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This article is one in a five part series. Here are links to all the articles in this series:
Law Firm Marketing Resolution Part 1: Don’t Feel Guilty
Law Firm Marketing Resolution Part 2: Run Your Law Firm Like a Business
Law Firm Marketing Resolution Part 3: Make Marketing a Priority
Law Firm Marketing Resolution Part 4: Pick a Niche and Get Rich
Law Firm Marketing Resolution Part 5: Measure, Manage, Multiply
Law Firm Marketing Resolution: Wrap-up
Law Firm Marketing Resolution 5: Measure, Manage Multiply
The fifth resolution for solo law firms is, once again, a solid basic business practice.
Don’t do anything (from a business development perspective) you can’t measure. What you measure you can manage. What you manage you can grow.
This is an axiom that will pay big dividends for you from the moment you implement it.
Here are three ways to apply it to your law firm marketing immediately:
Only spend your money on marketing that has measurable results.
Many marketing consultants advocate spending money to build a powerful brand even if your law firm is small. This kind of marketing is known as “image marketing” and it is found in every textbook in every college marketing course.
It is also the recipe for disaster for a small law firm with a limited budget.
Examples of image marketing can easily be found throughout society today. Most of the advertising we see on television falls into this category. Advertising that helps put a message or idea in your head (such as: McDonalds is the best place for fast food or Verizon has the best wireless network.) is image advertising. Its only purpose is to promote the image of the brand the company owns. It is effective if it is repeated over and over to as wide an audience as possible.
While consumers may purchase food at McDonalds or wireless phone service from Verizon, they do so because of repeated exposure to the message and not because of one specific commercial. The company (McDonalds or Verizon in this case) pays for each commercial and they have no way of tracking the results of each individual exposure. They can only ASSUME that the advertising was effective if sales increase. But this does not take into account the other factors that may influence the buying decisions of the public. There is no way to know if the message was right, if the choice of time to run the commercial was correct or if the target audience was appropriate. It is not measurable.
Small businesses and small law firms in particular, cannot afford to advertise this way. They would run out of money before their target market was saturated with their message. They need to be direct.
Each tactic in the small law firm’s marketing arsenal must contain a call to action. The call to action should direct the prospective client to respond in a specific and measurable way. This methodology is effective and efficient.
Make adjustments based on the results
When you use the principles of direct response marketing and you measure your results you can adjust your approach to make it as effective as possible.
For example:
You write an educational article for a trade journal in your market niche. In the article, you offer the readers a free report that contains a success checklist, in return for their email address. You can track the responses and you can follow up, numerous times if necessary, with everyone who requests the report.
If the article is successful, you turn it into a presentation to give at a seminar and offer the checklist to anyone who attends and gives you their contact information. You can also turn the article into a white paper that can be downloaded from your website —if the prospect provides you with an email address.
If the article or presentation or white paper is ineffective, you can change it based upon the feedback you receive. It is efficient because it cost you almost nothing to produce the content.
Increase your efforts until the results plateau.
The true beauty of using a measurable and manageable marketing system is that you can leverage effective tactics — use them over and over again as long as they are successful to deliver prospective clients to you. And you know how effective they are because you are measuring each application of them.
You don’t spend any additional money until you test and retest a successful marketing campaign. Once you are convinced that the campaign will provide you with the return on investment you desire you can double or triple your application of it.
Measuring and managing your marketing is the best way to multiply your client base. It is efficient, effective and flat out smart.