I recently came across Dennis Kennedy’s blawg post titled Seven Legal Technology Trends for 2007: Widening the Digital Divide in Law Practice. In his post, Dennis gives a great overview of some of the growing trends in the legal industry including the dramatic decline in the use of yellow pages, often the primary source of law firm marketing for attorneys.
The 4 biggest problems I see in using the yellow pages to market your law firm are:
1. There is no way to measure the results. If you’re going to spend money on advertising, at least make an effort to track the results. This can be as simple as having a separate phone number for each of your law firm ads. But don’t rely on self-report by prospects because this is notoriously inaccurate.
2. They are often written by the yellow page sales person, the same person who also created the one for your competitors. Take the time to write your own solid ad copy or even hire a copywriter from www.elance.com, but don’t use your sales person!
3. There is no clear “call to action.” Note to self “Free Consultation” is NOT a call to action. Every law firm marketing their services will give you a free consult. It has to be more than that. You must have a clear and compelling reason why they should pick up the phone and call you (more on this later)
4. Yellow page ads fail to differentiate your law firm from thousands of other competitors. With over one million attorneys in the country, there are thousands of lawyers in every major city who provide the exact same services. When a consumer turns to the yellow pages for a lawyer they are actually encouraged to call multiple firms to try and get the “best deal” or the “biggest promises.” You may know this as the “dialing for dollars” mentality. A big part of law firm marketing is creating several powerful reasons that educate consumers why you are different from other law firms. If someone were to ask you, “Why should I hire you?” what would you say?