Finding room for marketing in your firm’s budget is a challenge. Even if you’ve set aside money for marketing, you might think working with a professional agency will be out of reach.
Fortunately, many firms find that working with an agency is affordable. Additionally, they realize that the time they save outsourcing their marketing efforts frees up time to focus on clients.
In the end, it costs them less to work with a law firm marketing agency than handle their marketing on their own.
Perhaps the question is better stated as “can you afford NOT to work with a law firm marketing agency?” The amount of money, time, and frustration you’ll save turning over your firm’s marketing to an agency is well worth the investment.
What You Should Know Before Hiring a Law Firm Marketing Agency
If you’ve never worked with a marketing agency before, the prospect of finding and hiring an agency can seem overwhelming. When shopping for a law firm marketing agency, consider the following:
Experience
Working with an agency with experience is essential. But in addition to marketing experience in general, you’ll want to hire an agency familiar with legal marketing. Especially online legal marketing.
Lawyers must follow special marketing guidelines. Things that are legal for many businesses aren’t permitted in the legal industry. Working with an agency that understands the ethical restrictions and knows how to build a successful marketing campaign without violating any of those restrictions is an important part of your success.
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Client Reviews
Learning what a firm’s clients have to say about their products and services reveals a great deal about whether or not you’d want to work with them.
Once you’ve narrowed down your selection of marketing agencies of interest to you, set aside some time to read their reviews. Reviews alone shouldn’t cement your decision, but they should be a significant part of it. Established, successful agencies have feedback and reviews that are more positive than negative and that don’t show any patterns of missteps. Nobody is perfect, but you won’t notice any red flags with reliable companies.
Demonstrated Knowledge
Any firm can say they’re familiar with marketing within the legal industry. Many might even have some experience doing it. However, if it’s only a small percentage of their overall body of work, chances are they aren’t experts.
You want to work with a marketing agency that specializes in legal marketing. They must demonstrate their familiarity with the industry. Their client portfolio should include lawyers and other clients within the legal industry. Their content should focus on law firm marketing. And they should be able to speak knowledgeably about growing a legal practice.
Most agencies working with law firms highlight their experience via blog posts and articles. They share information about best marketing practices in the legal industry and are viewed as an authority in the legal marketing field.
Before hiring an agency, peruse their website to see what they offer in terms of legal marketing content that demonstrates their expertise.
Proof of Success
Marketing agencies should offer actionable marketing plans that are supported by results. Many agencies provide clients with data regarding the success of their strategies. In addition to the obvious signs of successful marketing – more client inquiries – you’ll have data that shows you the money you’re investing in marketing is working.
Most agencies collect a wide range of data that help you evaluate past and current strategies. This makes it easier to plan future marketing endeavors. Data provided might include:
- Target market information
- Competitor analysis
- Social media analytics
- Client activity online
- Keyword analysis
These are just a few of the data points you can use to improve your marketing efforts in the future.
Schedule a Consultation to Discuss Working with a Law Firm Marketing Agency
Law firm marketing is an ever-changing industry. Keeping up with the various developments is a full-time job. If you’re struggling to keep up or it’s a part of operating a law firm that you don’t enjoy, we can help.
To learn more about what Legal Web Design can do to help you grow your firm or to schedule a consultation to discuss your firm’s marketing needs, give us a call.
