Digital marketing is all the rage in 2019 and beyond in part because it’s so easy to track your profitability on Google or Bing Ads. You’ll have a wealth of data showing exactly which ads converted leads, and which leads became clients for your firm. But what about traditional marketing options like billboards and commercials? It’s not exactly possible to download a .csv of your data every month. While it is challenging, there are some ways to gather data for any marketing channel.
Why Is It Important To Track?
It’s important for law firms of all sizes to track their marketing sources to help determine what is truly profitable for their firm. If you only have a piece of the data, you may not be aware of how much money you could be losing from what looks like a cost-effective campaign. For example, many attorneys love TV commercials because they generate a high amount of inbound calls to the firm. The downside to TV commercials is how expensive they are. While income calls are great, if you don’t actually count how many clients you get directly from TV commercials, it may not be profitable, despite the inbound interest.
Tips For Tracking Anything
Tip #1: Ask The Caller. If you aren’t asking every person who calls your firm how they heard about you, you’re not accurately attributing each new client to his or her respective lead source. “How did you hear about our firm?” should be one of the first, if not the first questions out of your intake staff’s mouth.
Tip #2: Use UTM Codes. UTM, or urchin tracking module, is a way to set up a URL so it will record custom parameters specifying where an inbound inquiry came from. While UTMs are usually used for pay-per-click marketing campaigns, you can still use them elsewhere. For example, let’s say you have a URL on your phone book advertising. You can set up UTMs for a phone book’s URL (and later truncate the URL so it’s actually easy for someone to write down). This way you can see which website visits were actually from the phone book or other print sources, and which were from your site’s own online presence.
Tip #3: Buy many phone lines. It’s inexpensive to buy more than one phone number for your law firm. You can have 5 phone numbers all pointing to your office, but each one using a different label to help record where someone saw the number. For example, it’s easy to set up 5 billboards but have each billboard display a different phone number. This way you’ll know which location seems to be generating the most calls and you can potentially extend your rent in your high-traffic call areas.
Final Considerations For Quality
Whether you’re using UTMs or direct phone lines, you’ll need to modify your firm’s website a little as well. Have specific landing pages for users who find you via TV, billboard, print ads, and more. Not only will you be able to make your landing pages unique, but you will have an easier time seeing how much traffic is funneled to your site from traditional sources.