Here’s a quick history lesson.
Since the early 1970s, when the California Supreme Court ruled in favor of Jacoby and Meyers’ right to promote their business, advertising in the legal profession became an accepted practice. The US Supreme Court’s extension of this right to all states in 1977 made the practice of self-promotion for lawyers a widespread one.
The legal marketing landscape has changed vastly over the last few years. Word of mouth and referrals are still some of the most popular ways of attracting new clients. However, if you’re not making full use of powerful and modern marketing methods, tools and platforms, it could mean your law firm is losing clients and revenue to better-equipped competitors.
According to a 2018 report from the Legal Marketing Association and Bloomberg, nearly half of respondents (48%) felt their rivals were doing better marketing than their own law firms.
Out Of Home (OOH) Advertising
In the advertising world, Out of Home or OOH is a blanket term that refers to any form of promotion that occurs beyond a consumer’s residence.
It is perfectly suited to law firms.
Examples of Out of Home (OOH) advertising include traditional media, such as printed ads on billboards, posters, and flyers, as well as digital advertising on digital billboards and screens by roadsides, in town and city centers, in and on public transportation vehicles, in malls, entertainment venues and office buildings, and at airports and train stations.
Billboards have long been a marketing backbone for attorneys. Freeways in every city have billboard advertising showcasing every type of lawyer – and for good reason. Most billboards find potential clients in their cars. Drivers typically use regular travel patterns, ensuring repeated exposure and higher recall.
The Advantages of Digital OOH (DOOH) Advertising
While traditional OOH advertising is effective, in the digital age, it is not the best way for law firms to take advantage of outdoor advertising opportunities.
- The media used in traditional OOH advertising tends to be static in nature. Marketers (and marketing peers in your firm) therefore must take into account indeterminate variables to see a return on investment, including the physical location of the display, its design, and the amount of time that the consumer is exposed to it.
- Production fees associated with updating or changing printed ads can prove expensive for your firm.
- Billboard material can fade, peel or weather, leaving your firm’s brand image tarnished.
- Wait time when you want to change ads or messaging can be extremely protracted.
What Is Programmatic DOOH (pDOOH)?
In the past, purchasing advertising space on billboards and other Out of Home inventory has been a cumbersome, time-consuming process, with middlemen negotiating prices with ad space owners. This increases the advertiser’s costs – your firm’s costs.
Programmatic DOOH (pDOOH) solves these problems by delivering relevant ads to targeted audiences at the perfect moment when they walk or travel past the digital signage. Imagine, your law firm advertising to the precise audience you want to reach.
Sounds like a no brainer, right?
DOOH Examples for Lawyers
So, what does this mean for lawyers?
State of the art advertising is available to your firm, and it doesn’t have to be super costly. A smaller budget spent well can outperform a larger budget spent poorly.
With 62% of legal searches being non-specific about the lawyer’s name or specific personal details, you have no reason not to design marketing messages to position your brand as the most-trusted in your niche and convert clients who may not yet know of your firm.
In our eBook, we look at some winning concepts and successful presentations for law firms across different disciplines including:
- Car accidents & personal injury
- Child custody
- Debt & Bankruptcy
- Divorce
- Medical Malpractice
- Worker’s Compensation & Labor Law
Advertising Strategy for Law Firms
With over 1.3 million lawyers in the United States, there is fierce competition in the legal industry. You need to provide your potential clients with a convincing reason as to why they should choose your firm over other lawyers.
Digital Out of Home advertising provides that platform for your firm and can be an effective part of a multi-channel promotional strategy. DOOH also plays a role in enhancing other operational marketing channels for law firms.
In fact, research from MRI-Simmons and the OAAA found that using Out of Home advertising alongside other channels can drive a boost in weekly audience reach by as much as 100% or more, depending on the medium.
(Image source: mediapost.com)
As OAAA President and CEO Anna Bager puts it: “The connection between out-of-home and digital media is undeniable. We are a mobile society constantly connected through our devices; exposure to OOH can boost engagement with those devices and other media.”
Budgetary Considerations
Recent figures from the American Bar Association suggest that less than half (46%) of law firms have a marketing budget. How does your firm stack up? Of those that do, most spend between 2% and 15% of their revenue on advertising. The top 200 law firms in the US and UK spend between 2.67% and 4% on their marketing. However, there’s no hard and fast rule for how substantial your marketing budget should be.
Promoting different types of law demands different levels of expenditure. For example, in the highly competitive field of personal injury law, advertising can cost 4x as much as promoting criminal defense.
You need a partner who cares about your firm’s success as much as you do.
We can help.
Partnering for Promotional Success
Having the right partner to lend expertise and talent is critical for any law firm. The same holds true for DOOH.
Our team has years of experience in working with DOOH and pDOOH and will advise your firm on the best approach to take to drive results.
If your firm is ready for a transparent, easy-to-use pDOOH platform to accelerate your marketing get in touch today to explore the possibilities for your practice.
