This is where we will address the elephant in the room surrounding ROI. After our blog on how to get started, we said that your plan has to be dynamic and adaptable. That doesn’t answer what needs to change and when you should do so. There’s that old cartoon of a person standing at the bottom of a large hole while digging for gold. The viewer can see that the person is inches from finding the treasure. However, the person digging gives up and climbs out of the hole, accepting that they have failed.
Changing your marketing plan feels like this. When should you accept that an avenue or category is not generating a return? Or should you continue investing money into something because you haven’t seen a return yet? Because we have so much experience working with attorneys, we can attest that many firms ignore marketing when business is good and turn to it when it is terrible. Then, when the company picks up, they ignore it again. It’s a lot of peaks and valleys. Having a plan that you stick with avoids this. By planning, you will increase the chance of your plan working because you have a foundation to monitor, optimize, and check results against.
Point #2 of a Marketing Plan: When Are You Doing It?
We like to build marketing plans by quarter and have a rolling year. Every quarter, we’re looking an entire year out. Do you have to do it this way? Not at all. it would be fine even if you sat down and mapped out one quarter at a time. We prefer to pencil in what we will do two, three, or four quarters from now.
It comes down to the fact you may know that you want to do something in the next year. Maybe it’s blogging or investing money into Google Ads. You may not even know if you will do it yourself or want to hire a marketing agency to do it for you. Not knowing is not a problem. If you’re planning for Q2, put it down for Q4. It gives you time to fine-tune the details while still making traction.
How Do I Know If It Is Working?
This question is paired with people’s concern about when they should abandon one of their categories. We explained that you needed to know what you wanted your marketing plan to accomplish. This is also one of the most overlooked pieces of a marketing plan.
- A “good enough” marketing plan tells you what you are doing and when you will do it.
- An even better marketing plan tells you what it is going to cost.
- A great marketing plan includes goals.
Let results mean whatever they mean to you so you can get it done. If you feel you can project it down to a certain amount of leads, number of clients, or revenue, that’s fantastic. However, if your projections are only tied to consultations or clients, that’s workable. The more data you have, the better, but some people get bogged down into data paralysis and abandon their goal of making a marketing plan.
Regardless, if you want to pursue a type of marketing, ask yourself what it should accomplish. You may not have a quantifiable number attached to it, and that’s fine too. For instance, we focus on content marketing, a lead-nurturing activity. We help people stay in touch with their existing network to drive referrals and help lawyers get better-quality clients. That’s what we do and what our expected result is. For each category, there must be some result or thing you want to get from that type of marketing.
Spotlight Branding
Latest posts by Spotlight Branding (see all)
- The #1 Risk for Small Law Firms [and How to Avoid It] - December 13, 2024
- Most Small Law Firms Take This Risk; Are You One Of Them? - December 12, 2024
- Lawyers Are Artists, Just Not In This Way - December 11, 2024
