The three major marketing channels for small law firms are referrals, search engine optimization, and pay-per-click ads. Each has advantages and disadvantages, which we will cover in this article.

Which channel is right for you to invest more or less time and money into is for you to decide, but we hope the data and analysis we provide in this article will help you make an informed judgment.

Full disclosure: we focus on referral marketing and do not provide SEO or PPC services. Nonetheless, we have worked hard to provide a fair and unbiased assessment of each marketing channel, including pros and cons.

We begin with analytical details on each of the three marketing channels, and then compare them side-by-side.

1. Referral Marketing

Unique benefit

Referred prospects are nearly always the highest-quality leads you can obtain, for vetting will have been done by the referrer. The best vetting and prospects will come from other lawyers, but non-attorney professionals are a close second.

Even prospects referred by past clients will be a notch above, as there will have been some discussion between the prospect and your past client about you, the service you provide, the legal issues you handle, and the prospect’s situation.

The marketing work

Consultants frequently advise to reach out to prospective referral partners with postal letters, but in our extensive experience (we set 80-100 referral partner appointments every month), it is far more effective to use phone.

Generate a list of 25 local attorneys in complementary specialties and 25 non-attorney professionals who serve your clientele. Have a non-attorney team member call the prospects’ gatekeepers, explain the purpose of the call, and ask to set a phone appointment between you and the prospective referral partner. Leave an explanatory voicemail and send an email with more details. Expect to spend 2-3 hours obtaining each appointment, and more time cultivating the new relationships.

Outsourced costs

We know of no one offering this service except us. Our Referral System costs $595/month, and includes far more than just referral partner appointments and cultivation. Details can be obtained below.

Do-it-yourself costs

Zero. You might choose to send some low-cost gifts to your new referral partners, but you don’t need to for the program to be effective.

Pros

— Generates high-quality prospective clients
— Reasonably-priced outsourcing, or free when handled in-house
— Upfront work can deliver clients for years

Cons

— Takes months to deliver results
— Results vary with attorney’s expertise and involvement
— Requires ongoing cultivation of referral partners

2. Search Engine Optimization

Unique benefit

The Holy Grail of online marketing is high organic search engine placement for popular keywords having buyer intent — e.g., Denver auto accident attorney or Charleston estate planner. If your landing page or website does a good job of converting visitors to appointments, strong placement in the search engines can deliver a steady flow of leads.

However, the best keywords are aggressively pursued by capable marketers with sizable budgets, and space on Google page one is limited. Instead, you can successfully pursue placement for longer and lower-trafficked keywords that have been ignored by the big SEO spenders.

The marketing work

Good search engine placement requires regular creation of high-quality, original, and optimized content. Ideally, that content answers questions and addresses issues frequently searched by prospects, and does so in detail and with at least 2,000 words. Even better, the articles will be illustrated with images, infographics, charts, and tables.

In addition, inbound links need to be obtained for the content you create and post on your site. Many techniques exist, from guest posting to broken link substitutions. All require some teaching, time, and luck.

Outsourced costs

Most online marketing agencies focusing on the legal market charge a minimum of $1,500/month for SEO services, so figure on $1,500 – $2,500 per month for full-service search engine optimization work.

You may be able to pare those costs if you supply all the writing and your agency is willing to work with you on that basis.

Do-it-yourself costs

Plan on lots of educational reading if you want to do your own SEO work. Optimization is both science and art, and due to a high pace of change, requires ongoing research and experimentation.

Most lawyers are better off outsourcing their firm’s SEO work, but if you have the time and motivation to do your own SEO your only expenditures will be for educational and analytical subscriptions. Budget $200-300/month.

Pros

— When successfully obtained, high organic Google rankings can be a wonderful and reasonably-priced source of website traffic
— For some low-competition keywords and cities, all that is needed to rank well is good writing

Cons

— Ongoing work is required to obtain and maintain your Google rankings
— Quality backlinks are difficult to obtain
— Most lawyers have neither the time nor the expertise to handle the work themselves, good SEOs can be hard to find, hire, and retain, and marketing agencies are expensive

3. Pay-Per-Click Ads

Unique benefit

Quick results can be obtained with Google or Facebook ads. When you need more leads in weeks rather than months, PPC can deliver them. Most any keyword phrase can be targeted if your budget is large enough.

You also have near-immediate flexibility with PPC. You can turn the lead volume up by spending more and down by spending less, and the volume will adjust immediately. You can also pause lead flow when busy and reinstate it when slow.

As with SEO (and most marketing), you will have to sift through some unqualified prospects when dealing with PPC leads. But your lead funnel can do some of that sifting for you with education and qualifying questions.

The marketing work

Fine-tuning is critical in PPC work. Continual A/B testing of ads and landing pages will be necessary, and can materially lift your results and lower your lead costs.

You will want to regularly target new keywords, strengthen the grouping and organization of your keywords, test additional negative keywords, tighten the alignment of your ads and landing pages, and adjust your geotargeting and its exclusions.

Outsourced costs

Plan on paying $500+ per month in management fees, plus your ad spend. Some agencies will set minimum ad spend levels of $1,000, $2,000 or more, so figure a minimum of $1,500/month to run a PPC campaign through an agency.

Do-it-yourself costs

Like SEO, someone at your firm will need to dedicate themselves to learning PPC for you to bring management of your ad spend in-house. You will save the $500+/month in PPC management, but the mis-spent ad dollars may cost you far more. We recommend at least starting with professional management before you consider bringing the work in-house.

Pros

— Near-immediate results
— The ROI can be steadily improved with experimentation
— Lead volume can be readily adjusted up or down

Cons

— Targeting the best keywords is expensive
— Obtaining or hiring the needed management expertise is also costly
— Continual fine-tuning is required
— Ad costs have been steadily rising

Comparing the Three Marketing Channels

Conclusion

Each of the three major marketing channels offers a unique benefit, and has a place in the marketing efforts of a large-budget firm with aggressive growth plans.

Medium spenders will want to team a low-cost referral marketing effort with either SEO or PPC, selecting SEO for its long-term benefits or PPC for its quick results.

Firms with tight budgets can pursue do-it-yourself referral marketing and content creation, spending a bit on a freelancer for on-page optimization and link-building of the content created by the firm.

Additional reading

Creative Marketing Ideas for Law Firms
Effective Law Firm Marketing Agencies
Lawyer Marketing Ideas: Obtaining Referrals from Local Professionals

Build A Referral-Based Law Firm

Next we scrolled to the bottom of the selected law firm website to learn if a marketing agency represented that law firm, and if so, the name of that agency.

The List

On a spreadsheet we recorded the city, keyword, law firm, and marketing agency (if any), and then tallied the number of times each marketing agency had ranked a law firm in the top three positions, either organically or locally. Below are the totals.

We advise you not to use this data blindly. For example, while Findlaw had the most top-three rankings of any agency, it also advertises that it serves 17,000 law firms. In addition, its service agreement term is both lengthy and enforced.

If you are searching for a new law firm marketing agency, we recommend you use this list as a starting point and begin by asking your prospective agencies how many law firms they serve. Then divide our number of top-three listings to obtain an effectiveness percentage.

Lastly, remember that older and content-heavy websites have a better chance of ranking high, so some sites are easier for agencies to rank than others.

Gauging the Effectiveness of Your Current Agency

The simplest way to evaluate the work of your marketing agency is to every month assess two numbers:

1. The number of visitors to your website
2. The number of inquiries your website generates

Both numbers should steadily grow. If not, you are better off investing elsewhere the monthly cost of the agency.

Your agency may provide you a detailed report that provides a lot of other statistics, but visitors and inquiries are the ones that count. You need your visitor count to steadily grow if inquiries are to have a chance of doing the same. But if visitor numbers are increasing and inquiries are not, then the wrong kind of traffic is being generated.

If you just signed with a new agency, you need to give the agency a few months to generate results; search engine optimization takes time to work. But after 3-4 months, both traffic and inquiries should begin and continue to rise.

For More Information

We have written a 200-page book called The Most Effective Law Firm Marketing Agencies. It contains the following chapters:

1. Our Research Methods
2. The List of Effective Agencies
3. Other Noteworthy Agencies
4. Tips for Working with Agencies
5. How to Convert More Website Visitors
6. How to Obtain More Referrals
7. Marketing Case Studies

It identifies four law firm marketing agencies that we consider the most effective. You can obtain a copy of the book at no charge below.

Obtain More Client Inquiries

174 pages addressing the primary reasons law firms don’t receive more calls and completed website forms:

• New agency shortcomings
• Old agency shortcomings
• Solid website traffic but few inquiries
• Few professional referrals

Interested in learning more? Click here to schedule an appointment.

With a referral-partner outreach effort and a set of customized client-communications tools developed by James Publishing, he is building lasting relationships with nearby professionals and past clients, and improving his communication with prospects and new clients.

Andrew Rosenberg got into personal injury law by acquiring a busy 25-year-old P.I. practice in Coral Gables, Florida. That should have given him a big leg up in a “very, very, very competitive” niche, he says. “But I didn’t get as many referrals from the former attorney’s client base as I expected.” The founder of the practice had never put much effort into keeping in touch with the doctors, chiropractors and other professionals she had worked with over the years … or her past clients.

That was a big oversight that Rosenberg has recently begun to rectify. With a referral-partner outreach effort and a set of customized client-communications tools developed by James Publishing, he is building lasting relationships with nearby professionals and past clients, and improving his communication with prospects and new clients.

The communication efforts include a monthly newsletter, an array of informational booklets, and an automated drip marketing program that sends a succession of emails–from welcome packages to thank you notes–to clients and prospective clients. Meanwhile, James’ partner outreach effort is connecting him with professionals in the personal injury arena in the Coral Gables area.

Referral Partner Outreach

Satisfied clients are undoubtedly the best source of referrals, Rosenberg says. But aiming to expand his practice, he is branching out. James’s outreach to prospective professional referral partners is helping him do so by making connections for him with chiropractors and other medical professionals who treat injuries.

After an initial attempt to reach out by postal mail, “we are not getting much feedback,” he says. “James switched using to phone and email to calendar 15-minute introductory calls with attorneys and medical professionals. We’ve had a lot better success with that,” says Rosenberg.

“I’ve probably had 3-5 meetings in the past month from that process. The telephone calls made a big difference. They do the research to determine who we should try to reach, and they give me a list of different professionals in the area. It might be criminal attorneys or family attorneys or chiropractors.” He checks the list and removes those he already knows. “Once I get them a go-ahead, they start making phone calls and to schedule appointments and put them on my calendar.”

After he speaks or meets with the prospective referral sources, he adds them to his monthly newsletter list. “They are getting emails that I send out on a weekly basis on different topics, and hopefully, they will join some of my social media things that I do.

“The goal of these meetings with attorneys and doctors and others is just to build a rapport with them so that they feel comfortable with me and know I’m a resource that can be trusted. That’s what causes them to send referrals to me. James introduces me to potential referral relationships that I then grow over time.”

For example, “this afternoon I met Jared face-to-face and had a good conversation with him. Additionally, I had a nice talk with Abby and am meeting her for coffee next week. She is looking to refer to an injury attorney when the opportunity arises … and her boyfriend is a neurosurgeon who just went out on his own.”

Personalized Monthly Newsletter

The newsletter, called The Andy Alert, is “one of the most important things that James Publishing and I worked on together,” he says. A digital version of it, with a video embedded on the last page, goes out by email to his client base, and “we are also sending it out by snail mail every month.”

It took some work to get it to suit his needs. The first mockup that the James team produced was too long for him. “I wanted it to be short, sweet and to the point: a few interesting pieces and that’s it. We’ve continued to tweak it over the past year or so.”

For Rosenberg, that flexibility is one of the most appealing features of James’ approach. In developing the newsletter, “there was a lot of give-and-take, which was great. They have been wonderful to work with,” he says. “We’ve got it to the point now where it is on autopilot and we both know what we need to do to get it done on a monthly basis. It works great.”

The lead item in each issue is usually a commentary he has written — about a trip to Africa with his kids, his kidney stone, his mother’s death, but rarely about law. “If you write about the law, they look at it and toss it. But if you write something interesting and talk about yourself, people will start to relate to you more, and they will start realizing that you are a person not just a lawyer, and that will build a connection,” he says.

That has begun to happen. “When I see people, they speak to me about stuff that I know they wouldn’t talk about unless they had seen it in the newsletter,” he says. Many offered condolences about his mother, and later wanted to know how his father was faring back in the dating pool — something else he’d written about in the newsletter.

Booklets with a Hook

As inducements to sign up for his newsletter, and as branded give-aways for other occasions, James has created with his input a 120-page book and more than a dozen booklets, including What to Do If You Get Hurt, Evaluating Your Proof of Damages, and How Insurance Companies Work.

“I had a lot of say as to what I liked and didn’t like, and to get it to a point where I was comfortable with it,” he says. The finished products have been “very helpful” marketing tools. “First, they give me credibility, and it is definitely one way to show on my website that I’m unique,” he says. James has “given me the ability to have these brochures and this book and everything else. It’s not that I couldn’t have done it, but I could not have done it on my own as quickly. Having a team like that sped up the process.”

Rosenberg adds, “I want to offer educational content for the public.” With his name and contact information prominently displayed in the booklets, they are also another way to keep him top of mind. “The goal is to get people interested in my firm before they have an accident, because eventually, they are going to get in an accident themselves or know someone who has. I want to be the guy they think about when that happens.”

A Steady Drip of Messages

The booklet-request form on his website requires an email address with an opt-in for further mailings. “From that point forward, I make sure that my name stays in front of them with 10-15 emails that go out on a consistent basis over the next two months,” he says.

One version of the drip marketing campaign is geared toward helping newly-retained clients know what to expect as their case proceeds. Another set of emails created by James goes to a list of prospective clients.

“I set up when I want to do it and how often it goes out, but it’s all automated once they sign-up,” Rosenberg says. The emails help prospects and new clients “understand the process of what happens in our industry and what to expect with their case,” all the while building a relationship that can last.

‘Helping Me Stand Out’

The marketing efforts in combination have helped Rosenberg distinguish himself in a very crowded market for personal injury representation. “In today’s world, you need to stand out and I think I could not have stood out if it wasn’t for James Publishing and all of these things that they have provided for me,” he says. “It’s competitive enough as it is. I’m trying to become different and unique, and all of this stuff helps in that process.

“It has been a work in progress,” he adds. “There has been a lot of give-and-take, which is one of the things that I like about James. It’s not like they’re giving me boilerplate, and saying this is how it has to be.”

The marketing plan will require a long-term commitment. “None of this is going to be a quick turnaround, unfortunately. There is no magic pill. You have to put in the time, effort and energy. You’ve got to plant the seeds right now and let them grow,” Rosenberg says.

“I can’t do it on my own. I just don’t have the time. I look at James as a valuable member of the team working toward the overall goal of getting my firm to the next level and beyond.”

A lawyer’s step-by-step guide to obtaining more referrals from local professionals — both attorneys and non-attorneys.

Referred prospects are high-quality leads. When they come from attorneys or other professionals, the prospects usually have already been vetted by the referral source, and they come pre-sold on retaining you.

Best of all, it costs little to establish referral relationships with professionals who can regularly send you these quality prospects.

After a year of experimentation and working to help nearly a hundred small-firm lawyers establish productive referral relationships with local professionals, we have settled on the following successful approach.

Step 1: Create two lists

The first list to compile is of nearby lawyers in compatible and non-competing specialties.

We have automated the initial phase of this work, but an effective manual substitute approach is to simply Google “______ [specialty] attorney nearby” and write the lead attorney name, specialty, address, and telephone number in Excel or Sheets, putting each item in a separate column for ease of sorting.

We start with 25 attorney names, but you can compile more or fewer names depending on time available and the population density of your office location.

The advantage of using Google is that the names it supplies will be among the stronger marketers in the area and thus have better lead and client flow than less-successful marketers.

Then do the same for what we call allied professionals. These are non-attorneys who share the same client base as you. For example:

Bankruptcy: credit counselors and mortgage brokers
Business litigation: Bankers, CPAs, management consultants
Criminal: mental health professionals and rehab facilities
Estates: CPAs, financial planners, and insurance brokers
Family: marriage counselors
Personal injury: chiropractors and physical therapists
Social Security disability: chiropractors and mental health professionals

Compile these allied-pro names on a separate page of Excel or Sheets.

Step 2: Send an Introductory Letter

Next prepare a template letter for each group — one for local attorney prospects and one for allied professional prospects. Here is an allied-professional example we have used successfully:

Dear _______________:

I am an estate planning lawyer. My ________ office services ________________ [location].

My firm, described at ______________.com, receives ____ [number] local leads a month and retains about _______ [number] of them as clients.

Some of those leads and clients could use the services of [a financial advisor, business litigator, etc]. I imagine you also periodically encounter individuals who need an estate planner.

I am writing to ask if you would be interested in joining together in an informal local marketing alliance. We can refer cases, periodically share what is working for us to obtain new clients, and nudge and help each other improve the effectiveness of our marketing efforts.

Towards the goal of helping each other improve our marketing, I have enclosed a private-marketing memo that hopefully provides an idea or two you can use.

If cross-referring cases as best serves the client interests you, please send me a short email and then perhaps we can set a time to speak on the phone.

You may learn more about how my firm handles referrals – both those we send and those we receive – on my referral page at http://____________.jamespublishing. com/partnerships.

Thank you for considering my proposal.

[Attorney name _____]
[Email _____________]
[Cell ______________]

Produce a personalized version of this letter on your letterhead for each prospect name on your two lists, being sure to proofread before mailing.

Step 3: Have a team member schedule a phone appointment

This step is an important element of the referral-outreach effort.

If you send 50 letters, you will likely only generate a response or two. When you place follow-up calls and send follow-up emails to 50 offices using the approach described below, you will uncover another 5-7 interested professionals.

After experimenting, here is the telephone follow-up approach we now use on behalf of the lawyers we help.

a. Front desk to front desk. Have your team member concisely explain to the gatekeeper you reach the purpose of your call, which is that your professional would like to schedule a phone appointment with the gatekeeper’s professional to discuss a potential referral alliance.

b. Obtain email address. Ask the gatekeeper for the professional’s email address so you can send an email explaining your interest.

c. Leave voicemail. Ask the gatekeeper to transfer the call to the professional’s voicemail so your team member can leave a message explaining why you want to have a phone conversation.

d. Send email. After hanging up, send an email detailing your interest in having a phone conversation to explore the suitability of a referral alliance.

Step 4: During your appointment, build trust and qualify

Your first phone call with a prospective professional referral source should have two goals:
(1) begin building trust by establishing a personal connection and conveying your competence, and (2) qualify the source by learning about the professional’s lead and client volume, type of client, and referral possibilities.

The best calls will have your prospect talking 2/3s to 3/4s of the time while you steer the conversation with planned questions so you learn basic information about the professional and his practice. We give the following starter checklist to attorneys making their first calls to referral prospects:

– After preliminary introductions, ask your contact for some background on his or her firm / business. Opening with a question gives the contact a chance to discuss company history, vision, goals, etc.

– What marketing tactics does the person utilize? How are they working? Do they relate in any way to what you are doing at your firm?

– Discuss your various lead flows and what clients/referrals you both are looking for. Are there crossover opportunities?

– Can you leverage our content in any way? Perhaps you could put some hard copy flyers in your contact’s office and vice versa, for example, or we could feature them in your next newsletter issue. We can also brand a booklet for them if they are interested in what we have to offer.

– Finally, be sure to make a personal connection as much as possible. Referrals are great, but professional contacts often have other positives that could help your firm down the line outside of pure back-and-forth referrals. We always encourage our clients to try to make a friend first, and a referral partner second. Perhaps you can ask about the contact’s hobbies or other interests; anything to make some type of bond. Maybe you have some interests in common, including favorite spots around town, etc.

Step 5: Meet

Ideally your phone conversation will end with a scheduled meeting date and location where you can continue the conversation. Consider starting at either the professional’s or your office and then heading out for lunch or a snack.

At the face-to-face meeting, continue learning more about the professional, the practice, and its clients or patients. Consider asking the following business-oriented questions as opportunities arise:

– How did you get started?
– What do you enjoy most about your work? Least?
– Have you had any big recent wins?
– What are your favorite kind of clients?
– What would be the ideal referral from my prospect and client base?

Be prepared to answer the same questions, for after an answer is given many of the questions will be thrown back at you.

Be ready to talk about the clients you represent, the problems they face, why they occur, and the solutions you provide. Practice concisely describing the type of client you represent and ones you want more of. Be ready to answer the question, “Who should I refer to you?

Be sure to listen more than you talk. This is important. If you come prepared with questions and the mission of listening, the meetup is more likely to go well.

After the meeting, make notes of the personal information you learned so you can ask relevant questions about family, challenges, or work the next time you talk.

At this first meeting, you want to work on connecting instead of selling. The referrals will follow if you make a solid connection.

Step 6: Follow up with a give

Relationship building is about helping, so listen closely during your conversations with the professional for opportunities to provide assistance.

We provide the attorneys we are helping with large collections of booklets they can offer to their new prospective referral sources. And we brand the booklets in the professional’s name. This offer is nearly always well received. Our attorney booklets can be viewed by clicking here.

We also have booklets that non-attorney professionals can brand and then give to their clients or patients.

Instead of content, maybe you know someone who can help the professional with a challenge mentioned. Or maybe you can do a bit of research and send some helpful links. Even if not directly helpful, your effort to assist will be noted and appreciated.

Step 7: Thank and inform the source

If and when you do receive a referral from the professional, be quick to send a thank you. Handwritten and postally-mailed cards stand out because so few people send them. Including a small gift relevant to some personal information you learned will earn even more goodwill.

Equally important is providing a periodic status update on the referred client … especially with the first few clients.

If you like the clients being sent and want more of them, the surest way to keep them coming is to acknowledge their receipt and confirm they are being well taken care of.

Step 8: Keep in touch

To keep your new referral relationship strong, you need to stay top of mind. Easy ways to do this are:

– Add the professional to your newsletter circulation list
– Send holiday and birthday cards
– Invite the professional to your holiday party
– Friend the professional on Facebook

Of course, these standardized touches won’t have near as much of an impact as doing something personally targeted, whether that is scheduling periodic meetings, getting together socially, providing assistance with a special challenge, or sending your own referrals.

Questions

1. How can I ask multiple members of the same profession or legal specialty for referrals? I won’t be able to provide comparable numbers of referrals to all of them.

This hurdle mentally trips up numerous attorneys, but it need not. You can provide value to referral sources in other ways:

– Introductions to good vendors
– Introductions to other referral sources
– Information about helpful marketing channels
– Immediate access to you for the professional’s referrals

Or you may over time become friends and the one-way flow of referrals may not turn out to matter to the professional.

2. What else can I do to generate referrals?

a. Start your own networking group. List the many different categories of professionals, vendors, and suppliers that your clients need. Enlist one in each category and organize a monthly meeting. Rotate the hosting location among the members. You will over time to get to know each other and the referrals will start flowing. If you are the organizer of the group you will likely receive the most referrals.

b. Arrange workshops. Like every industry group, professionals love to mingle with their peers. Target your #1 allied profession and put on informational programs for them in either a local hotel or your office if you have space. Evening times work best, especially if food and drink are provided.

c. Stay in touch with past clients. Too many lawyers ignore their past clients, and so are quickly forgotten by them. A monthly emailed newsletter costs little to circulate, and will cure that problem. Trust on this; regular contact with your past clients will generate referrals that would not otherwise be provided. We have seen it happen over and over.

3. I don’t have time to implement your suggestions. Can I outsource this work?

We offer a $595/month marketing service called Legal Referral System that is done-for-you. On your behalf we:

GENERATE MORE REFERRALS

Referral outreach
1. Compile lists of local attorneys and allied professionals
2. Contact them with phone and email
3. Schedule phone appointments with you and those interested in discussing a referral alliance
4. Prep you for the call
5. Follow up the calls that go well with gives and regular contact

Past-client communication
6. Draft and send newsletters
7. Circulate shared-booklet emails
8. Solicit online reviews and feedback

OBTAIN AND CONVERT MORE LEADS

Lead generation
9. Create effective lead magnets
10. Build and install sales funnels

Lead conversion
11. Write impressive shock-and-awe packages
12. Promptly follow up responses
13. Draft and send lengthy nurturing series

New-client communication
14. Draft and send welcome kits
15. Write and send reassurance series

Cancel anytime. If you cancel in the first 30 days, we will promptly refund your first payment with no questions asked.

Build A Referral-Based Law Firm

145 pages of proven, use-them-today, tips and tools