Running a law firm is much like running any small business, and you’ll face many obstacles along the way. In the saturated legal market, it’ll be nearly impossible to avoid the “barrier for entry.” A barrier for entry refers to an obstacle that makes it difficult for a company to enter a new market. One of the biggest barriers your law firm will likely find is getting ad campaigns off the ground.
Cost of Creating an Ad
Regardless of your medium, creating advertisements are expensive. Creating a TV commercial will run your firm back $1,500 at a bare minimum for a short spot on a local channel. Major networks serving entire states will cost significantly more.
You’ll need to pay similar costs to use billboards or other physical ads. Worst of all, these advertisements are all temporary, so the cost to get the advertisement off the ground will only sustain your firm’s marketing efforts for a couple of weeks.
Cost of Maintaining an Ad
Let’s say your firm has created the perfect pay-per-click (PPC) campaign to run on Google to find more personal injury clients. You may be faced by sticker shock when you begin running the campaign, as personal injury is one of the most saturated areas of law, meaning your campaigns will be costly to run.
It’s not unreasonable to expect to bid $10 per click for some competitive keywords. Some areas of personal injury, such as mesothelioma, can cost over $100 per click. Unless your firm has a high level of liquid assets, breaking into the PPC market may be unaffordable.
Cost of Creating and Maintaining a Website
Websites are not cheap to build from the ground up, and third-party providers may not convey the authority you need to retain clients digitally. On top of this, just creating a website will not guarantee that anyone ever finds you online.
To get unpaid search traffic to your website, you'll need to invest in search engine optimization, or SEO. Adding blog posts and other types of content, plus getting other websites to link to your firm will allow your website to rank well on Google, Yahoo, or Bing. Unfortunately, it will take at least six months to see any kind of profit from SEO efforts.
Cost of Hiring a Marketer
If you prefer to handle all of your marketing in house, you’ll likely need to hire someone to manage your campaigns. This costs between $30,000-$40,000 at a minimum, but legal digital marketing specialists with more experience will of course expect higher yearly salaries.
Solo practitioners and small firms may not be able to hire another full-time employee, and if they can, they’ll often choose to hire someone to work on client intake or paperwork first. Costs of managing campaigns make getting a firm’s marketing off the ground nearly impossible for many mid-sized firms vying for clients.
Skip the Barriers With Lead Generation
If your firm does not have the capital to break into the search marketing realm in your area of law, lead generation may be an inexpensive alternative. There is no high startup cost with lead generation—You can choose a package as large or as small to meet your ideal budget. With lead generation, you’re paying for a claimant’s contact information, not the hopes of them reaching out to speak with someone at your firm.
If you’d like to discuss our current lead availability and pricing, give us a call today at 617.800.0089. We currently offer legal leads in the following areas:
- Social Security disability
- Personal injury
- Workers’ compensation
- Employment Law
We’d be happy to help your firm increase its caseload and avoid steep marketing costs today.