

If your website’s blog content is generating 50 leads a month (people who fill out a contact form or call directly) and those points convert and become clients at a rate of 10%, you earned five clients. If these clients—based on a retainer alone—are worth 2,000 dollars each, you just made $10,000 for perhaps 10 hours of writing and research.

On the other hand, let’s say you run a Facebook campaign that costs $250 and reaches more than 3,000 people, with an average lead-conversion rate of 2%. Within that 2%, let’s say 2% convert into clients at the same retainer mentioned above. That’s a gain of one client and earnings of $2,000 dollars at the expense of an initial $250.

With understanding the financial side of your marketing efforts, you will know where to focus your money; curating more blogs or making more Facebook paid ads. Tracking your progress shows exactly where your company is in a visual aspect.

It will help you to always keep a birds-eye-view of the goings-on of your marketing campaigns.

1. Failing to Understand That It’s a Numbers Game

As we mentioned above, another mistake in lawyer advertising is the lack of patience. Marketing and advertising are very much a game of numbers, with average conversion rates across mainstream digital marketing channels falling around 5%. However, these figures are the average with particular channels, strategies, and campaigns reaching well above that in some cases. For this reason, it is essential to use these techniques listed above and tweak them to what your firm needs.

Final Takeaways

· Target the demographic you want with focused specificity.
· Widen your net using the dominant forms of digital marketing.
· Keep them in the loss by continually improving your conversion rate.

When you are learning something new, mistakes are inevitable; be patient with yourself. If time constraints are tight, you should consider help for your attorney advertising.

Here at Advisory Concept Evolvers, we help our clients perfect their marketing campaigns. You should call us for a 45-minute complementary strategy and planning session. Ask for Mary Ann at (215) 510-2167.

Mary Ann Fasanello, CEO
Advisory Concept Evolvers
215-510-2167
email us here