Law Firm Marketing Budgets for Solicitors— Not Such a Black Art by Sue Bramall
With all law firm expenditures under the microscope, how do you ensure that your marketing budget is planned and spent wisely to generate the maximum return on investment? Here are some practical tips for 2022.
Clear Objectives First, start with a clean sheet of paper, resist the temptation to start with last year’s budget and assume that you will do all the things that you did last year. If you wish to achieve different results and win business from a new source, then you need to do some things differently. Refer back to the firm’s business plan, think about your headline objectives and make a broad allocation accordingly. For example, if you wish to focus on developing 50% of new business from existing clients, then around 50% of the budget should be allocated to client-facing activities, rather than prospecting. Identify the two or three main firm-wide activities that must happen this year and carve out that funding accordingly. Understandably, many firms have been putting major projects on hold for the last two to three years. However, a seriously dated web site will not be doing you any favors, so maybe now is the time to get on with it.
Departmental Budgets If you have departmental marketing budgets, then encourage each team to take a similar fresh approach to their planning. In an ideal world, marketing resources need to be allocated where they are likely to yield the highest return, rather than, say to the department that shouts loudest. Try not to fall into the trap of spreading a limited budget amongst too many for the sake of fairness. A ‘spray and pray’ approach will achieve little if resources are spread too thinly. Make sure departments back up the budget requests with a clear plan, dates, and responsibilities—one page should suffice. Providing a standard template for each department will help to guide their thinking and will make it easy for you to compare and combine the departments across the firm. Keep it concise. A one-page A4 spreadsheet with twelve columns (one for each month plus total) with rows for each activity is easy to monitor. 6
Attorney Journals Orange County | Volume 194, 2022
Management Information Making tough decisions about where budgets should be allocated is much easier if you have reliable information regarding the fruitfulness of your various marketing activities. How do you know whether one particular activity has delivered an acceptable return on investment? Without a systematic approach to collecting information about inquiries, opportunities, and new clients, then you are forced to rely on anecdotal evidence. Make sure you have a system to measure inquiries, whether by telephone, email, or referral. Receptionists usually record all incoming calls, so they just need to record one more valuable piece of information, “Where did you hear of us?” Via your new client opening procedure you should record where clients say that they heard of you. These two pieces of information will allow you to track your conversion rate—the percentage of inquiries that sign up to become clients. For example, Google’s pay per click marketing can be a huge item of expenditure. Do you know precisely how many clients you receive from this each year? How does the cost per client from Google compare with the cost per client from pay-perclick, the annual golf day or referral fees, if paid? Armed with this information you will clearly be able to see which marketing activities yield the most inquiries and which of these translate to the most lucrative work. Both measures are important, as a high volume of low-value web inquiries is not usually as attractive as a smaller number of higher-value referrals.
Set Policies There are always unplanned for opportunities that occur throughout the year. Some of which may be worthwhile and fit your strategy, others are simply aggressive advertising executives who try every partner in the firm to try and find a less experienced one to agree to their ‘must buy’ opportunity. Set clear policies against which you can assess opportunistic budget requests during the year. For example, “We only undertake long-term preplanned advertising.”
