Law Firm Marketing Budgeting: Allocating Resources Effectively

Law firms are businesses, and they are incredibly competitive ones. To sustain and grow the business, they need to spend money on marketing to attract new clients. The amount of money your law firm needs to spend will depend on a variety of factors. Even if you arrive at a single figure for your budget, how you allocate your legal marketing resources can make the difference between success and wasting your firm’s cash. Law firm marketing budgeting can be challenging. 

How Much Do Law Firms Spend on Digital Marketing?

Before you decide how much you’re going to spend on legal marketing, consider what is the norm for your industry. According to a 2021 Justia survey, law firms spend between 2-20% of their annual revenue on digital marketing. 

The size of your firm could determine what’s most appropriate. For example, larger firms tend to spend 10% or more of their revenue on digital marketing, while smaller firms keep that figure to around 5%. 

Choosing the Right Legal Marketing Spend for Your Firm

In addition to the size of your law firm, it’s also important to consider your practice area. For example, personal injury law is the most costly area of law to market because it is so competitive. On the other hand, you might find it more affordable to market your services if your practice areas are business law, real estate law, or even estate planning. 

It’s essential that you choose a legal marketing spend that is right for you. Another important consideration is your return on investment. After all, it will be much easier to decide on a larger marketing spend if you know those dollars will produce results. 

How to Allocate Your Legal Marketing Resources Effectively

Law firms of every size and shape need to determine which marketing channels to use in their legal marketing campaigns. Here are some of the most common marketing strategies law firms use that produce the best results:

Website Design & Development

In a 2020 ABA survey, nearly 87% of law firms reported having a website, but only 59% of solo attorneys confirmed they used a website for digital marketing. Unfortunately, just having a website in a highly competitive environment isn’t good enough. 

Your firm needs an attractive, engaging website that is optimized for the search engines and local search. If your site doesn’t provide a good experience that helps potential clients connect with you, your firm can lose valuable opportunities. This should be your top priority when allocating your marketing dollars. 

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search engine optimization (SEO) is another area of legal marketing you don’t want to ignore. Law firm SEO involves many different strategies to ensure your firm’s website shows up in search engine results. 

In addition to making adjustments to your website and building strategic links, it’s critical that you focus on local SEO if you want to attract clients from a specific geographic area. To do this, you will need to have an optimized Google Business Profile, get online feedback from clients, and get listed in legal directories. 

Content Marketing

Content marketing is an indispensable part of any effective digital marketing strategy. This often goes hand-in-hand with SEO, as your legal marketing team will create ongoing content that incorporates high-value keyword phrases that will help your website rank better and create natural link-building opportunities. This content will also attract more prospective clients to your website, giving you an opportunity to convert them to paid clients. 

Social Media Marketing

If you want to connect with your target audience, it’s generally helpful to spend time engaging with them on social sites. After all, a majority of people devote a significant amount of time browsing these sites, reading or watching content, and discovering brands that can help them solve issues. 

Social media marketing can help your law firm create brand awareness. When you establish yourself as an authority in your field on social sites, people will know where to turn when they need the services you provide. 

Paid Advertising

Your law firm might also wish to devote some of its resources to paid pads. These include Google ads and social media ads. With Google Ads, you pay-per-click, and with social media ads, you often pay based on a bidding system. 

One of the benefits of paid advertising is that you can achieve fast results while you wait for other strategies, like content marketing, to take hold. Another benefit is that paid advertising allows you to target your ads based on demographics and geographic location. 

Creating Your Law Firm’s Marketing Budget

As you think about creating a marketing budget for your law firm, it may be helpful to apply some basic metrics used in formulating a budget and allocating resources. You can start with a basic formula to define how much of your revenue you will dedicate to marketing. 

Company revenue X Marketing percentage / 12

So, if your gross annual revenue is $1 million per year and you want to allot 10% to marketing, your monthly marketing budget would be $8,333.

$1,000,000 x 0.10 /12 = $8,333

From this baseline figure, you can adjust the percentage you dedicate to marketing as well as the way you allocate your marketing dollars for each channel (SEO, social media, PPC, etc.). It is essential that you establish digital marketing goals and key performance indicators (KPIs) so you know what strategies are working and can make quick adjustments to ensure you don’t waste your firm’s marketing dollars. 

Partner With a Digital Marketing Agency That Will Provide the Best Value

If you want to achieve the best possible results that fit your budget, it makes sense to work with a professional. An experienced digital marketing agency can help you with law firm marketing budgeting and they know how to deliver the best value for any budget and will focus only on strategies designed to produce results. 

At Too Darn Loud Legal Marketing, you can have peace of mind knowing your digital marketing strategy is in professional and budget-conscious hands. Our team of seasoned digital marketing specialists will develop a strategy that will get your firm found and chosen by its target audience and improve its overall results. To learn more, contact us today to schedule a free initial consultation and website evaluation.