Are You Wasting Money on the Wrong Marketing Channels?

Ready to stop hemorrhaging your hard-earned dollars on ineffective marketing? This episode tackles the painful truth that most law firms are bleeding marketing money without even realizing it.

• The "set it and forget it" approach wastes money when marketing isn't regularly evaluated and optimized
• Being everywhere at once (LinkedIn, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube) without strategy makes you invisible, not omnipresent
• Vanity metrics like clicks and impressions are useless if they don't convert to signed cases

Remember, we're not trying to be popular; we're trying to be profitable.

The solution starts with knowing exactly where your best clients come from. Not just any clients—your best ones who pay on time, trust your advice, and don't drain your staff's energy. 

Ready to transform your marketing from a mysterious money pit into a predictable, results-driven system? This episode gives you the roadmap. 

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Chapters

• 0:00 Marketing Money Bleed: Common Mistakes
• 2:28 Red Flags in Your Marketing Spend
• 4:22 What Actually Works: Channel Strategy
• 7:13 Quick Wins to Stop Wasting Money
• 8:31 Test, Track, and Optimize Marketing

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:05

Are you wasting money on the wrong marketing channels? Welcome to Legal Marketing 101. I'm Toby Rosen. Let's talk about a truth that can be pretty painful for many of us. Most law firms, probably including yours, are bleeding marketing dollars and they don't even realize it. One of the biggest culprits of this is the set it and forget it approach. Maybe your firm started running Google ads two years ago. Maybe you picked a few keywords, you set a budget and you just you never looked back. It felt like the right move. And the phone is ringing and you know it's, it's working right. And the phone is ringing and you know it's, it's working right.

Speaker 1: 0:48

But look, here's the thing Marketing that isn't regularly evaluated and optimized is almost always underperforming. If your ads aren't being adjusted based on conversion data, or your landing pages aren't being tested, or your intake process isn't being aligned with every campaign that you create intake process isn't being aligned with every campaign that you create, you're probably overpaying for every new client. It's like paying full price for a half-finished case. Then there's the more is better myth. This one hits a lot of firms trying to be everywhere at once LinkedIn ads, facebook posts, they're doing dance videos on TikTok and YouTube pre-rolls you name it, but without a strategy that aligns, all of this, being on every platform just spreads out your budget, it makes it thinner and it makes your messaging even thinner than your budget. It does not make you omnipresent. It makes you invisible, essentially. And then there are the vanity metrics the clicks, the likes, the impressions. They're really easy to track and they're really easy to celebrate, but they're almost completely useless if you're not converting them into actual signed cases. We are not trying to be popular. That's not the goal here. We are trying to be profitable. The only metrics that really matter at the end of the day, these are cost per acquisition and lifetime case value. Everything else, every other number, is just noise. The bottom line. Smart firms aren't just spending money, they're measuring, they're testing and they're adjusting based on that information, because marketing is not just a checklist, it's a system, and when that system is tuned correctly, it stops feeling like a gamble and it starts performing like a machine.

Speaker 1: 2:22

So how do you know if your marketing is actually working or if you're just burning cash with a smile, essentially? So let's start with the biggest red flag. We've talked about a lot of stuff like this on the podcast, so go back and listen to all of that. But for today, there is a big red flag we're going to start with, and that is that you can't tie your marketing spend to signed clients. If you don't know exactly where your last 10 clients came from, you are flying blind.

Speaker 1: 2:48

Every firm should have some kind of tracking, whether it's call tracking, utm parameters, crm tags. This is not optional anymore, it is basic navigation. And then take a look at your best clients. If most of them come from referrals, but all of your marketing budget is going into Google ads or Facebook ads or creating YouTube videos, then something is off. Referral marketing isn't just luck, it is also a system. You can not only automate follow-ups and offer incentives and create touch points that keep your firm top of mind, but you can have a system for who you reach out to and when. Even if it's just on note cards, it works and it costs so much less than running advertising.

Speaker 1: 3:28

Here's another red flag. Your pay-per-click campaigns are costing you thousands on the credit card each month, but you're barely converting. That usually means your targeting is off, your landing pages aren't good enough or your intake process is just leaking potential clients. It's not enough to get clicks, you need conversions? And what about SEO? If you're investing in content and backlinks and you know some guy who's doing some technical, who's he? What's it but you are ranking for keywords like what is child custody instead of child custody lawyer near me? You're winning the wrong game. High traffic doesn't matter if it doesn't turn into business. Finally, if your social media ads don't feed into a funnel no landing page, no email follow-up, no appointment booking then you're not really advertising. You are just posting with a credit card attached.

Speaker 1: 4:18

So if we've established what doesn't work, let's pivot to what actually does. How do you identify the right marketing channels, the ones that actually drive growth and profitability? It starts with one question when are your best clients coming from? Not just clients. Your best clients. These are the ones who pay on time, they trust your advice, they don't drain your staff's energy. Go back and audit your last 20, 30, even 50 high value cases. What was their first point of contact? Was it a referral, a Google search, a Facebook ad, a podcast interview? Even this is where the CRM data, the call tracking tools, the attribution software, this is where they earn their keep.

Speaker 1: 4:59

If you don't have those systems in place yet, that's priority number one, because you can't tell me the answer to the question I just asked. Without that kind of tracking and without a system here I keep saying it, but without a system you are just making incredibly expensive assumptions and that's not fun for anyone. Next, we're going to compare our cost per acquisition with the lifetime value of one of these clients. This is where a lot of firms trip up. It's really easy to chase cheap leads, but if they never convert or if they become high maintenance, low margin clients, you're not ultimately saving money. We are just, you know, paying for a headache Like how many jokes can I make about this? A $500 lead that turns into a $10,000 case is infinitely better than a $50 lead that turns into a $2,000 case and then ghosts us.

Speaker 1: 5:47

Now let's talk scale. If you know that referrals are bringing in great clients, don't just hope they keep coming. Build the system. Automate the outreach. Create referral incentives. If you don't want to automate the outreach, automate the reminders telling you to do the outreach. If PPC is profitable, great. Now isolate the campaigns that are working and the landing pages that are working and double down on those.

Speaker 1: 6:10

Growth doesn't come from chasing shiny new platforms. It comes from figuring out what works and then scaling that thing. And finally I say this a million times in almost every episode but test everything. Start by running small, intentional A-B tests on your messaging, on your channels, your offers, your follow-up workflows. A $300 test could save you $30,000 in bad spend. And that's just a number I pulled out of nowhere. Real performance comes from this real testing, not the gut instinct that X, y and Z is going to work. We got to get it to good enough and then we test it and then we get towards perfect.

Speaker 1: 6:49

Marketing should not feel like a mystery. When we have the right data, when we do the testing, when we use the right tools, we use the right mindset, finding the right channels, finding the right messaging, becomes an easy process, not a guessing game. It's something we just go through step by step. But because I know you guys are impatient, if you're looking for quick wins, I'll throw you a bone on this one. These are some things that you can do today to stop wasting money. We've talked about this in relation to pay-per-click and I have an ebook out about this. Check the show notes for that.

Speaker 1: 7:19

First, pause any marketing spend you can't track Seriously. Cut it off If you don't know where those dollars are going or what they're bringing in hit pause. That includes vague branding campaigns, boosted posts, third-party lead services with no transparency, all that stuff. You can always turn them on later with the tracking, but here's the thing about that Don't turn them all off at the same time. Turn them off one by one. If one of them is working, you'll figure it out by going one by one. Second, optimize your intake process before you add another thing that spends more money on leads. It doesn't matter how good the ads are if your staff isn't picking up the phone or following up quickly or converting those inquiries into actual consultations. Fix the bucket before you pour more water into it.

Speaker 1: 8:07

Next, it's time to start shifting your focus towards channels that have already produced high value clients. Look at the data you already have. What is actually working? What's the biggest case you've ever had? You do not need to reinvent the wheel here. You just need to go and look at what works and double down on it. If it moves the needle, do it again. Finally, make test track and optimize your new mantra.

Speaker 1: 8:31

I've done five or 10 different versions of this mantra, but here's the thing Marketing by gut feeling. This is how you lose money. It is just a great way to spend cash on something you have no idea about, and if you want to market that way, absolutely come to me and talk about it, because I will help you waste your money. But if you want to do something that actually works, set up a system, run small tests, review the results regularly. When you treat marketing like an experiment instead of a gamble, everything changes. I've seen it over and over again, and if you want to actually make things work, that's the way to do it. I can help you with that too. But for today that's it for Legal Marketing 101. Check rosenadvertisingcom for more thanks.