Firm Innovators - Marketing Audits

Six Ways Marketing Audits Can Add Value to Your Law Firm

ByAmy Adams

The term “audit” can sound dreadful, but when it comes to legal marketing audits, you don’t need to pull tax statements for the IRS or dig into your financials. It’s important to reframe the idea of audit and understand the hidden value in assessing your marketing operations in order to refine your strategy, reaffirm whether you’re targeting your ideal client, and leverage that information to improve ROI and ultimately increase sales. 

What is a marketing audit?

A marketing audit is a systematic way of gathering information about your law firm’s current marketing efforts, leveraging that information to improve your marketing operations and, ultimately, grow firm revenues. It’s important to understand how well your current marketing campaigns are performing before making any major adjustments or changes to your marketing strategy.

Types of Marketing Audits

There are two types of marketing audits: one-time and ongoing. A one-time audit will give you a full-picture overview of your current marketing activities and help you identify areas where your marketing budget could be better spent and deliver a higher ROI. An ongoing marketing audit will provide your firm with more detailed data on your current marketing strategies so that you can make informed decisions about what works best for your practice. Ongoing audits are a fantastic resource to benchmark your progress over time and bridge your sales and marketing processes.

One-Time Marketing Audit

The first step in conducting a one-time marketing audit is to gather as much information as possible about your law firm’s existing marketing strategy. This includes identifying which marketing channels you use (e.g., social media, email blasts, direct mail), who your target audience is, and how often you communicate with them. You’ll also want to know if there are any gaps in your marketing plan, such as a subpar website or social channels, or an outdated CRM or email database. 

Once you have this information, you’ll need to decide how to categorize each marketing tactic based on its effectiveness. For example, you may find that certain strategies are working well for some clients but not others. If this is the case, you can focus your time and resources on those methods that work best for you and the goals you’ve set for your firm.

Ongoing Marketing Audit

Once you’ve gathered all the information needed to conduct a one-time marketing review, it’s time to start analyzing your results. In other words, now that you know what you’re doing, it’s time to see how effective your marketing is actually being. To do this, you’ll need to collect additional data points throughout the year by tracking your performance metrics. These include things like:

  • How many new prospects did you receive from your various strategies?
  • Which strategies were the most effective at generating leads?
  • How long does it take you to close a lead?
  • Which marketing tactics generated the highest conversion rate?

These numbers will allow you to determine where your money is going and how you can adjust your marketing strategy to get even more bang for your buck.

Why should you do a marketing audit?

When it comes to marketing, the old adage “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” doesn’t apply. Instead, you should always strive to ensure sure that your firm is doing what it needs to be doing in order to succeed and grow. For example, perhaps you’ve noticed that your website isn’t performing very well or converting leads into paying clients. Or maybe you’re seeing low open rates from prospective clients when you send out an email campaign. Either way, an effective marketing audit will give you the opportunity to see what needs to change in order to get better results.

The following are just a few of the reasons why you may want to consider a marketing audit.

1. Align Your Marketing Activities With Your Business Goals

If you aren’t getting the results you expected, then it’s probably because your marketing efforts aren’t aligned with your business goals. By conducting a marketing audit, you’ll be able to figure out exactly what steps you need to take to reach your goals.

2. Evaluate What Is – or Isn’t – Working

A marketing audit will help you identify any gaps in your current marketing strategy. For instance, perhaps you haven’t leveraged your social media channels effectively enough to generate leads for your practice. Or maybe you haven’t created a strong brand identity and message yet. Whatever the case, once you identify these gaps, you’ll be able to create a plan to fill them.

3. Tap Into New Ideas and Legal Marketing Strategies

With the help of an experienced legal marketer, regular audits can significantly help you improve your overall marketing efforts. For example, if you notice that your website isn’t converting as many leads as you’d hoped, you can ask the expert to recommend changes that could make it easier for people to contact your law firm. Likewise, if you realize that your firm has been using outdated marketing materials, you can have the expert suggest ways to update your branding so that it reflects your current practices.

4. Get Valuable Insight Into How You’re Performing Against the Competition

One of the best ways to learn about your competition is through market research. However, there are times when you won’t have access to such detailed information. In those cases, a marketing audit can provide valuable insight into how your law firm is performing against its competitors.

5. Identify Potential Problems Before They Become Major Issues

Well-developed marketing audits are also useful for identifying potential problems before they become major issues. For example, if your email marketing campaigns aren’t generating high open rates, you might not know whether this is due to poor design, your sender authority, or other factors. An audit will allow you to find out which factor is causing the problem.

5. Increase Client Loyalty and Retention

One of the biggest challenges facing lawyers today is retaining their existing client base. If you’re not generating new leads for your practice, this means that you’re losing potential clients who are looking for other options. A marketing audit will help you learn which tactics work best for your target audience. You can then use that knowledge to craft more personalized messages that resonate with your customers. The end result: higher client retention and increased revenue.

6. Assess Your Time and Budget Costs and Make Adjustments to Improve ROI

Finally, an effective marketing audit will save you both time and money and allow you to maximize the value of your marketing budget. Because you won’t waste time trying new strategies that aren’t delivering results, you’ll be able to focus on the tactics that deliver your firm its best return on investment (ROI).

The Phases of a Marketing Audit

Depending on the size of your firm and your short and long-term goals, a marketing audit can require between one week to several months to complete. Throughout the course of the audit, your firm should walk through the following steps.

1. Identify your current marketing activities.

The first step in your marketing audit is to identify your existing marketing strategies and campaigns. This includes everything from advertising to social media campaigns. Once you’ve identified all of your existing marketing efforts, you’ll want to determine how each activity performs against your marketing goals.

  • What results are you getting from each activity?
  • Which activities are producing positive results?
  • Which ones aren’t working?
  • What needs to change?
  • How much does this cost?

2. Define your goals and objectives

The second step in your marketing audit involves defining your overall business goals and objectives. What are your firm’s short-term and long-term goals? How will your marketing operations help you to achieve those goals and, more narrowly, what are the goals and objectives of your marketing program?

For example, you may decide that you want to double your revenues within one or two years. As part of your marketing audit, you may list the following goals:

  • Increase online traffic to your website.
  • Create more targeted landing pages.
  • Generate more leads through email marketing.
  • Increase advertising click-through rates.

3. Gather data for your audit

Once you’ve defined your goals and objectives, you’ll need to gather some data. Depending on your firm’s practice areas and ideal client, data collection may include social media and website analytics reports, client satisfaction surveys, and even competitor research. Each of these sources of information will provide insight into your firm’s performance and be measured by key performance indicators (KPIs) that tie directly to your goals and objectives previously set.

4. Analyze the results

Now it’s time to analyze the data collected during the previous phase. Using the data you gathered, you’ll want to compare your current marketing programs to your desired outcomes. For example, if you want to increase your web traffic, you might look at the number of visitors coming to your site versus the number of people clicking on your ads. Based on the analysis, you’ll then have a better understanding of where you’re spending your resources and whether they’re being used effectively. You’ll also have a clearer picture of which marketing channels are performing well and which ones are not. 

5. Create an action plan

Based on the analysis, you’ll develop recommendations for improving your marketing strategy. These could include changing the way you advertise, targeting different audiences, developing new brand messaging, or creating new content. In addition, you’ll want to create a timeline for implementing your changes so that you can start seeing immediate results. 

6. Implement your plan and track your progress

Finally, once you’ve developed a marketing plan, you’ll want to implement any recommended changes over the next few months. Your goal is to see measurable improvements over time.

As you continue to track your KPIs, you’ll be able to monitor the success of your marketing strategies. This will allow you to make adjustments as needed and adjust your budget accordingly. It’s important to note that while marketing audits are a great tool for identifying opportunities, they don’t guarantee that you’ll reach your goals. However, when combined with other tools such as sales tracking software and Client Relationship Management (CRM) systems, they can give you a strong foundation from which to build a successful marketing strategy.

7. Keep consistent in order to reassess and optimize

By consistently reviewing your efforts, you’ll be able to keep up with legal industry trends and identify ways to continuously improve your overall marketing strategy. If you find yourself falling behind in terms of achieving your marketing goals, you’ll know what needs to change in order to stay competitive.

How Firm Innovators Can Help

In the end, marketing audits shouldn’t be feared and instead be viewed as a valuable asset. Ultimately, they can help you improve your firm’s bottom line and ensure that you’re focused on the most effective methods for reaching your goals.

Our experienced and forward-thinking team at Firm Innovators is here to help you with your marketing audit and develop a strategic plan that aligns with your practice’s marketing and business development goals. Click here to schedule a discovery call and we’ll follow up with you promptly.