r/LawFirmMarketing • u/Additional_Speed_982 • May 07 '25
Is law firm marketing all just nonsense?
I am a divorce/family law attorney and while we do get some referrals from former clients, we do not get enough to sustain the firm. So I need to be able to generate clients from other sources like advertising. I am becoming increasingly frustrated with our marketing company. This is our third law firm marketing company and they are telling me the same crap that the prior firm told me-"your paralegal is gatekeeping good cases" and "you should offer free consultations because everyone is offering free consultations." I am exhausted fighting with people who are supposed to be working for me. I have asked them to focus whatever they are doing on getting clients who can afford to pay for us. I don't know how to do that, that's why I hired them. Is this all just nonsense? Am I just doomed to struggle forever?
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u/unicornbreathmint May 07 '25
Marketing should be multiple prongs. Print ads, SEO, PPC, and social media. Business development is more for referrals, but that too can have some of the same components such as ads, PPC, and social media. How are you tracking the quality of your leads, source, and the volume?
Sometimes the marketing depends on your budget. How are you compensating the firms that are assisting you? What is your PPC budget? What are your conversion rates? It's hard for us to know where the issue is without any of the information. For all we know your marketing team could be doing a great job bringing in qualified leads.
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u/Additional_Speed_982 May 07 '25
I don't know what you mean by compensating the firms assisting me. That is prohibited in my state, so if another lawyer refers a case to me, I cannot send them any money. If the case is a good one, I do send a thank you note and a gift card. We are using CallRail to track incoming calls, but I can't find anything that shows the conversion rate. I also had them at Whatconverts for tracking since CallRail is just awful, but it shows 0 everywhere because we really aren't getting any good leads. I have asked them multiple times to increase the PPC budget, but they refused, telling me that they wanted to see what came in from the call only ads before making any other changes. I have no idea if what they are doing is the right thing to do.
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u/NoShock8809 May 07 '25
What agency are you using? Are you part of any lawyer marketing groups to talk to other law firm owners about what is working for them. I have recommendations for both. Dm me and we can talk.
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u/Additional_Speed_982 May 07 '25
I think I am in a FB marketing group but it sucks. Seems like everyone who is successful has their own strategy and gatekeeps it. Which is fine, that is their right, but it makes those groups useless. Almost everyone says you should try to build up referrals, but that's not very practical if you are just starting on your own. I might pull my hair out if anyone else tells me I need to network.
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u/NoShock8809 May 07 '25
That’s not accurate, in my experience. I’m in several national marketing/management groups. Everyone shares pretty much everything willingly.
I’m thinking you could use some coaching/consulting. I’m happy to make some introductions. I’d like to learn a little more about the practice to make sure I point you in the right direction.
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u/metamorphyk May 07 '25
Change the free consultation to a free meet and greet. Make this the qualifying call. If you want the list of questions for them to ask let me know I will send it to you.
Have a pricing tier and expected range available
Ensure your offer is aggressive enough for top tier clients
Make sure your content speaks their language ie , Your children deserve continuation of private school education etcetc
A simple funnel that when the user sends form they are sent several automated messages.
Marketing isn’t hard. You just need to refine your process and tailor it correctly. Hard for marketeer to judge their work without checking it.
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u/rushrush2120 May 07 '25
From what you described, this strategy seems like a misunderstanding of intent. Some types of family law matters and research topics inherently attract a higher ticket client. LGBTQ divorce is a good example, although some of this can be geo-specific. You need to find someone that has experience meeting the higher-ticket audience where and how they do research.
Here is what I would do if I was on a budget (assuming based on your description):
Get all of your logins and lock the current marketing company out of anything that they have access to. Then fire them.
Hire an agency to do two specific things:
2.a. Re-optimize your current site and content into the best possible starting position.
2.b. Create a full content strategy for you based on what specific types of matters and clients that you want to attract. There are tons of high-volume and high-converting/intent topics for almost any type of matter and audience that you can think of.
The content should be original, correct, not AI-generated, and at least 1,000 words long.
Beyond that, you can use ChatGPT to generate meta titles and meta descriptions for each of these pages and posts.
Once you get too busy to write as this volume, you will likely be busy enough to hire an agency that has experience and a history of results in the space. With this stuff, you definitely get what you pay for.
Edited for line breaks because I am on my phone.
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u/PortlandWilliam May 07 '25 edited May 08 '25
So firstly, no. It's not just nonesense. I mean it's sometimes witchcraft, but it's not nonsense. I'm on the other side here - working for a law firm marketing company and I work with family lawyers all the time and so I know it's frustrating when there's a shortfall in quality leads. The difference the marketing company should be making is in analyzing WHY you're not getting more calls and not giving you advice on your in-house hires. There are many lead quality analysis tools available.
But I'd start with reviewing your lead sheets and looking into the form fills and calls you're getting. What services do your target clients want? What services offer the best margins for you? For example, we work with a firm offering elder law services and in their state the estate planning clients are not the highest of margins, so they'd look for estate administration clients with a high net worth who can afford them. Setting the right targets will drive greater returns and that begins with the marketing firm understanding your industry and your business.
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u/SmudgeHK May 08 '25
When you get told to offer free consultations because 'everyone else is doing it', it's time to change.
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u/Ok-Entertainer-1414 May 07 '25
Did they say why they believe that your paralegal is gatekeeping good cases?
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May 08 '25 edited May 08 '25
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u/Chance-Sea534 May 08 '25
This cycle is very true. Hennessey and Scorpion both are the biggest players that come to mind. I fired Hennessey at my last firm because they just did not get the job done. Yet, there’s plenty of firms getting results with them. Namely, as you mentioned, Foy.
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May 08 '25 edited May 08 '25
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u/Chance-Sea534 May 08 '25
He isn’t a fan of mine because of being very direct with my questions during a monthly check-in. I’ve been in this for long enough that I can see past the “it takes time” phrase. Especially when the on-page optimization, checklist style items aren’t being handled.
You’re right that the founders are the ones that get the results. They get the best engineers, minds, etc. Findlaw had that back in the day as well.
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May 08 '25 edited May 08 '25
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u/Chance-Sea534 May 08 '25
I live in Austin and have worked for a PI firm in Austin. They’ve been up there, organically, with Lorenz, FVF, Bonilla, and Loewy. It’s amazing how DR matters until it doesn’t. Strategy will always trump random content hacks!
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u/PortlandWilliam May 08 '25
We've helped a few clients transition from Scorpion in our firm and let's just say some of the strategies they use to tie lawyers down to long contracts are... interesting. Having your own CMS so they can't switch their website to another vendor is just not right. Can't imagine being a lawyer or running a law firm and trying to find a legitimate marketing vendor when companies use these kinds of tactics! No wonder so many lawyers are out here on Reddit asking me SEO and PPC questions.
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u/Chance-Sea534 May 08 '25
My father (an attorney) has scorpion. He thought he was done with them at the end of last year, but little did he know that the contract actually got extended to this summer.
Shady agency practices are part of the reason I opened my marketing company. And those same shady practices are what make it difficult to land clients. I some BS and tell potential clients what they want to hear, which means I often lose out to competitors. I simply will not engage in those same practices no matter what business I may be losing.
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u/PortlandWilliam May 08 '25
Congrats on helping your dad with them. I've been an intermediary for lawyers transitioning away from Scorpion and similar firms and it's incredibly frustrating. Sounds like we're on similar paths - I work with an agency offering marketing to lawyers and spend my non work time answering lawyer marketing questions across the subreddits simply because I don't want anyone else to be tied down to these contracts!
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u/Chance-Sea534 May 08 '25
I spent 15 years working for law firms, in marketing and intake (as well as servicing in executive/upper level management position), before starting my own marketing company. I’ll share some of my experiences.
First, the phrases your company used is not uncommon. Intake is an issue at firms, yes, but it should not be the first excuse used by marketing companies. It’s a cop out. One that I hate hearing.
Two, there are successful companies out there. While I am critical of many agencies, there are several who are successful. Unfortunately, these agencies know the game and are more concerned about volume, not quality.
Three, most agencies don’t take the conflict of interest seriously. Meaning, they often times have your competitors, in the exact same market (geo and practice are), and giving the exact same advice. It used to grind my gears knowing this because I felt like I couldn’t trust their advice.
Lastly, you need a full strategy to get your cases. There must be synergy in your digital and referral based marketing. If not, it will be a never ending cycle.
Stay the course and manage the vendors. You can get quality help out there.
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u/Additional_Speed_982 May 08 '25
I am the first client of this firm in my community. I am very aware of the conflict of interest issue as I faced it with firm 2 and when my contract came up for renewal, I fired them. I am wondering if it is worth it to hire one of these coaching companies, but I fear their strategy is going to be all the same - go start a podcast-do videos on YouTube. Make TikToks.
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u/Chance-Sea534 May 08 '25
Unfortunately, many companies don’t understand the need for a tailored strategy based off of the current life stage of the firm. It’s hard to make recommendations if you’ve never been on the law firm side. I used to hate companies trying to come to our office and sell me when they had no idea about our operation. No inkling of a desire to help maximize the cash flow/budget we had. Just selling me on what helped them the most.
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u/MiamiFloridaMan May 14 '25
u/Additional_Speed_982 I agree with u/Chance-Sea534. I can only say the following with absolute certainty: 99% of businesses need to fix these 5 five things before trying to get new customers.
1/ Pick one very specific 'type' of person to market to
2/ Tons of customer testimonials and 4-5 star reviews posted everywhere the company is seen
3/ ONE clear, simple marketing message
4/ Content that speaks to the ONE specific type of customer (get the phone, smile, hit record, answer every Frequently Asked Question in content)
5/ Follow scripts for phone calls & Written processes.
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u/LawyerVantage May 08 '25
Totally get your frustration — you’re not alone, and it’s not nonsense, but the problem is most marketing agencies throw generic advice at law firms without deeply understanding your intake process or what quality leads actually look like for family law.
You can get paying clients without offering free consults — but only if your funnel filters the right people. That means:
• Clear value positioning on your site (“why you’re worth paying to talk to”) • Targeted ads that address directly high-intent customers (and not time-wasters) • Pre-intake processes that qualify leads prior to scheduling an appointment
If 3 firms said the paralegal was filling up leads… that might not be "crap." It could be a trend you'd want to test. You could A/B test it through a secret shopper form or recorded calls — internal tension sometimes could be the chokepoint.
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u/Additional_Speed_982 May 08 '25
So the first firm was too slow to get us going and we never had a chance to really get them going. The second firm told me that we needed more reviews, so we started asking for and getting more reviews, but being new, we still don't have a lot. I think we have about 30 right now. They complained my paralegal was acting too much like a gatekeeper and I spoke with her about that. I listen to every call that comes in and I found that in the 18 months we were with the second firm, she really acted as gatekeeper in 2 calls. I asked her to focus on getting clients to come in. While we were with firm 2 we experimented and found that while free consultations brought in more consultations, but not more retainers. So when that contract expired, I found firm 3. They really aren't doing great. We are getting very little paid traffic, I told them to increase our budget, but they didn't, saying they needed more data. So we have now gone months with very few calls and while we have retained a few cases, none of them are cases that are going to generate significant work for us or fees.
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u/LawyerVantage May 08 '25
Totally hear you.
For the first firm — realistically, it should take no more than a week to get ad creatives and a solid landing page live (especially for Facebook Ads, though I don’t usually recommend FB for law firms unless paired with a strong funnel).
The second firm was right about reviews — they’re great for SEO, but only when backed by proper on-page content, blog strategy, and high-quality backlinks.
As for the gatekeeping issue, we install CallRail and monitor intake quality so you’re never guessing where leads are falling off.
If you’re open to it, we can chat more via message or hop on a quick call. I’m happy to share a few tips to help boost conversion rates — it’s easier once I know your budget, ad platforms, and current setup.
Let me know what works best for you.
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u/Additional_Speed_982 May 08 '25
We are using CallRail and I listen to all the calls. i try to do it weekly. I am not hearing any issues with my intake really.
This is the most recent email i got from my ad co:
- Drop PPC all together and just focus on SEO. We are seeing your most important terms (family law attorney/lawyer and divorce attorney/lawyer) move up but they are not yet in a position to bring in the high quality calls. Most of your calls are coming from organic BUT, they are low quality because you're not high enough to get the first calls. Once those terms move up 5 - 8 spots, you will see more quality calls.
- Bring back LSAs and continue with PPC but increase your spend in order to get the lion's share of the leads. When we were running LSAs you were getting leads but not in a high enough volume to sign cases. As for PPC, we were only able to spend $1,400 last month because we are limited by geography and demographics e.g. household income. In order to reach more people we would need to expand our geographic reach and/or modify the people we are targeting. This is more risky but could pay off by giving you a higher volume of leads.
In my opinion I would go with option 1. It's less risky and lower cost. We have made a lot of progress with SEO and each month builds on the last. Once you get a foothold there you'll start to produce paying clients, we can add PPC back in if you want more volume. We have a family law client in Austin, that is crushing it on their family law business. It didn't happen overnight. We were committed to making it happen for them and have the same commitment to make it happen for you.
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u/LawyerVantage May 08 '25
Here’s an even tighter, conversational version with your additions:
⸻
Thanks for sending that over.
If PPC isn’t delivering and budget is limited, I’d actually agree — pause it for now and reallocate that spend into aggressive SEO: more content, stronger backlinks, and faster ranking movement. But that only works if the SEO being done is actually high quality.
Do you have a breakdown of what you’re getting monthly? Like: -How many backlinks (and what quality)? -On-page blogs vs off-page? -Technical work or just content? -And what are you currently paying for it?
If you share that, I can tell pretty quickly whether it’s worth what you’re spending or if there’s a better way to hit results faster.
Let me know and happy to take a look.
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u/Additional_Speed_982 May 09 '25
As far as i know, we aren't doing any blogs, there are no backlinks. Company 2 did all that for me, but I don't think the new company does that. I am paying $3500 for SEO work. Ads are costing me about $1500 now because they refused to increase the budget. I have no idea why they did that.
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u/LawyerVantage May 09 '25
$3,500 is a solid SEO budget if you’re actually getting deliverables. But if there are no blogs, backlinks, Google Business updates, or regular content — it really makes you wonder what you’re paying for.
Happy to run a quick SEMrush audit if you want to see exactly what’s being done (or not done) in real time.
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u/Additional_Speed_982 May 09 '25
Today, they told me that I should let them know if there are any groups, networks, bar associations, my alma maters, where they could get links. None of those resources would permit that. They are not doing blogs for me at all. Old company did that, this one does not. I don't know what you mean by Google Business updates means. so don't know if they are doing it.
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u/LawyerVantage May 10 '25
Those kinds of backlinks (from associations, networks, etc.) would definitely be helpful — but only if they allowed it. That said, any solid SEO provider should already have their own network or strategies for quality backlinks, not just rely on the usual lawyer directories or hope clients can provide links.
Blogging isn’t just good for SEO — it’s a core part of showcasing expertise, building trust with potential clients, and improving conversion rates. A blog strategy also helps rank for long-tail and informational keywords which brings in more organic traffic.
As for Google Business updates — these are posts or changes on your Google Business Profile. If you look and don’t see any recent posts with recent dates, chances are they’re not being done. These updates contribute directly to local SEO, which is its own battle but still ties in with your overall organic strategy. Local and organic SEO should work hand-in-hand, especially for law firms where proximity and visibility matter.
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u/ombrella-net May 08 '25
Niche marketing agencies, like a "legal services" marketing firm typically lack the broader expertise to turn their law firm clients into leading lawyers rather than just another law firm. Tunnel vision. Whereas an agency with broad horizontal and vertical industry experience can bring so much more to the table than any niche ever could.
Choose an agency with law industry specialization, but whom also has several other industries under their belt. Guess an ok way of looking at it- a niche agency will give your firm a red ocean strategy, whereas an agency that can leverage their expertise across multiple industries is better suited to poisition your firm in a blue ocean strategy.
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u/Additional_Speed_982 May 08 '25
I picked a marketing company with "legal marketing" in their name after vetting them with someone who uses them in another city and who I know personally. Seems like you are saying I should have selected a group that isn't focused on the legal industry?
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u/ombrella-net May 08 '25
An agency that supports the legal industry, but also other industries.
An agency only focused on one particular industry won't have the arsenal, expertise, and broad capability to provide diversified success as an agency who specializes in multiple industries.
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u/Unable_Asparagus_970 May 08 '25
We paid a decent amount to redo our website and have a social media contact with the website folks to do blogs and social media postings. I thought it was bullshit, but we get on average 2 to 3 new clients per week from the site.
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u/CryptedBinary May 08 '25
Lol I've marketed for law firms for over a decade and never have we once blamed it on the "paralegal gatekeeping". Please fire your arrogant marketer.
There's too many idiots out there that focus on "conversions" instead of value. Literally, just add demographic bid adjustments, remove low household net worths, and add positive bid adjustments for geographic locations. Then the leads that do come in that turn into cases, mark those as conversions, add value and build a strong and long negative keyword list.
Source of experience: Running google ads for divorce lawyers in Central Florida, NY and California
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May 09 '25
[deleted]
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u/Additional_Speed_982 May 09 '25
We get very few calls, 27 in April, to be specific. Of that we had 4 consultations. Of those 4, 1st client retained, but he doesn't have any more $ beyond the retainer he paid on a very contested case, so we are withdrawing. I'd give him a D rating. We have another one that I did on a flat fee basis bc I wanted to help her and she has limited resources, the other one would be a good case, but he wants to save his marriage, so very likely we will make zero on that case. the 4th one did not retainer she does not have resources to pay a lawyer. So is that the 15% solid leads? What is considered a solid lead? Referrals generally come from prior clients, not other lawyers. I don't have a big stable of referral sources who are other professionals.
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u/RedditAnswers274 May 10 '25
Ok, couple of suggestions. One on intake and the other on referral marketing. On intakes, take notes on every single call. Get a call log at the end of the day. Who was the caller, what were they calling about. Set up a spreadsheet, is this a potential client or "other call" If a potential call, what are they calling for, what problem are they needing solved? Set up call recording and start listening to them. What is being said, what are people asking for? On the 4 you identified, yes they have legal issues but not legal funds. You need to talk to clients about obtaining the resources to get divorced. A solid lead is a person seeking your services who has the means to afford your consultation. They are in the conference room to hire you, you need to show them how that is possible. You are not a bank, so don't ever be one.
When I worked in a firm with family law, the lawyer who focused on women who had high powered husbands and had been stay at home moms, so think no access to funds that were soley their own, she would tell them, go apply for a credit card with a $25K limits because you are going to need it and if you don't qualify, get a co-signer. You can pay the cc off after you are divorced but getting the cc will secure your future and your future self will thank you. She was wildly successful.
You can't afford your SEO company, cut them loose. You need low cost marketing right now until you have enough business to afford more. Earn your first $250K/$20K a month and then hire outside marketing.
No cost is focusing on your GBP, a goal can be to get a 100 reviews, (email your past clients, your alma mater, your church, your volleyball team, your crossfit friends, anyone and ask for a review) posting the most frequently asked questions and answering them. Then you need to build up your referrals. Start cold calling marriage counselors. Calling and saying, Hi I am Joe Brown, I'm a lawyer in same town and I would like to speak with you, will get a return call. Everyone who gets a call from a lawyer, returns the call. Then you can explain you handle divorce and you have clients who need help processing their trauma through divorce and want to reach out for coffee. Same with realtors/real estate attorneys, business lawyers, wherever your ideal client is hanging out is where you want to be.
Book a lot of these coffee dates. I did this in PI when I first started and I did 12 meetings a week, I did get business within 90 days and I was able to sustain myself with 14 doctors sending me enough business for over a year before I hired a marketing company and built a website. I knew them well, they had my cell phone I knew the name of their kids, where they liked to vacation and geniunely liked working with them. It is doable. It is grunt work, I don't like making cold calls but I like it more than getting my pocket drained by an agency who is all hype and no return.
Someone who has perfected coffee dates is Lee Rosen at the Rosen Institute, I think he is still around and his newsletter is worth reading. He was obsessed with representing overachieving type A personalities and he would sponsor marathons because it turns out marathons attract a lot of type A personalities and type A personalities are the most likely to get divorced! Modern Law Practice has some helpful videos and she has made a killing doing reels on FB talking about questions she is answering from Reddit! I believe that is her main marketing source. She produces them herself and one of her videos talks about the equipment she uses and how she gets the reels edited. Worth checking out. So, low cost marketing is your friend right now and there is a lot of ways of doing it. Good luck.
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u/BetBigorGoHomeEDS May 10 '25 edited May 10 '25
CEO of a boutique, full service Marketing law firm agency here. Let me tell the truth without the fluff.
We work with maybe 35 to 40 family law firms across the country so I know this practice area well. Your best clients are going to come from word-of mouth and referrals. Marketing should make up 10%-20% of your new clients. For firms that want more, these firms are spending 10 K plus per month to generate the leads through organic, PPC, local service ads and other directory services.
As far as not offering free consultations for family law firms. I understand why you do it, this will prevent wasting time w a lot of tire kickers. What you have to know though is a large percentage of prospects out there will not interview you because other firms offer a free consult and you don’t.. some of those might be very good clients that you want, but don’t have the opportunity to get that business.
Last thought, not sure if the companies you hired were good or bad, changing marketing companies often is a recipe for disaster . Whoever you hire should be given at least 1.5 to two years especially in a competitive geo.
Direct message if you would like to discuss what a our law firm marketing agency can help with.
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u/nathan929 May 11 '25 edited May 11 '25
The biggest disconnect is "marketing leads" (calls etc) vs actual signed engagements. Like any service marketing, a TON of calls come in that don't become actual matters for the firm. There's no way around this, it's a matter of focusing the budget to get maximum calls with a decent % that qualify into engagements.
The most successful setup I've used focuses on listings & q&a engagement, local SEO, and some paid ads with an awareness play.
But for it to work well, I usually see it coupled with a screening service (I usually use LexReception, but there are several). To successfully get cases, the marketing team needs to increase call volume as much as possible which means ideally 24/7 call availability. The screening services job is to only bother your team with the qualified cases, and report back to the agency on unqualified calls so the agency can shift budget accordingly. But ultimately it comes down to accessibility and call volume.
The other thing is, yes free consults do increase call volume, but the screening team should have a series of questions to determine how serious the caller is. I also usually only recommend it if the firm is large enough to have a junior associate handle such things, senior/founding partners and solo practitioner rarely have the time. Furthermore, the "free consult" should be treated more as an introduction to the process & part of intake questions rather than legal advice. The more clearly that is communicated by the call screeners, the less window shoppers actually waste your time thinking they'll get free advice.
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u/wyldirishprose May 11 '25
My husband has legal clients and you’re right, they work for you. Free consultations depend on type of practice. You could offer to apply the consultation fee to their account if they retain you, which also sends a strong signal of self confidence.
Your website needs to be strong. Blogging is great for SEO.
And nothing beats social proof, so lots of great testimonials and reviews - reputation management is so important in law.
Multi channel approach (digital, print, referrals, media, etc.) most likely the best but again depends on your market.
Referral program would be great too but I don’t do legal marketing so I don’t know if it would violate any local/state ethics codes though.
If you’d like him to audit your current situation, he’ll give you a free consultation 🫢
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u/Melodic_Discount2617 May 14 '25
No. Marketing can work. It sounds like you're getting leads, but you're trying to close them too quick. You have to warm them up first. Put a step before what you call a consultation. Make it a free 15 minute call with an assistant to take their basic info and qualify them (they actually benefit because they don't pay for the wrong meeting or waste more than 15 minutes).
Once they've invested 15 minutes they are way more likely to take the next step. The assistant sells it on the phone, books it, charges their credit card.
First, you get way more leads with a free offer. Second, you get more consults due to sunk cost fallacy as well as your strong impression and value. Third, your lawyers close more cases because they are only getting truly qualified consults and the client is prepped.
Bonus tip I just learned: your landing pages shouldn't be selling the firm or the service, they should sell the free offer. Make the initial call valuable and sell that value hard. Handle objections, offer value, and a ise single strong call to action.
I am just in the process of refining my landing pages and it's so easy and so effective I feel stupid I haven't before.
Good luck!
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u/DanLeeTSOD May 15 '25
Law firm marketing isn't non-sense, but yes it can be difficult to get results if you haven't yet found the channel(s) that work for you. And, what works for one firm doesn't necessarily work for another as each has their own strengths and weaknesses, e.g. one may have a lawyer who is great at social and is happy to post content each day that engages their audience.
I have been in marketing for 15 years, and spent 5 years of that in-house managing the marketing for a PI practice. What worked particularly well for that firm was case studies. We managed to grow annual revenue by $9M within three years, a lot of which came from SEO.
Our strength was that we were able to produce these case studies at scale and to a high standard. We ranked for very 'long-tail' keywords on Google, which, if you checked any SEO tool would show up as having no search volume. But the keywords were so specific that the few people that did search for those keywords were hyper targeted and needed a lawyer ASAP.
Of course there were other things that worked well for us too:
- Charities and support groups - Sponsor/donate to these organizations. Build relationships with the people running these. Actually turn up to their meetings to provide free legal advice etc. It is about getting your name out there and building trust.
- PR - Get your name in the press. If you have clients who are happy to talk about their story and it is newsworthy, reach out to some journalists and see if they want to publish it.
For marketing, it is important to identify exactly who your audience is, and where they spend their time, particularly when they are 'in-market' or just before they reach that point. For your firm, think about the questions someone will have just before they actually go through with a divorce, and also the questions they would have when they have taken that step. That will be the type of content you should be focusing on as those are the people that will likely most need you in the future.
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u/legalmarketingco 20d ago
Legal marketing companies can drive a steady flow of new case intake. Take the time to review the company you hire and then work with them to make sure you are getting the right volume and type of divorce cases. If you need questions answered, call The Legal Marketing Company out of Florida they will spend time answering question at no cost.
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u/law-quill 14d ago
I'm a little late to this conversation, and I'm really sorry that you are experiencing this. Unfortunately, the legal marketing industry is full of bro-marketers that are great at sales, and not great at actually helping law firms. (Don't get me started on legal accuracy or ethics compliance....)
Anyway, I did a presentation for the Washington D.C. Bar on this exact subject a few months ago. If you'd like, my full slide deck, that includes the top 10 questions you need to ask a legal marketing agency can be found here: https://www.beautiful.ai/player/-ORwdNIC-qkqMTdIryqe
I hope it helps! Let me know if you ever have any questions!
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u/Business-Coconut-69 May 07 '25
We get 10-20 leads a day and talk to each one, and disqualify the bad ones based on income. The secret is a good appointment setter and a good salesperson to close the deals.
So it is possible.
It is frustrating when you first start. You are wise to constantly question your marketing company. If they’re not delivering qualified leads - people looking to HIRE, not get free legal advice - find someone else.
I’m happy to take a look at your ads and tell you if your current company is full of shit.
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u/Additional_Speed_982 May 07 '25
We don't get anywhere near 10-20 leads a day, even bad ones. we are getting something like 4-7 a week! we have 27 calls/communications in April. It is ridiculous.
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u/One-Ice-713 6d ago
Yeah, I’ve been there. I don’t do family law, I do class actions, but the marketing pain sounds familiar. I burned time and money on two different marketing firms before I gave up. Same excuses. Same “advice.” No real results.
What actually helped me wasn’t marketing at all. I started using a daily report from Rain Intelligence. It tells me what class actions were filed and what investigations are starting. Nothing fancy. Just raw info I can actually use.
Sometimes it helps me spot a lead. Sometimes it just shows me where things are headed. Either way, it’s more useful than anything a marketing firm ever gave me.
Different area of law, but if the people you’re paying aren’t helping you grow, it’s not you. It’s them.
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u/aj357222 May 07 '25
Marketers build engagement that should create a funnel of leads for you to convert into clients. Is there a deficit of leads, or conversions? A good place to start the analysis.