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Quality or Quantity? Which Are You Asking For?

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Most people in a professional service business for any amount of time have learned that the quantity over quality equation will never add up to real revenue. That doesn’t mean it’s not tempting to throw lots of marketing messages out there to see if anyone bites. Or to follow the surprisingly popular speed-and-greed approach to buy as many leads as possible and churn out settlements.

The problem is the endorphin boost from a random advertising blitz and caseload infusion always wears off. And usually law firms that practice this low-value, high-turn approach realize it’s not an effective long-term marketing and advertising strategy.

Over time, attorneys that use advertising to ask for mass calls learn that a majority of those leads don’t pan out, either because they’re not legally defensible, they’re not a good fit for the firm’s proficiency or they’re not a strong client to begin with.

The energy spent trying to decipher real cases is a drain on resources that just doesn’t make solid business sense. Not only that, but asking for loads of “cheap” cases for short-term gain makes you look cheap. Your law practice may become a commodity and that will devalue your attorneys’ reputation over time.

5 Reasons Quality Matters

We know that high-quality cases produce higher return on investment, and here are just a few reasons why:

  1. Quality cases that match your firm’s skill set are often easier to prove, and therefore settle or try.
  2. Quality cases often make for happier clients, which may lead to more profitable referrals.
  3. Quality cases mean you’re asking for specific cases for which you can help solve a specific problem—and that’s just good community service.
  4. Quality cases lead to deeper, longer-lasting client relationships that can pay off in repeat business.
  5. Quality cases underscore your attorneys’ integrity and the transparency of your legal brand.

That’s not to say quality cases, and a high number of them, have to be mutually exclusive. However, focusing on quality first may lead to higher-yield cases or a higher number of mid-level cases as your firm becomes a trusted leader in a particular legal vertical or niche.

One of the best ways to underscore the value of asking for quality over quantity in advertising is to ask yourself the same questions a potential client might. If you were injured in a car accident, would you trust a business professional with a speed-and-greed approach? Would you rely on an attorney who promised a quick result for anyone who calls now? Would you truly believe that these busy lawyers would listen to the individual circumstances of your case? Probably not.

How to procure quality cases

The good news is whether you’ve tried and failed with the speed-and-greed approach or just haven’t found the right way to ask for the kind of cases you really want, it’s never too late to turn the corner on quality. Positioning your firm as a high-value rather than a high-volume practice just takes some smart marketing.

Just as the key to a healthy relationship requires communicating directly with your spouse, the key to a healthy caseload is asking for what you want. If you want higher-value cases, your advertising needs to underscore that message, whether directly or more subtly through the quality of your subject matter, talent and commercial production. We all know those TV ads, for example, that try to cut through the cluttered legal marketing space by simply “screaming” louder and hoping more people will call an 800 number.

But after 30 years in the legal advertising industry, we can tell you that that approach might make you stand out from the crowd once, like a great one-hit wonder, but won’t be sustainable. Over time, high volume will wind down, your firm may be undermined by the greed-first message, and clients will also become one-hit wonders, eliminating a critical source of referral business.

For truly sustainable, high-value cases your legal message has to communicate with the right potential clients—the ones who are a good fit for your firm, the ones who bring valuable cases, and the ones who will refer you down the line or come back with future legal matters.

Once you nail down what asking for value means for your firm, don’t leave it to fend for itself in one bold TV commercial. Make that message resonate in all of your marketing efforts, from your law firm’s website to social channels to digital marketing. If a consumer sees a high-value ad but that message is not backed up in your firm’s supporting collateral, approach and marketing methods, potential clients will see right through the ruse.

A commitment to creating a high-value message is multi-pronged and means your firm has to start walking the talk everywhere you go. When you ask for what you want—in every effort you put forth—you might just get it.

Knowing Your Customer – A Roundtable Discussion

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In today’s fragmented media market, it’s more important than ever to understand who your customer is, and how they consume media. Each demographic you are trying to reach consumes media in radically different ways.

This is especially important to understand when marketing your law firm. If you’re trying to build brand recognition with Millennials, you better not be advertising on TV – your money is better spent on Facebook or a platform like Pandora.

Understanding your consumer doesn’t stop at just how they consume media – it goes as granular as knowing what television shows they watch, where they like to shop, and the websites they use to make decisions.

In the Network Affiliates Roundtable Discussion below, Norty Frickey, Emily Frickey, and Todd Kuhlmann discuss this idea of “Knowing Your Customer.”

After listening to the 5 minute audio file below, you will learn:

  • Why Marketing to Millenials is Different than Marketing to Boomers
  • Why Social Engagement is Critically Important for your Firm’s Brand
  • Why Review Sites are Both a Gift and a Curse for your Law Firm

Audio Transcription

A Network Affiliates Roundtable discussion

Knowing your customer

Norty: I think, more over to, given the fragmentation of media, it is even more important in today’s terms to understand who your client is. Because, they consume differently – Gen Y’s consume differently than Millennials, and Baby Boomers obviously are far different than the others. And so, we need to be more aware, and our clients need to be more aware about who their clients are, because it is getting very fragmented and we need to be very targeted in what we do and how we do it.

Emily: Well I think it kind of goes back to what you [Norty] were talking about – knowing your demographics. With Millennials now consuming, we’re kind of figuring out how they consume. We have known for a long time we’ve had this trend with baby boomers, we kind of have a pulse with baby boomers and how they consume media. But with Millennials, they’re new consumers. So we’re learning about them as this goes along, with that unknown plus the unknown of this demographic I think that ads to it a lot.

[Audio Break]

Norty: I’ll be curious to see how our clients start to value the engagement portion of what goes on through social and what goes on through a lot of things. I think at some point in time, if you had the ability to reach out and engage and create a relationship with your fan base, or with your constituents, I think that has true value. I’ll be curious to see if they [our clients] embrace that. Because, historically they’ve been so transactionally oriented that they don’t, I think, put a value on what is really very important which is when people invest in the brand, they identify with the brand, and they somehow engage with it. To me, that is a very powerful component that I don’t think any of us have really put our arms around to understand the true value of that.

[Audio Break]

Norty: I think you’re finding now that these reviews are playing a much heavier role in decision making, rather than a personal referral, because I think we’re getting so disconnected as a society in some respects that people are looking at these third party reviews as being [authoritative], and for all they know these people could be crack pots – you just don’t know. But, they [reviews] have a tremendous amount of weight in decision making and that’s why sites like Yelp and others are very popular with consumers. It, once again, I think helps validate or affirm a decision they’re about to make.

Emily: And I think it terrifies the attorneys that there is the potential of this, open form platform where people can tell them that their service wasn’t good. But, I think they need to understand that that gives them a great opportunity to fix the problem. And, that extra step, of trying to fix a problem that went wrong with – for whatever reason – it could be from intake or they just didn’t have a case that was worth taking. They have that chance to interact with them again to show that they want to fix the problem, and that shows great customer service. And, that little step goes a long way with consumers nowadays.

Todd: Ya, It’s hard to hide today. I mean you have to, really take care of your customers because there are so many channels and forums available to them that, if they consistently don’t have a good experience, you’re going to be exposed. So, it’s something not to take lightly.

Norty: Although the flip of that, it’s a great opportunity because if they have consistently great experiences, imagine the dynamic of that as you put that within there. And to Emily’s point, you’re always going to have people who are unhappy and I think it’s how you deal with that in the aftermath and making sure you give them their voice, and you treat them with respect, and make sure they’re heard. So, as scary as it is on one hand, it really creates a great opportunity on the other.

I think it’s understanding the way people consume and how they consume, it’s very different today. But the idea of, people turning to some forum to help them make a guess on what is a blind purchase to them – because many of them don’t know whether they’re a good lawyer or a bad lawyer – it’s not visible or apparent. So, I think these kinds of tools make it easier for people to make decisions regarding lawyers.

Do Your Intake Phone Calls Sound Like This?

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If you’re like most law firms, you’re already spending thousands of dollars to generate leads. Ultimately, the goal is to turn as many of those phone calls into real, paying cases – right?

If that’s the goal, then you can’t afford to let any leads fall through the cracks of a broken intake system.

We won’t insinuate that every legal practice has a poor intake process. Some work just fine. However, whether you think your lead conversion processes beats the competition, or is in serious need of an overhaul, it’s always a good idea to consider conducting an intake audit.

So today, we challenge you to start auditing your own intake process by being a secret shopper at your law firm. Call your leads line as if you were a customer.

Don’t think it’s a big deal? Think again. Below is an example of what your intake calls could sound like if you don’t take the time to care about your processes. Just imagine if you were in this person’s shoes, how would you feel?

Listen: A Bad Intake Call Example

Pretty bad right? How many cases you could be losing due to poor intake performance like the call above.

The goal of conducting an intake audit is to first identify areas of weaknesses, then create a plan to fix the problem. We know first hand that law firms that take the time to regularly audit their intake processes have teams that perform better and consistently close more cases. After all, your firm only gets one chance to make a first impression.

Contrast the above call with the one below, which would you rather experience as a customer?

Listen: A Good Intake Call Example

If all of your intake calls went like that, you could rest easy knowing your team is always putting its best foot forward.

Playing ‘Secret Shopper’ at your Law Firm

One of the most helpful ways to understand just how your intake system works—what messages you’re relaying, how you’re qualifying cases and how fast you’re responding to inquires—is to play “secret shopper.” That is, posing as a potential client in order to evaluate the quality of customer service. And that starts with calling your own leads line. We recommend this type of audit so you can hear for yourself how well (or how poorly) your intake team performs.

To really gather the information you need to make an informed decision about what procedures seem right and what might be surprisingly off, make sure to walk through the whole process, from the first phone call to follow-up communication. Better yet, call a few times over the course of a couple of weeks to gauge the consistency of your intake protocol. You could charge several lawyers with playing secret shopper as well and then compare notes. Broader perspectives can lead to some insightful conclusions.

Here are some tips for your first secret-shopper mission:

  1. Don’t take your ego with you. If something sounds wrong, don’t try to explain it away to protect your own law firm or the brand you’ve worked hard to build. Look at intake objectively—and move on to fixing it.
  2. Put yourself in your clients’ shoes. On this call, you’re not an attorney. For this purpose, you’re an everyday guy or gal with a real problem that you need an answer to.
  3. Engage thoroughly and open-mindedly in the consumer experience. Then, make a pros (remember, those are important too) and cons list of what stood out during the intake calls. Regroup with other in-house secret shoppers and compare notes.

Making an Intake Action Plan

After an internal audit of your lead-conversion process, start to group big ideas together to create an action plan to update or overhaul your intake process. Be mindful of making sure you cover all the pieces that are critical to turning borderline calls into cases, referring out when appropriate and staying in touch with clients who could easily bring your firm a future case.

Here are a few questions for focusing your action plan:

  • Did an attorney, paralegal or legal secretary pick up and greet me in a friendly manner when I called? If not, how long did it take to get a return call?
  • What was intake specialist’s tone of voice and what was my initial gut reaction to it?
  • Did he or she seem knowledgeable and appropriately authoritative?
  • Did the intake specialist acknowledge my problem and make me feel heard?
  • Was my case carefully and concisely screened in a way that felt complete, yet not overly detailed or taxing?
  • Did I get a sense of what the firm specialized in or what made them stand out from other area lawyers?
  • Did the intake specialists inquire about how I heard about the firm or why I decided to call?
  • Where next steps in the process to vet my case clearly explained? Did I get off the call knowing what to do?

Use these secret shopper insights to craft a better checklist for your intake staff members. Put into place, or re-emphasize in writing, an easily accessible document that’s regularly updated. This document should include: the appropriate step-by-step intake protocol, the tone of voice to be used, the speed of follow-up communication, the client data to be recorded, and entry for future marketing purposes.

Finally, empower your intake team not only follow new rules, but to take the initiative to speak up if they have an intake-related suggestion going forward. You’d be surprised what they might reveal, knowing a secret shopper could be checking in at any time.

In fact, we suggest that you let your intake team to take ownership of the process and take stock of what’s working and what’s not on a quarterly basis. That way one of your biggest potential revenue generators never runs out of earning power.

Legal Television Creative That Produces Results

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It’s not a stretch to group 95% of all legal commercials aired today in the same category: “It’s all about me.” Too often we see TV ads—even from some of largest firms spending the most money in a given market—that focus almost exclusively on the lawyer or law firm.

Want your legal advertising to stand out among the crowd? Get out of the 95% and into the 5%.

Some of the most successful campaigns in the legal space today flip the egocentric “It’s all about me” ads of the past completely upside down – focusing instead on the victim.

An Animated Ad Twist


The animated commercial below is a prime example of how we helped one firm shift from a message lost in the masses to a new asset that places them solidly in that golden 5%.

These clever and creative commercials thoughtfully reposition real-life legal dilemmas through emotional scenarios that immediately connect with victims. Not only do these impactful “it’s all about you” ads drive new leads and phone calls, they also take the pressure off lawyers to squeeze an entire “biography” into a 30- or 60-second commercial.

It works because viewers are caught off guard. They’re used to tuning out serious legal ads that misuse shock value and scare tactics while also missing an opportunity to talk directly to victims about real problems. This animated ad grabs attention through entertaining visuals and an engaging voiceover while ultimately positioning the law firm as a viable ally when dealing with cynicism and questions about insurance companies.

This is just one example of an ad that’s cutting through the clutter. There are endless ways a marketing and advertising firm can help spin your message away from your lawyers—and toward your potential clients. However all of these modern twists on legal advertising have three essential elements in common:

The 3 Essential Elements of Legal Advertising

1. They are born out of research.

The smartest advertising commercials and campaigns in the legal marketplace today are positioned squarely against the competition. These ads stand out not only because of their victim-positioned messaging, but because they’re saying something differently than every other law firm in the region.

You can’t prove your new creative will work unless you’ve surveyed what commercials are already playing in your market, which firms are using what messaging and how the current leaders are making their mark. The most effectual contemporary ads are the most deeply researched.

2. The production stands out.

Whether your advertising firm is helping you design fresh, eye-catching animation, setting up live action in a studio or onsite, or choosing believable talent that will authenticate your message, stay focused on production.

Don’t get so blindside by crafty creative that you skimp on how that commercial is produced—and therefore viewed and digested by your target audiences. Remember, television is a predominately visual medium. Commercials that create a buzz are the ones that trigger a psychological reaction in a crisp, clear and graphic way.

3. They ask for what they want.

Traditional legal ads might tell a whole story about a law practice’s background, big settlements and go-getting lawyers. But often they leave the viewer in the lurch about connecting all the dots: “Oh, they’re a big, proven firm so I should call them about my legal issue.” While it might sound like an intuitive conclusion, this is simply too much of a jump for a passive viewing audience.

Victims watching TV need direct, engaging and authoritative messages that quickly tap into a problem they’re wresting with right now—and need to solve fast. The most productive ads simply ask for what they want—and what they want a victim to do—through a compelling story line and a complementary call to action.

7 Reasons You Must Invest In Your Law Firm’s Website

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Does the website matter anymore? Do people still use, or even care about, websites? With the proliferation of social platforms and mobile obsessions, these are legitimate questions.

The short answer is an emphatic “Yes” to both.

And in the legal world, the website is still one of the most important segments of your owned media dominion. The reason?

Control.

Your website is under complete control of your law firm – everything from the look and feel to the messaging and the content.

The most effective sites today are living and breathing communication hubs that exist as a central brand platform and conversion point. And, not coincidentally, they cost more to create. However, you’ll see the value of that investment comes back 7-fold—and more.

Think of your website as your law firm’s:

  • Digital Storefront
  • Brand Building Block
  • 24/7/365 Employee
  • First Impression Maker
  • Lead Generating Machine
  • Information Hub
  • Thought Leadership Platform

It’s Your Digital Storefront

Let’s start with the basics. When someone is searching for a law firm in relation to a location or specific type of legal case, you want your law firm’s website to come up, right? Online leads are still prized by your business, correct?

Without a modern, highly optimized website filled with original content and all the organic search triggers Google loves, you are undiscoverable to the majority of potential clients who begin a legal search online.

In the digital “mall” of lawyers, your storefront didn’t get a corner spot. If your website is not updated, positioned and tracked for performance, it’s like you don’t exist. And that’s no way to win cases.

It’s Your Brand Building Block

Creating consistency in your legal brand—your signature selling points—is critical to your reputation. Whether potential clients understand it or not, they are looking for a dependable set of messages that prove your firm reliable, trustworthy and the best firm for their specific case.

Your website is that one quality-controlled digital presence, integrated with other owned-media channels, that users can count on. Unlike a social platform, where in effect you “rent” the message space, on your website you control the entire experience. You can give visitors everything they need to know to make an informed decision about your practice.

It’s Your First Impression Maker

The Web is the first place people go for information. Because it’s easy, and because you can poke around for facts and figures without ever having to talk to someone. So when someone searches Google for a law firm in your state, and your website pops up, that might be your first (and only) chance to impress them.

If your site looks shoddy, doesn’t have enough information, can’t be viewed across different browsers and devices, and doesn’t allow people to connect when they’re ready to reach out, you might have lost a chance at a highly lucrative case… and not even know it.

It’s Your 24/7/365 Employee

In the old days, the look and feel of a law office was mission critical. People strolling past might come in for a chat. Most initial meetings took place in person. Today, the reception desk has moved online. When people come to your web “office,” you need to have an official “receptionist” ready to meet and greet in the most professional and courteous way possible in the digital space.

In fact, you might consider your website your hardest working employee. It’s on the job 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Why wouldn’t you invest in a tool that welcomes new clients and sets expectations—and appointments—helping you convert window shoppers to paying customers?

It’s Your Lead Generating Machine

When connected in all the crucial ways to your online audiences, websites are lead-generating machines. Ads and email campaigns send people directly to your site; your database can be linked to your site and mined for targeted marketing strategies, and your live chat or digital points of contact create another lifeline for clients.

Your website is the nucleus of your Internet intake strategy, and it must generate leads – in the form of phone calls, contact forms, live chats, or even social follows.

It’s Your Information Hub

Once people get to your law firm’s website, either through a search or through a digital ad campaign, they need enough well organized and clearly presented information to make an educated decision about whether or not your firm can help their specific situation.

Your website is a concentrated storehouse of real-time information—firm facts, brand boasts, actionable intelligence, video assets, news, linked reviews, and more. It’s where people will go, and perhaps return, to learn more or to contact you.

It’s Your Thought Leadership Platform

For the set of potential clients, partners or other interested parties who want to dig deeper or validate your legal expertise, your website is a platform for demonstrating thought leadership and positioning your firm as a knowledgeable go-to resource.

There are endless opportunities to show your legal capabilities through regular blog contributions from your legal experts, informative videos set in your office environment, through white papers on specific legal topics, and as an online guide to more information.

By leveraging your website—and your brand—as an intelligence tool, you build a reputation as a trusted source and industry thought leader. And if you don’t invest in your website, you’ll lose out on an untold number of potentially high-value cases.

Add to Your Bottom Line by Focusing on Call Intake

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Intake and conversion are two words regularly tied together in the legal marketing world. But how about owned media? These days, the marketing messages you own and control deserve to be a much bigger part of intake anatomy and the conversion conversation.

Let’s start with a quick recap of a point that can’t be clarified enough: Owned media is all the branding and marketing messages your law firm creates and delivers through channels you own. The most obvious of these are your website, social media properties, blog, mobile applications, etc. The goal is to have all owned messaging be consistent and complementary. For example, you might take an advertising campaign and deliver key elements of that ad in the right context for the right platform.

But what if we extend that owned media mindset to assets specifically designed to handle intake and conversion? We won’t go as far as to suggest that an intake employee or call center is just another “platform,” but if you give these human extensions of your brand the same kind of value you place on your carefully controlled media, you might just buy your law firm some new cases.

So we have people and we have platforms. And ultimately your law firm is in charge of how your brand, message, and image is conveyed at all points. If you want to compete, you must make all of these “touch points” finely tuned intake and conversion machines.

Intake initiatives for owned media

Quiz yourself about your own firm’s tactics while considering a few common scenarios:

  1. You’ve spent much of your marketing budget on a classy TV advertisement. It appears to be working—it’s making the phone ring.
  2. You’ve built in several easy ways for potential clients to reach you through live chat on your website or with clear calls to action on your direct mail campaigns.
    • What happens after the initial connection?
    • Do you follow up quickly and regularly to get that case?
  3. By old-fashioned word of mouth, you’ve been referred to a person with what on the surface sounds like a solid case.
    • How thoroughly do you qualify that potential client to rule out (or in) any possible ways you can legally assist this person?
    • How quickly do you follow that lead over the phone or via email?

All three of these intake-related scenarios touch on what’s in your control. You alone have jurisdiction over how your brand message is positioned and delivered through your owned media. Are you sending out the right messages but not consistently following up with those who have actually received the message? Are you appropriately meeting expectations when your ad campaigns work and people pick up the phone for legal advice?

Controlling each intake platform and person is a matter of strategy. It requires sitting down and looking at each piece and determining if it is fulfilling its role. Some other questions to consider are:

  • Do you have a policy for how quickly calls are returned?
  • Does the tone of your owned-media content match that of your call specialists?
  • Do people report a disconnect between online and offline experiences?
  • Do you track where each lead comes from and how many actually convert to cases?

Conversion considerations for owned media

When it comes to converting a call to a case, it always comes down to numbers. What did your last advertising campaign cost? What did you spend to make your website a leads task-master? What kind of time and resources do you spend on keeping up a cutting-edge social media mix?

Weigh those costs—the ones you pay to get your message out there—against what you put into truly converting leads into legitimate paying cases. Usually, and unfortunately, the latter loses out. In fact, most lawyers only convert around 20% of leads to paying cases.

Consider what your law firm could see in profit potential if you converted a minuscule 5% more of those calls to cases. Here’s a scenario: Your firm generates 100 leads per month and each costs an average of $200. That’s $20,000 out of pocket. You win 20% of those cases (with an average of $10,000 per case, for example). That’s 20 cases and $200,000 in gross annual fees back on the docket.

Now imagine if you converted 25 cases the next month. That’s an extra $50,000 and a cool $3 million gross annual fees for the year. Makes your leads and advertising investment a little easier to swallow, right? The mathematical equation is simply a way to quantify the importance of conversion for business success.

How you convert on owned media is no less logical, but a lot more tactical. The best conversion strategies hone in on what happens after a lead comes in the door, the website or over the phone. You can—and should—own that process, too. Here are a few conversion tactics for helping your people maximize hot and cold leads each month:

Scripts: Do your intake specialists or call center folks need them or want them? If so, how do you ensure they’re using scripts conversationally and in such a way that supports your entire brand message?

Staffing: Do you have the right intake staff in place already or do you need to consider hiring, firing or re-training? Are you tracking calls and which specialists are converting the most calls to cases? How about which tones of voice and speeds of delivery have worked best in the past?

Empowerment: Have you given your intake specialists all the tools they need to help achieve the best first impression possible—and to be a human hand of your brand and consistent with all the owned media you’ve worked so hard to control? Do they feel valued for the important work they do? Do you recognize and incentivize them? Are they empowered to make suggestions and improvements?

When it comes to looking at intake and conversion from an owned media standpoint, don’t stop at a website or a social media campaign. Consider how both your platforms—and your people—can be equally powerful at reinforcing your marketing messages and securing lucrative new business.

Intelligent Display: What it is, and Why Lawyers Should Care

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Years ago, digital display advertising was about placing ads on websites where we assumed our target audience was spending time online. Generally, this “educated guess” or shotgun like approach would deliver hit or miss results that were difficult to track and hard to prove a positive return on investment.

All of that has changed with the creation of intelligent display advertising technology. This revolution in how online display advertisements are generated, served, and tracked has revived display advertising as a cost efficient form of paid media – especially for law firms looking for a leg up in the highly competitive legal advertising space.

What is ‘intelligent’ display advertising?

Intelligent display advertising is paid media in which a marketing or advertising agency strategically disseminates your advertising message in the digital space. It leverages innovative technology to create the most effective ad—in real-time.

Specialized tools curate dynamic data to combine the right mix of your law firm’s library of core ad components—logo, tagline, visual assets, key calls to action, etc.—to assemble the most relevant ad for where your target audiences land on the Web.

Rather than relying on one static, pre-designed display advertisement for several outlets, intelligent display ads are constructed around algorithms that survey things like past performance of different ads, top-performing traffic sources, website content, language, time of day and geographic location.

All that means is that really “smart” technology can take your online advertising from a nebulous presence on the Web to a more data-driven, precise and flexible campaign.

How does ‘intelligent’ display advertising work?

Today, display advertising is almost entirely data-driven. It’s all about actionable information that makes media buying make sense.

By design, intelligent display advertising tools use live data to create a competitive advantage. So your digital media planner now has access to statistics and analytics on all kinds of information like:

  • where other law firms are placing ads—and getting results
  • what types of banner advertising (size, design, location) the competition is using
  • the length of time these campaigns are running—and on what specific landing pages they’re appearing

Based on this knowledge, your law firm might work with an agency to cleverly “mimic” effective creative elements; conversely, you might want to avoid placements where your ad would appear directly next to the competition. All of this data can be extracted based on specific criteria that your firm and digital media expert deem most worthy.

The second part of intelligent display advertising is tracking your progress:

  • looking at where those “smart” ads ultimately end up
  • measuring how many people actually saw them
  • analyzing what the true conversion rates were

In turn, this data helps your digital media buyer determine the most cost-effective ad buy going forward. Plus, as research and tracking tools continue to evolve, over time it will become easier to prove the return on investment for digital display campaigns.

Ensuring your ads are being served in front of the right person at the right time will go a long ways towards that last point.

Why should my law firm add or shift to intelligent display advertising?

Well, because you still need to be where the modern world—and potential clients—are: online, 24/7. Advertising on the Web, while it may have lost its way for a number of years, is back and more effective than ever. This dynamic medium will let you test new creative and messaging—even course-correct, almost overnight.

Intelligent display advertising must be part of any marketing strategy because no one, and we’d argue especially lawyers, like to gamble when it comes to ad buys. No savvy business would risk money on a best “guesstimate” about where to place online ads over a data-backed, intelligently informed strategy. And no attorney should overlook a technology, now deployable from the agency level, that’s designed to help guarantee better results from a display ad campaign.

Just like our phones have gotten smarter, Internet display advertising is now way more intelligent than we are. That’s a good thing. And, with integrated analytics and evolving algorithms, placing and tracking online ads has gotten more sophisticated over the years.

In many ways, that means the decision to spend money on these highly targeted, real-time ads is simpler than ever.

The Three Keys to Successful Legal Commercials

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In an aggressively competitive atmosphere like the legal industry, attorneys need to leverage everything in their power to stand out from the pack. And a TV commercial—made by a third party laser-focused on production—is still one of the most dominant and far-reaching forms of paid media to do just that.

Reaching a big, broad audience, however, is not enough these days. To distinguish your law firm, your message must be the opposite: narrow and differentiated. Your strategy must be precise and data-driven. And your TV advertising must be thoughtfully and consistently integrated with other attentively supported marketing platforms.

Today top-quality TV production is not just about attorneys looking good on the screen. That’s no longer enough to make an impact, to stand out or to be remembered. Pushing through crowded airwaves, contemporary TV commercial production requires:

  • a careful balance of smart, singular creative
  • pinpointed, long-term strategy
  • scheduled, multi-platform integration

Staying top of mind is, well, just a little more complicated these days. To get a better handle on how much TV production has changed, it’s helpful to break it down into three tactics.

Creative: Make sure your TV commercial is different—in the right ways.

We’re all familiar with “talking head” TV commercials. The stiff and staged client testimonials. The overly dramatic reenactments set to disjointed music. Over time, response tracking has shown that these types of legal commercials just don’t work. You can’t get away with cutting corners when it comes to television advertising.

The most effective creative starts with a strong, individualized message, backed up with high-quality sound, talent and editing. While there are plenty of “magic bullets” waiting to come to fruition, uncovering a creative message that will help your law firm stand out on screen starts with knowing who you are.

  • Can you articulate your top three points of differentiation as a legal team?
  • What makes your firm the most unique choice in your legal market?
  • Going head-to-head with the competition, why would a client choose you?
  • Speaking of those clients, what are your three biggest audience “buckets”?

Knowing your audience and capitalizing on exclusive brand attributes is the fastest path to standing out in a space cluttered with noise. How you get there can take many exciting forms, and that’s why it pays to work with a qualified creative team.

Your next commercial could be a clever spot that’s uncharacteristically funny and catches viewers off guard—in a memorable way. Or a real-life incident cinematically slowed down to an emotional moment that connects with an audience, lingering and linking undeniably back to your law firm’s brand.

A smart, savvy TV production team will only help craft a message that emphasizes your distinct legal brand, but will make sure that message is designed for TV, with the right actors, music, lighting and editing features to ensure your firm looks and sounds “different,” in the right ways.

Strategy: Determine where and when to place your quality TV commercial

Once you’ve nailed brilliant creative and produced a high-quality TV commercial, don’t let a beautiful commercial woo you into overlooking where and when to place the spot to reach the largest and most targeted audiences.

Again, this is not an effort law firms can tackle alone. Placing commercials on TV today requires serious strategy—mostly likely more than your office has on its radar. It’s best left to legal media-buying experts who know your specialized industry, competition and market, not to mention helpful ways to bring added value to a TV campaign—and giving you more bang for your buck.

Here are just a few of the ways the best legal TV commercials end up being viewed by the right audiences, at the right time.

  • Top media teams research the tastes and habits of your specific client base and build a media plan to match them
  • Expert media buyers help your firm determine appropriate levels of spending and whether to focus commercials around certain events, seasons or other factors related to your legal brand
  • Dedicated TV media consultants have access to industry research, data and tools that can uncover everything from how a competitor’s commercial performed in the same market, to what airtime slots will best suit your business and maximize your ad dollars

Integration: Ensure a consistent, complementary message across platforms

One of the biggest changes in producing effective quality TV commercials is integrating them properly with other marketing channels, using each avenue to strategically reinforce your brand. Attorneys can’t just create an A+ ad and send it into the netherworld.

Today everything is connected. People have more touch points than ever. It’s all on 24/7. And because of that, clients often aren’t even aware of where they’ve interacted with different legal brands.

Ask that question on your next client survey. Most people won’t be able to pinpoint where they remember encountering your brand, but if you are running your advertising campaign effectively, it won’t matter. Because the same message you have on TV will extend in some tangential way to your website, and coordinate with your latest email blast, and orchestrate aptly with your social media presence.

We call this critical integration “multi-platform.” That means your “paid” media (primarily TV, radio and print advertising, developed by a third-party) complement messaging and campaigns you run through your “owned” media (marketing delivered on digital channels that your law firm creates, owns and controls). To ensure these platforms are working synergistically, you’ll need to address questions like these:

  • How does your TV creative translate to your legal website, social media and other owned media?
  • Does the look and feel of your commercial creative match your owned media properties?
  • Does your larger umbrella brand positioning appear consistently in your law firm’s digital and physical assets?

Like most things in law, TV production is digested best when broken down to its most fundamental elements. While the complexity of creating effective advertising has increased, your stress as an attorney doesn’t have to. Making your mark on TV (and beyond) takes one part dynamic creative, one part smart strategy and one part intelligent integration. It all adds up, and it’s all within reach.

Ratchet Up Your Referrals

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The strongest law firms know that referrals bring in the strongest cases. Referrals score high points for conversion and case value. So why don’t attorneys spend more time on getting cases through past clients? Well, because it’s not as sexy as advertising. It’s more strategic. But having a solid referral plan in place will not only support and supplement your advertising; it can give your firm a wider network, more credibility and a steadier flow of high-quality cases for little to no upfront cost.

The truth is about 1 in every 10 clients refers a friend. That means you’ll need a stream of referral sources. That requires reaching out and staying in regular contact with clients once a case closes. However clients aren’t the only ones who can refer your firm. Referrals are really just word-of-mouth recommendations. Sometimes they come from someone who just wants to return a favor. Start to view family, friends, legal partners and out-of-industry professional peers as additional referral sources.

Staying top of mind with past clients and your network of referral sources takes a multi-pronged approach. Here are a few tips for building a referral strategy:

  • Dig through your database. This is where past clients come to life. Keeping your database as complete and up to date as possible is one of the most simple and strategic returns on investment. Make sure your intake staff uses it to gather and track all relevant information about clients and you’ll be sitting on a marketing goldmine.
  • Reach out regularly. The only way to become the go-to law firm in your niche is to communicate regularly with clients and referral sources through print and digital tools. Test a newsletter or response from an email or direct mail campaign with a tactical call to action for each audience. Even consider personalized communication like birthday, thank you or holiday cards.
  • Open your access. While not all social media is appropriate for attorneys, several platforms are ideal for positioning your firm as an influencer and opening the lines of communication. Whether you leverage LinkedIn or Facebook, for example, you are giving referral sources one more access point and, ultimately, one more easy way to pass your attorneys’ names name along.

Sometimes referrals come from the person and the place we least expect it. By opening more channels of communication more regularly you’ll increase your firm’s odds of capturing the most lucrative leads. Remember, when a case closes the referral door opens. Start to build long-term success by building long-term relationships.

 

Worst, and Best, Legal TV Ads: Watch Now

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Today we’ve lined up two spots that Network Affiliates has produced for our clients. We’d like you to take a look at these and then jot down a two-column list of what elements were effective and ineffective in these commercials.

As you watch the videos, consider the following questions:

  1. What was my gut reaction? Did I feel the message was amateur, cheesy, condescending, complex, etc.?
  2. How clear was the overall message?
  3. Could I remember the name or phone number of the law firm?
  4. What sounds and images stuck in my mind the most?
  5. What were a few things that made certain firms stand out from the rest?
First up is this commercial we produced for the Mani, Ellis & Layne Called “Shattered.” Nearly a year in the making, “Shattered” is a testament to where a big idea can take lawyers who are willing to do the due diligence. After you view it, jot down a short list of what you liked (or didn’t like) about the ad, and why you think it was (or wasn’t) effective.

 

Shattered:

Next, take a look at this commercial we produced for Brown & Crouppen. We think you’ll see that this is a legal ad that works for a variety of reasons. Again, after you view it, jot down a short list of what you liked (or didn’t like) about the ad, and why you think it was (or wasn’t) effective.

 

Brown & Crouppen Spot:

Done watching? Before we give you our reasoning, see if you can pinpoint the No. 1 reason why these two ads have been so successful in today’s marketplace.

Here’s our take:

“I think the biggest thing missing from [typical legal ads] is a story. Most are centered around the lawyer or law firm: how good they are, their experience, the results they get, their awards. Rarely do legal ads engage viewers with emotion and storytelling. . . Of course the law firm is the answer, but we don’t spend 30 seconds saying that. There are enough lawyers talking to the camera, standing in front of bookcases. What resonates and becomes memorable are commercials that engage the viewer on an emotional level.”

– Jeff Feierstein, Vice President Production Services for Network Affiliates.

Thinking about your next commercial? See how Network Affiliates can help you can take it to the next level.