You say: “TV isn’t working”
We say: “Have you looked at your website traffic?”
If you think your television ads aren’t moving the needle it might be time to look at your law firm’s digital marketing data. Even if TV isn’t making your phone ring off the hook, it doesn’t mean this effort has failed. These days, most people don’t just call up and say, “I saw your ad on TV and I have a case!” This means your television spot may be generating leads in an entirely new way—online.
To support the notion that TV advertising is still driving new business, only in new ways, let’s consider an insightful 2015 study by the Video Advertising Bureau (VAB). The bureau compared web traffic to TV advertising for 125 diverse brands. The companies spent a combined $30 billion in annual TV advertising and all pulled in 100,000 or more unique website visitors each month.
Of these successful brands, a huge majority—82%—showed a direct correlation between TV advertising spend and website traffic. The analysis looked at both sides—increased and decreased TV ad spending. A 22% average increase in TV spending equated to a 24% increase in website visitors. For the 10% average decrease in TV spending, there was a striking 9% drop in website visitors.
The pattern is undeniable: There is a clear correlation between website traffic and TV advertising.
The takeaway? Broadcast advertising appears to be calling viewers to take further action online, driving and pacing law firm digital marketing efforts. But rather than people simply garnering general awareness about a law firm or calling an 800 number repeated in a legal TV ad, viewers called to action on the first screen are taking a different path to legal advice via a second screen. Fractured by the sheer number of digital platforms at their fingertips, consumers are increasingly going directly online to learn more.
Television is “activating” digital
Lawyers understand that TV is still the most effective effective medium. In fact, attorneys invested an estimated $648 million last year in TV advertising, and legal services ranked No. 6 in the list of top 20 local broadcast categories. What most law practices want to better understand is how broadcast campaigns can work to drive better engagement online.
If TV is no longer about broad brand awareness designed to reach the masses, today it’s about leveraging commercial messaging to incite people to do more research and take qualified action through digital marketing channels. Think about it – how do you use Google and the internet when it comes to obtaining more information about a product or service?
The web-based part of things can be a little elusive. As consumers become habituated to the anonymity that the Internet provides, and because they can hide behind the screen, they are often more willing to take action undercover, such as posting a scathing online review without their real name.
A prospective client that doesn’t know your law firm might take a similar covert approach, catching your commercial during the nightly news and instantly checking your legitimacy by researching your attorneys, cases, practice areas and reviews through an easily accessible second screen—laptop, tablet or smartphone.
Your job as an intelligent marketer is simply to be there when prospective clients knock at your digital storefront—your website—or engage through some other digital extension, such as a blog, social, networking site or email campaign. Media strategy is no longer a linear equation, and every brand, including businesses in traditional industries like law, are tasked with being available at every consumer “touchpoint.”
But how are lawyers expected to be everywhere and everything to everyone? They’re not. Smart law firm digital marketing in 2016 is about rethinking how TV activates digital and how digital data activates marketing tactics. That means starting to read your website reports in a way that draws links between your TV commercial and your website’s traffic and performance.
Here are 10 questions that might help you rethink the connections between your presence on TV and the Internet:
- When you launch a new TV campaign or new creative assets are you seeing an increase in traffic to your website?
- When you tweak your call to action on a television commercial what’s happening on your website?
- Is there any online chatter about your television spot?
- When viewers land on your website does it look and sound cohesive with your TV spot?
- Which pages of your website are performing best?
- Where are users engaging most with your brand on your website or online?
- How many different ways (touchpoints) could a person potentially interact with your legal brand?
- Do you truly know your core customer’s decision-making “journey” to investing in your law practice?
- If a person never sees your TV commercial, what you think is his or her first impression of your website?
- How would you rank the consistency (look and tone) of your brand across all platforms?
If you think of TV as the great “activator” of your message, what you’re saying and presenting visually online is just as, if not more, important. Why? Because the digital space is increasingly where you can capture your audience’s attention and keep it long enough to convert them to a paying client. After all, the user has come to your website intentionally, perhaps through a search query or email initiation. This is your chance to really tell your story and engage a captive audience. However, don’t forget that your competitors are just “next door” on the Web, and it only takes one click to go to another attorney’s digital storefront. If your website is not informative, useable and engaging, potential clients can go somewhere else with a click of a button.
As you think about the links between TV and digital initiatives, and ultimately how they work best together, remember these best practices:
Don’t “silo” your advertising efforts. Instead, look at how everything is working together.
Learn what’s driving digital. Consider how your TV advertising creative is driving website traffic.
Create quality, consistency and clarity. If clients are viewing your TV ads, they are most likely also holding or in close proximity to a smart phone or tablet. Therefore branding and messaging must be of the same quality and message consistency to paint a clear picture for your target customers.
Track your customer journey. Use online analytics to understand where your clients are coming from and what they’re doing online.
Don’t forget conversion. Once people land on your website, what are you doing to convert them to clients?
Wondering if your TV and digital efforts are working well together? Find out what Network Affiliates can do for your law firm marketing this year. Speak with one of our experts for a free, confidential marketing evaluation. What are you waiting for? Call us today at (888) 461-1016.