A surgical approach to placing TV ad dollars. Why a creative, flexible strategy pays off in television legal advertising.
Evaluate your legal TV advertising spend and pretend you’re a doctor instead of an attorney. Why? Because a precise, surgical approach to placing your law firm television advertising in the right market at the right time will more than pay off in ROI.
It used to be that daytime ruled the airwaves. That time frame best maximized ad spends, because people were tuned in—something that agencies marketing for attorneys could track and demonstrate to clients in ROI-based results. However, times have changed, and daytime TV has become an overcrowded space for law firms. Especially in highly competitive markets, too many attorneys are targeting the same audience over and over, leaving little room for law firms to truly distinguish themselves from the competition – and find new audiences or clients!
The smartest, most calculated approach in the saturated law firm TV advertising market is simply to get more creative with ad placement time slots. For example, Network Affiliates’ skilled media strategists regularly help lawyers test targeted ad campaigns during off-peak hours, such as early in the morning, during the late news and on surprisingly popular Sunday nights. Some of these ad buys even come with free overnights. Are you getting yours? This methodology does require some trial and error, but then again, you’re lawyers—and you’re used to that, right? Often law firms find that their legal marketing message is better received and calls come in quicker as they move away from the daytime advertising swarms and focus on singular calls to action during specific times when a group of viewers is intently tuned into TV.
Here are the three general rules of thumb to follow to ensure you are getting the most out of your television advertising.
Step 1
The first step in choosing an ideal advertising time slot is surveying the competition. If equipped with the right (and expensive!) software, your advertising agency can pull this type of competitive analysis to help you make a smart and strategic plan of action for advertising placement. Not all agencies have access to the tracking tools and applications that show the length of ads, purchased time slots and every single one of your direct competitors’ commercials. However, that kind of big data can lead to big payoffs in terms of ROI. You might think of it like a game of chess: You’ve got to see the whole board to outwit your opponent and get one move ahead.
Step 2
The second part of strategic attorney television advertising placement is asking for what you want. And not just in your creative campaign. Your ad placement professional should know what questions to ask and how to negotiate a better ad buy to get your law firm more for its hard-earned money. We call that value! Television stations have all kinds of negotiating options up their sleeve, and only a few legal ad buyers know how to get the greatest added value for every ad placed.
Step 3
Lastly, to ensure that your targeted creative message, pinpointed time slot and added-value bonuses are actually paying off, you must track your advertising effectiveness—and adjust if necessary. The most successful attorney marketing strategies are nimble, aggressively monitored campaigns. Your agency must be meticulously tracking and openly reporting to your law firm on the success—and even failures—of ad placements. Adjusting and fine-tuning is just part of the process, an activity that your firm should be fully involved in.
Wondering how effective your ad strategy is? Why not call for a free, confidential consultation of your law firm’s TV advertising. 303-817-7313.