If you are a solo practitioner, you have some advantages over small firms, and big firms, when it comes to marketing. First, you completely understand your law practice and the direction you want to take it. You can focus on certain areas / niche markets, or you can be a general practice law firm. Finally, you are in complete charge of your marketing budget.
It's time for YOU to take control of your marketing plans and budget!
Budget / Return on Investment (ROI)
As a solo practitioner, you may be doing all of your own billing and/or monitoring your income/expenses each month. Even if you hire someone to keep track of your finances, I expect you at least have a general idea of your monthly income and expenses.
If you spend $20,000 a year on yellow page advertisements, and generate $30,000 in business, most people would consider that a success since you have made a return on investment of 1.5. However, how much work did you have to do for that $10,000? While most profit is generally good, if you could have spent that same $10,000 to make $60,000, your original yellow page marketing campaign would not look so good. I strongly advise solo practitioners against using the traditional yellow pages. I do not just tell my clients one thing, and then do another. I practice what I preach. For the past few years, I have not used a single ad in the yellow pages. Yet, my law practice has grown phenomenally. On average, I receive 5-10 calls per week from potential clients looking to retain my services.
More and more lawyers are abandoning yellow pages and switching to internet marketing. This makes sense as an increasing amount of potential clients are turning away from the yellow pages and searching for their attorneys online. Although, it is not as easy as it once was to appear at the top of Google, internet marketing (through a well optimized website and through pay per click advertisements) will still yield the best ROI.
Do you already have a marketing budget?
If you already have a marketing budget, how much of it is directly related to internet marketing? Some of our most successful marketing campaigns have the internet marketing budget take up more than 50% of their marketing. Some lawyers will choose to have close to 100% of their marketing budget related to web marketing.
We offer a variety of packages to suit your needs. For most solo practitioners, a marketing budget of $500-$2000 per month may be ideal. However, if you are a solo practitioner in a highly competitive market, such as Dallas Personal Injury lawyer, you likely will need a larger budget.
We Guarantee Results and More Clients
While $2000 a month may sound like a lot, I expect if you saw results which greatly increased your practice, you would not think twice. This is why we offer our Guarantee. With our link building packages, we guarantee a certain increase in your website traffic. If you website is professional and has a good call to action, you will receive phone calls from potential clients. Give us a call to discuss the details on our 100% guarantee or your money back.
Practice Areas
Whether you are a general practice law firm, or focus on one or two niche/specific practice areas, our services will help you get clients.
Usually, general practice law firms will try to cater to a specific geographic area. Accordingly, your budget should be optimized you obtain potential clients who are located near you. For example, you might want to focus just on a city such as Boston, Massachusetts. The #1 thing to get found on Google locally, is to set up a Google+ places account. See Places for more information.
Once you get a visitor to your website, it is important to demonstrate the value of your services, or why they should contact you. While one could compete on cost, I strongly advise against that - unless you are just starting out as either a newly admitted lawyer, or perhaps someone who broke away from a law firm to start your own practice.
Better methods to demonstrate why the person should call you include demonstrating you know what you are doing/have experience in that practice area, or testimonials. If you have a lot of articles on your website about a certain practice area, the client will likely consider you a sort of expert in that field. Testimonials and previous results are a great way to show how you have helped other people in similar situations. Be mindful of the rules of professional conduct. Some jurisdictions have special requirements when it comes to advertising.
Niche/ Specific Area
If you practice in just one or two practice areas, such as criminal defense/ DUI, you can have a huge advantage over the competition. Generally, it would be easier to rank for Miami DUI lawyer than it would be to rank for Miami Lawyer. This is because there would be less searches for that term. If you rank higher on Google, you will get more traffic to your website.
Once a potential client visits your site, the next step is to get them to call you. One of the best ways to do this is to demonstrate you are an expert, or the go-to-guy for that specific field/ legal issue. Because there are so many lawyers out there to choose from, clients are becoming increasingly picky. If you only do bankruptcy work, emphasize that. Demonstrate to your clients how you focus on one practice area and they will feel that you are more qualified in their area of interest than other attorneys with a general practice or who specialize in several fields.
Even if you practice in multiple practice areas, it is often a good idea to have a website specifically related to one of your practice areas, such as estate planning. As discussed, it would be easier to rank highly, and you will appear to care more about that particular practice area or are a form of specialist. (I use the term specialist broadly. Again, the rules of professional conduct will prohibit most lawyers from saying they specialize in a certain practice area).
Don't be Average
A lof of people want to know what the average salary of a lawyer is. Or, what is an average marketing budget? Why set your goals so low as to be "average". I can tell you the average salary of a solo practitioner is less than $100,000 a year. I can also also tell you I make more than $100,000 a year.
It is absolutly impossible to give an average marketing budget as it will vary so much depending on your location and practice area. You should be less concerned with how much you spend, and more concerned with your ROI (return on investment). If you spent $20,000 a year to make $100,000 would you do this? Of course you would. With our internet marketing program, you should be able to make 300-500% of your investment back. If you use our basic package of $500 a month, you can get one new client a month. With our more advanced packages, you can easily get numerous calls a week depending on your market.