How Much Do IP Attorneys Spend on Marketing
Marketing can be a differentiator for an IP attorney in a very competitive legal profession. However, just how much an IP law firm should spend on marketing depends, in fact, on the size of the firm, its goals, and its growth level.
Overall Guidelines on Marketing Budget
Typically, law firms don't matter the type of specialization with the focus on IP law-spend between 2% to 10% of their gross revenue on marketing. Larger firms who bring in higher revenues generally spend around 2-5 percent, while the smaller firms and solo practitioners may dedicate up to 10% of their revenue towards marketing. The firm's competitive growth targets are well reflected in the percentage of its revenue toward marketing efforts.
For example, U.S. leaders in the industry anticipate spending around $13,600 annually per attorney on marketing. That's some $1,000 to $2,300 more per attorney than their not-so-successful competition.
This type of strategic spending often becomes spread across numerous marketing channels, including digital advertising, content marketing, and social media in order to maintain top-of-mind awareness and lead generation.
Online Marketing: The Top Priority
Digital marketing is today the most dominant marketing strategy implemented by law firms. Indeed, it has been reported that above 78% of all law firms view online advertising as their best-performing marketing channel; indeed, this is done basically through SEO and SEM.
Online marketing channels can take a major chunk of the marketing budgets, and the said online channels take almost 28% of the total marketing expenditure of a firm.
IP law firms are highly rewarded with investment in content-driven marketing strategies, such as blogging and SEO. Prospective clients, most of the time, search for IP law firms online, therefore a strong digital presence could significantly increase a firm's visibility and client acquisition. Whether it be ranking well for keywords relevant to patents, trademarks, or litigation, IP firms can enjoy significant returns by focusing on SEO and digital outreach
Traditional vs. Digital Marketing Spend
Digital marketing is growing, but some kind of law firm budgets still have a place for print, billboard, and television types of adverts, although small ones. For instance, 19% of the legal firms' marketing budgets go to a print and billboard advert, while 17% is taken by television.
However, while the IP law firm wants to make efficiency, spending money on paid ads, SEO, and social media will normally be more profitable because their conversion rates are higher than those of other systems.
Time and Effort Spent on Marketing
Of course, yet another factor would be the time that IP lawyers might use in handling their marketing matters. After all, for example, small law firms may absorb 15-20 percent of the total business development and marketing activities. All this can be outsourced to digital marketing agencies, thereby freeing lawyers' time and thus ensuring that their campaigns stay effective. Just as hiring a cleaning company to manage office cleaning upkeep professionals to pursue their core activities, outsourcing experts in SEO and content marketing would drastically enhance the firm's ability to avail itself of online visibility and lead generation. By freeing up time spent on such non-core tasks, attorneys can more effectively serve clients.
Flexibility with budget and strategy
Companies vary at every stage of maturity: small firms in the early stages (Sprout) might spend between $10,000 and $100,000 yearly in digital tactics, like Search Engine Optimization and paid search ads, just to show up. In contrast, large, well-established companies in the mature stages (Harvest) might spend more than $1 million on mass brand-building strategies such as TV advertising, paid social media campaigns, and big digital advertising.
Small businesses can also cut costs by using less expensive but more effective means of promoting the business, for example, through content marketing and SEO. A small law firm can invest in creating high-quality blog posts and optimize its website for local search to acquire new customers without having to spend a fortune on paid ads.
Conclusion
Marketing budgets for IP attorneys vary greatly. When done correctly, however, well-strategized online marketing focus on SEO, SEM, and content creation is key to new business generation. Armed with a good understanding of the stage and objectives of their firm, IP attorneys can better budget and prioritize money spent through the most effective channels of marketing. As an aside, it is worth noting that ROI for digital marketing can often be many times greater than that of traditional means while costing many times less. Companies like Torres Digital Marketing can offer tailored solutions that would ensure a higher return on investment so that IP attorneys can focus on their practice and prosper with such growth in clients.
Whether your law firm is just getting started or needs an expansion, intelligent investments in marketing can be the difference in bringing a law firm's goals to fruition. To any professional service they may need, Torres Digital Marketing can help IP attorneys perfect their outreach efforts, as effectively as a maid cleans and organizes a home.
