Unlock the secrets to constructing a powerful Internet marketing plan for your law firm. In this episode, I dissect the intricacies of your law firm's performance, breaking down everything from monthly revenue to the nuts and bolts of new case acquisition. Get your hands on our invaluable worksheet - a tool that translates lofty annual goals into manageable monthly milestones, while keeping a keen eye on the average fees and number of cases necessary for success.
This episode is a masterclass in strategic growth, blending your firm's mission, vision, and values with actionable insights. Discover how to captivate leads with a combination of organic SEO, content marketing, and an unshakable email database, then seamlessly convert them into clients with a website that's as persuasive as it is beautiful. I'll walk you through optimizing your firm's trajectory with savvy advertising strategies, raising average fees, and streamlining your sales processes. Whether you're eager to enhance your website's functionality or simply craving examples of successful law firm marketing practices, this episode offers a treasure trove of expertise to aid you on your path to a flourishing practice.
Copy and paste this link into your web browser to get the worksheets: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/19-0gFzAdnJozvsR7Js4Hl3KH0UnhU5j0/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=103132793539684697853&rtpof=true&sd=true
Unlock the secrets to constructing a powerful Internet marketing plan for your law firm. In this episode, I dissect the intricacies of your law firm's performance, breaking down everything from monthly revenue to the nuts and bolts of new case acquisition. Get your hands on our invaluable worksheet - a tool that translates lofty annual goals into manageable monthly milestones, while keeping a keen eye on the average fees and number of cases necessary for success.
This episode is a masterclass in strategic growth, blending your firm's mission, vision, and values with actionable insights. Discover how to captivate leads with a combination of organic SEO, content marketing, and an unshakable email database, then seamlessly convert them into clients with a website that's as persuasive as it is beautiful. I'll walk you through optimizing your firm's trajectory with savvy advertising strategies, raising average fees, and streamlining your sales processes. Whether you're eager to enhance your website's functionality or simply craving examples of successful law firm marketing practices, this episode offers a treasure trove of expertise to aid you on your path to a flourishing practice.
Copy and paste this link into your web browser to get the worksheets: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/19-0gFzAdnJozvsR7Js4Hl3KH0UnhU5j0/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=103132793539684697853&rtpof=true&sd=true
Hi and welcome back to the Marketing LawCast. I'm your host, jennifer Goddard, with a special episode for you today. I recently did a 90-minute masterclass on how to develop your law firm's Internet marketing plan for 2024. For today's episode, I've distilled 20 minutes of the class to make it easier for you to get to the good stuff.
Speaker 2:
Before we dive into today's episode, a special shout-out to our sponsor, QuidProQuo. Are you a law firm looking to scale or sell your practice? Qpq's expert team can help you unlock your firm's full potential. Stay tuned for valuable insights brought to you by QPQ.
Speaker 1:
So let's dive right in. Before we go too far into strategy and tools and tactics, we want to be sure that we help you guys set very clear goals for 2024. I want you to take a look at where you are today. So before we look to the future, we need a snapshot of where we are today. So take a look at what is your average monthly revenue today? What was it for 2023? Typically, in a month, how many new cases do you get? I always ask people to throw out your worst month and throw out your best month and then kind of take an average of the average months how many, typically, how many new cases do you get in a month? And then I also want you to understand what's the average fee that you charge. Sometimes people are confused about this because it's not necessarily a statistical average. I want to know on average, when people come in, what's your fee look like? How often do you get that $5,500 fee versus how often are you getting that $75 fee because you just did one little thing for people? We want to kind of see on average, what does a new client bring you in terms of revenue. We also want to see on average, what is your closing ratio. How many new people do you have to see before you get a new client? And then also, how many initial consultations are you doing in an average week, in a typical week? You need to know these things because we're going to look at where we can make improvements, where we can pull some levers to help you reach your goals. I also want you to be thinking long term. You're going to think today. You're going to be really focused on this year and what we're going to do this year, but it should be in alignment with your long term vision for your law firm. What is the annual revenue that you want to eventually achieve? How many clients does that mean for you in a year, in a month, in a week? And why is that important?
Speaker 1:
Guys, yesterday I dropped a podcast on the marketing law cast and it's all about crafting a purpose driven digital marketing plan. It's only about 20 minutes total. I really encourage you guys to go and listen to that podcast, because it'll really help you make sure that your goals, your strategic goals for this year, are in alignment with your mission and your vision and your values. So I'm not going to spend a lot of time on that today, because I've got a whole podcast on that. So I encourage you guys, if you're going to start this strategic planning process for this year, then start by listening to that podcast that just went live yesterday. You can find it, like I said, on any of the podcasting platforms or go to the official website, which is wwwmarketinglawcastcom.
Speaker 1:
The first thing we're going to do in setting our goals is look at what are our targets. When I have a worksheet, I'm going to drop out of my presentation for a minute and hop over to this worksheet and show you guys how to go through this. Okay, so here's your worksheet for your marketing planning. First, you're gonna set your revenue goal and I just put some numbers in here for examples. What's your revenue goal for the year? Now? Say it's 500,000.
Speaker 1:
This sheet will then calculate for you what your monthly target needs to be. So, with that monthly target, you also need to know what your average fee is per case. So you're gonna enter that number, what your average fee is, and then it will calculate for you how many new cases you need per month. That'll give you an idea of how you're gonna get to that number at the end of the year and how close you are to it today. Okay, so you kinda know how many cases you're getting. Now when does this number fall in line with the current situation?
Speaker 1:
Then we're gonna take another workbook in this sheet here we're gonna start getting down to how many leads you're gonna need to accomplish that goal. So that's gonna. You know we've got your annual goal. Monthly average fee how many cases? Now what's your closing rate? You're gonna need to know that and drop that into this box. What's your closing rate? That will tell you how many leads you're going to need to get the 17 cases. Okay.
Speaker 1:
Now something else you're gonna need to know is what does it cost you on average to get a call booked, in other words, to get that lead If you've got, if you're one of our clients, you should be able to see that in your Laumatics dashboard. You also may wanna sit down with your coach and ask how do I figure this? But if you know on average what is costing you to get a lead, then you know what your budget needs to be to get the number of leads that will give you your annual revenue. Now there are some levers that you can pull on this. We're gonna look at that a little bit later. But if your average fee is higher and or your closing ratio is higher, then the number of leads that you need is lower and your budget can be lower as well.
Speaker 1:
But what you wanna do now is just kind of look at where am I right now and, if nothing changes, what do I need to do to hit my revenue targets. Then we have another worksheet in here for you to help you figure out what your marketing budget should be and where it should be allocated. So let's talk about what the percentage is that you should be allocating to your marketing budget. Now I want you to allocate your marketing budget based on your target revenue, not on your current revenue, because if you do it on your current revenue, you're gonna end up at the end of the year at your current revenue. So it needs to be based as a percentage of your target revenue, which is another reason why you wanna make that target revenue realistic.
Speaker 1:
Don't just be shooting for the stars, but it should be a relatively doable number. Can be a stretch number, but it should be in the realm of possibilities, right? So, as a general rule, between five and 8% of your target revenue allocated to marketing will keep you pretty much at the status quo will keep you from falling backwards. If you wanted to be very conservative, you wouldn't be wanting to spend less than 3%, but if you have an aggressive growth target, you're gonna be looking more at 10 to 15% of your target revenue allocated to your marketing. Then you can kind of look through as you go through this training today, think about where you should be allocating those dollars online, offline, into referrals and repeat business so you can kind of start to see exactly where you should be putting your money. You can play around with these numbers and I encourage you to play around with the numbers. You're gonna have that spreadsheet. You can just kind of put different numbers in and see kind of what's gonna work for you. Then I want you to go ahead and do a marketing calendar. Now, all of these entries are just things I made up, so as you look through each one of these columns and each one of these rows, what will be your focus for each month? So if you're looking at pay-per-click email, social media, seo, like your content marketing and any workshops or webinars that you might plan, so this is a great marketing calendar for you to fill out. After you've kind of gone through today's webinar, you can see what tools and strategies are available to you. Then you can start filling out this calendar. That's the worksheet that I have there for you guys.
Speaker 1:
Are you a busy lawyer or law firm owner hesitating to take the plunge into buy, sell or coaching services? Visit QuidproQuoLaw's website at wwwquidproquolawcom. There you'll uncover ready-made assets that can supercharge your firm, such as their law firm operations manual and client maintenance program available in their shop. Seeking comprehensive guidance, immerse yourself in their eight-module online course, meticulously crafted to help you build a turnkey law firm on your schedule. Don't let time constraints hold you back. Empower your practice today at quidproquolawcom and remember, for personalized support, contact QPQ today at info at quidproquolawcom.
Speaker 1:
So let's get back to our presentation. You can go through that worksheet, download it, go through it on your own. This is going to be a great tool for you to get very organized with your marketing and realistic about what your goals are, how many leads you're going to need to generate that revenue and exactly where those leads are going to come from and at what cost. So we went through the budget planner. You've got all that there for you. Now we're going to jump into strategy.
Speaker 1:
So first we talked about goals and if you listen to that podcast, I really talk about making sure your goals are in alignment with your mission and your vision and your values for your firm. Why is that so important? Because when you start to implement the strategy and you run into some roadblocks, some frustrations, if you're not really connected with your goals, it's very easy to quit. It's very easy to get frustrated and say it's not worth it. But if you really believe, if you've really gotten connected to and clarity on my goals and this is the strategy that I believe is most likely to get me to those goals you'll have a lot more tenacity and a lot more resilience, and that's what you need. If you have aggressive goals, you have to have tenacity and resilience. Now a great strategy is also extremely helpful.
Speaker 1:
I want to share with you what we call the growth acceleration model. That works very well for our clients in estate planning and elder law. It is a progression. You might think of it as a ladder At the bottom rungs, or the foundation of this ladder, we want to be able to start driving leads, and so we're going to be looking at organic search engine optimization so that people can find us, so that Google recognizes us and puts us on the front page, the top page of Google. We're going to be looking at content marketing, developing rate content that's valuable, that people want to read, that people see your authority and they begin to trust you. And we want to look at your database, your email list, and if you don't have a good email list, we want to start working there. So that's kind of where we start with clients.
Speaker 1:
Once we have some lead flow, then we have to look at conversion. So how do we convert those leads into new clients, into good clients? And the first place we look is at the website, making sure that the website is designed to convert. We're going to talk about how we do that. Then we're looking at your reputation online. When people do find you, are they reassured about your authority, that they can trust you? Obviously, a big part of that is your reviews, your online reviews.
Speaker 1:
And then we want to look at automation, because anytime we get a lead, we want to be sure that we have automation in place to respond to that lead and to bring them along in the process. We can't rely on having someone in our office call them or manually send out an email, because leads come in all the time and we are not always just sitting at our computer 24-7 ready to respond to a lead and people want immediate response. They expect immediate response. So we don't want to let people fall through the cracks. So automation becomes a big part of this progression.
Speaker 1:
Now, once we've got leads and we're closing them, now we look at how do we optimize all of this and we may be looking at layering in paid advertising and we're really going to look at these next two levers that you have in terms of raising your average fee and raising your closing rate. Improving your closing rate. That's all about sales process. That's how we optimize the results. When we have all these things working, we spend a lot of time over in the optimization area because at that point we've got our foundation and we're just tweaking and making things better and better and you know what you need to do to achieve your goals. So it kind of looks like this Three sections driving leads, maximizing the conversion of those leads and then optimizing everything so that you can scale, so that you get the most revenue with the least amount of work. You're working with the best clients and you're spending the least amount on your marketing budget. That delivers the best result. That's always not always the least amount, but you don't want to throw money away. You want to be sure that every dollar you're investing here really is optimized.
Speaker 1:
So where do you focus your strategy? Well, one of the things that I always preach is it depends on you. It depends on your goals, where you are in your practice development and your resources. I talk a lot about that in the podcast that went live yesterday. So how do you know where to focus most? Well, first is go back and look at this model. Where might you have a weakness now? Where might something be missing? If you have focused all of your efforts on paid advertising but you have ignored the conversion rate of your website, or you have ignored your SEO, then right now, your strategy might be wow, I don't need to be focusing anymore on optimizing my pay per click. I've got to go back and look at my website and my search engine optimization. I got to build my email list, because when you do those things, everything else works better. Your budget is going to go farther. You're going to have lower client acquisition costs. Well, maybe you've already done all those things on basis, on the foundation, so you might be at a place where, right now, the thing for you to focus on is paid advertising or, right now, the thing for you to focus on is your sales process. That's really important to know what strategy is going to be suitable for you at this point.
Speaker 1:
So let's talk about website conversion, designing a website for conversions. Say, we've got some lead flow going. How important is it that we get this website converted? And what can we do to convert, I'm sorry? And what can we do to improve the performance of the website? I've got a couple of examples from some of our clients who are doing very, very well.
Speaker 1:
You want to be sure that your website is very easy to navigate, that people can quickly find your locations, your phone number and they know exactly what they need to do once they get on your website A clear message and a clear path to conversion. So, right front and center on this website, you see up in the right-hand corner, you see their two locations and their phone numbers, and then they say exactly what they do, who they serve and what you should do next, which would be to book a consultation. It's very clear. It is a very clear path. I almost see it as like a spotlight and once I land on this website, I know exactly what this law firm does, I know whether I'm in the right place and how to get in touch with them and the best way to get started. Then, if you go through this website, you find that there's lots of supporting content and that supporting content is supposed to be just that. It supports that call to action, it supports the search engine optimization, it gets that website ranked and it shows your authority. It helps people trust you.
Speaker 1:
But front and center, we want to be sure that we've covered easy navigation, clear message, clear path to conversion. And then we look at supporting content. I find that a lot of times attorneys have aesthetic ideas about what their website should be and they are trying to cover all of the bases. When you first land on the homepage and in that process sometimes you miss the most important bases so that's how we approach a website when we want to be sure that it's designed for conversion. There's just a few things we want to be sure are on there. That's the wrap on the first 20 minutes of my masterclass on designing your law firm's internet marketing plan. Check in the description for a link to the worksheets I mentioned in this episode and be sure to subscribe to the podcast so you don't miss the rest of the episodes in this series.
Speaker 2:
Your journey toward a thriving and sellable law firm.
