To know if your law firm’s marketing efforts are successful, follow the following steps:
- Define your goals
- Measure key performance indicators (KPIs) across different channels, including:
- Website metrics
- Pay-per-click (PPC) and pay-per-lead (PPL) ads
- Social media ads
- Email marketing
- Utilize appropriate analytics platforms like GA4, Meta, LinkedIn, and MailChimp.
- Regularly analyze data and make adjustments to refine your marketing strategies.
- For those needing expert guidance, turn to M&R Marketing for professional digital strategy and analytics services to optimize your law firm’s marketing efforts.
You rely on law firm marketing strategies to boost your firm’s growth. But how can you know that your strategies are actually working in your favor? You have to periodically analyze the data from your marketing channels to make sure everything is working effectively and make adjustments if the data reveals it to be necessary.
Let’s take a look at the steps to take to ensure your law firm marketing efforts are working for you.
1. Define What Success Means for Your Law Firm’s Marketing Campaign(s)
Before creating a marketing strategy for your firm, it’s crucial to determine what you want your campaign and strategy to achieve.
Do you want to see an increase in new clients? Do you want to see an increase in brand recognition? Do you want to expand your reach within your service area or grow your service area?
Knowing the goals you are working toward through your marketing efforts will help significantly and in a number of ways:
Audience targeting: Defining your goals will help you know who to target with your strategies. Your goals will reveal the age, location, gender, educational level, income status, and other demographics of the people you need to be targeting.
Strategy creation: By knowing what you want to achieve with your marketing and the audience you should be going after, you can have a clearer picture of what your campaign needs to include. For example, if you realize your audience is more or less “those of all ages, sexes, and social statuses,” then a Facebook-centered social media ad strategy would be an ideal addition to your plan. If goals require you to target more business-minded people, a LinkedIn-focused strategy would likely be more effective.
Performance evaluation: Once your strategies are in place and you have a strong grasp of what you want them to achieve, you’ll have an easier time evaluating all the incoming data. Plus, you’ll have the clarity you need to make any necessary adjustments or pivots that steer your marketing efforts closer to your goals.
2. Know What KPIs and Metrics to Measure (and How to Measure Them)
Depending on the advertising channels you decide to use in your marketing strategy, you will have the ability to evaluate the key performance indicators (KPIs) and other metrics. KPI evaluation shows you if current strategies are working in your favor or if they need adjustment to improve performance.
While there are a multitude of advertising channels you can include in your marketing strategy, let’s take a look at some of the most common ones and the KPIs that indicate their success:
Website Performance
Your greatest weapon in your marketing strategy is always going to be your website. It’s your largest plot of digital real estate, or at least it should be, allowing plenty of opportunities to generate traffic, attract leads, and increase conversions. It’s where people know to go to discover exactly who you are and what you can do for them, so long as your site a) offers that kind of content (and it should), b) is easy to navigate (and it should be), and c) appears in front of ideal users wherever they are conducting their searches (and it should).
There are a number of KPIs for website performance, including:
- Organic traffic: Organic traffic comprises visitors who come to your website from search engines like Google or Bing and click on an organic search result rather than a paid ad. A healthy organic traffic score shows that your website is ranking well for relevant keywords, is ranking high in relevant searches, and is attracting users to click your search result link over your competition’s.
- Traffic by Source: The traffic by source shows you where your visitors are coming from—organic search, paid ads, social media ads, emails, QR codes, etc. Depending on the results of your traffic by source results, you can have a clearer idea of the channels you should lean into. For instance, if a lot of visitors come from Facebook ads but hardly any come from Instagram, you may want to put more of your marketing efforts into Facebook and less into Instagram.
- Keyword ranking: Keyword ranking includes the number of keywords your website ranks for and the quality of those keyword rankings. The more keywords you rank for, the more likely you are to appear high on the search engine results pages (SERPs). The more relevant your ranked keywords are to your law firm, the more likely you are to attract users to your site.
- Click-through rate: The click-through rate is the rate at which people click on a link to get to your website. It’s the percentage of people who click on a site-bound link out of the total number of people who encounter a site-bound link. These links can include organic search results, paid search ads, social media ads, linked social media posts, email marketing links, etc.
- Sessions: Sessions show you the number of interactions a user has with your website in a 30-minute time frame. Interactions can include page views, button clicks, form submissions, ecommerce-related actions, and more. Sessions reveal how engaged users are on your website. The more engagement, the better.
- Conversion rate: Your conversion rate is the percentage of visitors who complete an action while on your site—submitting a form, completing a purchase, signing up for email marketing, clicking on a phone number to make a call, etc. The conversion rate shows how effective your website is at encouraging actions and converting visitors into quality leads.
- Bounce rate: The bounce rate shows the rate at which people click through to your website but then click away from your site without exploring further. The lower the bounce rate, the healthier your website likely is.
Pay-Per-X Advertising Performance
Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, such as Google ads and Microsoft ads, and pay-per-lead (PPL) advertising, such as Google Local Services ads, work to put your name at the top of the search engines in relevant searches. These advertising options place you above organic search results, encouraging users to click on your name first before they encounter competitors’ ads or organic results. Other forms of pay-per-click ads, such as display ads, put your brand and message in front of passive audiences on any one of the millions of websites connected to the Google Display Network or Microsoft Audience Network.
The KPIs to keep an eye on for PPC and PPL ads include, but are not limited to:
- Cost per click (CPC): The CPC is the average amount of money it costs when a user clicks on your search or display ad. With a well-crafted strategy and smart tactics, it’s possible to increase clicks while keeping the CPC low or lower than average. Cost per click excludes PPL ads like Google Local Services ads.
- Cost per lead: PPL advertising, like Google Local Services ads, only costs when a user makes a conversion and becomes a lead after clicking on the ad. Should someone click on your PPL ad and submit a form, make a phone call, or complete another conversion action, you will be charged. In this model, you don’t incur expenses for unfruitful interactions, like users who click on your PPC ad but bounce away before converting.
- Return on Ad Spend (ROAS): The ROAS shows you how much revenue you generate for every dollar spent on your PPC or PPL ads. It helps you see how profitable your paid ads really are.
- Quality Score: Google ads offer you a quality score, or a rating that is based on the relevance of your targeted keywords, the quality of your ads, and the behaviors of users who encounter and interact with your ads. The higher your quality score, the better.
- Impressions: Impressions are the number of times your ad appears in searches or on websites. They help show brand exposure and reveal the volume at which your ads are being displayed. Keep in mind, though, that impressions do not imply the ads were seen with each display. If your display ad appears at the bottom of a webpage, and the user does not scroll to the bottom of the page to see it, that is still considered an impression.
- Click-through rate (CTR): Much like the click-through rate for websites, the CTR for PPC and PPL ads evaluates the rate at which people click on your ads. It divides the total number of users who click by the total number of users exposed to the ad. Multiply by 100 to get the CTR percentage. A higher CTR shows a healthier PPC or PPL ad.
- Conversion rate: The conversion rate for PPC and PPL ads is similar to the rate for a website. It is the percentage of those who complete a conversion action out of all the users who click on the ad.
Social Media Ad Performance
Advertising on social media to boost your law firm’s marketing is a wise move to make. Scratch that. It should be one of the top three marketing channels in your arsenal, next to your website and Google/Microsoft ads. Regardless of the kind of law you practice, your audience is somewhere on social media, whether Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, or any other platform. Getting your brand and message in front of these audiences is crucial to meet your marketing goals and grow your firm.
KPIs to evaluate for social media ads can include, but are not limited to:
- Engagement: Engagement on social media includes likes, comments, and shares on your ads. The more engaging your content is, the more likely you are to benefit from these engagements, which help boost your post’s performance and reach.
- Reach: The reach of an ad shows the number of accounts exposed to your ad. When a user scrolls through their feed and sees one of your ads, their account is added to the reach total for that ad.
- Impressions: The impressions for a social media ad are similar to the impressions for a Google or Microsoft ad. It shows the number of times your ad was displayed.
- Clicks: The click count shows how many people click on the ad once they’ve encountered it.
- Click-through rate: The click-through rate is the rate of those who click on your ad once they encounter it. It compares the total amount of those who click the ad to the total reach count.
- Follower rate: The follower growth rate is the percentage of new followers gained within the reporting period. It compares the number of new followers to your total follower count to show the rate at which you are growing your social audience.
- Conversion rate: The conversion rate for social media ads is similar to the conversion rate for Google and Microsoft ads in that it shows the rate of users who complete a desired action after clicking on the ad. It divides the total number of users who complete an action by the total number of users who clicked on the ad to give the percentage. Multiply by 100 to get the percentage.
- Cost per click: Much like Google and Microsoft ads, there is a cost to users clicking on your social media ads. The cost depends on a number of factors, such as targeting strategies, ad quality, bidding strategies, industry and competition, and more. With strong social media campaign strategies in place, you can see an increase in conversions while keeping the CPC low.
Email Marketing Performance
Email marketing is an excellent way to market directly to current and former clients, potential clients, referral sources, and others who actively want to hear from you. Email marketing sends messages from your firm to those on your recipient list to open and read at their convenience.
KPIs for email marketing can include, but are not limited to:
- Email open rates: The email open rate shows you how likely a recipient is to open your email before deleting it or saving it. It divides the total number of opened emails by the total number of emails delivered. Multiply by 100 to get the percentage.
- Email list growth rate: The list growth rate shows you how frequently people are signing up to receive your e-newsletters. It can help you reshape or improve email collection strategies. It can be calculated by dividing the total number of new emails added to your list in a given period by the total number of users on your list at the time of reporting and multiplying by 100.
- Click rate: The click rate is the percentage of recipients who not only open the email but click on a link displayed within the message. It helps show how effective your message is at enticing recipients to engage with your content and take further action. The click rate requires you to divide the total number of people who clicked on a link by the total number of delivered emails to get the percentage. Multiply by 100 to get the percentage.
- Click-through rate: The click-through rate also shows the percentage of those who click on a link within the email. However, this percentage compares the total number of those who click to the total number of those who actually opened the email.
- Conversion rate: Like the other conversion rates, the conversion rate for emails shows the percentage of people who complete a desired action after opening your email and clicking through to your site or landing page. It divides the total number of completed actions by the total number of emails sent. Multiply by 100 to get the percentage.
- Unsubscribe rate: The unsubscribe rate shows you the number of people who no longer want to receive your emails. It can help you evaluate the quality of your message, content, engagement, and other factors of your emails and make improvements if necessary. The lower your unsubscribe rate, the better.
- Bounce rate: The bounce rate reveals the percentage of recipients who do not receive your emails or those whose servers returned them. It is calculated by dividing the total number of bounced emails by the total number of emails sent and multiplying by 100.
3. Know How to Measure the KPIs and Metrics Accurately
It’s one thing to understand what data to measure and evaluate from your law firm’s ad strategy. It’s another thing entirely to know how.
There are several ways to evaluate your digital ad performance, including using:
- GA4 (for website and Google Ads analytics)
- Meta (for Facebook and Instagram analytics)
- LinkedIn (for LinkedIn analytics)
- MailChimp (for email marketing analytics)
Each analytics platform is customizable to display or highlight the metrics you really want to focus on. Plus, they are effective at showing you how your ads are performing, where things are working, and where improvements can be made to enhance performance even more.
4. Read the Data and Implement Necessary Changes
The single point of gathering analytical data is to understand how your ads are performing and determine how they can improve. Whenever data reveals the need to pivot, you must revisit current strategies and make changes to redirect efforts in a more positive direction.
5. Let M&R Marketing Take Care of Digital Strategies and Data Analysis for You
Digital marketing and digital ad analytics can feel pretty daunting and seemingly endless, especially if you are busy tending to your clients or other matters needed to run your law firm. That’s why M&R Marketing has the tools and expertise needed to create strategies, execute them, evaluate results, and adjust whenever the data tells us to.
Our in-house team of digital strategists is well-versed in strategy creation and analytics for a full range of digital services, including website reporting, PPC ads, social media ads, and email marketing, as well as listings, geofencing, video marketing, and more.
Get Optimized Digital Marketing Solutions for Your Law Firm Today: 478-621-4491
M&R Marketing knows law firm marketing and the importance of a digital ad strategy for the growth of your firm. With nearly 200 years of collective marketing experience under our belts, the M&R team is your source for impactful, effective digital marketing solutions, in addition to all other forms of marketing, including:
- Branding
- Search engine marketing (SEM)
- Search engine optimization (SEO)
- Social media marketing (SMM)
- Email marketing
- Traditional advertising
- Photo and video marketing
- Marketing strategy creation
Are you ready to see how our team can benefit you? Call 478-621-4491 to speak with one of our business development managers today!
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