When conducting a mid-year evaluation of your law firm’s marketing success, it’s essential to consider all the various aspects that contribute to the overall effectiveness of the law firm’s and attorneys’ marketing activities.
Below is a checklist for law firms to evaluate mid-year legal marketing success.
- Goals and Objectives: Review the year’s marketing goals and objectives originally set for the law firm in the legal marketing strategy, then determine if the law firm’s marketing efforts align with them. Have the goals or objectives changed? Maybe the law firm hired a new partner that expanded the firm’s scope of services and marketing focus. Or perhaps the goal at the beginning of the year was to get more clients while, now, the law firm is focusing on a target market.
- Branding and Positioning: Assess the consistency and effectiveness of the law firm's branding and positioning. Do the law firm’s marketing activities successfully convey the desired brand image? Are the firm’s mission statement and values reflected through the law firm’s communications, client service, and community involvement? Is the law firm visible to the target audience, whether that’s through prominently placed logos in event sponsorship materials and ads or high placement in search engine results pages? A lot of thought and strategy went into your law firm’s brand — be sure it is performing as needed.
- Website Performance: There are a variety of analytics available to measure a law firm's website’s effectiveness. As the centerpiece of any law firm digital marketing strategy, the website’s performance and health must be optimal for legal marketing success. Analyze the law firm’s website traffic, including the number of visitors, unique visitors, and page views. Review the website's conversion rates, such as the number of inquiries or contact form submissions. Assess the website's user experience, including page load times, navigation, and mobile responsiveness. Be sure the website avoids some common mistakes that reflect poorly on the law firm and diminish its credibility.
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Conduct a check-up of the law firm’s SEO strategy in these key areas: analyze keyword rankings and organic search traffic using website analytics; evaluate the effectiveness of on-page optimization techniques, including meta tags, headings, and content quality; and assess the law firm's backlink profile and domain authority. Ensuring the law firm is being found with SEO is especially important in today’s competitive legal market.
- Content Marketing: Recognizing the importance of a legal content marketing strategy, lawyers often start the year motivated to write and publish articles and blogs and create videos. But even the best intentions may fall to the side by the middle of a busy year. Use the mid-year marketing evaluation to review the quality and relevance of the law firm's content and analyze how it performed on the website and in social media using engagement metrics. Update the legal marketing content calendar so it is realistic and reflects topics that are most important and valuable to your target audience.
- Social Media Presence: You promised yourself that this was the year you and your law firm would focus on building a social media presence. If you followed through on that promise, here are a few things you need to check in on. Review the law firm's social media strategy and evaluate its presence on social media platforms by looking at engagement metrics, such as likes, shares, and comments. Did your social media efforts contribute to brand visibility and audience engagement? Ask what could be adjusted: perhaps more content will boost effectiveness, or the firm and its lawyers need to focus on connecting and engaging with the target audience. If your target audience is businesses, be sure you’re following the LinkedIn Do’s and Don’ts for Lawyers.
- Digital Advertising: If your law firm uses digital advertising, be sure to review the effectiveness of your online advertising campaigns by analyzing click-through rates (CTR), conversion rates, and return on ad spend (ROAS). Assess if the advertising efforts have reached the target audience and generated leads or conversions.
- Email Marketing: Reaching your target audience directly in their email inboxes keeps you both top-of-mind and helpful — both of which are valuable for branding and relationship building. But are your legal marketing emails performing as they should? Evaluate the law firm's email marketing campaigns, including open rates, click-through rates, and unsubscribe rates. Assess the relevance and effectiveness of the email content and calls to action and analyze the impact of email marketing on lead generation or client retention.
- Client Feedback and Referrals: How your clients feel about you is an important tool in measuring success. Be sure to collect and review client feedback and testimonials. Assess the number of referrals received from existing or past clients. Evaluate the overall satisfaction level of clients and their perception of the law firm's marketing efforts. Be sure to address any unsatisfactory feedback and show appreciation to those who left positive reviews or referred your firm to others.
- Return on Investment (ROI): Making money takes money, so you want to be sure your law firm’s resources are being used effectively. If it is possible to compare an overall marketing budget or campaign budget to generated revenue, then do so now. You can assess the cost-per-lead or cost-per-client acquisition on digital advertising and other online content marketing efforts, too. There are other ways to determine ROI in today’s digital marketing world, including through analysis of some of the items in this checklist. Utilizing tracking technology is a very helpful way for law firms to determine ROI.
Not all the items on the checklist will apply to every law firm. However, regularly monitoring and evaluating your marketing successes will help you gauge the effectiveness of your efforts. When you know what works and what doesn’t will help you make informed decisions about adjustments needed now and how to approach future legal marketing activities.
If your evaluation comes up short, and you’re ready to take your marketing strategies to the next level, contact Scorpion today about how we can help you run your best law firm.
