How to Measure and Boost Law Firm Marketing ROI

by Guy Alvarez

forms will also be able to use and store the tracking URLs within the record of contact. Alternatively, you can use something like Gravity Forms, which is simple to configure and achieves the same goal with fewer complications. Essentially, Gravity Forms allows you to add fields to the form that are hidden and include the campaign tracking parameters.

Do not limit the information you track related to your marketing campaign to just URLs. Your campaign is also likely to include a phone number for your law firm which can and should also be tracked. There are numerous third-party integrations for phone tracking. Zapier, for example, can automatically update or create a contact in the CRM via a Zap. The phone tracking system can pick up your lead source when a potential client calls thanks to a tracking phone number combined with a tracking URL that sends visitors to the page with the number.

The only thing to keep in mind is that phone tracking tends to be more expensive. There is typically a base fee per month plus fees for every number you track. As such, you may want to stick to manually tracking the source of phone leads, and having your team ask callers.

Once you have your Gravity Forms and tracking URLs set up, you need to ensure that the data has a good way of getting to your CRM. Simply put, if someone visits your law firm’s website and submits a form, the CRM will automatically update an existing contact or create a new one. There are various tools that can do this for you automatically, including Zapier.

The best way to measure your campaign’s ROI is to combine all of the above with optimal use of your CRM or other software. A good CRM should let you define various expenses for the lead sources. This should include the option of both one-time expenses and recurring ones. You should also make it a point to register new clients in your CRM or similar software.

A big part of marketing success is being able to understand your audience and their wants and desires. Start by building an ideal client profile. This will help you determine who exactly your ideal client is, what their wants and desires are, and build out specific attributes about them. That’ll help you determine which paths to take (such as demographics, job titles, personality traits, etc.). Once you have your personas determined, you can take a look at your current efforts and determine if they fall in line with what your audience wants. So, if you determine your ideal client is most active on LinkedIn due to their age group and professional title, and you’re currently most active on Instagram, it’s time to restrategize.

What’s a better way to learn what your audience wants than to ask them? You can easily create professional surveys using a tool like Survey Monkey and send them out to your contacts. Ask them anything you feel will help you get a clearer path with your marketing strategy. (Ex. If you’re a personal injury lawyer, try asking your audience, ‘What’s your most pressing concern when it comes to filing a personal injury lawsuit?’)

Social listening is the act of monitoring social platforms and analyzing social media content that’s relevant to a brand’s industry. Try joining relevant industry social media groups and searching relevant hashtags to see what is popular. This is a great way to see if not just your social media content is aligned with what your audience wants to see, but also what topics, in general, are interesting to them most. Use this list of topics to determine blogs, webinars, email campaigns, etc.

The data you garner from measuring your ROI will tell you a lot, but you can also learn even more from one of the latest data technologies—intent data. Intent data examines the behaviors of users to determine what topics interest them most and where they are in the buyer’s journey. This is a great way to understand what content users want to consume at each stage of the buyer’s journey and create content that more closely aligns with users’ preferences. Not only that, but it cuts back on costs incurred when you waste money on content that won’t convert.

SEO is great, but as we all know, it can be a timeconsuming process with very little return at first. This isn’t to say that law firms should throw out their SEO strategy (continue to commit to SEO, it’s a long-term strategy, and over time you can garner the returns you want); however, in the meantime, you can choose to invest in a more controlled strategy. Consider investing in paid search or paid social media advertising. The setup process allows you to set specific budgets that will align with your lead generation goals.

Once you have a clearer idea of the ROI for your digital marketing campaign, you should be able to make adjustments that let you use your current campaign to its full advantage n

Guy Alvarez is the founder and Chief Engagement Officer. Guy is intimately familiar with all aspects of the professional service firm. First, he worked as a law firm associate. Later, he joined ALM Media where he built websites for some of the largest US law firms. After ALM, Guy honed his skills while running KPMG’s Global Digital Marketing group. Learn more at www.good2bsocial.com.

Associal media marketing continues to grow in popularity, a question we often get asked by our clients is if posting on social media helps SEO. Read on to learn the answer to that question and learn more about the impact that posting on social media has on your SEO efforts.

So, does posting on social media help SEO and your organic rankings? In short, the answer is no—however, posting relevant links from your website to social media can help not only boost your brand awareness but can drive traffic to your website as well. In fact, according to a study by Hootsuite and We Are Social, there are currently over 4.2 billion active users on social media worldwide. This represents a significant potential audience for businesses that are active on social media. In short, social media—while it does not have a direct impact on SEO—is a key asset in any digital marketing strategy.

Investing your time in social media efforts while also investing in SEO can have a positive impact on your overall online presence. In fact, social media efforts support SEO in many different ways including:

Have you ever done a branded Google search and had social media profiles come up in the results? I know I have! Well, if you have a strong social media presence, your profiles on those platforms may rank well in search results for your brand name or other relevant keywords. This can lead to increased visibility and potentially increase the traffic coming to your website.

As mentioned previously, social media posts can drive traffic to your website. In fact, when you post content on social media, it can be shared by your followers and potentially reach a wider audience. If this content includes a link to your website, it can drive traffic directly to your site and even potentially improve your local search rankings.

In addition, posting consistently on social media can help increase your visibility. With billions of people on social media sites, the more you post, the more eyes you can get on your posts.