Personal Injury Lawyers Online Marketing Strategy for Acquiring Clients

Let’s face it, the average person out there has no idea what it costs for an AdWords Campaign to run or even what the Cost-Per-Click or CPC can be for 1 click. It can cost as little as $0.01 per click or as high as $935.71 each and every time someone clicks on an advertisement that you see at the top of the search engine results page (SERPs)

Now you’re probably thinking that I must be tired and exaggerating a little bit by stating $935.71 for 1 click, but in the United States, it can cost $ 935.71 every time a searcher searches for and clicks on the keyword phrase “best mesothelioma lawyer”. Shocking isn’t it. You’re probably thinking that whomever is paying that must be crazy, but they’re not. In fact, the top 20 most expensive keywords found on Google are all related to personal injury law firms!

So why is this? Why are personal injury lawyers keywords so expensive. How did it get there?

The CPC costs become less surprising when you realize how competitive and lucrative the personal injury legal field is and you can look no further than in your own living room to know that answer. The next time you’re vegging out on your sofa while snacking on Ben and Jerry’s and watching your favorite rerun of the Kardashians, taken notice of all the personal injury law firm ads you see while impatiently waiting for your favorite tv show to come back on so you can keep watching silly people do silly shit. The injury legal field is very competitive which leads to the extremely high costs associated with a click on a personal injury law firm website. And this alarming trend has no foreseeable stop anytime in the near future, and this is because of the dog eat dog competitive nature of these types of lawyers and the potentially significant life changing returns from huge law suits that a lawyer can obtain for themselves and their clients with just one click of the mouse button.

In layman’s terms, the business models of personal injury law firms are unique. Therefore, it’s important to understand the basics of their law firm’s operation style prior to planning a legal marketing campaign for them.

Law Firms Specialized in Personal Injury

Let’s use a rather simple example to paint the picture. Suzanne was in a car accident that she was at no fault for. She now has to repair her damaged car, pay the medical expenses of her injured neck and has to take time off from work to both go to the numerous doctor appointment and heal from her injuries. Meanwhile, she begins to receive phone calls from the insurance company saying that they will be willing to pay for only half of her medical bills.

Suzanne is now faced with 3 options:

• Take the money offered by the insurance company.
• Negotiate with both insurance companies in an attempt for reimbursement for all expenses related to her accident.
• Hire a Personal Injury Lawyer to Do Negotiations and paperwork to try and get a far Deal.

How Personal Injury Lawyers Bill Their Clients

Most personal injury lawyers work on a contingency basis which is simply a percentage of what the final settlement is, and in most states, the fees of the law firms are on average about 33%.

Obviously, the higher the settlement amount, the more revenue the personal injury law firm generates.

So why why the story about Suzanne and her non-fatal car wreck? The reason is because cases like this both take years to settle as well as being nearly impossible to firmly dictate the amount of settlement that comes from the insurance carriers when all medical expenses are said and done as well as how much a person lost in wages from not being physically able to go to work, which could be a couple months to years. This is why it can be difficult to determine a return on investment (ROI) for personal injury legal marketing campaigns. Each personally injury case is unique and different and the income a law firm generates is based on the percentage of payout. It’s all a variable. And it can literally be years before a personal injury case is settled and paid before the revenue generated by the initial pay-per-click (PPC) campaign that brought this client in to the law firm is ever realized.

Now, if you try to argue that the value of the injury legal case is determined by the insurance limits for both parties, you now have an analytic marketing nightmare come true. But, this also gives us the opportunity for big returns if we can figure out how to beat the competitors in this game.

Now we play ball our way with some legal digital marketing tricks of the trade that I use for my lawyer clients.

Digital Marketing Strategies for Personal Injury Law Firms

Don’t use ROI to model returns, instead we use “Cost per Case” objectives

Just about every lawyer I know is going to think I’ve lost my damn mind and it’s obvious when sitting across from them by the strange open mouth look I get from them when asked what their cost per case (CPCase) is. No doubt it’s new and not Something their used to thinking about or answering as it is difficult to answer because a legal settlement could range from a couple hundred bucks to hundreds of millions of dollars. The specialty of the law practice also plays an important determining role, as a lawyer specializing in car accidents may only want to pay $ 500 per case, while a Mesothelioma lawyer may be willing to pay $ 100,000 per case.

CPCase is a way to set expectations and costs with your legal clients. If a law firm doesn’t know their CPCase, your job will be to help them get a ballpark idea. This is important because it will guide all future marketing decisions and reduces the importance of not being able to calculate an ROI. For those firms that do not have this metric on hand, you will need to complete the following steps:

Find the average settlement value of company records for the last 2 years.

Take the average case settlement and multiply by 10%, 20% and 30% in order to get three potential CPCase numbers.

Then, takes these calculations the partners and walk them exactly through how you calculated their CPCase. At this point, all they have to do is make the business decision to allocate 10%, 20%, or 30% of the average case value towards their marketing budget. It’s a decision that is different for each law firm, and one that’s best left up to them to ultimately decide, as they’re the ones having to float the cash upfront and for which will likely take years to recoup on the investment.

Track everything

Now that you have a cost per target case (CPCase), it’s time to make sure you’re tracking every possible path a user will take on your site. Let’s start with easy tracking first — website submissions and online discussions. These features are simple enough to set up conversion tracking in Google Analytics. If you do not know how, here’s a Google guide to setting up conversion tracking.

Now, law firms tend to be more focused on driving phone calls, so I’d suggest adding in tracking of phone calls to the clients website and landing pages.

4 call tracking services I’ve used in the past to help with campaigns:

Google Call Tracking

Pros: Integrates seamlessly with AdWords. And it is free to use.

Cons: Very little data on the call. Doesn’t display the full phone number that called. AdWords Campaign integration only. This means Bing, Yahoo Gemini or Native Ad channels and Social Channels won’t be tracked and measured.

WordStream Call Tracking

Pros: The platform allows us to get detailed information from each phone call. It even provides us with data on each that triggered the call. keyword. Very useful.

Cons: This tool is limited to only PPC campaigns, which means any SEO, Social, and/or email campaigns won’t be included in the report.

Call tracking measures

Pros: This platform provides very detailed call tracking information. Also, it changes the phone number on the website based on the source the visitor came from (search, display, organic, social, email).

Cons: More expensive than the other phone tracking platforms on the market.

CallRail

Pros: Dynamically changes the phone number on the website according to the visitor. It’s also more cost effective as it’s a little cheaper than the other tracking platforms.

Cons: Limited features and options compared to some of the other call tracking platforms.

There’s other call tracking services out there you can find that can do what they can, so the most important thing to remember is to find a software solution that you feel comfortable implementing and working with. Really that’s about all that matters.

Bid on the Law Firms brand name for PPC search campaigns

As confusing and technical as PPC can be, one of the best investments you can make is to bid on your own brand name. This holds true for any and all businesses online, even startups because how embarrassed will you be when you find out your competitors have been and they’re taking away your clients! The average CPC for branded keywords varies between $ 0.50 and $ 3.

Again, the reason why EVERY business must use branded keywords for their AdWords campaigns is simply to protect the brand. If you don’t, your competitors will, and this will mean that the first thing that a potential client sees is the message from your competitor and not yours. Do you like giving up easily by handing your competitors the power to be seen first? Don’t be a clown. Clowns are cute, at the fair, not in real life. And if you don’t think that someone like me isn’t checking on that to see if Ii can get my clients a quick win, then you have no clue what you’re up against because believe me i am and Love it when other law firms, with good monthly searches isn’t listing for their own branded keywords. Low hanging fruit baby!

There’s more benefits to running PPC advertising on your brands keywords, such as controlling the message delivered to potential clients. If you only rely on organic search results, you let Google choose what it shows to your potential clients. I dont know about you, but I like to control what is said about my business rather than letting Google make that choice for me.

The auction of the branded keywords is pretty cheap compared to other legal terms and when you factor in the value. You have worked hard to create a brand name, be sure to protect it from Mayhem like me!

Ensure your website is mobile friendly

More than 50% of all searches come from mobile devices. Easiest way to justify this claim is to simply think of how many times a day your phone to Google something that worries you. The mobile trend is no longer a trend, but a required necessity for every business. Period.

Studies show that site visitors are 5 times more likely to leave a site that’s not mobile friendly. Mobile Friendly simply means that your website is fully functional with responsive website design, as opposed to a site that just has a different mobile URL. As cheap as website development costs have gotten in recent years, there’s just no excuse for not having a mobile friendly website. Also a biggie now in 2018 is PageSpeed. Having a fast loading website is not only good for keeping site visitors from leaving frustrated but also for your SEO organic rankings. Google penalizes sites that are slow to load because it leads to a poor user experience. For example, a 10 second load time has a 123% higher bounce rate than a 1 second load time. If your site isn’t around 2 seconds or below for load times, it’s time for some upgrades.

Follow these steps to make sure your website is ready in this mobile-first world:

This one is obvious — make sure your website is responsive or at the very least can be used on a mobile device. If that is not the case, don’t worry, we can upgrade you site.

Want to know now if your site is mobile ready? Simply go to Google Mobile Approval: Google Mobile Friendly Test . This tool will give you detailed information about why your page is or is not suitable for mobile.

Next, check your website speed by going to Googles PageSpeed, which is free to use. If your websites PageSpeed is in the red, follow the instructions to move your speed into the green. Some suggestions such as image optimization or cache issues are as simple as downloading some Wordpress plugins like WP-Smush, which is what we use on this site.

AdWords ad extensions are now a must in order to dominate the search results

Ad extensions are features that search network ad platforms offer as options to improve your ads. When used, they can both improve the performance of your ads and give you an edge over the competition. The picture below shows some of the most common:

Related Links (link “Customer Testimonial” above): hypertext links allowing you to send users to different areas of your site

Call Extension : Adding a phone number to your announcement. These calls can also be tracked as conversions in your performance indicators.

Location Extensions : Add your business address from Google My Business

There are a number of other extensions, but these are the most common for localized businesses like the personal injury law firms use now.

So why use ad extensions?

The use of ad extensions has shown an increase in ad performance because it offers more options to your potential customers and redirects them further into the Main funnel. On average, the use of ad extensions increases the click-through rate anywhere between 10 to 15%. More clicks can mean more opportunities for customers as well as a higher click thru rate (CTR) which is super important in determining your Quality Score, which in layman’s terms dictates how much you have to spend on a keyword. If you have a high Quality Score, you pay less for the keyword than your competitors, as well as getting ranked above them.

The more extensions you display, the more search opportunities take place. In competitive niches like the legal industry, ranking above a competitor on the page can make a big difference in whether or not your PPC campaigns are profitable or duds. Additionally, AdWords places you higher in the search results when you include ad extensions. This is because Google sees your ad being a better choice and experience for their users. Again, all the matters to Google is the searchers user experience on their platform.

By setting up ad extensions in all of your PPC campaigns you will generate more clicks and calls to your business and at a reduced cost.

Carefully test and implement call-only AdWords campaigns

Depending on the industry, clicks turn into phone calls at percentages that range between 30% -to- 80%. If a user accidentally clicked on the ad, did not realize that it was an Ad to make a phone call or any other scenario resulting in a click on the “Cancel” button rather than “Call” button, the cost per conversion can quickly accumulate and kill a Campaigns ROI.

I suggest that you proceed forward with these types of campaigns cautiously and first test with a small limited budget allocation. Call-only ads tend to work best if a business has an old website that does not help anyone, so people do not call. However, for businesses that have useful websites and landing pages for readers on the page, regular ads usually results in lower costs and more leads.

Get other Google test

If you choose from the list of law firms above who would you choose? # 3, because you want to give a shot to the outsider? I would not do it, any more than most consumers.

In an industry where trust is extremely important, Google’s critics are a great way to show the world how great your business is. A simple reminder to customers of your appreciation for sharing their experience on Google can make the difference between Law Firm # 2 and Law Firm # 3.

There are many evaluation sites that you can also focus on, including Yelp, Avvo, Lawyers.com and Martindale-Hubbell, to name a few. No matter what site you focus on, what you really need to do is create a business culture of not being afraid to remind customers that you would like to read online how their experience worked with your business . If they share their experience online, it not only helps your business learn, but it also helps to educate others who have been in the unfortunate situation your customer was in. Be polite, do not be shy and receive other reviews!

Getting the most out of ad spend with Facebook retargeting

Very rarely in the digital world, people see a solution to their problem and register on the spot. Consumers conduct searches, click on various ads, review several different websites and read reviews before ever making a purchase decision. This is why it takes an average of 7–9 touchpoints before a consumer is ever ready to spend a time with your business. I can’t begin to tell you how damn hard it is to get this point across to 95% of my clients. They just can’t conceive why they get so many clicks and traffic, but nobody is buying a damn thing on my site! The campaign is broken! If I had a dime for every time I’ve heard that…. Well i wouldn’t be up all night writing this now would I?

The sales lead cycles for law firms are no different. To get the most out of your digital presence, you must stay in front of your audience. One of the most effective and efficient ways to achieve this is retargeting on Facebook and Googles Display Network (GDN).

Why retargeting campaigns?

Retargeting is the most effective and efficient way to stay in front of your potential customers for several reasons:

No one is better qualified than someone who has already visited your site, which means that they have already shown interest in your business. Staying in front of these users can increase your website conversion rate by up to 50% by bringing these qualified visitors back to the website.

As mentioned above, some clicks for law-related searches cost up to $1000.00. On the other hand, retargeting clicks are averaging about $ 1.50 in the legal space on Facebook. Spending a few extra dollars to bring that expensive first click is a no brained in my book as it dramatically increases the efficiency of the overall advertising budget.

Why Facebook against further retargeting? Two reasons:

People spend more time on Facebook than any other website. On average, people spend 20 to 40 minutes a day on Facebook and visit the site up to 14 times per day. Point being once a visitor leaves your website, they are likely to be on Facebook stalking old boyfriends or girlfriends. I’m kidding, sorta. So it makes sense that you want to be where your potential customers are hanging out so that you can create that brand awareness by reminding them of your business.

The click rate on Facebook ads compared to traditional display ads can be twice as high, which means that the likelihood of bringing qualified site visitors back to your website is much higher than other types of ads.

Start retargeting on Facebook and watch your CPCase start to go down.

Conclusion

Running PPC campaigns in super competitive niches like personal injury law firms requires the experience of a professional to not only setup correctly but to manage on an ongoing basis. Things like changes in Googles algorithms or the entrance of new law firms or even when a law firm hires a sassy digital marketing agency that just wants to kick your ass all over the field, whatever the reason you need to stay on top of this super competitive niche so costs don’t skyrocket while your hard earned money goes flying out the window. Also, because the returns take literally years to matriculate back, you could screw yourself long before you even knew you did and by the time you find out it’s just too late. Whether you’re a personal injury law firm or a divorce law firm, you need to focus on the long term value and keeping your businesses branded message front and center so you don’t become my next Case study.