10 Telltale Signs It’s Time to Hire a Law Firm Marketing Company

Most attorneys start out doing their own marketing. As they grow from a small to midsize firm, they may hire one or two people, or outsource a few tasks. As firms continue to grow, however, it becomes increasingly difficult to scale their marketing activities. The truth is that a lot of marketing is needed to support aggressive growth. How do you know when it’s time to hire a law firm marketing company rather than continuing to do things on your own? 

Signs It’s Time to Hire a Law Firm Marketing Company

1. Engagements Have Plateaued

Almost every firm will hit a point where sales have become sort of stagnant. At this time, you can address your core service offerings: is there still a market for what you provide? Is your pricing in line with others in the area? If you feel that your offering is strong and competitive, it’s worth looking at your marketing efforts to see what might be improved. If you’re not sure where to start, you might look into some of the guidance provided for free by agencies. Many will offer a free consultation which can give you some great advice. For example, Good2bSocial offers a free MarTech Strength Scorecard that helps you understand where you can leverage technology to meet new clients (and where there might be gaps). 

2. Marketing Isn’t Happening

This is one of the more obvious signs. If you have a list of marketing tasks to complete but they somehow always fall to the bottom of the list, it’s time to look for some help. Many people let marketing fall by the wayside and it simply doesn’t get done – but that’s a recipe for a shrinking firm. A law firm marketing company will not only take these tasks off your plate but make marketing a priority so there is always some traction being made even if you aren’t focused on it. 

3. You Don’t Like Marketing

This is another circumstance where marketing ends up simply not happening. If you are churning out boring blog posts, uninspired emails, and rare social media posts, it’s going to be hard to get noticed. Or, your efforts may get noticed for the wrong reasons. If you take an honest assessment and find that your marketing efforts aren’t getting completed because you don’t like to do those things, it’s time to lean on someone else. Agencies employ people who love marketing and think about it all day, every day. 

4. There is a Skills Shortage in Your Firm

Your organization is probably full of brilliant legal minds. That doesn’t mean they are interested in, trained in, or equipped to execute on marketing strategy. Even if you think you are good at marketing, you might not have the right tools in place for all of your desired tactics. There’s no shame in admitting that a certain subject area isn’t your specialty. A good marketing agency will get to know your firm really well and then apply its specific skills to create a unique strategy. 

5. Your Business Development Team is Complaining About Lead Quality

If your business development people are hard-working and skilled at their jobs, but leads don’t seem to be turning into clients, it’s time to look at other issues. Are your current efforts producing few leads or poor-quality ones? An agency won’t take over your business development efforts, but they will closely evaluate them and integrate their marketing efforts with your internal team. They will also work alongside your business development team to refine and optimize your marketing based on real results. 

6. Your Marketing Results Are So-So

If you are executing a marketing strategy but not getting the results you want, the fault could lie in many areas. Perhaps it’s the channels you’ve chosen to focus on or any particular tactic you’re trying. The point is if you’re doing everything yourself, you’re probably trying a few different things without much insight into what’s working and what’s not. A marketing agency will closely review your goals and your larger strategy and then put together a plan to overcome current challenges and meet those objectives. They know how to focus on specific areas that will prove most profitable for your firm, so they take the guesswork out of marketing. 

7. You Don’t Know What is Working (Or What’s Not)

Have you ever had a sudden surge in website traffic or incoming calls? Or perhaps you’ve seen a sudden dip? Are you able to understand why? If you can’t point to what’s working for marketing your firm, you’re probably spending some resources on ineffective tactics. You could also be squandering opportunities for promotional success. Overall, do you have an understanding of how your marketing contributes to website traffic, leads, and overall revenue? If not, it’s time to reach out to an expert. They can make your budget and time go a lot further by focusing on the areas that will make the most impact. An agency will have the tools to evaluate all areas of marketing and see what needs to be optimized and what needs to be ignored. 

8. You Hoped to Hire a Full Marketing Team but Don’t Have the Budget

Full-time resources are expensive. You have their salary, benefits, office space, etc. – not to mention the time it takes to find, hire, and train them. When it comes to marketing there are full-time positions for everything from content writers to graphic designers to digital experts. That amount of expertise would add up quickly. If you have a robust strategy that requires each of these subject matters, it likely makes more sense to outsource your marketing activities. An agency will have everyone you need on staff and is a powerful way for even small firms to get the benefits of a full marketing team. 

9. You Can’t Afford to Improve Your Martech Stack

There are a plethora of tools and technologies out there that have the power to take your marketing to a whole new level. Many firms’ marketing strategies suffer greatly because they haven’t been able to invest in marketing technology, often because they don’t have the money and/or don’t know which tools are worth the investment. However, a legal marketing company can either offer the advice to guide those investments, or they will have already invested in a wealth of tools that they can now leverage to improve your marketing efforts..

10. You Can’t Keep Up With the Ever-Changing Scope of Marketing

Thanks to the rise of AI, digital marketing is evolving far more rapidly than ever before. Nowadays the average marketer, let alone the average person, may not be able to keep up with all things digital. An agency marketing team, however, can access the knowledge of several experts who devote all their time to keeping up with changes across marketing strategies, such as SEO, email marketing, CRM management, and social media.

Takeaway: 

A law firm marketing company offers all of the experience, tools, and benefits of a high-quality marketing team on staff – for a small percentage of the price. Though hiring a law firm marketing company is an investment, it’s one that almost always leads to a strong ROI because they can streamline efforts, cut out areas that don’t lead to revenue, and pour more into the tactics that bring you leads. Plus, they can get things done a lot faster and with a high degree of focus. If you’re a growing firm that would like to do more with marketing, consider a full-service digital agency that specializes in law firm marketing to help you level up. Contact us today if you’d like to get started