What To Put in Your Annual Marketing Plan (117)

Season #2 January 24, 2023

No more reactive marketing as a strategy to build your law firm. Be proactive with your firm’s marketing strategy and get your firm humming by the end of 2023.

By this time I’m back from Tanzania from a 3-week holiday with my family! I have a 21, 18 and 12, and I just want to nab with them while I can and create a great adventure and memories with them.

So, for the last few episodes, we’ve been talking about marketing your law firm. Why?

Because Clients are the oxygen to your business, without them, your business fails, and as law firm owners, this should be our focus on making sure that we have plenty of work coming through our law firm doors.

What most lawyers do is:

Rely on a handful of referrals which are never enough to really scale your firm and when work dries up they start to panic and get into action, throw money everywhere and see what sticks.

This is not a great law firm marketing strategy!

Vs. How I do it:

Plan out my marketing for the next 12 months;
Schedule it out, set a marketing budget, and plan everything before the year starts!! If you’ve been listening to my series of marketing podcasts lately.

By now, you’ve done all this research, and you’ve got a little direction for the next 12 months.

Here are some suggested activities that you could be putting into your marketing spreadsheets:

Weekly:

Write One Article per week - (Keyword-focus) that will be great for your SEO and convert it into a newsletter which is a good way to keep in touch with people.
Invite One Person from your Contact List weekly - over lunch or coffee. So, in a month, you’ve invited four people off your contact list.
Post Content on Your Social Media Every Week - make sure it’s consistent with your brand, and don’t be afraid to repurpose your social media content.

Monthly:

Attend 1-2 events every month - Build relationships, go to the same events, and don’t spread yourself so thin that you don’t get to know anybody. Better to focus on an event or two. Commit and go regularly.
Drive Google Reviews every month - make sure you have an automated set-up. Google reviews are gold. They will help you out in so many ways.
Send out 1 PR article once a month - it helps you build credibility and backlinks to your website. This also helps in attracting people to your firm.
Schedule a handwritten thank you card - Send this to people who are referring work to you. Especially during holidays or special occasions.
Plan your Google, FB, etc. ad words spend - Don’t be intimidated. We get a lot of work through Google ads, I've tweaked and perfected it though over the years to get this humming and working really well.
Plan when you run Google Ads - you need to observe your target demographic, when they are most active online, etc. Quarterly: Sponsor a table at an event- invite people in your target list of referrers people you want to build a relationship with.
Update Google My Business - check it, and make sure everything is right, like addresses, and everything is functioning properly.
Enter Industry Awards - by this time, work out what those industry awards are and when you need to make applications, as they really do help.
Host a Big Lunch - in a private dining room; this work brilliantly. You have a captive audience, you get a network, and you determine who you want to meet this year. Show them what you offer. Keep it light and fun. Have a good time.
Invite Target people to a webinar - this adds value to your target clients or referrers.
Update Your Firm’s Website - make sure that the links and admin pages are working and forms are linked to the right emails. Ensure that your calendar is linked properly.

Annually:

Send out Christmas cards/ gifts - to your referrers and other offices that send you to work. A nice way to be on other people’s radar
Hold a Function at your office - get to know and have fun with other offices; everyone loves a party.
Plan to do the Marketing Plan for the following Year!!!

And the best plan you can do for your firm is — to plan to join the SCALABLE BUSINESS LOUNGE, there is an annual fee but is inexpensive. Where we help you with all of this stuff to leverage and up-level your firm.