The contrast between two conversations last week was striking. The first was with a well established business who has been a leader in its field for many years, the other with a young and hungry business.
I had done an analysis of each and how they appeared online. Both had already claimed their Google Places page, which puts them ahead of most businesses. Google created 50 million place pages for every business it could find by scouring phone and business directories. Only 2 million have been claimed by their owners.
The established business was paying a firm to manage its pages and to do its search engine marketing. They were doing a reasonable job, but it was clear to me that there were holes in their work, holes that were costing the business impressions and thus potential clients. I asked for 15 minutes and told them whether they wanted me to take over the business or whether they wanted to share what they learned from me with their current firm, I would be fine. They turned down the meeting, saying they were fine with the work that was being done.
The other business was also paying someone to manage their Google places page, but they called me and asked what I thought. Again, I saw opportunities that were not being exploited and shared them. He decided to hire me, even though I was substantially more expensive than what he was currently paying. Why would someone choose to spend more? Because in business, it is all about the return on your investment.
Online marketing, whether it be be search engine marketing, Google places page management, or search engine optimization, is all about impressions. How many people will see your web page or your Places page? How do you get the those numbers up? Or is the inertia of doing what you are already doing keeping you from having more prospective customers?
Is your business moving at the speed of business, or are you still doing things the way you used to do them?
I am in the process of putting up a webpage and Google places page for my step-father. He is 89 years old and I think he has sold his business a half dozen times. He then makes up a new name, buys new yellow pages ads, and gets back to work selling discount replacement windows.
I think it has been 5 or 6 years since he started AABCO. For years his business was named AAA Windows or something to that effect. You can figure out why easily enough; the yellow pages lists businesses alphabetically. He was surprised to learn the other day when we were talking that AABCO was not going to be listed near the top of Google, even though it started with two A’s and a B. I assured him we could get him there anyway, but it would take a little work, and that’s ok, because that’s what I do.
It sounds silly, I know. But what are you doing in our business that you have been doing for years because it used to be effective? Are you on the local Google Map when someone searches for your business, or are you still in last year’s paradigm?
Years ago, when I was in the homemade ice cream business, there was a story I told every employee as part of their training. It was about a girl who asks her mom why she cuts off the end of the pot roast before cooking it. Mom answers, “That’s the way Grandma always did it. Let’s call her and ask why she did.” They call Grandma, and she replies, “I never had a pan big enough to cook the whole thing.”
Are you still trying to get to the top of Google alphabetically? Are you still trying to get to the top of the organic search results? Or are you on the Map? Are you paying attention to your social reputation and the reviews that will determine whether you are on the map and if so, whether you are listed first or seventh? Are you prepared with a mobile website that displays well on smart phones? You are not 89, and it is not 2009 either. The market has changed. Have you? Are you marketing for 2011?
There are only three ways to grow any business:
- Increase the number of customers/clients who buy from you
- Increase your average sale
- Increase the number of times each client buys from you.
Let’s look at them in reverse order. In most law firms, especially those that specialize in personal injury law, it is rare that you will get additional business from the same clients. Corporate law, sure. Personal injury law, probably not.
Number 2 has to do with the quality of your cases. Are you taking on smaller cases at the expense of larger ones? Probably not. But I have two friends who run law firms, both with 3-5 lawyers. One of them has an average fee in the last 3 years of about $20,000, while the other has an average fee of about $50,000-$100,000. The difference of course is that the second one has many more prospects and can cherry pick the larger cases. So not only does good marketing that brings more prospects get you more clients, but it can also dramatically increase your income even if you are at capacity and can’t take more clients than the pace you are already on.
Which brings us back to number one, getting more clients. My friend with the higher average fee only accepts as clients 5% of the prospects he actually talks to. That may be higher or lower than your firm. But there is no doubt that the more prospects he talks to, and the more prospects you talk to, the higher the chances of landing the bigger cases. The great thing about the Yellow Pages is that the only reason to pick them up was because you needed goods or services. The yellow pages are not dead yet, but they are very close. All those hot prospects now have computers and are using Google and other search engines to find those service providers.
Are you ready to increase the number of prospects calling your firm? Are you ready to start cherry picking the larger cases or increase your client base? Then you need to dominate the search engine results for the 300 keywords we have identified that directly relate to personal injury law.
Give us 12 minutes and we’ll show you how you stand with a report of your search engine rankings and we’ll show you where we can improve them and where we can not. Even the best marketers, those personal injury law firms you know by name because of their size or tv ads or billboards, are not dominating the market online. We have done the research and know that there is not one firm that practices law in Connecticut that cannot grow their business by investing in our services.
Is it worth 12 minutes to learn how we can help you grow your business and increase your income?
Had a great meeting with a friend who does personal injury law and is a great marketer. In fact, he already ranks very well for many of the keywords in one of his most productive specialty areas other than personal injury. And he has meticulous records.
As we sat down I asked him where his business comes from. Without batting an eye he told me 80% from referrals and 20% from other. He also broke down the 20% as well, noting that it used to be 80% Yellow Pages and 20% other, but now it is 80% online and 20% Yellow Pages. An impressive break down and clearly proof of the trends, I thought.
As we talked a bit more, he decided to pull up the report he gets on all incoming calls. First he just eyeballed the numbers for the past three months, and once he saw a trend, he decided to pull the numbers for the entire year to date, the first 11 months of 2010.
By the time we were through crunching numbers together, he realized that his impressions and initial presentation of his business was wrong and that an unmistakeable trend had taken over his business. Not only was he wrong about the impact of the Yellow Pages and Online prospecting, but even though his number of referals had not dropped, on a percentage basis it now accounted for only 50% of his new business!
And while referrals only accounted for 50% of new business, because they were often from other attorneys, they convert at a much higher rate. When accounting for that, we discovered that referrals only constituted 30% of his leads, with online providing 48% and the Yellow Pages 6%
The other 50% of his new business came from his online marketing. That is a pretty dramatic increase from the 16% (80% of 20%) he originally told me. A shift from 16% to 48% within a year is not just a trend, it is a tidal wave. And it is pretty clear where the next 6% bump will come from. Are you ready to ride that wave?
Changes in the technology and in the marketplace yield opportunities. The only question is whether you will seize those opportunities to transform the way you do business and in so doing, move your business forward toward growth.
I just came from a meeting with a friend who confided that last year his business took a major hit. It was a bit surprising as the legal business doesn’t usually seem susceptible to economic downturns. Another client, in retail, has confided her business is down 25-30% from its peak. Partly due to the economy, and partly due to changes in her industry.
My client has decided to seize upon the changing times as an opportunity. She never even had a website before and now within a few weeks, she is already averaging 5 new customers a week calling to order because they found her online. How much is each new customer or client worth to you? Don’t forget to compute the lifetime value of each customer, not just the profits from their first order.
My friend, on the other hand, is stuck in his old way of doing business. He knows the Yellow Pages don’t pull like they used to, and he knows that most people use Google and other search engines to find local goods and services (Google says one-third of searches are for local goods or services), but he recently blew his ad budget on another one year contract with the Yellow Pages. He wasn’t willing to give them up until they were dead and buried. This will be his last year.
But what is the value of a year? What is the value of seizing opportunity before your competition? What opportunities are there now that you need to be taking advantage of?
Two trends are converging to provide your business with tremendous opportunity no matter what your industry. The death of the yellow Pages and the rise of Google local.
The Yellow Pages aren’t quite dead yet, but like most old media, it is on its last legs. You might able to squeeze out another year’s worth of customers from it, but those numbers will be way lower than they used to be.Even people who can’t afford luxuries own a computer and are now using it when they have a need. And that was the beauty of the Yellow Pages. People only picked them up when they were ready to buy. They were your hottest prospects.
Now your hottest prospects search Google (70% of them do, whole the other 30% use Yahoo or Bing). And if you are not on the map, literally and figuratively, they aren’t going to find you. I put one client on the map last week and they received 500 click-throughs to their website and a substantial number of calls and visitors to their location. They are a membership organization, so “sales” take a bit longer, but I have no doubt membership is about to boom. In just one week.
Are you ready to seize your opportunity or are you stuck in the old thinking? In business, someone usually does seize the opportunity when market changes present those opportunities. Will it be you or your competition?
