Legal Marketing – Wash, Rinse, Repeat

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Legal marketing efforts are important – we all know it.  We need to keep the new business (and repeat business) flowing in the front door in order to keep the coffers full, the staff busy, and the lights on.

We learn everything we can, we soak up information, we read as much as possible.  And in so doing, we think that our legal marketing efforts are going to take off.

It ain’t necessarily so, as they song goes.

Education doesn’t transform into results without action.  That action needs to be yours, and opening your wallet for education or a legal marketing consultant doesn’t count.

But here’s something the legal marketing gurus won’t tell you – half the time, you’re going to be wrong when you do something.

In my own bankruptcy practice, my efforts as marketing my law firm have failed just as often as not.  In 1997 I did a ton of direct mail and lost my shirt.  Then in 1999 I paid a big-name web design company a bunch of money and thought a slick website would be the panacea I sought – it wasn’t.  I blew a chunk on television only to see no ROI whatsoever.

But I learned from my mistakes, changed my tactics, and made each of these areas work for my law practice.

The point is that I tried.  I took the risks, I failed.  Then I learned.  But I would never have learned had I not tried and failed the first time out.

Your website will suck.  Your direct mail piece will bomb.  Your news release won’t be optimized so it will disappear into a black hole.  Your Twitter account will languish in obscurity.

And that sucks.  Sucks your money down the train, sucks your time there as well.

But if you don’t try something, you can never succeed.  You can never really learn what will and what will not work for you unless you give something a shot.

You can pay all the money in the world to a legal marketing consultant.  You can pick up a bunch of courses.  You can listen all you want, taking good notes all the way.  But unless you take something and give it a shot, you’re out of the game.

Twitter?  Facebook?  Blogging?  Podcasting?  It’s all pretty much free, and it’s well known that you’re not going to be able to break the Internet.  So why not give it a whirl?

Pick one thing.  Dive in.  Make mistakes.  Fix them.

Rinse and repeat.

Photo courtesy of icathing.

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