Advertising has always been a tricky business for legal professionals. While the most storied law firms rely on long-time clients and on personal referrals, new practices often make hard decisions between keeping up appearances or bowing to the pressure of the marketplace. Loud ads on television, in the yellow pages, and on bus stop benches may get some results, but often run the risk of branding lawyers as ambulance chasers. Pay per click advertising campaigns have changed that, especially for practices that need to revive their client rosters during lean economic times. Expert PPC management strategy can generate leads without risking a firms image or running afoul of industry regulations.
Adwords Management Moves Lawyer Ads Off the Benches
In contrast to loud or disconcerting television ads, a PPC management strategy offers a more nuanced view of a law firm, making it more attractive to higher value clients. Few law firms have the resources to run their own advertising strategies in house, relying instead on expensive referral networks or other cookie-cutter creative elements. Instead, with the help of pay-per-click optimization experts, law firms can target Web surfers who search for the kinds of terms that would suggest their need for legal advice in a firms core specialty.
Moving beyond search, sophisticated direct response campaigns can use free reports, teleseminars, and live events as opportunities for clients to develop relationships with law firms and their attorneys. Educational events and content, when presented with appropriate disclaimers and terms of use, often fall outside the definition of traditional attorney advertising. Driving new viewers to these experiences costs very little, when search term bidding is balanced with careful ad placements on influential newspaper Web sites and topical blogs. Pay per click management experts can help lawyers craft effective campaigns that meet industry requirements while positioning attorneys as sought-after experts in their specialties.
Using Pay Per Click Management to Avoid Legal Scrutiny
Its understandable that lawyers must endure one of the toughest sets of regulations about advertising, second only to political campaigns. Firms must be careful to advertise only where they have been license to practice law, while avoiding broad pronouncements or provocations that can be misconstrued as guarantees or promises. Lawyers who fail to meet these guidelines, whether deliberately or accidentally, face a ruinous combination of peer rebuke and professional censure.
With more state Bar Associations embracing blogs and e-mail newsletters as informational tools instead of purely promotional vehicles, PPC management teams can develop strong, targeted direct response campaigns that build large audiences of prospective clients. Adwords management experts can use Googles geographic tools to prevent viewers outside a firms practice area from seeing its pay-per-click ads. Not only does this strategy prevent companies from spending money to attract clients it could never serve, it also maintains compliance with legal advertising rules.
Most lawyers still have yet to embrace the Internet as more than a place to store a virtual copy of a business card. However, law firms that engage pay-per-click management experts to run well-researched direct response campaigns already enjoy the benefits of growing client rosters.
Sources
Connecticut Law Tribune
InjuryBoard
Pittsburg Morning Sun
