Back to basics today – I’m always challenging myself to refine the way I work, my goals, the definition of “success” and the like. Coming from a (relatively) tech background, my world usually revolves around ideas like rankings, impressions, clicks and content development. But these don’t mean much to the typical lawyer. Most attorneys are far more interested in “where the rubber hits the road”: leads generated… and they’re right. Changing my language about legal search engine marketing to be much more focused on lead generation and tracking is one of my resolutions for 2008. So how do you ensure your traffic will generate leads, not just traffic?
This is a huge topic, so I’ll hit the high spots:
- Ensure telephone and web-based tracking is in place. Of course your site should have visitor tracking like WebTrends, but you need to know how many contacts have come from your online efforts, not just visits. This is essential to tracking lead generation and online marketing ROI. It may take a tech person to help you set this up.
- Know your market. It’s very important to know what people are actually searching for online. My typical example is the lawyer focused on “matrimonial law” rather than “family law and divorce”. Rankings don’t mean much if they’re for words no one uses. With the Overture keyword tool offline, I recommend Google Trends, Keyword Discovery and the DigitalPoint tool for getting a feel for the “natural” search landscape. Those interested in paid advertising should review SpyFu.
- Don’t buy traffic without keyword targeting. Paid advertising can be effective as part of a total marketing strategy, but don’t buy traffic where it’s just X visitors for Y dollars. Make sure your traffic is targeted to your audience.
- Provide an incentive. Once a visitor is on your site, what’s in it for them? Make sure that your site’s common landing pages have a call to action or content that “speaks” to the keyword (and situation) at hand.
- (easy one) Make sure your contact information on your website is easy to read. Light gray text on a white background, small font sizes and missing mailing info are common mistakes.
So I hope the message is clear, a website and even rankings themselves are ultimately just a means to an end: lead generation. The information aspect is even secondary, in my opinion. Don’t you agree?
[tags]lead generation[/tags]
Written by jclayc on January 27th, 2008 with 1 comment.
Read more articles on General SEO Discussion and SEO for Law Firms.
Knowing the maze of regulations surrounding legal advertising (that vary state by state), I suppose I thought lawyers would never pursue spammy marketing tactics. In a general sense, I never thought lawyers would pursue broadcast email marketing, just because of the difficulty in targeting qualified candidates, extremely low conversion rate and the negative reflection of the firm I believe it imparts. I was entertained by a piece of perceived lawyer spam I received via email the other day.
Now I’m sure I’ve never indicated I was in need of legal services. I honestly wonder how many clicks and/or calls the law firm will receive from this – the conversion rate? As the Wikipedia entry on Spam says:
Although only a tiny percentage of their targets are motivated to purchase their products (or fall victim to their scams), the low cost may provide a sufficient conversion rate to keep the spamming alive.
It’s the broadcast nature of this kind of solicitation that breeds mistrust of the brand (your law firm’s good name). Is it worth 500000 negative impressions of your firm for, say, 5 leads? Granted, that’s assuming a low, spam-like, 0.001% conversion rate, but the overall message is that, in my opinion, broadcast email marketing that’s perceived to be spam by 99.9% of recipients isn’t the best way to market your law firm. What can lawyers learn from this?
Take away: don’t be tempted by offers to conduct broadcast email on behalf of your firm. Be skeptical of (nearly) all “pre-qualified” lists of email addresses. The most effective email marketing your firm can conduct will start with opt-in lists developed through your own website or client list. This protects your good name by making sure that you approach recipients that are receptive to your message and it pays off in ROI by delivering more leads than non-targeted lists.
The next question is “how does my firm effectively build an email marketing list that I can trust”? Start with a reference or two such as:
Selecting Specific Targets When Marketing Your Practice by LexisNexis for general advice (disclosure)
28 Ways to Build Permission-Based Email Lists by EmailLabs
Email Marketing Tips, Tricks and Secrets by About.com
Then move on to deciding what success will mean to you in this campaign. Meaning, do you want X number of new clients? Then your message should target potential clients. Do you want to spread the news of a recent verdict? Increase referral business? Then your message should target other law firms.
Above, I’ve used this example of lawyer spam to advise the average small law firm on the do’s and don’ts of email marketing. Am I the end-all expert on email marketing, list development and targeting? No. But I do hope I’ve at least stirred a gut reaction from you on the approach that was taken recently to deliver this un-targeted message. That aversion should lead you to explore the right way to pursue an legal marketing campaign via email.
[tags]lawyer spam, email marketing[/tags]
I probably forgot to turn off some opt-out when filling out an online form, so this may not truly be a 100% "unsolicited" email message but that’s why I’m “protecting the innocent” law firm by not revealing their name.
Written by jclayc on January 6th, 2008 with 2 comments.
Read more articles on Email Marketing and Paid Advertising.
