Law firm advertising is something you should do with caution while having a good education on what works and does not work. So let’s get a little lawyer advertising education on directory listings both printed and online.
If you are being asked to place a listing or an ad in a printed association or membership directory I would suggest you not do it. Why? Because the Internet has taken eyeballs off of printed vehicles and taken them online. It is too easy, quick and often with more detailed information to go online when compared to hard copy printed materials. Most members will go online to see the online membership directory. In your law firm advertising you probably don’t want to buy an advertisement in a printed directory. For example, in an alphabet organized directory if your ad is in the “G” section and the person is looking up a name in the “S” section it is unlikely they will see your ad anyway. If they organize the printed directory with ads in the front and back that is not likely to help you either since people won’t be going there to see the ads when using the directory but to the alphabet section they are looking to find.
Are there exceptions to this recommendation in law firm advertising? Well, maybe or even yes. If you can get a good ad on the front or back cover of the directory it might be worth the investment. I would go with the front as best, the back as second best and pass if they want to put you on the spine of the directory. If you can get them to let you put a small “classified ad” type ad maybe every 5 or 10 pages in the directory that may have some merit. This ad has to have a “call to action” to get a copy of a “white paper” or “special report” via your website or call your office since this method works the best in law firm advertising. Why? The ads are more likely to be seen and it turns an “image ad” (poor to no results) into a “direct response” ad (better results). Now, in lawyer advertising by this point you might be thinking you don’t want to say no to an ad with an organization that has been good to you or you feel good about. I understand one does not always make these types of decisions with law firm advertising principles in mind. Do support them if you like, however, just know you are giving the money away. If you can say no to the membership directory and do ads in their newsletters or magazine that would be a better option than the directory but still not the best unless you can use the “classified ad” type approach.
OK, now on to law firm advertising strategies with online directories. There is much mischief here for sure with plenty of people willing to take your money for little or no return since most directory sites over promise and under deliver in marketing law firms. The two majors in the field are FindLaw and Martindale Hubble. There are literally dozens or maybe even hundreds of online directory sites for attorneys seeking this law firm advertising option. If you want to get a sense of how many you can go to Google and search using “lawyer” and/or “lawyer directory” and/or “attorney directory” (don’t put the quotes in the search) and find the directories that way. To get a basic listing with the two majors the investment is likely to be over $1,000 per year. They will also want to sell you add on services as will many directories. The majors have some heavy overhead to cover as you can imagine. Some directories are free or as little as $10 per month. There is no reason to not list on a free directory other than the time it takes to do so might not be worth the effort. Martindale does have a free listing on its Martindale.com website. I did not see a free listing available on FindLaw.
The main law firm advertising issue in considering investing in an online directory listings is can see your listing be seen in the pack? Given most directory queries by visitors call up a list of attorneys in a give practice area and geography, what are the chances you will be the lucky one picked off the list by the visitor? If you are in a major city you may have ten or twelve pages of attorneys listed. If you decide to pay more to be listed at the top of the listings with bells and whistles will that get you seen or even picked? That brings up the next major issue with directories in thinking through your lawyer advertising in directories.
What are you paying for with these law firm advertising directories besides their overhead and profit? Traffic of course, but it is not your traffic, it is their traffic. Even if you win the lotto frequently by being picked out of the pack you are only renting that business since the minute you stop paying the business stops. Would you be better off investing the money going to directory websites into your own website that people see only you when they come? I say yes. Could you sell that website you developed one day and realize a further return on your law firm advertising dollar? My answer is almost certainly if you do your Internet marketing correctly (see my free resources on Internet marketing on my website – note that I don’t sell websites).
In law firm advertising should one never do online directory listings? Not necessarily. You may find good directories in your practice area that are specialty directories that might work for you or perhaps a good geographic directory as well. You might ask how I evaluate a directory candidate. First I would go to the site in question online. I would look at their Google Rank (preferably at least a PageRank of 4 or better – 10 being the highest) and their Alexa Rank (preferably at least 1,000,000 or lower – the lower the better) since that gives you some objective measure of how much traffic they have coming to the site. Then I would search the site for your practice area and/or geographic area like any visitor would do. Take a look at how many attorneys are on the list that comes up. Ask yourself if you could possibly get any business if you were in this group. The larger the group the harder it will be to get “clicked”. Take a look at the fee and see if it is monthly or annual. Monthly is much better since you can track results (a must in law firm advertising success) and cancel if you don’t get any business quicker. What is your average fee for a file? How many files would you have to get from this source in order to have a good return on your law firm advertising investment? With these questions answered I think you can come to a good decision or if you wind up in a directory that does not work you can get out fast.
Remember in making law firm advertising decisions that an expensive ad is one that does not produce a return on your investment. In lawyer advertising, general directory listings (online or off line) are probably not a good strategy. You are probably better off passing on most if not all of them. Lastly, do know that online directories are not the same as online attorney-client matching services. You can learn more about them in my other articles where I wrote a two-part article on that law firm advertising strategy (see the back issues of my newsletter on my website). I have a more positive take on that strategy.
Tags: Claws On law, Law Firm