Ep. 28 - Is your marketing agency really doing it right?

Is your marketing agency really doing it right? 

In this episode, I dive deep into what separates a good agency from one that’s just burning through your budget. I share the exact traits to look for such as how they handle mistakes, whether they challenge your ideas, and how they collaborate with you to build long-term success. 

I also reveal the red flags that should make you pause and reconsider who you're trusting with your firm’s growth. 

If you’ve ever wondered whether your agency is truly working in your best interest, this episode is a must-listen. 

Tune in and learn how to spot the pros who will help your firm thrive.

Want to learn more about how our agency can help your law firm grow? Speak with John Rizvi ☎️

Transcript

John Rizvi 0:00

This is PodPopy Life, podcast for the people. Professor, that's my name. Hi, and welcome. I'm John Rizvi, the Law Firm Growth Professor. For my regulars, it's always great to have you back. Um, and you're here for the first time. I hope you'll enjoy the episode. In my podcast, I share the strategies for growth that have worked for me in growing my law firm from a startup with just me, a laptop, and a cell phone operating out of a spare bedroom to where we are today, a team of 60 professionals generating over 10 million a year in revenues from our 10,000 square foot headquarters in Coral Springs. In this episode, we're continuing a three-part series on digital marketing agencies and what you should expect from them and what they should expect from you. But how can you tell if you're getting what you expect if you don't know what doing it right and wrong looks like? In this episode, we're going to reverse gears here and take a deeper look at what a marketing agency that does it right looks like. In the last episode, we looked at how a marketing agency can do it wrong. But how do we know if your legal marketing firm is doing it right? You might think that's easy. You could just get off uh the tips in the the last episode and say, okay, do the exact opposite of that, right? That sounds great in theory. Except, no, that's not exactly how it works. Because just because uh you do the opposite doesn't mean you're doing it right. It just means you're approaching the wrong thing from a different angle. So, what do you want to do uh and see? And what do you need to see? Uh, do they have a firm grasp on your state's ethics rules regarding legal marketing and attorney advertising? If you have practices in multiple states, do they know the rules for each one? And not just quoting the boilerplate from a Google AI overview. I mean they know their stuff, not just the verbiage, but what it looks like and how it functions in actual practice. If they cannot tell you what the rules are, that's a huge red flag, as we discussed in the last episode. They should know the advertising rules. Now, granted, anybody can make a mistake. I have, you have, and they have. So uh let's not take this as is, oh well, they rolled this one out marketing campaign wrong, and we realize 10 minutes into it that there is a problem. And if they stop it, uh, did they rip us off? Okay, that's not the the same as an honest mistake. An honest mistake is not the same as a malicious error. However, it could be hard to tell the difference from a standing start, but if they make one mistake, uh maybe give them the benefit of the doubt. But ask what guardrails they're putting in place uh to make sure that this doesn't happen again. If the mistake continues to be repeated or they are unrepentant about the mistake and they can't tell you what they're going to do to fix this problem in the future, now you've got a very different problem at that point. And even if it is an honest mistake, remember it's your license at stake. A good marketing agency will own their mistakes and be able to describe in detail how they're going to make sure that those mistakes don't happen again. Maybe they'll require multiple eyes on any public-facing work that they do and have you sign off on it before it goes live so there aren't any questions. These are all perfectly reasonable steps and they're good reasons to keep doing business with that agency. The next thing to consider is are they telling you you're a genius no matter what? This is one of the biggest uh red flags that I've seen. You don't want a yes man or yes woman as the head of your agency. And a good agency is not there to be a yes person. They're there to safeguard your interests. You don't want an agency that's going to tell you, hey, that's a great idea. When you say something that's the marketing equivalent of, I'm going to jump off this cliff without a parachute and see if I can fly. If they don't stop you and they don't say that you may want to rethink that, then something is wrong. It either means that they don't have the guts to tell you that you're wrong, or they don't have the knowledge to explain why, or they're just after your money and they're not interested in whether you uh splatter when you hit the ground. A good marketing agency is going to have your best interest at heart, and that means sometimes telling their clients that this great idea that they have really isn't. And they'll be able to explain why. Just like we would if our client wanted us to make an argument to uh the judge uh that we didn't think would be uh successful. Your marketing agency should be able to tell you when you're trying to push a bad position. More to the point, they should be able to tell you why it's a bad or unhelpful position and what will get you better results. In the same vein, a good marketing agency who cares about doing it right is going to be looking at the long view. Now, this means a lot of different things. First, it means never guaranteeing anything regarding results. A lot of people get hung up on this one. As I've noted before, uh, we as attorneys were prohibited from giving ironclad guarantees to our clients. We can't say, oh, this case is a slam dunk and you're about to be millions of dollars richer before the settlement paperwork is signed by the opposing party. But ironically, we tend to expect results from our vendors and contractors even when it's inappropriate to do so, like our marketing agencies. Good marketing agencies don't guarantee first page above-the-fold Google rankings. This is because they can't. If they do, you know you're not dealing with a good marketing agency. A good marketing agency will say, okay, we can update your website content, we can structure your website's back-end architecture and the SEO so it plays nice with Google's algorithms. We can get rid of these unnecessary links. Uh, we can write you great content that will be useful to your website visitors, we can expand your social media, we can look at your ad spend and see how we can allocate money to get you in front of your ideal target clients. If we do this and make sure you're fully compliant with Google's best practices and keep on top of changes in the algorithms, over time you should expect to see an increase in organic rankings, thus an increase in website traffic, thus an increase in clients. All of these are perfectly fair and reasonable. And a reputable marketing agency will have the skills, the personnel, and the know-how to do all of them. What they won't say is we're going to do all of these things, and we're going to be number one on Google for this keyword in your geographic area by a week from Tuesday. They'll say, and this is true, it could take anywhere from three months to a year or more to really see the results from this. We don't have control over every factor and signal that Google looks at. So you're going to see some ups and downs. Both the overall trajectory that you can expect should be upward in the SERPs. The next thing they'll do is collaborate with you. A good marketing agency is going to insist on having your buy-in before they make any moves on your behalf, just like we as attorneys do with our clients. So, especially at first, they're going to make sure that you've read in on uh everything that they're thinking, planning, and doing. This means they're going to ask you a lot of questions. They're going to ask you about your ideal clients. Remember, a few episodes ago, we talked about personas. This would be a great time to roll them out. So if your marketing agency knows who you're trying to reach and where to find them, they'll probably suggest some tweaks and refinements you hadn't considered. And that's a good thing. If you say you want blue to be your primary color for your website, they're going to say, okay, there's at least 144 different shades of blue. We need to narrow that down. This isn't because they're trying to be difficult. They're trying to be absolutely sure that you're going to be happy with the results when the website is done. They're probably not going to be happy with you if you say you have a blank check and a blank slate. Do whatever you think is best. Why? Because you're almost certainly not going to be uh not going to like the results. We'll talk about this more in the next episode. Uh they're going to ask you what keywords you associate with your firm. They're going to ask you about your goals. Uh they're going to make you think a lot. And they're not going to make a move until they're certain that you and them are on the same page and moving towards the same goal. Also, they're going to tell you if something isn't possible. Having a can-do attitude is one thing, but it has to be tempered with realism about the limits of internet marketing. And yes, those limits do exist. But remember, even if they say something can't be done, they're not doing it just to thwart you. They're doing it because they're trying to help you and your firm succeed in meeting your goals. This means they're going to be brutally realistic about goals and objectives. They're going to limit themselves to what they know they can control. They're going to make sure that they stay well within legal and ethical boundaries. They're not going to make any promises that they're not 100% sure that they can deliver on. Now, all of this sounds like you're just taking a huge gamble. And to a degree that's true, no matter how you approach your marketing, because you're competing with other law firms for the same keywords and search strings. So unless you're a nationwide law firm or your practice is limited to federal practice, uh, such as mine in intellectual property law, uh, you're competing for a relatively small client pool in a compressed geographic area. Uh, there's always a chance that someone's going to do it better or more effectively, or think of something you or your marketing team didn't. That doesn't mean your marketing agency did something wrong or did it poorly or didn't do it effectively for your firm and your goals. It just means you got unlucky. Which brings me to the next thing a good marketing agency does. They own the results. They just don't own the wins. They also accept the losses and they learn from them. They adapt their playbook. They say, okay, XYZ law is still beating out your firm. Here's what we did. Uh, here's what they did, and here's why we think this happened. Now, here's what we're going to do to try to beat them at their own game. They just don't keep trying the same thing over and over and getting the same results while uh you're expecting different ones. You may remember Einstein is reported to have said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. A good marketing agency who does it right is going to get your buy-in, is going to run the process and adopt the whatever is necessary that has to be adopted, then get it in front of you. That means they're going to be uh looking not just at how your firm's marketing is performing, but they're going to see what your competitors are doing and why it's working for them. These days, having at least a bilingual website is essential for most practice areas. If your firm's website content is only in English or Spanish or Farsi, uh you're cutting out major chunks of your available market. That means you're leaving money on the table for your competitors. Finally, a reputable marketing agency is going to come back to you with numbers. When they report in, they'll be able to tell you exactly what they've done and what the metrics are showing. They're going to be monitoring your website's landing pages and seeing how many people click the contact our firm button. They'll be looking at vanity metrics, of course, uh, but they won't make these the emphasis of the conversation. Things like social media engagement, clicks, likes, and visits to your website that don't result in client conversion. Uh they matter because they're showing that the message is getting out. They're showing the message is important because and they're showing that your brand is building. But they're going to be more interested and worried about client conversions because they will ultimately determine the success or failure of your campaign. So again, we're back to collaboration. You're in the best position to tell if you're getting great results. Are your phones ringing more? Is your firm taking on more cases and logging more billable hours? Are you racking up more retainers? These are the metrics that count. And your marketing agency will need to know them so that they can work out what percentage of that increase is due directly to their efforts. One thing they won't do is take credit for things which aren't related to their efforts. If you pass out a thousand business cards at a public outreach and you get a hundred people calling your firm, that's nothing to do with your marketing agency. That's brick and mortar stuff. A good marketing agency will insist on taking your branding into the real world and building your brand on the street as well as online. But they're going to be very clear on where their influence begins and ends. To help with this, they're probably going to ask you to survey your existing and new clients through the website contact form and through direct contact in your firm's offices. How do they find out about this firm? What made them decide this firm was the right one for their needs? A LinkedIn think piece you wrote is going to have a different impact than a website landing page, your marketing theme rights concerning resources for men going through divorce, for example. But it's all marketing. Even though a good agency will give credit where the credit is due, not just hog it all for themselves and vote themselves a pay increase based on numbers that don't have anything to do with them. Good marketing firms are out there. And the easiest way to find out if they're good is if they tell you not to take their word for it, uh whatever it might be. But to let them show you right from the start, they'll be looking at everything about your existing marketing and seeing how it could be enhanced or improved or fine-tuned to get you the results you need. They're going to start with a baseline. Like, for example, do you know uh you have 23 dead links on your site right now? Did you know that your page, your site has six pages that go nowhere and do nothing? Are you aware that right now your firm is number 16 in Google uh SERP or Google search engine uh results pages? As a straight search for its own name. Did you know the last time your firm posted anything on Facebook was X or five months ago? Then they're going to lay out a roadmap to change that. Fix the links, get those pages gone or get them doing something uh positive for your firm so you're not wasting bandwidth and real estate on your website on garbage. Start pushing more content that gets your firm name out there so it will climb in SERPs over time. Crosspost from your website to your firm's major social media outlets. They're not promising anything they can't deliver. They're not relying on vanity metrics that prove and achieve nothing, but they're showing you that they know what they're doing and that they can be trusted to do the right thing for your firm rather than your competition. Now, finding an agency that does it right is possible. You just have to be willing to ask some questions and get some answers that you may not like because a good agency isn't going to tell you what you want to hear. They're going to tell you what you need to hear in order to get the results you're looking for. They're not going to be afraid to tell you something isn't possible, practical, or feasible. In fact, that's a great litmus test for a good agency that's going to have your back versus an agency that's just out to separate your firm from its marketing budget. Ask them for something patently crazy and see what they say. When they explain why it can't happen and doesn't work that way, and show you the numbers to back that, back up what they're saying, then you know you're dealing with an agency that takes your firm's success and growth seriously and is going to do the right thing, even when it's hard to say, hear, or do. Once again, I'm John Risvie, the Law Firm Growth Professor. Before you leave, please click the like button below. Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss anything I'm cooking up in future episodes. And if you enjoyed this episode and found it helpful, why not share it with your friends and colleagues who might like it also? Uh and don't forget to leave a comment about your experiences with good marketing agencies and what they did that, in your opinion, makes them good. The comments are open and I'm listening. Be sure to tune in next week when we wrap up this three-part mini-series by considering the single biggest roadblock to your firm's marketing success. It's a big, scary, important topic that you don't want to miss. Now, thanks again for tuning in, and I'm looking forward to speaking with you next time. So when a new idea pops into your brain, call the patent professor. That's my name. I'm a law school professor. An engineer too, I think that is funny. If the patent says your idea is not new, that's just what they've got, right? So when a new idea pops into your brain, call the patent professor. That's my name.