Marketing Should Provide Returns On Your Investment
When marketing is successful, you see a return on that which you’ve invested. So as a legal firm, if you invested, say, $20k in a marketing putsch, you should see at least $20,001.00 in return. At minimum, you should make something back on what you’ve put in. Ideally, you get a 5:1 return—you spend $20k and get $100k back. You shouldn’t be losing money.
The thing is, not all marketing options are equal. Some can almost assuredly provide you Return On Investment, or ROI. Others will talk about collateral benefits which aren’t directly monetary—and while there is some merit to “getting your name out there”, if you’re not profiting as a business, then you’re falling behind.
Marketing represents a kind of “fuel” for the “engine” of your business model. Many legal institutions fundamentally depend on solid marketing—especially in competitive areas. But you need to find the right sorts of professionals.
As regards digital outreach, there’s a lot of potential, but things can go wrong. This writing will cover digital marketing indicators to help you determine a reliable digital agency for your law offices.
1. Strong Reviews And Testimonials Across The Web
Marketing of the digital variety calibrated specifically for legal businesses will very likely have some level of online commentary either praising or denigrating it.
Look at reviews they’ve posted on their own site, and check through search engine queries to determine whether that “home site praise” is reflected in uncontrolled environments. When examining reviews, you must crunch the numbers. How many stars does the business have, and how many reviews?
Ten reviewers and three stars doesn’t say much. In ten people, four could be cranks. A hundred reviews and five stars says a lot. But a perfect score with endless reviewers is suspicious. There’s always a crank among those leveling praise, and a good apple among those leveling recrimination. If you find only good or bad reviews, know something is amiss.
To help yourself more efficiently understand such reviewing, find a movie you know is good, and one you know is bad. Now read online reviews on IMDB or RottenTomatoes. You’ll find that the worst movies always have at least one good review, and the best always have at least one “stinker”. That’s what reality looks like. Digital marketing agency reviews should look about the same. Here’s some more insight into determining review authenticity.
2. Recommendation From Peers In The Industry
What do trusted peers with whom you’re not competing have to say about digital agency A or digital agency B? Do they recommend anybody? Say you specialize in probate law, and you’re friends with a law firm who only does personal injury cases. Who do they recommend, and why? Don’t just take their word at face value, but do factor it into your final decision.
3. A Quantifiable Level Of SEO Acumen
Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is an essential in modern digital marketing. Without SEO, it’s hard to imagine any business getting enough visibility to turn a profit. With SEO, paragraph size, word choice, image choice, video choice, page layout, back-links, and meta-tags will all be taken into account then combined in such a way as to produce the best results.
It’s fundamental to find a digital marketing agency who can provide reliable SEO for law firms over the long-term. Because keep in mind, the best SEO still takes time to produce results. Skilled practitioners can do it in as little as three months, the average tends to be between six months and a year depending on the market share you can expect and digital outreach skill.
4. Multiple Wings Of Digital Outreach
Don’t just use SEO. Don’t only buy Pay Per Click (PPC) campaigns. Assure you do more than simply guest post or pay for advertisements on social media. A multi-faceted outreach approach will almost always expand visibility, and thereby rates of conversion. Find digital agencies who can use multiple areas of marketing to get the best results.
5. Legitimate Results Over Time
Once you’ve weighed all these features together and chosen a marketing group you think fits the bill, keep careful track of their numbers to assure said SEO business is producing the digital marketing results you expected.
You should do more than break even. Breaking even will be a net win owing to visibility expansion, but you want to see a profit on your investment. Keep the numbers to show how things are going.
Expanding Competitive Viability
Legitimate results over time, multiple areas of outreach, quantifiable SEO outreach, recommendations from peers, and actual reviews that are authentic represent five things you can use as measures of a potential digital marketing agency’s “fit” for your legal business.
These are just generalized things to look for, incorporate whatever additionally appropriate details pertaining to your business you see fit. Getting a little consultation beforehand can be helpful here as well.
