Marketing is just a fad. You pay a bit of money, do a bit of advertising, nothing really happens, nothing really changes, but you feel that you have done your bit. After all, in ever more competitive times you know that you need to do some marketing, so doing some random or ad hoc advertising ticks this box doesn’t it?
So when you receive that phone call on a Friday afternoon, offering you an amazing ‘advertising opportunity’ which has a 5pm deadline, and which if you do not seize will be grabbed by your neighbouring law firm, you have to take it don’t you? And when you discover that it costs less than £1,000, the seemingly magical cut off point when serious decision making is required, you would be mad to say no wouldn’t you?
This falls into the “We have to do something” territory that so many law firms find themselves being trapped by at the moment. They all know that they have to do something, that it really is now or never, but they often sadly do completely the wrong thing.
If you go back to my headline, that marketing is a ‘gimmick’ which I know so many solicitors believe to be the case, you can easily buy into these last minute advertising packages. I mean, you can’t treat marketing seriously like you do the law, can you?
Well of course you really must if you want to be running a successful practice for now and many years to come. And I would start doing this right now. You owe it to any staff you employ, your suppliers, your family and above all else to yourself.
You see marketing is much more similar to the law than you might at first glance imagine. It has rules and systems, for example just like a litigation case does. If you took on a dispute for a client with no prior knowledge and immediately tried to apply for a judgment, you would fail. If you just accept any offer to advertise without giving the matter some serious consideration, you are again much more likely to fail.
When you are approached my these advertising charlatans with their last minute offers, take just a few moments to run through the short check list below and you can save yourself many wasted thousands of pounds.
Ask yourself these questions:
- How did the person selling this amazing opportunity find me (did they cold call or spam email or were they recommended)? If it was really good would they really be cold calling for new clients?
- Have I ever heard of the publication or website before?
- Does it target my ideal client (that assumes you know who your ideal client is too)
- Can I measure the success of this advertisement down to the last penny and pound (if not don’t do it)
- Can I automate the marketing so that it happens with or without my input and keeps on producing new leads?
- Will it make me more in fees than it costs several times over
Unless and until you can answer all of these questions, you should say no to any more of those random calls selling gimmicky marketing or advertising. They resort to underhand selling tactics for a very good reason, largely because what they are selling doesn’t work (worse still is that I am sure that in some cases the publication is never actually printed).
I hate the people selling these systems, because I know that most solicitors are easy prey for the reasons that I have mentioned above. You know that you should be doing something, so they take advantage of this knowledge and sell you what anyone in the know would call ‘utter rubbish’.
This is why I have set up a section within Marketing4Solicitors called Saints And Sinners. This is where my members approach me before they spend money to see if I or others within our group have tried the company that has approached them, so that they can save themselves the time and money of investing in an advertising scheme that simply will not work.
Just think about that, you could buy one of these last minute schemes for £1,000 that produces absolutely nothing, or for just over half of that cost you can have access to Marketing4Solicitors for a year and save yourself the stress and pain of investing in these sham schemes (there is no minimum contract – just making the point that it is very reasonably priced).
Not only that, but you will be provided with a wealth of resources explaining exactly how you should be spending your hard earned marketing money to generate a steady flow of new client instructions, and then the system you can use to automate the marketing processes so that they work with or without you, month after month.
Whatever you do, please don’t waste your money on the advertising methods outlined above. Use the simple test of ‘Will I be able to track to the penny how much money I make in costs by advertising in this publication’ and if met with a negative answer, get back to doing what you do best, looking after your clients. Let the snake oil salesman snare a different solicitor that day.
6 Fastest Ways To Win New Law Firm Clients – Click to download now:>>
Ready To Take Action And See Results Now?
Please call 0117 290 8555 to arrange a mutually convenient time for a telephone discussion, Email me or complete a Free Online Enquiry. There is no cost or obligation. We will have a chat about where you are and where you would like to be and I will suggest some things you can do to get there quickly.