Marketing Campaigns are the places you spend your time and money to advertise your services.
What does a Campaign track?
Campaigns track hard costs, like published materials, signs, business cards, website design, or any other expense related to marketing your firm.
Campaigns track recurring costs, which are costs that occur every month or year. This could include the cost of hosting your website, membership dues for a networking group, or month costs for an advertising platform like Google or Bing.
Finally, campaigns track your time, billed at your normal billing rate. Especially for lawyers, time is money, and we treat it as such.
What is the point of tracking a Campaign?
The true cost of marketing is only realized when all of the time and expense of the campaign is compared to the business the campaign generates. Marketing activities should not just pay for themselves, they should pay for themselves five-fold. If you spent $10,000 on marketing, you should reasonably expect to receive $50,000 worth of business from that marketing campaign. The general guidelines for ROI are:
5x is good
10x is outstanding
20x is exceptional
For example, if you spent 2 hours per month at a networking group, that comes out to 24 hours of your time. If you bill $250/hr, that represents a $6,000 investment on your part.
If you get less than $30,000 of business per year from the networking group, you are wasting your money. If you get $60,000, that is a great campaign and you should invest more in it!
How are clients associated with a Campaign?
When a potential client contacts your firm, which we call a Lead, there is a field to specify how that person found you. You need to ask your potential clients how they found you. Ask them to be specific:
If you found me doing a web search, was it Google? What keywords did you search for? Or do you mean my website? What did you like about it that made you call?
Did you hear about me from multiple sources, like a friend and a web search?
We track all sources for a potential client, not just the last one they used. You can enter as many campaigns in the Lead as you like. You can also have multiple campaigns and multiple referrals (we track referrals separately).
What are the types of Campaigns that I can track?
Outlaw Practice has categories for every type of marketing activity. The current list includes:
Ads, specifically printed ads. For Google Ads, use the Search Engines category.
Agencies, e.g. companies that send you leads.
Bulletins, specifically those not associated with a periodical. Examples include your church or local fire department.
Chambers of Commerce
Charity and Community Events
Establishments, like restaurants
Leave-behinds, like pens or business cards
Networking Groups, including dues and especially time spent at the networking meetings
Newsletters (usually your own, but could be for a local group)
Periodicals, specifically magazines or newspapers
Personal Contacts, e.g. people you meet socially
Search Engines, like Google Ads or Bing Ads. This includes time spent making and managing the ads, as well as the cost of the ads themselves.
Social Media, like Facebook. This includes time spent creating and managing the ads as well as the cost for the ads.
Sponsorship, like a Little League team
Walk-Ins, specifically people that walk in to your office because they saw your sign
Website, including time spent designing, paying for development and hosting expenses