The end of the year is always a happy time: the holidays are upon us, we spend more time with family, and we’re generally a little happier. But don’t just kick back and eat cookies all month: December is a great time to evaluate next year’s marketing plan. Here are some top considerations when deciding what ad campaigns to try out next year.
How Much Do You Want to Grow?
Setting a marketing budget will depend on how much additional revenue you need next year. For example, firms who have exactly all the cases they need might only want to spend 5% of their expected revenue on marketing. Young firms looking for fast growth may want to spend as much as 20%. It all depends on your current caseload needs!
Keep in mind that even if you think you have the perfect number of cases, you should still do some kind of marketing to ensure you have a steady flow of inbound interest as time goes on.
Which Channels Are You Using?
Some marketing options are significantly more expensive than others. For example, billboards will cost around $2,000 per month, but some placements in high traffic areas could cost more than $10,000.
Other forms of marketing like PPC campaigns could have variable costs depending on how many advertisers are running campaigns for similar keywords. Your budget will need to accurately reflect how expensive your specific marketing options are.
How Much Are You Spending to Sign One New Client?
Overall costs are not the most important factor when making a marketing budget. You’ll need to determine how much you’re spending to sign one new client. This as known as your “cost per case.” Campaigns with wildly different budgets can yield similar overall profit margins. For example:
Let’s say your firm spends $50,000 one year on TV commercials and $7,000 on SEO efforts. Over the course of the year you sign 116 ($431) new clients from TV ads and 17 new clients organically. While you spent much more for TV ads and signed more clients, the cost per case for SEO efforts would be lower. TV commercials yielded a cost per case of $431 while SEO was $411.
How Much Will Labor Cost?
You’ll need to factor labor into your marketing budget as well. If you do all your marketing in house, you’ll almost certainly need to hire your own search engine marketing expert to manage your SEO and PPC campaigns.
Even without your own marketing staff, you’ll need an intake member as a bare minimum to handle your incoming inquiries.
How Can You Keep a Budget in Check?
Lead generation is a great way to maintain low marketing costs. Instead of managing your campaigns in house and hoping someone calls your firm, you’ll pay for contact information from claimants in need of help.
To learn more about our lead generation services or products, give us a call today at 617.800.0089. We’d love to help your firm in 2018 and beyond!