Predictable Estate Planner - Heath Rost

Empowering Lawyers To Independently Scale

Apply Now

Great Expectations: Managing Google Ads For Law Firms

by

Has your law firm tried Google Ads before without success?  Well the truth is if every law firm that ever attempted Google Ads to drive new leads was successful with it there would be no advertising agencies out there to help them.  Over the last 10 years working in attorney and law firm marketing I know what expectations are necessary to agree to prior to beginning a new working relationship with any search advertising specialist, and that’s what I will cover in today’s blog.

My hope is that reading this will save you time and money as you seek out the right marketer for you and your firm.

 

Expectation #1 : You want to hire an expert

This is the most basic expectation, it might seem elementary to even say, but you would be surprised at some of the inquires I get!

I once had a prospective client that told me they wanted one thing, which I can help with, but after the second conversation we had I learned that they weren’t actually in alignment with that they were saying they wanted.  This business owner said they wanted to grow their business, but they just did not have the right mindset when it comes to business to be able to work with us.  Let me explain.

The business owner believed that the first thing they needed was a unique legal service they can offer.  This seems pretty logical, however its important to get specific about what you really need to grow your business.  What any business needs first is customers that are interested in your service.  Just because you have a service doesn’t mean anyone wants it, that there is a market for it.  I can crumple up 5 pieces of paper into a ball and put on a website the service I provide, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to get a plethora of customers reaching out to me about my services.

It’s basic supply and demand.

Have you ever seen the movie “The Wolf of Wall Street?”  In the movie Jordan Belford asks a colleague to sell him this pen to teach his team a lesson about supply and demand.  The first person turns down his offer to avoid looking foolish, and the second colleague says sure I’ll sell you that pen.  He takes the pen from Jordan as as he does he turns and asks him, “hey can you do me a favor and write your name on that napkin?”  Jordan responds “I don’t have a pen.”

The takeaway here is you should be absolutely clear about what your product or service is.  When Estate Planning Lead Pros meets with a new prospective client the expectation is they are there because they want to hire an expert.  They want to work with someone they can trust and can provide them the best advice and execution on their marketing campaign.

 

Expectation #2 : You want to grow a longterm relationship with your marketer

As long as I’ve worked with law firms I can tell you that Google Ads are a great place to start.  That said, there is more to running a campaign than just setup and forget.  It needs to evolve to what works best and needs to be measured because what gets measured gets managed.

Our second expectation we encourage you to consider is don’t expect working with a Google Ads expert to be a sprint.  Getting a streamlined ad campaign running for any business requires patience, conditioning and a plan to get there.  It’s truly a marathon, and should be treated as such when you commit to working with your expert. Regardless of who you choose to work with, if you don’t allow for at least a couple months for your campaign to fully optimize you aren’t measuring anything.  And therefore, have nothing to manage.

Lastly it’s important to note that bringing traffic to your law firm’s website is only one piece of the puzzle to a winning Google Ads campaign.  Your law firm’s website design, look and feel need to be easy to use, easy to understand, and your website’s user experience should take your prospects on a journey.

To achieve a great long-term working relationship with your Google Ads expert for your law firm you should keep in mind that your website that could be fundamentally flawed.  That would be a great question to ask by the way!  What can you do to make my existing website convert better, and do we need to start over?  I promise being open to a fresh start by the expert managing your law firm’s Google Ads will pay dividends in the long run.

 

Expectation #3 : If something isn’t working, you communicate

If something isn’t working the way you want then the expectation you should have for yourself is to communicate issues with your expert. Common issues like maybe the last call you received was outside of your service area, or the last 3 prospects were just shopping or didn’t have any money.  These are great things to communicate.

Google Ads for law firms is a great place to start, but it’s important you approach hiring a Google Ads expert with the right expectations ahead of time.

Fulfilling Potential For Your Estate Planning Law Firm

by

“Changes that seem small and unimportant at first will compound into remarkable results, if you’re willing to stick with them for years. We all deal with setbacks, in the long run, the quality of our lives depend on the quality of our habits. With the same habits you’ll end up with the same results, but with better habits anything is possible.” James Clear, author of Atomic Habits

I attended a conference recently where the keynote speaker was talking about marketing for the industry he specialized in: law firms. Everything the speaker had shared up to this point in his talk I was really on board with. They were all strategies I’d implemented myself and found success doing: Google my business, phone tracking numbers, mobile websites. But then he started talking about his experience publishing content on his website, and the websites of people who worked with him. It was at this point in his talk though I felt despair.

Blogging Consistently = “Welcome to the matrix”

“Google says if you publish great content people are just going to magically link back to you. That doesn’t work because we don’t live in the matrix” said the speaker, and the crowd responded by laughing.

Myself and other A-listers in content marketing will tell you if you publish great content people will link back to you. I know this because I’ve edited blog posts that have received hundreds of thousands of views in the first month it was published. I’m able to do this because I help people organize and condense their message and story into an easy to read, and easy to consume format. Almost more importantly though, I help them get clicks to it.

The truth is that the only way to publish great content is to be consistent with it. Without having written a good ten blogs already and received feedback on them it’s hard to know if what you’re doing is actually working and what you can improve upon. Your best writing and publishing comes from experience with actually doing it and being consistent about it.  When you become consistent you enter a new matrix, a new reality.

 

Would you rather grind for a day to produce couple Good links, or consistently produce Great links?

The speaker then went on to say “Focus on a couple good links, those are so much more valuable.”

This might be true for the law industry in general, but this conference was specific to estate planning attorneys. Because of this I couldn’t disagree more with that statement. As you’ll hear me talk about on my Facebook Live on Tuesday people are more uneducated about estate planning than any other area of law. And not only that they want to learn.

If you’ve ever watched the movie “Yes Man” with Jim Carry in the movie Jim’s character Carl has to say “Yes” to everything and hilarity ensues. As a loan officer of a bank he has to approve or deny loans every day. When word gets around that Carl is approving everyone’s loans no matter how small they are a long line forms at his desk. Weeks later someone from the corporate office shows up to congratulate Carl for his work. Why? Because people were so appreciative to have their needs met, they were actually paying back on their loans, and the bank was making a lot of money.

I understand this was a movie, but the principle applies really well here. The more people are able have their questions answered the more appreciative they are to have their needs met. When people with estate planning needs have their needs met, and your law firm does that they’re more likely to choose you as their attorney to work with.

A couple good links will help people near you to find your website, but a couple great links not only do a better job of helping people find you, they help convert them into estate planning leads as well.

 

Creating better habits

“If you want better results, forget about setting goals, focus on your systems instead. You do not rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems.” James Clear

Are you ready to develop the right habits and systems to grow your estate planning law firm? Set up a call with me today.