We have helped you develop a strategic marketing plan that brings in clients and helps build your best firm. You know your strengths and the value you offer your clients, and you have identified the best marketing strategies for your law firm.
This final post in the Marketing 101 series offers advice on how to budget and pay for your marketing strategies. Marketing is a significant expense for a business in any industry. The work you have put in analyzing your data allows you to employ data-driven decision-making, a proven method for ensuring better results from your marketing investments.

Step 5: Costs and Finances

Many law firms are so focused on their bottom line that they fail to properly invest in marketing. Another typical problem is not accurately predicting marketing expenses. You should consider how much capital they have on hand, their monthly expenses and revenue, and how much more revenue is anticipated. A profit-and-loss statement can help organize these numbers.
Having your finances in front of you will help you make an educated decision on how much to spend on your marketing.When all of this information is gathered, you can plan a long-range, cost-effective marketing plan instead of attempting to do everything at once. They will also help you project your expected return on investment from the marketing efforts you choose to deploy. Knowing what you want to achieve with your marketing is integral to developing a game plan for success. Here are some additional questions you should have answers to:

• First and foremost, what capital of your own do you have on hand? How much of it are you willing to invest?
• What is your firm’s monthly revenue, with as much detail as possible as to its category? For what services does your firm profit most?
• What are your firm’s monthly expenses?
• Do the math to estimate how many clients you need to meet your expenses, revenue goals you wish to meet, as well as a more realistic number that you feel is in your reach.
• How many new clients do you anticipate bringing in each month through marketing? How many will you consider a success?
• Which marketing strategies do you want to implement, and how much do you estimate each will cost?
• Figure out how much you anticipate earning from your marketing efforts and subtract what you plan to spend on marketing.
• Analyze the numbers. Is your return on investment adequate? If not, how might you tweak your expenses or boost your anticipated numbers?

Set Specific Goals

Set measurable goals so you can objectively measure your success. Create a checklist of what you would like to accomplish through marketing. Make your goals somewhat of a challenge to reach. Set deadlines for yourself on when you will accomplish tasks and track the performance of your marketing strategies.

Be A Tracker

The long-term evolution of your marketing relies on you analyzing what works and what doesn’t and then shifting your marketing strategies, and your marketing budget, according to real results. Track which of your marketing efforts are working best by surveying new clients on how they heard of you and what ultimately motivated them to hire you. Use this information to better spend your marketing budget on the strategies that produce the best results.

Start Drafting Plan B

Every one of your marketing efforts will not pan out. Some will fail and your most important decision will be when to finally give up on it. What will you do if find you’re not such a great public speaker, if your expensive mailings produce nothing, or if your advertisements don’t catch anyone’s attention?
Preparing yourself for how you will proceed in any of these events will mean that you are pre-programmed to dive into Plan B when the decision becomes necessary. You can mitigate risk by planning for disaster and preparing for success. You don’t need to pre-plan every what-if, but you can think about how you will respond if certain things happen. Give yourself triggers for taking specific actions. For example, if X happens, immediately shift 60% of the advertising budget to a certain area of marketing.

Why Is It So Important to Create a Financial Report?

The answer is pretty basic: marketing gets results, and marketing is expensive.
Almost every successful product or service that has reached a profitable level of success has been boosted by smart marketing decisions that showed the product or service in its very best light to as many important eyes as possible. You certainly could produce a carton of expensive brochures, toss them to the masses, and hope the right people catch them, read them, and follow your call to action. But why would you, when you can target the most likely customers with a concise, powerful message?
In the information age, law firms make calculated investments with their marketing strategies, ensuring that their money gets them the best exposure possible for their specific goals. While the earlier posts in the Marketing 101 series focused on aspirations, step 5 asks firms to align their aspirations with their current financial reality.
How much can you afford to spend now, in one year, in five years? Which marketing strategies make the most sense for your business?
This is the final post that advises law firms on the best practices of building a successful yet simple marketing plan. While several articles claim to tell you everything you need to know to write a successful marketing plan, the five informative posts in this series explain the process of crafting a data-driven marketing plan in detail. Read all of the posts in the Marketing 101 series to get the whole story on efficiently promoting your company in ways that could produce huge results.
Featured image: “expenses on a notepad” from Shutterstock.
5-Step Legal Marketing Plan, Step 5: Costs and Finances was originally published on Lawyerist.