6 tips for choosing your law firm’s digital marketing agency
Choosing a digital marketing agency can be a confusing process. A lot of marketing agencies may seem like they offer the same services at similar prices. Below are six tips you can use to help you choose the best digital marketing agency for your law firm.
- Making sure they are up to date on the latest SEO practices
SEO is a constantly changing field, with Google and other search engines constantly tweaking the way the surface results to users. According to Moz, Google made 11 major changes to their search ranking algorithm over the course of 2016. If your digital marketing agency’s SEO team is not on top of the changes search engines are making, the work they do either won’t be as effective as it could be, or they’ll accidentally damage your search ranking. For example, a recent major update to Google’s algorithm that targeted lower value content caused some sites to see a 90% dip in organic traffic. When talking to potential agencies about their SEO tactics, make sure they focus on the following things:
- High quality, keyword backed content
- Foundational SEO on your website
- High quality backlinks
- Make sure they have a history doing marketing for law firms
While looking for a digital marketing agency, you want to make sure that the agency and their staff have prior experience working with law firms. Also, check out the agencies past and previous clients to see if they have had experience and success working with law firms. Here at Kraus Marketing our Director of Digital Marketing, Ian Leong, has an extensive background doing digital marketing for the law industry. At his previous jobs, Ian was the Director of Marketing for law firm Jacoby & Meyers and the Director of Marketing and Analytics at LexisNexis. Kraus Marketing has also spent many years working with law firms as clients and understands how to properly market them.
- Make sure they do most, or all work in house
This one is key. Some digital marketing agencies don’t do everything in house, which isn’t necessarily a problem. Some agencies will bring on temporary, in person freelancers to take on overflow work when needed. However, this does become a negative quality when the agency doesn’t do most or any of the work in house. For example, there are agencies that do not do any web development in house, but instead outsource all their web development projects to freelancers who are sometimes overseas. When agencies solely manage freelancers who do your project, they are essentially just acting as a middle man. This can cause prices to go up, possible project delays, and miscommunications, since you are not directly communicating with the people working on your site.
Concluding, when an agency occasionally uses freelancers for overflow work, it is fine. Though, when an agency just manages freelancers, and do no work in house, you should probably avoid doing business with them.
- Lookout for additional fees
Read the fine print! While looking through the pricing in the contract your potential digital marketing agency gives you, make sure to look out for added fees. Some agencies will nickel and dime you for every little thing they do. Here are some things you should look out for:
- Technology fees (some agencies will make you buy a license for platforms such as HubSpot or Hootsuite)
- Extra charges for in person meetings
- Charging for stock images
- Added copywriting charges
- Make sure to do your own due diligence
When an agency gives you their list of references, keep in mind that these are their most loyal and happy clients. They are not necessarily representative of the overall experience working with that agency. Make sure you do your own due diligence, by seeing if anyone you know has worked with the agency in the past, or knows anyone that has worked with them previously. Look through your LinkedIn and ask around to see if anyone in your network knows someone that worked with your potential digital marketing agency before. This may be time intensive, so if you are going through a RFP process, make sure to narrow it down to one or two firms first.
- Make sure you have clearly communicated your goals and objectives
Ask yourself: Why do I want to start leveraging digital marketing for my law firm? If you cannot come up with a clear answer to this question, try to come up with one before you approach digital marketing agencies. If you don’t know exactly what you want to get out of a digital marketing campaign, you’ll end up with shifting objectives and a drawn out process. When objectives are constantly moving, the strategies put in place to achieve them will also shift. When strategies are constantly changing, you will not see as meaningful results.
Kraus Marketing is a full service marketing agency based in the heart of Morristown, NJ. Kraus Marketing’s full range of services includes responsive websites, branding, social media marketing, SEO & PPC and everything in between. With a talented team and a lot of hard work, Kraus Marketing produces high-end marketing projects that produce the best ROI for you and your law firm. Contact us today to find out more about our core services and how we can help take your marketing to the next level. Call our agency at (973) 998-5742.