Law firms usually see the benefit in running ads for lead generation, but they’re also incredibly useful in scouting.
Lead generation for plenty of law firms, at least from online channels, mostly derive from SEO (search engine optimisation) and/or running ads, but if your law firm is considering the introduction of a new practice line, or expanding into different geographical locations, using ads to scout can be very effective. That said, if you’re looking at As to drive leads, read all about it here!
What Do You Mean?
Well, as you’re probably aware, the benefit of running ads on Google or Bing, is that the data insights you receive. Sure, most firms don’t drill into it, only focussing on clicks, click-throughs and conversions, but there is an extraordinary amount of data you can pull from the platform. Now, when you’re less conversion focused and more discovery focused, what that data can illuminate can drive better decision making when it comes to establishing new practice areas or territories.
What Data is in There That is So Useful?
Let’s backtrack. Your law firm is considering offering a new practice area. It’s traditionally been a family law practice, but now you’re wanting to introduce mediation. Firstly, running ads targeting relevant mediation keywords will give you an insight into the actual search terms people are entering into Google or Bing.
If you run a campaign for, say, three months on a budget of $3,000 what you would garner from that alone, is the specific questions that people are trying to solve. If you’re crafting content for the new practice area, shaping your content in response to these questions it will ground your writing. It can also provide interesting data sets relating to demographics, age, location, technology use that may surprise you (with one caveat, the age set that Google provides we’re not inclined to take as gospel).
The data can also inform you of whether or not the search query results are price-driven or not. For example, over a 3 month period, if your results are permeated heavily with terms like, “free mediation” “need a free mediator” etc you may rethink your approach to generate leads.
How Do We Get Started?
The starting point is as always, approach the decision to open a new location or introduce a new practice area through better understanding the opportunity. Plenty of firms don’t execute this well, and as a result, spend time and money on something that’s ultimately laid dormant.
But in terms of the actual instigation of a campaign, firstly understand what your objective is. Then, you’re going to need a series of landing pages that correlate to the ads you’re running. You’ll also need to consider the mix of campaigns.
We talk Google Ads here in more depth from a lead generation perspective.
Returning to the example of the introduction of a mediation practice, you’re obviously going to need someone to do the work should your ads generate conversions (a nice by-product of discovery).
How Can You Help
At Fast Firms, we’ve assisted numerous practices explore what has become colloquially known as a “side hustle.” We’d recommend a design thinking workshop to better understand the opportunity and map the strategy and we, of course, can do all the design, development, management and reporting of the ad campaigns.