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Law firms like many other businesses often make a very expensive mistake when it comes to marketing law with PPC. Firms are competing in a very competitive market place where one client can be worth thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars. With that kind of money at stake, there is a lot to gain or lose. Is there anything the can give your firm the edge?
Yes! All you have to do is be better than everyone else. Or higher someone who is better than everyone else to do it for you. Most law firms do there online marketing for themselves. Usually someone in the office mention Pay Per Click or google and the next thing you know the firm is pouring money down the adsense drain. Here is why.
Would you ever even consider telling a client to represent themselves in a court of law? Of course not. Forget about the fact the your law firm would not get paid and focus simply on the fact that they do not know what they are doing. When they go up against an experienced prosecutor, they do not stand a chance. Even a Neurosurgeon, as smart as they are, does not have the necessary skills or experience to compete in the at realm.
If by now you have not figured out what I am trying to tell you, here it is. Let a specialist manage your online marketing! The reason why is that it works. Some people devote years to becoming masters at PPC. That is all they do. This makes them much better at it than you. The industry standard is to charge 15% of your budget, and a hourly rate for set up and management. This isn't how it is always done, but it gives you a starting point.
Is it worth 15% You bet. If you get a good firm, the increased effectiveness in your campaign could easily double, if not triple. They know how to make your campaign larger, more targeted, and more effective on the same budget. They can even get the people that see your ads who are not potential clients to not click them and cost you money.
This results in several effects. The most important effect is that you will decrease your cost per conversion. Cost per conversion is the amount of money it costs you to get whatever you determine is the metric to use. If it is a contact form you are after, than that is the conversion. If it is the sale of a traffic ticket defense package, then that is your conversion. It can be lowered in two ways, less cost per click, or better targeted click. Imagine if you will that you had a marketing budget of $4000 for the month. If you could get 50 leads out of that your cost per lead is $40. If if you could get 100 leads with the same marketing budget, your cost per lead drops to $20.
The implications of this is that your can pay more for your clicks if you have to. Up to double what you would have paid before and still have the same or better results. You may even be able to increase the advertising budget because of its effectiveness. We have comprised a list of several of the most important factors that effect PPC campaigns.
Optimizing your landing pages for the keywords you are targeting is extremely important. If you are targeting clients for emergency room malpractice, you want to point them to a page on your site specifically about malpractice law and not your main page. The more specific and relevant you can get the page the better.
Success is all about the testing. Few campaigns are profitable right out of the gate. The key is test every variable. Test dozens of ad variations, test small groups of keywords individually. Keep the best performer through out the others, and test the best performer against a new set of ads.
Analytics makes or breaks the campaign. You cant test properly without a solid analytics program. Without great analytics you cannot tell which words are converting to the desired result, and which ones are eating you budget.
Keyword research is essential to let you know several things. What your target market is searching for, how much it will cost, and what the commercial intent is of each keyword. You want to go after the people that are in action mode, not research mode. It will save you from expensive clicks from a 15 year old student researching class action lawsuit.
Yes! All you have to do is be better than everyone else. Or higher someone who is better than everyone else to do it for you. Most law firms do there online marketing for themselves. Usually someone in the office mention Pay Per Click or google and the next thing you know the firm is pouring money down the adsense drain. Here is why.
Would you ever even consider telling a client to represent themselves in a court of law? Of course not. Forget about the fact the your law firm would not get paid and focus simply on the fact that they do not know what they are doing. When they go up against an experienced prosecutor, they do not stand a chance. Even a Neurosurgeon, as smart as they are, does not have the necessary skills or experience to compete in the at realm.
If by now you have not figured out what I am trying to tell you, here it is. Let a specialist manage your online marketing! The reason why is that it works. Some people devote years to becoming masters at PPC. That is all they do. This makes them much better at it than you. The industry standard is to charge 15% of your budget, and a hourly rate for set up and management. This isn't how it is always done, but it gives you a starting point.
Is it worth 15% You bet. If you get a good firm, the increased effectiveness in your campaign could easily double, if not triple. They know how to make your campaign larger, more targeted, and more effective on the same budget. They can even get the people that see your ads who are not potential clients to not click them and cost you money.
This results in several effects. The most important effect is that you will decrease your cost per conversion. Cost per conversion is the amount of money it costs you to get whatever you determine is the metric to use. If it is a contact form you are after, than that is the conversion. If it is the sale of a traffic ticket defense package, then that is your conversion. It can be lowered in two ways, less cost per click, or better targeted click. Imagine if you will that you had a marketing budget of $4000 for the month. If you could get 50 leads out of that your cost per lead is $40. If if you could get 100 leads with the same marketing budget, your cost per lead drops to $20.
The implications of this is that your can pay more for your clicks if you have to. Up to double what you would have paid before and still have the same or better results. You may even be able to increase the advertising budget because of its effectiveness. We have comprised a list of several of the most important factors that effect PPC campaigns.
Optimizing your landing pages for the keywords you are targeting is extremely important. If you are targeting clients for emergency room malpractice, you want to point them to a page on your site specifically about malpractice law and not your main page. The more specific and relevant you can get the page the better.
Success is all about the testing. Few campaigns are profitable right out of the gate. The key is test every variable. Test dozens of ad variations, test small groups of keywords individually. Keep the best performer through out the others, and test the best performer against a new set of ads.
Analytics makes or breaks the campaign. You cant test properly without a solid analytics program. Without great analytics you cannot tell which words are converting to the desired result, and which ones are eating you budget.
Keyword research is essential to let you know several things. What your target market is searching for, how much it will cost, and what the commercial intent is of each keyword. You want to go after the people that are in action mode, not research mode. It will save you from expensive clicks from a 15 year old student researching class action lawsuit.
