Which is Better for Law Firms Looking to Grow?
Let’s say you’re a small to medium-sized personal injury firm and you want to focus on growth for the rest of this year.
Sound familiar?
This is a common dilemma for many firms of a similar size and you’re probably wondering where you should start to begin to grow.
Clearly, you know lead generation needs to be a priority in order to land the right clients and help your practice grow, but securing leads isn’t exactly easy. In fact, it’s become an extremely complex web of big players, smaller players, and every size in between.
This leads to a situation where many firms are weary of entering this field of pay-per-lead (PPL) services. Other times, firms have tried and found it to not be profitable.
The truth is, PPL can be profitable for firms hyper-focused on growth. What that means is they generally have an in-house employee or even a whole team to create an infrastructure so they can closely monitor the ROI on their PPL strategy and make constant adjustments to maintain profitability and keep costs in check.
This generally only works for mid-sized firms as smaller firms simply don’t have the resources to maintain that sort of accurate reporting and new client intake structure.
So PPL can work, but if you’re spending all that money, is there a way to invest it and generate leads instead of paying a lead generator for their often inferior leads?
Search Engine PPL For Law Firms
One option firms turn to is Google and their somewhat recent addition of PPL ads to their Local Service Ad program. While still technically a middle-man like legal lead generators, you’re dealing with the top search website in the world, so you’re essentially leapfrogging the large lead services to some degree to try to get the leads first.
But once again, the problem comes down to profitability and the cost of managing the leads. As we explained before, if you simply pay for leads and have nobody managing them, they quickly turn into a loss for almost every firm over time.
Most firms have already tried Google’s pay-per-click (PPC) advertising with limited results. PPL advertising with Google is even more complex and costly than PPC, making it more difficult to turn a profit.
When Google launched its PPL service, some quality leads could be had for well under $100. So this meant firms could get away with buying leads without much infrastructure to track and maximize them. Of course, that didn’t last long and leads are now going for well over $300 in many markets, and climbing.
At that rate, you need at least one dedicated staff member to go over the metrics to make sure these are profitable over time. That’s a significant investment in both time and money.
So what else is there?
The other option is to start generating leads for yourself. A task that may sound daunting at first, but once you understand the basics, it’s actually easier, has lower costs, and generates higher quality leads in the long run.
Assuming you already have a website, you already have the foundation needed to start generating your leads through search results focused on your local area and focus of practice.
From there, you only need two more pieces to complete your lead generation strategy.
- Written original content that answers questions asked by those seeking legal representation in a personal injury case.
- Keyword and phrase research to understand exactly how and what those potential clients are searching for.
These are the core elements that allow you to start building your own lead generation network that funnels prospects right to your main website contact page. The leads are quality because the content that brought them to you added value for that client, increasing their trust in the source.
The content answered a question in a way the client wanted it answered, and now they want to take the next step and speak with the source that helped them.
PPL services often just grab contact information through forms on generic pages. These leads are low quality since the lead has no real connection to the form or page they just filled out. Also, that lead is often “shotgunned” to several lawyers all at once, which makes them even more time-critical than a normal lead. Once again, this is why you often need a team to manage these leads and manage intake.
Where Can I Find This Content and Keyword Research to Get Started?
This is where you want to work with a bespoke agency that specializes in this niche area of lead generation for personal injury lawyers. They will understand your area of law and be able to find the exact phrases clients search for when looking for counsel.
If you work with an agency like Conceptual Creations to build your own network, we have fixed-cost packages of content and research we can tailor to your firm. There is no ongoing obligation or costs with these and you only buy what you need to start building your lead generation network. When you’re ready to expand your lead generation network, you simply purchase another package whenever you’re ready.
The content is written, researched, and published for you. You always own it, so even if you stop buying new content, your old content keeps generating leads. With PPL, once you stop paying, you receive no more leads.
Having your own content created is by far the lowest risk and most sustainable way of building out your own high-quality lead generation network that funnels clients right to your front door.
If you want to learn more about this strategy and find out how easy and affordable it can be, contact one of our lead generation experts today.
