ala's blog

Content Marketing For Law Firms

ala — Thu, 26 Jan 2017 21:05:16 +0000

Content Marketing For Law Firms

Your marketing strategy may already include T.V. spots, personal referrals, or print advertisements, but it can also include so much more. By creating a diverse range of content and then promoting it, your law firm can establish a pipeline of inbound interest and sign more clients as a result.

What Is Content Marketing?

Content marketing is a type of digital marketing that utilizes the creation and sharing of content on a website. This content, made up of blogs, articles, landing pages, and more, helps attract prospective clients to your law firm's website. Through content marketing, your firm can find new clients that you may not have before.

To maximize content marketing for law firms, follow these tips:

1. Know Your Audience and Your Firm's Strengths

Before penning your first masterpiece, take a moment to envision the type of person who requires your legal aid. How old are they? What sort of questions do they want answered? How much will they know, if any, about the type of law you practice? Answering these can guide how you write so that your content speaks to the exact type of client your firm wants to attract.

Also consider what your firm brings to the table that other firms may not. Whether you’re a multi-generational practice in business for the last 150 years, or your firm is just starting out and is hungry for new clients, you offer something unique. Communicating that value is critical in an industry as competitive as this one.

Once you have established this, you can build your content strategy for your law firm.

2. Publish Content on Your Own Site and Accounts

Writing your own content establishes your staff’s knowledge to potential clients, which can make all the difference when they are still researching other firms. Unless you have an editorial team at your disposal, however, you’ll need to prioritize content on media through which your target audience is most accessible.

Posting on social media accounts, for example, can engage users not actively searching for legal help but already aware of your firm; while publishing blog posts about industry developments or legal questions in your practice area can spark the interest of those who are actively searching but who don’t follow your law firm. Regardless of medium, always keep your content up to date. Nothing deters a user faster than a company’s most recent post dating back a few years. Continuing to update old content should be incorporated into your law firm's content marketing strategy

3. Write Original Content for Other Websites

Writing content for sources beyond your own website, blog subscribers, and social media followers is an important way to reach those who are unaware of your firm but could still benefit from your services.

Start by offering to write content for law journals, blogs, and associations related to your practice area. This could mean writing content for advocacy groups in your niche, posting to your state bar association’s blog, or joining a LinkedIn group of attorneys in your industry and posting thought leadership articles there.

Many attorneys stop here, but you can reach a wider audience of potential clients by posting practice area information on legal forums and other Q&A legal resources. Not only will you have connected with an individual who is actively seeking legal help, but it creates future opportunities for internet users to learn about your law firm when they search for legal advice, as your responses may display in organic search results.

To expand your audience further, your law firm could hold free webinars about general and niche legal topics, ask to promote an article on a website outside the legal industry but still relevant to your practice areas, or set up an email referral channel to capitalize on your existing client network.

It's important to remember, however, that a wealth of general legal information is available to the savvy Google searcher; so, in lieu of broad topics, create content that highlights your expertise in your niche to appeal to the concerns of your target audience.

4. Turn Content into Marketable Materials

Writing informational content on a legal blog doesn't have to be altruistic. You are running a business, after all. Every time your content appears somewhere outside your website, it is a path for a new potential client to learn about and reach out to your firm.

An easy way to make your content more share-worthy is to add visual aids. If you have the graphic resources, create a custom infographic summing up the message of your content to appeal to those who digest information visually. At a bare minimum, select a free stock photo to serve as a header image to make your content more appealing and set it apart from a bland wall of text.

As you compose new website copy, law journal submissions, and social media posts, break out that red pen and carefully read through your preexisting web content. Is it written in a way to that encourages a reader to reach out to your firm? A few simple changes to your writing can gear your content toward conversion.

What is most important to remember about marketing your content is that you must always provide a way for readers to get in touch with your law firm. Readers reaching and fulfilling this action is your ultimate objective. Adding a call-to-action, offering a free consultation, listing a phone number, and including a link to your website can turn a diverse audience of readers into your new potential clients.

How to Get Cases in the Meantime

Implementing a content marketing strategy can help ensure a future pipeline of cases for your law firm at relatively low cost, but it takes time to build out your content library. In the interim, consider supplementing case volume with a lead generation company like eGenerationMarketing. We provide attorneys and advocates high quality Social Security disability, personal injury, workers' compensation, employment law leads. To learn more about our services, reach out to us at 617.800.0089.

ala Thu, 01/26/2017 - 16:05

Prepare Your Law Firm's Marketing for 2017

ala — Wed, 23 Nov 2016 18:09:37 +0000

Prepare Your Law Firm's Marketing for 2017

As November comes to a close, now is the time to optimize how your law firm finds and manages its new clients. By analyzing year-end performance, opportunities may emerge for your firm to make short-term improvements that yield immediate results. You may also find areas to incorporate long-term growth strategies that help ensure your firm's successful future. Consider both approaches as you prepare your law firm's marketing for 2017 and beyond.

Short-term Optimizations

Identify ways to improve what you're already doing. Finding these may take a little digging, but the payoff is prompt.

Get Granular with Marketing Performance:

The quickest way to locate wasted capital is to calculate the cost per case of every marketing medium, network, and campaign on which your firm spends money. Allow your successful campaigns to grow by shifting funding from under-performing sources to those that convert at or below your target cost per case. By doing this, you’ll avoid increasing your overall marketing budget.

Be aware, however, that certain marketing sources may assist others without receiving credit for attracting a new client. For example, personal injury billboard ads, which seemingly could not convert at an attractive cost per case, may have provided your firm name recognition when potential clients later sought out legal help online and clicked your pay per click advertisement.

Quantifying the impact of offline marketing on online marketing, and vice versa, is often inexact. Asking claimants how they heard of your firm is a good start, but this may not fully illuminate the chain of advertising that led them to contact you. Monitoring your firm’s overall cost per case for an inexplicable increase can reveal if you’ve removed a source that was assisting conversions behind the scenes.

Examine Bigger Picture Processes:

When was the last time you analyzed how your legal practice manages cases? If that answer is more than a couple years – or worse, if you can’t remember the last time – it’s time to revisit efficiency. While it doesn’t require an overhaul of all your processes, streamlining your firm could mean spending time creatively solving client management issues and re-training staff members on a few new procedures.

Start with your firm’s intake process. How soon is your staff able to speak to a potential client that contacted your firm? Even in a bustling law office, the sooner you contact an interested client, the better. Is your staff asking potential clients the most relevant questions to assess case viability? Are all staff members asking the same questions? A simple way to make your intake process more efficient is to standardize it.

Next, take a look at how your firm manages each case as it progresses. Does your staff compose the same email or create the same industry-standard document repeatedly? Automation and mass actions can drastically decrease the time you spend on repetitive tasks. Most case management software provides the tools for you to be more efficient, but even composing a few key email templates and distributing them among staff members could free up time.

Long-term Growth Strategies

Create new pathways for future clients to find and ultimately reach out to your law firm. Doing so plants the seeds for success that builds on itself over time.

Set Up a Personal Referral Channel:

The time and energy you spent working with former clients pays off double when these same clients help you find new clients. A simple way to create a personal referral channel is to build lists of the email addresses of former clients and former potential clients.

Consider grouping client lists by area of law, month and year of case resolution, or date they reached out to your firm. With segmented lists, you can tailor each message to the group’s common theme. Remember that some clients may fall into multiple thematic buckets.

To encourage a personal referral, your email could:

For recent clients: Thank them for their trust in your services, which keeps the positive experience of working with your firm fresh in their minds.

For the clients 3-6 months after case resolution, or potential clients 3-6 months after initial contact: Remind them that should a friend or family member need legal representation, you’d be happy to help with their cases. This suggests that you remember them and their cases, and are invested in the welfare of their personal networks.

For the clients and potential clients 6+ months after case resolution: Update former clients on how your practice is growing and succeeding. This could include any new staff hires, any high-profile settlements won, or any additions to the types of litigation in which your firm specializes. Hearing of other claimants’ successes working with your firm may further convince former clients to recommend you.

Using Both Helps Ensure Success

The closest to a surefire path for success incorporates both short term and long term growth strategies. Employed in concert, these marketing methods can help your law firm sign more cases than ever before.

While your law firm optimizes its marketing and internal processes for 2017, lead generation can come in handy to support inbound interest in your firm. eGenerationMarketing provides Social Security disability, employment law, personal injury, and workers’ compensation case leads to law firms around the country. To inquire about our services and how we can help your law firm grow, contact us today at 617.800.0089.

ala Wed, 11/23/2016 - 13:09

Sign More Clients with Web Copy That Converts

ala — Tue, 07 Jun 2016 21:11:13 +0000

Sign More Clients with Web Copy That Converts

Before you have a chance to speak to potential clients, your web content speaks to them on your behalf. According to Google, 74% of people searching for legal advice online visited a law firm’s website to take action before picking up the phone.

When trying to motivate more clients to contact your firm, searching for overlooked typos won’t be enough. Instead, turn to the finer points of editing content for web marketing. After all, when website content is clear, concise, organized, and optimized to convert, it will bring in clients for you.

Revise Lengthy Sentences

You'll find no shortage of studies that warn just how little time web users spend reading a site's content. These statistics unfortunately encourage many writers to edit for clickbait titles instead of looking to body text for revision. In reality, your readers’ diminishing attention calls for concision across the board.

Here's how you can go from wordy to concise:

Eliminate redundant lists of adjectives
Shorten phrases in which a single word may suffice
Separate run-on sentences that obscure your point
Avoid legal jargon readers may not understand

Nix Passive Voice

Active voice: eGeneration sells leads. Passive voice: Leads are sold by eGeneration.

Though grammatically correct, passive voice creates a weaker sentence. On the other hand, using active voice will help you communicate your value to potential clients more clearly.

Active voice makes a sentence easier to understand – especially for readers skimming the page – because passive voice obscures who completes the action.

Sometimes this is intentional. Politicians often use passive voice to deflect blame; businesses occasionally use passive voice to soften a negative message; and crime reports use passive voice when it’s unknown who is culpable.

When your readers subconsciously find it less clear that help from your firm allows them to navigate personal injury or workers’ compensation claims, passive voice can hinder their motivation to take action.

Revisit Content Structure

Along with sentence clarity, clear paragraph structure can help guide your readers to conversion – be it setting up an initial consultation, submitting a personal referral, or signing on as a client.

Some businesses conform to the traditional structure of introduction, body, and conclusion. Others swear by the inverse pyramid technique, which positions the takeaway at the top of each page or paragraph and works backwards from there.

Either technique can be successful, so long as after reading, a reader’s next logical step is to contact your firm.

This is a balancing act, however. Rush site visitors to reach out to your law firm before demonstrating your value risks losing their trust (and their case). Bury your call-to-action in a mountain of text, and you may find that readers won’t spend the time to learn how to contact your firm at all.

Gear Content Toward Conversion

The best web content delivers readers information they value, while also providing a path to fulfill your marketing goal. To increase your law firm’s contact rate, revising the way you convey what you offer your clients can make all the difference.

Use second person pronouns
Using “one” as a subject may sound official, but it’s also impersonal. Opt for “you” and “yours” to hold a reader’s interest.
Show, don't tell
Readers already know you’re an attorney, so they’ll assume you know how to practice law; instead of boring readers by listing your credentials upfront, outline what you can offer and achieve for your clients.
Convey a sense of urgency
This becomes especially important if your practice area involves a statute of limitations. Readers may not be aware that certain settlements are a lost cause after a period of time.
Break paragraphs into digestible parts
Few readers persevere through a wall of text, and even fewer retain the entirety of its message. Instead, become best friends with your space bar. There are no rules as to how long or short a paragraph must be.

These are just some of the ways we optimize the content at the heart of our lead generation strategy at eGenerationMarketing. Armed with these web copy conversion tips, you’ll be able to improve the quality of your inbound interest from internet searchers, and sign more cases as a result.

Of course, editing content with a fine-tooth comb assumes you’ve already done a lot of the hard work that we’ve found goes into creating web copy that converts, like conducting target audience research, using pictures and graphics to aid your storytelling, and keeping your content up to date.

While you test a new content strategy, eGenerationMarketing can supplement your caseload with real-time, exclusive Social Security disability, personal injury, workers’ compensation, and employment law case leads. If you’d like more information about how we can help grow your firm, reach out to us at 617.800.0089.

ala Tue, 06/07/2016 - 17:11

Is Your Firm Unknowingly Inefficient?

ala — Wed, 10 Feb 2016 16:12:19 +0000

Is Your Firm Unknowingly Inefficient?

Law firms large and small and across all practice areas have one thing in common: the difficult task of managing leads, cases, clients and staff. Asking yourself these three simple questions may reveal some of your legal practice’s underlying inefficiencies – all of which you can target with a case management software or client management system.

Do Important Documents Get Lost in the Shuffle?

In the legal industry, it is of critical importance that case files, personal documents, and sensitive materials not go missing. If you’ve found that your firm has lost more than one important document, going paperless with a case management software is an easy way to keep your law office more organized.

A paperless law practice means the end of searching through countless documents to find the right file; every case, client, and matter is easily searchable within a client relationship management system. Some legal CRMs even allow users to manage case leads and contacts associated with each case.

By centralizing information in one place, you’re able to create a central repository of all lead, case, matter, and contact details. Since these are all remotely accessible, you’ll have access to the entire resources of your firm – anytime, anywhere.

“What about all the forms I mail to my client to sign?” you may ask. Electronic signature tools like EchoSign allow law firms to electronically send and receive documents without ever having to lick a stamp. Not only will adopting this practice eliminate the risk of losing items in the mail, but your firm may see an increase in your packet signed rate.

Next to the combined costs of paper, printing, and the time it takes to search through extensive case files, adopting a legal case and client management system is an alternative attorneys can’t afford to ignore.

Is Staff Accountability a Frequent Concern?

Have you found yourself unsure of what your staff actually does on a daily basis? Has miscommunication lead your staff to miss important meetings or deadlines? If your firm has a dozen employees or more, it can often become challenging to coordinate among departments, let alone know whether or not your staff is putting in the effort to sign you more cases. Even the best employees may not be as efficient as possible.

The best case management software will not only help you better manage cases and clients, but your firm’s staff and methodologies, too. A comprehensive CRM system will effectively create a digital headquarters for your personnel. When you’re able to properly coordinate communication and responsibility, no deadline, meeting, or task will slip through the cracks.

At eGenerationMarketing, our case and lead management software, eLuminate, even allows you to assign tasks to other users and track their results. This makes it easy to delegate tasks to your staff, whether it’s asking your paralegal to send a lead a retainer package, or reminding your coworkers of a meeting an hour ahead of time. You can pinpoint inefficiencies in any department of your firm by consulting historic task data. Among other metrics, you will be able to see which staff members contact more leads, which send retainer packages on time, and which sign the most cases.

Is Your Law Partner Also Acting Head of IT?

When running a bustling law firm, the value of a trained and dedicated IT Department can easily become an afterthought. If a critical member of your staff is also your makeshift computer guy, you’re diverting valuable skill away from your legal practice. It may also seem appealing to handle data in-house on internal servers rather than with a hosting company, but this option is time consuming at best, costly at worst.

When you use a legal case management software, you’ve got a dedicated tech team in your corner. This entails user support to help you maximize your account, as well as software developers that resolve any bugs with immediate attention. Forget slow software installations; with eLuminate, new features and functionalities update seamlessly to your account as we release them.

Of equal importance, however, is that your client and firm information remains secure. Along with data encryption, firewalls, user authentication, and real-time server audits, web-based case and management software protects your data with a full force of complex, layered security. With all that protection, your case and client information may well be at greater risk in the corner file cabinet.

eLuminate

With its dedicated, growing following, eLuminate has been a longstanding product at eGeneration. Created to support our network of attorneys that receive Social Security Disability, Personal Injury, Workers’ Compensation, Employment Law case leads, eLuminate is a highly customizable solution for large and small law firms alike.

To schedule a free tutorial to learn how eLuminate, our cloud-based case and lead management software, can help track, manage, and analyze cases and clients at your legal practice, reach out to us at 617.800.0089 or read our eLuminate FAQ.

ala Wed, 02/10/2016 - 11:12

How Your Law Firm Can Profit During a Seasonal Slump

ala — Tue, 17 Nov 2015 18:30:12 +0000

How Your Law Firm Can Profit During a Seasonal Slump

Many businesses, including legal practices, are subject to the whim of marketplace seasonality. Regardless of practice area, law firms often see a decline in caseload in their field’s off-season.

When cases are pending or caseload is light, a savvy marketing strategy can turn a slump into a speedbump. Following these practices can help your firm run seamlessly despite a seasonal disadvantage.

While variability in inbound interest is unique to each practice area, your year-to-year data should reveal a useful trend. Social Security Disability attorneys, for example, may see a notable decline in clients each November. In fact, SSA data reveals as much as 16% fewer people apply for SSDI in November, December, January and February compared to the monthly average during the rest of the year.¹ Similarly, Personal Injury attorneys litigate cases with an incredibly lengthy court process – Medical Malpractice and Wrongful Death suits can average over 20 months.² As a result, attorneys in the Personal Injury field may not see the return on their investment as quickly as planned.

Revamp Your Web Presence

First, ask yourself if you’ve neglected your web presence during the busy season. It’s easy to put website development on the backburner when the success of your firm seemingly comes from face-to-face interaction with your clients.

The reality, however, is that many of your potential clients, or leads, research your firm’s services online before ever reaching out. In fact, Google found that in 2013 96% of people seeking legal advice used a search engine to find it,³ and 74% of consumers visit a law firm’s website to take action.⁴ With a well-designed website and valuable web content, organic interest in your services will build, allowing your team to focus their energy on turning those case leads into signed cases.

Improve your online presence and attract more leads with the help of our guide to making a user-friendly law firm website.

Offer a Seasonal Incentive

The idea of 40% off clearance sales and time-sensitive “while supplies last” advertisements may seem gimmicky, but offering leads a unique incentive to choose your firm can make all the difference when advertising in a saturated marketing channel.

Not only could it make your firm stand out against your competitors, but offering a free service can trigger purchase reciprocity. Studies by social psychologists have found that recipients of a free item or service often feel subconsciously motivated to reciprocate in kind by patronizing the merchant.⁵ Offering a complimentary consultation could encourage leads to contact your firm over another, or to reach out to you when they might have avoided pursuing their case altogether.

Emphasize Conversion over Acquisition

Why allocate more funds to marketing channels when you’re not able to convert the leads you’re already bringing in? In a seasonal slump, it’s valuable to revisit your follow-up process to maximize lead conversion. A more persistent and standardized follow-up methodology can pay off by increasing the number of your leads that turn into signed cases – all without bleeding your marketing budget.

Keeping this in mind, never underestimate the audiences of prospective clients you may already have at your disposal. Blog and email subscribers, social media followers, legal forum readers – all of these audiences can be targeted to become the leads that boost your firm’s caseload in an off-season.

Streamline Organization and Invest in R&D

A priority during your firm’s down season should be to invest into the future of its inevitable upswing. From an internet marketing standpoint, you'll want to start by researching emerging legal marketing trends and by analyzing your year-to-date data. Are you tracking your firm’s true cost per case? Do you know how each of your marketing channels performed? These are questions for which you need the answers, and a seasonal slump is the perfect time to address any major gaps in your firm’s reporting procedure.

An easy way to trim the fat while organizing your system for the New Year is to use an in-house or third-party lead and case management system (CRM). Our client and case management software, eLuminate, provides a single location where you can track the details of your leads, cases, and contacts, all while you quickly send mass emails, auto-generate custom documents, and run comprehensive reports. To try it free for a one-month trial, contact a member of our team at 617.800.0089.

Expand Using a Legal Lead Generation Service

If your analyses reveal a marketing dead end, purchasing legal case leads from a third-party lead generation agency is an ideal channel to generate inbound interest. While certain law firms find success relying solely on third-party leads, outsourcing even a portion of your marketing efforts is a great way for any legal practice to make up for a drop in case volume. Lead packages will vary with each agency you consider, but the vast majority of lead generation services will considerably decrease the time and money you spend to acquire clients.

If you wish to diversify your caseload and you practice in the areas of Social Security Disability, Personal Injury, Employment Law, or Workers’ Compensation, you may be a fit for eGeneration Marketing’s lead generation services. We deliver exclusive, local leads in real-time – all without any long-term commitment. With custom screening and targeting, we can drive leads to your firm at a competitive cost. To discuss how eGenerationMarketing can help your firm receive more cases, reach out to us at 617.800.0089.

¹ Monthly Applications for Diability Benefits at Social Security Field Offices and Number Awarded. Social Security Administration. 2015.

² Data Collection: State Court Processing Statistics. Bureau of Justice Statistics. 2009.

³ Google Consumer Survey, Nov 2013

⁴ Google Legal Services Study, Sept 2013

⁵ Darren W. Dahl, H. H. (2005). Three Rs of Interpersonal Consumer Guilt: Relationship, Reciprocity, Reparation. Journal of Consumer Psychology: Volume 15, Issue 4.

ala Tue, 11/17/2015 - 13:30

4 Digital Marketing Mistakes That Keep Your Law Firm from Scaling

ala — Tue, 15 Sep 2015 20:33:22 +0000

4 Digital Marketing Mistakes That Keep Your Law Firm from Scaling

Your legal practice has a custom website, a growing social media presence, and cases on the docket; digital marketing success, right?

Not necessarily – you could be unintentionally keeping your law firm’s marketing strategy from reaching its full potential by making one of these common digital marketing mistakes. Applicable to both big picture strategy and the day-to-day marketing decisions, these tips can help scale your firm’s case volume.

Mistake #1: Relying on Organic Interest

It’s tempting to set up a website to attract inbound interest and stop there. Your firm’s website is a great way to tap into the consumer base that is already in some way aware of your practice, but what about the much larger portion of potential clients that don’t know which law firm to choose? Or those that don’t know they need an attorney in the first place? This is where lead generation, affiliate, and referral marketing sources become incredibly valuable.

At eGenerationMarketing, for example, we offer highly-targeted legal case leads to attorneys and advocates who handle Social Security Disability, Personal Injury, Workers’ Compensation, and Employment Law violation cases. By supplementing your in-house marketing efforts with a lead generation service, you can rely on a steady stream of case volume for your firm.

Mistake #2: “Setting and Forgetting” Successful Campaigns

There is something to be said for not messing with success – but in the legal digital marketing world, there’s always room for improvement. After all, search rankings, cost-per-click, and ad conversion rates depend not only on what you do, but also on what your competitors are doing. Staying competitive in the legal marketing space requires a significant amount of campaign maintenance, especially to your top performing campaigns.

Launching a new campaign may be the exception to this rule. For new campaigns, you’ll want to allow a bit of time for it to prove itself and accrue enough data before you think about pulling the plug. Depending on the scale of your marketing efforts, however, this could be anywhere from one day to a whole month.

Mistake #3: Favoring a Sample Size

When evaluating a marketing campaign’s performance, how do you know whether to use a wide or narrow scope? Do you want to look at year-to-date data, month-to-month, or data from just this week? Too small a scale can drive marketing decisions that aren’t indicative of your campaign’s true strengths. Conversely, too large a data set will obscure the trends that, with proper response, could pay off big in the long run.

Many marketers make optimization decisions based on data from one level or the other; instead, it’s better if each decision takes both the macro and micro performance into account.

Mistake #4: Underutilizing the Analytics Suite

Data should be at the foundation of every marketing decision your law firm makes. If you’ve launched an internet marketing campaign without the means to track the details of its performance, you’ll be left scratching your head, no matter how it performs. The only way to build on a campaign’s success, or redeem its failure, is to make full use of the data you’ve collected. Tracking how a lead transitions to a client to a closed case will help you streamline your client acquisition strategy in the future.

Firms can track marketing output with a web-hosted service with limited free features like Google Analytics, or with customizable case and lead management software like the one we offer our clients, eLuminate. With powerful reporting features, auto-generated documents, time-stamped notes, and email templates, eLuminate is the CRM built to fit seamlessly into your law firm’s workflow.

For more information on how to better manage your cases and clients with a CRM system like eLuminate, or to learn how to scale your firm with our SSDI, PI, WC, or employment law leads, feel free to contact us at 617.800.0089.

ala Tue, 09/15/2015 - 16:33

What is PPC Advertising and Why Your Firm Should Use it

ala — Tue, 21 Jul 2015 14:51:22 +0000

What is PPC Advertising and Why Your Firm Should Use it

When it comes to generating legal case leads, every law firm can benefit from a digital marketing approach that includes PPC, or Pay-Per-Click, advertising. Hastily launched, PPC campaigns can backfire by exceeding budgets and returning few cases. When run properly, however, PPC advertising can increase your firm’s caseload exponentially. Read on to learn how your firm can benefit from lead generation PPC advertising.

First and foremost, what exactly is PPC advertising? Abbreviated as PPC, Pay-Per-Click advertising refers to a marketing model in which advertisers pay a set amount each time a user clicks their web ad. A subset of Search Engine Marketing, PPC advertising works in concert with Search Engine Optimization to increase a company’s web presence.

Why use Pay-Per-Click to get more cases?

Target the Right Customers

PPC advertising can target can array of consumer attributes – including search terms.

When a potential claimant enters a phrase like “find an attorney” into a search engine, he or she is often at an important stage of the consumer purchase decision cycle. In fact, nearly two thirds of clicks go to sponsored links when search terms indicate high commercial intent, according to a report from Wordstream.

Since only search terms related to your business will trigger your ad, solely those who have expressed interest in finding legal representation will see your ad. By limiting ad delivery to those searching for the precise services your firm offers, PPC campaigns maximize delivery to the customers you actually want to reach.

Make Adjustments Instantly

Advertising campaigns are not born perfect. In reality, it often takes months of fine-tuning for a campaign to find success – which is why the ability to make swift and decisive changes to a campaign is a huge benefit to PPC advertising.

When advertisers can make campaign adjustments that go live with a simple click, they are able to capitalize on the early signs of success or respond to a runaway spend.

Easily Track Success (and Failure)

In the digital world, having performance analytics is incredibly valuable. The faster data is aggregated and analyzed, the more informed an advertiser can be to the state of a campaign. Data from Pay-Per-Click advertising updates in near real-time, meaning your firm can determine which campaigns outperform others on a day-to-day or even hour-to-hour basis.

Paired with powerful lead and case management software like eLuminate, attorneys and advocates can analyze case return and advertising spend at the micro and macro levels, keeping PPC campaigns running at their best return at all times.

Your Competitors Are Using it

The biggest reason for your firm to use PPC advertising? Your competition is already using it.

Whether or not a law firm relies on its web presence to find cases, it’s important to have at least a small foothold in the PPC space because being organically searchable – that is, appearing in the mainline search results because your site’s content is most relevant to that term – is only half the opportunity.

A 2012 meta-analysis of search ads conducted by Google’s research team revealed that even when an advertiser ranks organically for a particular search term, 89% of traffic from paid advertising on that same term is from new visitors. That means that PPC can bring in traffic that organic ranking could not have brought on its own.

Lastly, and Most Importantly…

PPC Advertising is Outsourceable

Launching a Pay-Per-Click campaign is not for beginners. PPC campaigns can easily outspend even generous budgets, especially since keywords related to law and attorneys are among the most expensive search terms on which an advertiser can bid. This is all without mentioning that keeping a campaign running at its top performance requires close attention and regular A/B testing.

With its high startup costs and time-consuming maintenance, your firm may want to take advantage of a third party service with an established foothold in Pay-Per-Click advertising.

At eGenerationMarketing, Pay-Per-Click advertising is just one of several tools we use to generate quality case leads for attorneys that specialize in Social Security Disability, Personal Injury, Workers’ Compensation, and Employment Law. To learn about how we can bring more cases to your firm, contact us at 617.800.0089.

ala Tue, 07/21/2015 - 10:51

ala's blog

Content Marketing For Law Firms

What Is Content Marketing?

1. Know Your Audience and Your Firm's Strengths

2. Publish Content on Your Own Site and Accounts

3. Write Original Content for Other Websites

4. Turn Content into Marketable Materials

How to Get Cases in the Meantime

Prepare Your Law Firm's Marketing for 2017

Short-term Optimizations

Get Granular with Marketing Performance:

Examine Bigger Picture Processes:

Long-term Growth Strategies

Set Up a Personal Referral Channel:

Using Both Helps Ensure Success

Sign More Clients with Web Copy That Converts

Revise Lengthy Sentences

Nix Passive Voice

Revisit Content Structure

Gear Content Toward Conversion

Use second person pronouns

Show, don't tell

Convey a sense of urgency

Break paragraphs into digestible parts

Is Your Firm Unknowingly Inefficient?

Do Important Documents Get Lost in the Shuffle?

Is Staff Accountability a Frequent Concern?

Is Your Law Partner Also Acting Head of IT?

eLuminate

How Your Law Firm Can Profit During a Seasonal Slump

Revamp Your Web Presence

Offer a Seasonal Incentive

Emphasize Conversion over Acquisition

Streamline Organization and Invest in R&D

Expand Using a Legal Lead Generation Service

4 Digital Marketing Mistakes That Keep Your Law Firm from Scaling

Mistake #1: Relying on Organic Interest

Mistake #2: “Setting and Forgetting” Successful Campaigns

Mistake #3: Favoring a Sample Size

Mistake #4: Underutilizing the Analytics Suite

What is PPC Advertising and Why Your Firm Should Use it

Target the Right Customers

Make Adjustments Instantly

Easily Track Success (and Failure)

Your Competitors Are Using it

Lastly, and Most Importantly…

PPC Advertising is Outsourceable