A Checklist for Running a Successful Law Firm Marketing Campaign

If you’re a legal marketing professional, chances are one of your many tasks is planning and executing digital marketing campaigns. The numerous details and steps that contribute to your campaign, however, can be quite overwhelming and all too easy to lose track of. Many times, it’s tempting to dive right in and try to make some traction, but having a thoughtful checklist will ensure you don’t miss anything, cause confusion, or end up with less than stellar results. Our checklist comprises 10 easy steps to help you plan, launch and track a successful digital marketing campaign for your law firm.

A Digital Marketing Campaign Checklist for Law Firm Marketers

1. Set your goals. What do you want to achieve?

Without a concrete end-game, things can get confusing fast. How do you know which tactics to use if you aren’t even sure what you hope to accomplish? Examples of goals are to get more newsletter subscribers or to generate registrations for a webinar. Establishing clear goals will help you determine more specific objectives. 

2. Choose your objectives and set your KPIs.

These will build directly off of your goals. Goals are more broad, where objectives are more specific. For example, say that the goal you set in step one was to get more newsletter subscribers, one objective you might choose is getting 200 more subscribers by a certain date.To help you outline your objectives, make them SMART:

Specific – campaign objectives should be clearly defined

Measurable – they should be measurable so you know when you’ve reached them. Make sure you define the marketing KPIs (key performance indicators) you will use to track performance. KPIs are metrics that allow your law firm to determine your results over time. Some examples of marketing KPIs are: cost per lead, organic traffic, landing page conversion rates, social media traffic, and many more.

Achievable – you should be able to actually achieve your goals. Don’t make them unattainable!

Relevant – they should be relevant to your overall business goals and to your law firm’s business development & marketing plan

Time-sensitive – objectives should be achievable within a reasonable time frame

3. Define your campaign audience.

Today’s digital avenues allow highly targeted marketing – the opportunity to reach individuals who are in need of your services, at the right time. In this step you’ll write down your campaign audience. Try and narrow your targeting as much as possible (industry, occupation, location, specific challenges, etc). This will make your message more focused, which will result in a better performing digital marketing campaign. Once you have your campaign audience defined, it will be easier to choose your tactics, since different channels will reach different people.

4. Determine your budget.

Setting a budget is a less glamorous but necessary component of a successful marketing campaign. Work with any higher-ups to share numbers and get an amount approved. Remember that your budget will need to be distributed across your different channels.

5. Determine the best channels to reach your target audience.

Using your allocated budget, and taking into consideration both your target audience and objectives, you need to decide which channels you’re going to use to promote your offer. Channels can include Google Ads, LinkedIn Ads, email marketing, retargeting ads on Facebook and much more.

6. Create your offer and landing page.

The right landing page can make a tremendous difference in the results you achieve with your marketing efforts. Whether visitors are coming from paid advertisements, social media links, or search engines, your landing pages are what make that all-important first impression.

Don’t forget to optimize your landing page for SEO, have a clear value proposition and call to action (usually a form for the user to complete).

7. Develop creative assets and irresistible marketing messages.

This is where it’s time to get creative. Prepare creative assets for your campaign, such as images, video, text, and headlines. Then, be sure your designs are adapted to fit each channel (size requirements, text length, etc.).

Your messaging needs to be laser-focused on your audience in order to be effective. This starts with knowing the fears, problems, needs and wants of your target audience and ends by crafting a message that speaks to those problems in a compelling way. Take the time to craft headlines that relay the most important benefit in a single, powerful line.

8. Determine how you will follow up with leads.

Your digital marketing campaign doesn’t end when leads convert on your landing page. Plan and build your follow up campaigns to nurture leads down your funnel. A series of informative and helpful emails can turn a basic lead into a well-qualified one.

9. Launch and test your campaign.

Before you launch your campaign, test everything to make sure it all looks and works as it should. You need to also make sure that all relevant tracking has been set up. If your law firm’s website is set up with Google Analytics Tracking, then your analytics will do the work for you.

10. Report and measure your success.

Avoid the “set it and forget it” mentality! It’s important you monitor your campaigns daily, adjust them if necessary, and regularly update your team on the results. Keep track of your key KPIs and the goals you set initially while the campaign is running. Remember, however, that it can take a couple of days for a campaign to start gaining traction. Don’t be too hasty in revising or pausing an ad if you don’t see immediate results.

Lastly, once the campaign is complete, put together a report on how each tactic performed.

Takeaway

Following our law firm marketing campaign checklist will help ensure a smooth, efficient process. If you take your time on each of these steps, you’ll be much more likely to execute successful, ROI-generating marketing campaigns for your law firm. Don’t forget to adjust tactics as necessary and monitor and report on results. The beauty of digital marketing campaigns is that they can be monitored and optimized in real time. If you make a change on a platform like LinkedIn or Google, it will be live within minutes. 

Need a hand? We can help you create campaigns that raise your profile, build credibility in your areas of expertise, and reach the right people with the right message. Contact us today for a free consultation.