Law firms are fast becoming aware that lead generation is becoming very competitive and getting oxygen over competitors is more difficult than it once was. Is Facebook Ads the answer?
The answer is a little more complex than what you think at first blush. Leads have dried-up, so legal practices rush to possible solutions without giving proper regard and understanding of what may be, the real issue.
What’s the Real Issue?
The real issue can derive from many different things! We discuss the most common issues in this blog here.
But generally speaking, from an online perspective, lead generation slows because traffic to the website slows. If you’ve got everything humming with your website and it converts, it usually follows that the more traffic you get, the more leads you get.
The whole concept of driving traffic is complex and discussed elsewhere on this website, but all things being equal, and traffic was once good but is no longer, there is likely to be inherent issues causing the drop. These may relate to losing search rankings, causally related to your SEO work (or lack of) or competitors getting their stuff together and aggressively targeting the market. There, of course, can be a bunch of other reasons as well, so proper diagnosis of the real issue is fundamental.
So, What is the Response to the Issue that Would Prompt Facebook Ads?
Facebook Ads are not typically considered as lead generation of law firms, but rather are a brand awareness strategy. The latter is a slow burn, the former is much quicker. For example, with Google Ads for law firms, you’re targeting people specifically with a legal issue they want resolving, with Facebook Ads you may be very focused on the demographic, but you’re still hoping that there is a pain point in the viewer of the ad, that your firm can fix, right at the very time they see it.
That’s not to say that there cannot be a lead generation strategy that will work for law firms on Facebook, but it’s likely not to be a traditional approach.
For example, let’s say your law firm is an estate planning practice, and you instigate a Facebook campaign that gives some sort of instant or relatively instant gratification or response, like, “In 2 Minutes Find Out if Your Will is at Risk of Being Contested.” Or “In 1 Minute Find Out If Your Superannuation is at Risk.” Sure, they’re somewhat crude examples, but you know what we mean!
Now, importantly you may not gate this functionality (requiring a person’s details to access it) but what you may do, is instigate a remarketing campaign that shows the next batch of ads to those people who landed on your website, app etc. In marketing speak, we talk of this as narrowing the funnel, moving the prospect to a deeper degree of engagement with your law firm.
So, if Not Lead Generation But Brand Awareness, How Do We Do It?
Great! Knowing the objective is important! The next step is to identify relevant practice areas, target demographics, do the creative (design the ads etc), deploy, then watch, then A/B test. You may run a range of different ads for specific practice areas at once! But it’s also important to couple up your brand awareness campaign with a more targeted remarketing campaign as well.
In other words, if someone clicks through on your Estate Litigation ad, then you want to deepen that engagement by serving specific ads to them in the future based upon their election.
How Can Practice Proof Help?
We help law firms in better understanding the objective, in unison with the firm we develop the strategy, the research of the demographic, do all the creative, deploy, manage and A/b test accordingly. We also will underpin this work with a keen remarketing campaign.
What Are the Next Steps?
Simply contact us to see whether or not we can help your law firm
