Legal Marketing, The Great Oxymoron.

Legal marketing, in the minds of many of us who either market to attorneys or help attorney's promote their services via marketing, is one of the great oxymoron's. It is exceptionally poor marketing and much of what goes on is barely legal.

What passes as trying to market to lawyers for the vast majority of financial, technical and service oriented firms that attempt it, is generally confined to purchasing insanely priced advertisements in bar or trial lawyer publications, making absurdly expensive contributions to these same organizations to get a speaking or writing slot at a national or large state convention, or doing the convention road show circuit where you are reduced to standing in the exhibitor ghetto to pitch your wares to lawyers who are more interested in the free stuff you give away in order to entice them into standing in front of you long enough to shove a card in their hands.

This corrupt, wasteful, demeaning process has evolved into "the industry standard" of how you reach lawyers. Let me ask you, if you are a company that wants to market your services or talents to lawyers, a few questions.

1. How much are you spending to purchase advertising in trade and association magazines and what do you really get out of it? The average budget for the average firm marketing to just trial lawyers, to buy space in the three national magazines, Trial, National Law Journal and American Lawyer, is approximately $5000 for a VERY modest campaign. If you want premium position or full page ad's be prepared to double or triple that number.

2. How much are you spending on State or regional publications? Again, if we break the markets into regions and assume you want to do at least a 5 state buy, a realistic budget for those state publications or to buy space in Lawyers Weekly or a regional paper, you are again at $5000 minimum with the ability to easily double it, particularly in the Northeast or Mid-Atlantic region.

3. How much do you budget to attend trade shows and staff your booth? If you wish to have a consistent presence you need to target Mass Torts Made Perfect, AAJ, ABA conventions at a minimum, which means 6 commitments just with those 3 organizations. If you also want to do a regional purchase, again with 5 states, you will have at least 10 events you need to attend. Lets assume you do at minimum one event per month then. You can not possibly do any event, with travel, booth space, entertainment, lodging and materials for less then $5500 per event and thats low.

So, for a very basic national advertising purchase in media, along with a solid regional media buy, coupled with the required trade show circuit, what is your monthly budget? Approximately $15,000 per month or $180,000 per year!

Lets then throw in the additional "contributions" that most organizations also are required to give to state and national associations to get preferred speaking slots, opportunities to present at meetings, writing in the publications or the coveted preferred vendor designation, and if you can get away from that for less then $50,000 per year you are a better man then I am.

Finally lets toss in the occasional golf tournament, where sponsoring a hole costs you $5000, or annual gala ball or fund raising event and you are probably topping out for everything somewhere around $250,000!

Could someone tell me where this cycle ends and at what point the people marketing to trial lawyers and the bar in general throw up their hands and say " I surrender"? I mean really, how much return can any legal marketer say they are getting for their money when you are pouring in that sort of investment year after year before you have opened up one file, handled one case or sold one item. I realize more then most that you must advertise and that you must support your local and national bar and trial lawyer organizations and I'm not advocating that you stop it all together. However, there is a better way then just pouring money into the black hole.

Lets face it, most people in legal marketing spend with these magazines and organizations out of abject fear that if they don't, their competitors will, and the trial lawyers will black ball them because they stopped spending money with them. Never mind that most people get almost no calls or business off of their ad's in publications or that their contributions amount to nothing once some other competitor offers one dollar more to the association to buy preferred vendor status. No, they have to do it, they have to suffer the indignity of the vendor ghetto because to not do it means you have turned your back on your customers.

I am here to tell you that there is a better way and a better answer and that's The Legal Broadcast Network. 

Imagine if you will, taking some of the money, say about 20% of that $250,000 figure I listed, and allocating to fund a full broadcast channel for the trial lawyers in your state. Or, imagine taking 15% of that number and sponsoring for your best legal clients a channel to market their legal services, with your firms name displayed on all of their audio, video or written commentary. Or better yet, imagine that all of this content actually got READ, VIEWED or LISTENED too, instead of tossed in the garbage or on a coffee table. Or, imagine that this content you helped them create and broadcast was available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year forever!

The fact is you can get out of the ghetto of sponsor hell and you can begin to brand yourself and your best clients on the media where 90% of all new customers are found now, and that's the internet. The only thing holding back most legal marketing firms and lawyers is fear and a sense they are leaving behind the known for the unknown.

Step out of the darkness, leave the ghetto behind and come join the fastest growing, most dynamic means of promoting your firm, your clients and future customers. The Legal Broadcast Network.

Part 1 in a 6 part series on Legal Marketing on the Internet, what in the world do you have to lose?