How to track your law firm’s marketing activities

Guest blog by Ben Trott, Managing Director at Marketing Lawyers.

The old adage that “half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half”, is now officially dead!

I still hear it most days though when visiting clients. But there’s really no excuse for not tracking your law firm’s marketing activities. It shouldn’t be painful, and the resulting data means you can decide where to focus more of your time, money and effort for a greater return on investment (ROI).

That simply means more new leads and cases for your marketing budget.

Why tracking marketing performance is so challenging for law firms

Having previously managed marketing and client intake teams in-house at a national law firm, I know tracking leads has always been a challenge. People don’t remember how they found your firm, fee earners might forget to ask, there’s 200 source codes on the case management system, and no simple way to see the wood through the trees.

The shift from referrals to online leads

Running a law firm is challenging enough without adding extra layers of complexity. Law firms traditionally used to get professional referrals direct to partners or senior members of the firm, and the department would keep a loosely tracked referral sheet buried in a spreadsheet or an underused system somewhere.. Trust me, I’ve found them!

Online search is now a key source of new clients for law firms, whether through organic rankings, paid adverts, SEO, or social media. From organic rankings, to online adverts, print adverts, SEO and social media. There’s a range of potential touch points and sources clients could be coming in from.

With the right tracking in place, you can see exactly where your marketing spend is delivering results. It allows you to spot trends and enables the attribution of calls and leads to their source, in order to focus marketing efforts and improve your ROI.

With the right tracking in place, you can see exactly where your marketing spend is delivering results. It allows you to spot trends and enables the attribution of calls and leads to their source, in order to focus marketing efforts and improve your ROI.

Common tracking gaps in law firms

One of the main challenges I’ve found that law firms have after generating an enquiry, is converting leads efficiently into private paying clients and tracking that process. For example, do you know:

• How many calls you received for each department last month?
• Who they went to?
• Whether they converted?
• If they didn’t convert, why not?
• Where those enquiries came from?

Law firms often have a busy reception or client intake teams answering calls, whilst at the same time scanning, copying, filing, perhaps doing office management and other activities alongside dealing with clients and booking meeting rooms. Often there are many different individuals with varying levels of knowledge of what areas of law your firm can handle and how to handle those calls. A clear, well-mapped process for handling calls can significantly improve client conversion.

The challenge of asking ‘how did you hear about us?’

It can also be awkward to ask potential clients how they found your firm, and sometimes callers aren’t sure of the difference between online adverts and natural search results on Google.

Law firms tend to operate in different market from other businesses because often legal services are a considered or distress purchase, where emotions can run high and speed is very much of the essence to alleviate their concerns.

Asking how they found the firm can sometimes feel inappropriate in the circumstances, and can detract from helping the potential client.

Tools and training to help you track leads effectively

At Marketing Lawyers we specialise in training front of house staff on handling enquiries, tracking leads via our legal CRM system, and generating calls through online advertising. We use Mediahawk to help law firms track their calls back to their marketing activities. Their tracking software works with dedicated phone numbers. From PPC, email, social, print, and other marketing campaigns. It gives rich analysis, clear return on investment information, and 100% lead attribution.

You can listen in to your calls, as well as knowing which campaign they are coming in from. Listening to calls helps you understand conversion rates and spot training opportunities. Often, I have found firms turning away work which they could have taken on!

Start tracking today

To join the dots at your firm, there are some simple steps you can take to start tracking data and mapping your enquiry process. By tracking properly, you can help increase your return on investment and the work coming into your firm.

Start tracking your leads now. Don’t let potential clients slip through the cracks.