Can A Podcast Help Market Your Law Firm?

With everyone and their cat making one these days, podcasts can seem an attractive choice for legal marketers looking for new ways to bring awareness to their law firm. However, to launch a successful podcast for your law firm, there are a few things to consider before jumping into the studio.

Podcasts and The Marketing Flywheel

The dream of most marketing departments is to find something (ads, content, memes, Steve) that can create awareness and sustained attention for your brand. Something that isn’t the wacky wavy inflatable tube man.

Using the lexicon of our Legal Marketing Nutrition Guide, marketers dream of a Brand Building initiative that also enhances the Sales Activation side of their strategy. Something that continually generates interest and awareness. A marketing flywheel.

A branded podcast for your law firm can be that flywheel.

However, this flywheel podcast idea is not a “Get Out Of Marketing Free” card. A podcast is a worthy investment for those who can see the concept through to make a worthy show.

There are fantastic reasons to launch a branded podcast, and there are also frank realities that need to be addressed before you consider adding it to your legal marketing mix.

3 Reasons to Do a Podcast

• Content Marketing Works. Outside of your product or service, what value do you currently offer your customers? A newsletter or blog, events, sponsorships?

Assuming the media preferences of your target audience include podcasts (Edison Research, “The Podcast Consumer 2019”), a podcast from your law firm is a fantastic content marketing vehicle, creating a venue and opportunity to communicate values associated with your core business while creating a monetizable audience.

Since launching in 2018, The LAWsome Podcast has generated new clients and thousands of dollars of new business for Consultwebs. Like all good content marketing ideas, we created a show that was valuable to our target audience first, law firm owners, and then connected this concept back to our offerings and company. The goal has always been: “Be of value to the marketplace.”

• It’s Time Well Spent. Do us a favor. Go inside your website analytics, check on your blog, and see what the average Time on Page is for your most trafficked post.

On our blog, the Time on Page for the blog was around 2 minutes.

On our podcast analytics, Time on Page was 24 minutes.

Imagine creating content that had 10x the engagement of your current efforts! Only a podcast can deliver this kind of engagement.

Again, looking at Edison Research’s “The Podcast Consumer” study, 93% of respondents say that when they listen to a podcast, they listen to most, if not the entire episode.

Who gets to the end of your latest blog on tort reform? Not saying it isn’t good – but could you create something more engaging?

• Audio Content Isn’t Like Other Content. Podcasts, again among certain demographics, are increasingly becoming the go-to choice for content. Audio is the rare type of content you can truly multitask with. It travels to the gym, goes on a walk, and folds laundry with the listener.

Podcasts are an intimate form of communication. With a podcast, your law firm literally has a voice. Well-produced and entertaining audio content provides a new dimension of experience for your audience and creates a connection like no other marketing tactic.

And with the quality of audio fiction and dramatic podcast production increasing, we are entering into a podcast renaissance where there is massive opportunity and demand for high-quality audio content. Even big-name brands and stars are creating epic narrative podcasts, like Kelly Marie Tran in “Passenger List” or General Electric’s “Life After.”

Of course, if you want a podcast, but nothing fancy, let me tell you now about the potential downsides of the marketing quagmire you’re about to jump into.

3 Reasons NOT to Do a Podcast

• There Is No Appreciation for Branding. While marketing and branding are often cited as sure-fire ways to create revenue and opportunity for a law firm, they also happen to be the last thing anyone wants to pay for.

I think the reason marketing is underfunded, particularly the long-term brand growth initiatives, is that attention and brand awareness seem like an inevitable “free” resource that accompanies sales activity.

Dropping a podcast into the marketing strategy of a business that has no appreciation for the brand building function of marketing is a recipe for failure.

A branded podcast is a slow burn, its lasting impact experienced best by marketing departments that appreciate brand building initiatives and are equipped to measure their effects over long periods of time.

Looking at two full years of stats from LAWsome again, going from 200 downloads a month to 2,000 just wouldn’t be possible without engaging, consistent, audience-focused content, and a C-Suite that understands the commitment to the long-term branding capabilities of a podcast.

• The Product Doesn’t Fit the Market. While it’s true that podcasts are increasing in popularity, that increase is not broadly applied to the whole of the U.S. population.

Based again on the demographic research from Edison, the typical podcast consumer matches a certain segment of the population.

If this fits the market profile of your target audience, then a podcast might be a good idea. If it doesn’t, you may have to readjust your expectations and/or strategy.

Another consideration is the topical nature of your podcast, and if the topics covered in the show can create and sustain attention in your target market. The topic of your podcast does not have to be directly related to your service as a law firm.

Take a look at the podcast topics that generated the most interested audiences in 2019, according to Edison Research.

Notice you don’t see intellectual property law, torts, or bulldog litigation trial tactics on this list.

The challenge to creating a podcast that’s worth listening to is that it must first be distinct, and then compete with the top podcast experiences available to everyone.

I’ll say it again – your podcast will be in direct competition with the best podcasts out there.

Why would anyone choose your podcast over the latest true crime/New York Times/celebrity-driven podcast? You have to give them a reason to listen. The goal should be to create award-winning content for your law firm. Think that’s too big of an ask?

Since 2018, the Missouri-based personal injury law firm of Brown & Crouppen has been working with a local production company to make hilarious videos for their now Emmy-award-winning YouTube channel. The topics are definitely not legal, but they feature amazing talent and extremely high-quality content…about cereal!

If you can’t dedicate resources to creating a valuable, distinct, and entertaining show, then the expectations and product/market fit for your law firm’s podcast may never line up with reality.

• There’s a Lack of Consistency/Talent.

The marketing strategy for most law firms is typically a collection of random acts, funded by a haphazard budget and misaligned from specific goals. So when the latest boosted post on social media or cold outreach campaign fails to garner any interest, the takeaway is that marketing doesn’t work.

Whether it’s the latest bout of Restless Marketing Syndrome, no clear marketing strategy, a choppy client experience, or the latest failed short-term campaign, those in charge of business development for law firms have one common problem – consistency.

Consistency, in a podcast or any other meaningful marketing endeavor, matters.

Your podcast is a content experience that your audience can subscribe to, that can continually remind them of your value, that can be introduced into their lives again and again. But this will only happen with a consistent publishing schedule and a dependable production team behind your podcast. Which brings up the question of time and talent.

Talent, in a podcast or any other performing arts medium, matters.

In a musical performance, there are several individual items that come together to create the final product. There is the composer who wrote the music, the conductor who guides the performers, the performers who play the music, and then the audience that takes it all in.

If any one of these items is mishandled or botched, then the general takeaway is one of distaste. The audience won’t sit there to reason out how it could have been better with a tweak of talent here or there – they just walk away.

Although a lawyer running a firm and investing money in business development has a right to have a hand in all marketing endeavors, there needs to be some hard math that goes into the question of involvement in a podcast.

In regards to time: Scheduling, recording, and the back-and-forth that accompanies producing a podcast can take up several hours a week. Will you have time to dedicate/sacrifice toward hosting a podcast?

In regards to talent: The goal of the podcast is to get the listener to the end of the show, so ensuring that affable talent is behind the mic needs to be a top consideration before launch. Whether it’s you, an associate, or outside talent, the main goal is to develop a distinct voice for your firm through the podcast.

Your job with a podcast isn’t just to yammer and talk. The goal of a branded podcast is to create a show that leaves people saying, “You actually made that?”

In Conclusion

Taking all of the above into account, podcasts are a brand experience worth investigating for legal marketers looking to create distinct and valuable content on behalf of their firm. If there is a reliable product/market fit, an appreciation for brand building in the C-Suite, and talented, consistent magic happening behind the microphone, then a branded podcast is a worthy investment and venture.

Interested in creating your own branded podcast? The award-winning production team behind our very own LAWsome Podcast is currently accepting a handful of clients. Get in touch with us to find out how Consultwebs can help launch your law firm’s branded podcast.

Want more law firm marketing content? Who doesn’t! Sign up for the Consultwebs newsletter, follow us on social media, and subscribe to the LAWsome Podcast.

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5 Out of The Box Tips for Law Firm Digital Advertising

In jazz improvisation, “outside” playing describes an approach where one plays over a scale, mode, or chord that is harmonically distant from the given chord. (Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outside_(jazz) )

Greats such as Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and John Coltrane all went “outside” the changes and produced some revolutionary music, as well as concepts, that musicians still study today. These jazz innovators were all advanced masters of music theory, and the approaches they took were calculated – it wasn’t accidentally playing the wrong note or lack of understanding a chord progression that lead them “outside” – it was deliberate experimentation and countless hours of practice. They knew the fundamentals and were reaching for something beyond them.

Before we go further, we know what you’re thinking about jazz….

…but hear us out.

In this article, we’re going to look at how to go “outside” with your Google Ads campaigns. Just like with jazz music, this does require a high level of understanding, competence, and respect for the fundamentals. If you go “outside” all the time, the context is ruined and the effect has less of an impact. So, too, with our law firm pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns – best practices, campaign setup guidelines, and industry standards are there for a reason. They are effective, tested rules and tactics that get results.

The catch here is that everyone knows them, and therefore everyone uses them. The tactics we are looking at in this post are measures to take advantage of what the other legal PPC advertisers are doing and maybe find some new ways to reach potential clients without dropping major ad budget in the process. I am not suggesting that solid account management fundamentals and optimizing for high-intent keywords is a bad thing – in fact, quite the opposite. You build on the fundamentals, but don’t get stuck on them – you can unlock some alternative approaches with a little experimentation.

Saving a Percentage Budget Toward the End of the Month

This tactic takes advantage of a lot of the auto-pilot / automation solutions that are out there. Budgets are set on a monthly or daily basis, and pacing can be an afterthought. What happens is that your competition spends their whole budget early, leaving inventory on the table at the end of the day and end of the month. This means less competition and lower prices because there aren’t as many advertisers in the auction.

The best way to get this going is to set aside some budget to experiment with, and check your own data to make sure you aren’t crossing over with any campaigns that are already running. Maybe set some schedules on everything so you can be sure your “maximum end of day/month budget” test is getting the attention it deserves.

Buying Surround Words

Think about what services a potential client would be needing in addition to a lawyer after they were involved in a serious car accident. Keywords like “chiropractor” and “occupational therapist” may seem like the intent would place these way out of bounds and irrelevant, but what if they were searching for those services without realizing they could talk to a lawyer? Or what if they were searching for those services first and were waiting to make a decision regarding legal representation?

In order for this to work right, you MUST use creative ad copy here. This is no time to fall back on a generic “injured in an accident” PPC ad. You have to address the situation more personally –  “Medical expenses starting to pile up after your accident?” for example. This is most effective acknowledging the specifics of situation (why they are here looking for a neurologist) and the hardships it has created, and offer a solution.

On the results end of this, I had a client sign what ended up being a $50K case from the word “neurologist.”

Buying Brand – Slogans, Catchphrases, Brand Associations

In my experience, it’s not a bad idea to pick up the keywords for your law firm name. This ensures you are at the top of the search engine results pages (SERPS) ─ always good for those lazy-click mobile phone searches ─ and you add to the number of times you appear on the page, which has been shown to be beneficial.

According to Searchengineland, running paid ad campaigns that 1) offer precise messages and 2) are located next to your organic listings on Google can increase overall click-through-rate (CTR) and lead to a higher return on your investment.

There’s nothing really “outside” about simply buying the keywords that are your name or your law firm name, but there is another option to check out beyond just a proper name:

Got a Slogan or Catchphrase? BUY IT!

“One call, that’s all.”

“In a wreck? Get a check.”

“Personal service, effective results.”

Any of those sound familiar? Pretty common taglines ─ some have been turned into jingles on TV commercials ─ but do this: Google them.

Not a lot of ads are there, right? Maybe none ─ at least in the examples I checked. This is a low-cost, high-reward opportunity. You take the top of the SERPS, you get to use ad copy to define what message is associated with the phrase ─ and bonus, if it’s yours, you’ll probably get a couple spots on the page, which is a good thing.

Side note: You can buy whatever phrase you want here ─ even if it’s not yours ─ but depending upon state bar rules, this may or may not be ethical, so tread lightly here.

Beyond that, just … use your imagination.

Using Google Trends

This is an old trick, but worth checking out if your goal is strictly to get some name recognition on the cheap. This technique has more in common with TV ad spots or putting your logo on the scoreboard at a baseball game. You are getting it out in front of a massive audience for low cost/effort. This is also the most dangerous tactic in this article, and you can get into real trouble using it, so if you decide to try it out, make sure you have a thorough understanding of how it works and how to set up your campaign to avoid disaster.

Go to Google Trends https://trends.google.com/trends/?geo=US to find trending search terms/queries.

You can get pretty granular here – location, time of day, etc. You should spend a little time getting familiar with how the different filters work and what are “good” indicators for popularity of a search (which is the subject of a different article).

Once you have a list of trending topics, do some research. This is critical – a negative brand association can be devastating, so take your time and make sure you are not going to be associated with any trends or topics that may have negative implications. (Although I suppose this depends upon your appetite for risk.) In my experience, sports and music are typically pretty safe subjects that always have something trending that’s getting a good amount of traffic.

Once you have your trend identified, buy the keywords associated with them. You will want to run a strong branded search ad ideally incorporating a slogan or mission statement if you have one. Remember – the objective here is to get your firm name in front of as many eyes as possible for a low cost. Do not expect calls or conversions out of this, as it is not a direct response tactic. This is all about brand reinforcement. Like a billboard on a popular stretch of highway.

How it can go wrong? CONTEXT IS EVERYTHING → You don’t want to buy and associate with trending topics that may cause conflicts down the road. For example:

• News items that become legal battles could color your stance.
• You buy Oregon Football, they get embroiled in a scandal.
• You buy a celebrity, and they die. Then your ad is popping up … on their obituary notice.

Also, budget. You will probably get more impressions than clicks, but you still need strict limits or day parting (time ads are running) to be sure you don’t go broke on accident. Trends can help, though, if you look at time of day and set your ad schedule to run concurrent to volume trends.

Retargeting/Remarketing 

The cool thing about remarketing is that you can make all kinds of audiences based on user behavior ─ pages they visited, pages they didn’t visit, returning visitors, etc. A great way to get into this is by looking at your new vs. returning data in Google Analytics to determine the different opportunity windows for your remarketing ads.

For example, all website visitors is OK, and it is a default setup from Google Ads. However, you need to exclude people who actually converted because you have no reason to keep showing them ads.

Blog post readers could indicate someone trying to learn more about how to proceed in a particular situation and therefore have a higher level of intent than someone who only visited the homepage of your site for 5 seconds and then left.

ALSO – bonus hint – shorten the membership duration of your audiences based on what you know from past clients. How long after being in a car accident did they wait until they contacted a lawyer? Your intake team should have this data for you (and if they do not, they need to start collecting it). You probably do not need to be following around a user for 60 days AFTER they visited your site for the most part – although your data will tell you a more exact duration.

For a brand reinforcement lift in this scenario, you may want to try a more direct sales message for the first 48 to 72 hours after they leave your site, but after that, go for a more general branded ad.

This will give you visibility and keep your firm top of mind in those cases where a potential client is stuck in the research phase of their search for legal help. Please note: These timeframes are arbitrary. Filter your data, test a time frame, and adjust based on results.

Wrapping Up From Outside

Taking a creative approach to your advertising can lead to some great results. However, that does not mean I am suggesting focusing heavily on any of these suggested tactics as a cornerstone strategy for your marketing campaigns. Remember – best practices are there for a reason. Solid account management and mastery of the fundamentals of paid search optimizing are going to be where you want to focus the majority of your efforts – and budget.

So how should a law firm try these tactics out? Your best bet is to set aside a small portion of your budget for your own personal “Advertising Skunkworks.” It doesn’t have to be a lot, but you can go far with a small budget and some creative “out-of-the-box” ideas. Just make sure you’re realistic about your expectations, measure your results, and build on what you learn from your experiments.

***DISCLAIMER*** As with any advertising campaign, there is potential for error and discrepancies regardless of the abilities of the individual administering them. The tactics in this article are presented for informational purposes only and should not be construed as a promise or guarantee of results. Use at your own risk.

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