As an attorney, you are used to gathering evidence, analyzing it, and making informed decisions using that information. The same should apply to the analytics you are using to make decisions about building your law firm’s online presence. Analytics is data that can provide you with insight into the opportunities that exist within your specific situation – what you can do to better research prospective clients, for example.
Analytics is essential when it comes to localizing your online presence. Most clients come to you from a local pool of individuals. You want to attract people within your community and surrounding areas because they are most likely to need your services. Yet, to do this, you have to know how to reach them, what they need to hear and read from you, and what spurs prospective clients to take action.
Efficient and effective analytics create more diverse marketing strategies that ultimately drive your law firm practice. They allow you to create marketing strategies that make the best use of your investment dollars, helping you get more leads for the same investment.
Understanding Local Consumer Behavior
The local consumer is your ideal client. The more you know about that person, the more effective you can create a marketing campaign that reaches them. The best way to understand consumer behavior, no matter the industry, is to watch what people are doing online and then align your marketing strategies to meet those objectives. With the tools that are available to you today, this has never been easier to do.
Utilize local SEO analytics for lawyers to analyze all the data you can about your law firm and practice. To understand local consumer behavior, consider:
- The local search queries people are typing into the search engines to find the information they need that relates to your firm
- How customers are finding your law firm, such as through searches, Google Business Profile, or other directories
- Consider the geographic region your ideal client is coming from, such as which cities they are based in around your firm’s office
This information gives you the advantage of being able to directly tailor your next marketing campaign around what those local consumers are doing. For example, if a large number of your clients are looking for an attorney in a city near you, but not where your office is specifically located, you’ll want to include those geo terms into your marketing campaign to draw in that client base.
Set Goals and KPIs
Key performance indicators (KPIs) are the measuring tools you have available to you. These will help you to measure how successful you are. Before you can measure anything, though, you need to create some specific goals to help localize your online presence. There are a wide range of metrics you can check, but for attorneys, some of the most important include:
- The number of check-ins you have per month
- The number of photos that are uploaded to your Google Business Profile
- The number of reviews you have on your profile
- The interactions you get on your social media posts
- The number of new followers you get on your social media accounts
Once you have goals, start tracking. As you do, you can see what types of marketing seem to provide you with the best return on investment. For attorneys, it is often beneficial to incorporate content that is very specifically related to your client’s needs. You may want to monitor your reviews and the number of people who find you from a Google search.
The more detailed you are about what you track, the better. You can alter your analytic objectives over time to hone in on a specific client or broaden your scope to reach more people.
Track Local SEO Performance
The next step is to track local SEO performance. Search engine optimization (SEO) is the core component of your online presence. It is what search engines use to determine when to send a prospective client to your website. Analytics can also help you boost your SEO performance.
Use analytics to monitor your local search rankings.
- Where are you ranking in the search results?
- What keywords are you ranking for the best?
- Are there any specific keywords you are targeting that are not ranking?
By tracking these details, you are able to create more direct campaigns that target the areas of opportunity. Measure organic traffic from local searches to do this. What are people typing in to get to your website? What keywords are not resulting in your page showing up?
Once you track these metrics, you can then adjust your SEO strategies to capture more of the consumers you want. You may learn that a specific keyword is more valuable to you than others. You may be able to adjust your strategy to include keywords that your competitor is not ranking for but that are relevant to your services.
Analyze Customer Engagement
Consumers interact with law firms in a variety of ways. The more they interact with your firm, the more likely they are to remember your firm when they have a legal need. Track that type of engagement with your local content.
- What types of posts get people to comment on social media?
- When do people interact with your firm’s campaigns?
- What type of customer interactions take place with your firm on social media platforms?
Look at other engagement points as well. That could include the number of click-throughs you get for local promotions or ad campaigns you run, as well as interactions with your newsletters and email campaigns. You want clicks, but you also want to know why people are clicking so you can give them more of what they need to interact with your firm.
Determine Local Advertising ROI
If your firm is using local advertising, you know that every dollar spent needs to produce a valuable click. Yet, that’s not easy to do in a highly competitive field. Before you continue to pour money into any specific advertising method, use analytics to see how well you are doing and to look for areas of opportunity. For example, you can calculate the ROI for any local marketing effort you take and determine if it is high enough to warrant continuing to use that method.
Allocating a budget based on high-performing campaigns is easier to do. You know you are going to get more of the money you need and want back in valuable leads that propel your law firm forward. If something is not aligning, on the other hand, you can pull back from those costly ads to put money into what is working.
Implement Geotargeting Strategies
Another way to use analytics is to tap into precise geotargeting. This is the process of really honing in on the type of client you are looking for and attracting them with specialized strategies and marketing campaigns.
When you use analytics properly, you can tailor promotions to specific local demographics, and you can achieve more of the results you need with good reliability. You maximize your research without overspending on broad audiences who are unlikely to become your clients.
Budget-Friendly Adjustments
Your marketing budget doesn’t always need to grow. Instead, it needs to be applied to areas that make the most sense and that generate the best level of return on investment for you. With analytics, you make better budget decisions.
Based on your analytics insights, you can make cost-effective changes, stretching your investment dollar further. You can also avoid marketing waste because you can clearly see what is working and what is not. Data-driven decision-making like this produces better outcomes for nearly all law firms.
Stay agile with your budget allocation. More is not always going to add value to you if you are putting money into methods that are not effective. Stay on top of your analytics to create a more robust and effective budget for your business’s success.
Finding the Right Analytics to Answer Your Questions
Analytics is a valuable tool that provides you with the information you need to localize your marketing efforts. With analytics, you can accomplish more of your goals—having more leads come into your law firm—without wasting any marketing dollars in the process. The more data you have, the better.
Increasing your visibility within a specific zip code or providing better customer engagement through connections your clients want to make helps you grow your business. It allows your online marketing efforts to be more effective at creating the results you need: leads that turn into clients.
Choosing the Right Analytics Tools
How do you accomplish these tasks? You need to choose the right analytics tools. There are numerous options out there, including Google Analytics, SEO tools from third-party providers, and Surefire Local. You should always select tools based on your knowledge and skill, as well as what you want to accomplish. The best analytics tools are easy to use and provide you with direct insight you can apply to your marketing campaigns immediately.
Surefire Local Helps Small Businesses to Localize Online Marketing
We help law firms establish their online presence by creating local signals across platforms and profiles. That makes it easier for new clients to find you. As an all-in-one marketing platform for local businesses, Surefire Local is your go-to solution for maximizing results using data. Check out a Surefire Local demo now.