Proving ROI: The biggest benefit of inbound marketing for legal firms

Inbound marketing for legal firms can be the best way to not only identify return on investment (ROI), but also align sales and marketing teams, and reach out to the people who matter to the company most.

Two in three legal firms are set to increase their marketing and business development spend over the course of 2018, according to research conducted for the Law Firm Marketing Summit. According to the research, 47% already saw their marketing budgets increase between five and 10% this year. Some law firms saw much higher increases.

Amazingly though, only 41% of law firms surveyed said that their law firm had ‘actively embraced’ digital marketing. It's a hardly a surprise then that so are many struggling to get a grasp on their ROI. 

The key benefits of inbound marketing for legal firms

Though so many businesses across the legal sector are looking to increase their marketing spend, a large amount are failing to make their money work as hard as it can. The biggest problem is a lack of alignment between sales and marketing departments, while many others admit they haven’t a clue how to measure ROI.

Interestingly, research conducted before November’s Law Firm Marketing Summit suggests that only 18% feel their marketing and business development functions are ‘highly valued’. Even more alarmin, that 47% say they don’t measure their marketing ROI while one in two law firms say they aren’t organised enough to get the best possible results from their marketing and business development departments.

Also telling is research commissioned by First4Lawyers, which suggests that a huge amount of law firms are investing in marketing techniques that aren’t effective for them, and could be a huge waste of money in their overall marketing strategy. The legal sector has spent £50 million over the past five years on print advertising, for instance, despite 40% stating that this isn't an important marketing tactic for them.

Get more for your money with inbound marketing

What’s the point of spending that money not only on something that isn’t really rated by the powers that be, but on a marketing method which can't provide an accurate ROI?

Newspaper ads are the epitome of outbound marketing. How do you know how many people have seen your ad and acted on it, or whether a lead has been captured from a current or previous issue or campaign, or if your messaging generated any effective word of mouth? The same goes for other outbound methods including radio and television, which are also hard to measure in terms of solid ROI.

Inbound marketing for legal firms is far more cost-effective while also being far less intrusive. It provides a way of building fantastic long-term client relationships through a variety of digital channels in a bespoke way. Certainly, most law firms seem to know this according to First4Lawyers, yet many aren’t putting as much weight on an inbound approach as they perhaps could or should.

Social media marketing ranks very strongly for perceived importance, yet less than half of law firms engage with the practice. An enormous 70% of firms say paid search (better known as PPC) is an important or very important marketing activity, yet only two in five surveyed companies do it. Astonishingly, 72% of those surveyed admitted that they are not or only slightly prepared on how to use data metrics, with only 2% ranking data marketing as an important part of their strategy.

Inbound marketing provides better accuracy and ROI

Away from First4Lawyers, a report by CenturyLink Emea found that only 25% of more than 150 legal sector IT decision-makers said their firms were GDPR-ready.

However, firms can embrace inbound marketing to futureproof themselves against the legislation coming into effect in May 2018, avoiding serious fines and collecting GDPR-compliant data in transparent ways.

GDPR compliance is just one of the benefits of inbound marketing for legal firms in 2018. With a bespoke strategy tailored to your legal firm, it’s possible to attract better-quality leads almost instantly through biddable media, while building foundations to drive organic traffic over the long term.

By investing in an outbound marketing method such as a TV or radio ad, you’re casting your net far and wide to anybody and everybody. Not only is this a weak branding strategy that can get your firm lost amongst the competition - it’s a strategy that can also put a huge strain on your sales and outreach team as they waste time chasing up poor quality leads.

Working with a specialist agency experienced in providing inbound marketing for legal firms can help you better target the clients who matter to you most. Whether you want to make inroads in the B2B or B2C sector, the right strategy will identify where those people spend their time online and reach out to them in creative ways, collecting key data with their explicit consent.

One key feature of an inbound approach is the ability to track campaigns through the right platforms, allowing firms to report accurate ROI. Not only is this essential from a reporting standpoint, but that data also goes a long way in streamlining campaigns over time to better define target audiences, attract more relevant leads, focus on the best performing channels and reduce campaign costs in the future.

Find out more about the benefits of inbound marketing for legal firms by speaking to a Six & Flow marketing specialist today. We can help you to pull ahead of the competition in 2018.