Top Law Firm Marketing Methods are Social Media, Blogs, and Search Engine Optimization
According to the new "State of Inbound Marketing Report" from Hubspot, inbound marketing is continuing to grow in importance at the expense of outbound marketing. The top three most important inbound marketing techniques are:
- Social media
- Blogs
- Search engine optimization
These three lead generation approaches plus pay-per-click advertising are what Hubspot calls “inbound marketing.” “Outbound marketing” is lead generation using direct mail, trade shows and telemarketing. Importance is weighed according to how much business spend on lead generation. (Advertising, directory listings and printed marketing materials are not considered lead generation methods.)
The three key takeaways are:
- Businesses are generating real customers with social media and blogs. Some organizations are still unsure about the utility of social media and blogs. Are potential customers really reading Twitter? Does Facebook do anything more than build brand awareness? The answer is, “Yes!” For Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and company blogs, over 40% of our respondents who use those services for marketing have acquired a customer through each of those channels. Social media is not just for brand awareness; it can be used to directly generate leads that translate into customers.
- Inbound marketing channels continue to deliver dramatically lower cost per lead than outbound channels do. Businesses spending 50% or more of their marketing budget on inbound marketing activities spent 60% less per lead than businesses spending 50% or more of their marketing budget on outbound channels. This number is remarkably consistent with the 61% lower cost businesses reported d a year ago. Clearly, inbound marketing channels are maintaining their low-cost advantage.
- Social media and blogs are the most rapidly expanding category in the overall marketing budget. Social media and blogs are becoming marketing powerhouses. They are the fastest growing category in lead generation budgets and hey continue to be ranked as the lowest cost lead-generation channel. In addition, more than any other channel, social media was ranked as a source of leads that has become more important in the last six months.
|
Lead Generation Budget (% of Total) |
||
|
2009 |
2010 |
|
|
Outbound |
29% |
24% |
|
Inbound |
38 |
39 |
|
Not classified |
33 |
37 |
While blogs and SEO grew slightly in importance, social media dramatically increased in the percentage of businesses considering this channel important, from 46% in 2009 to 60% in 2010.
|
Lead Sources Considered Important (% of Respondents; Multiple Response OK) |
||
|
2009 |
2010 |
|
|
Outbound |
||
|
Direct mail |
11% |
10% |
|
Trade shows |
10 |
10 |
|
Telemarketing |
16 |
10 |
|
Not Classified |
||
|
Email marketing |
40 |
42 |
|
Other |
16 |
19 |
|
Inbound |
||
|
Paid search/ad words |
32 |
22 |
|
Social media |
46 |
60 |
|
Blogs |
46 |
48 |
|
SEO (organic/natural search) |
55 |
59 |
|
Source: Hubspot, April 2009 |
||
Slightly more than half of businesses are increasing their inbound marketing budgets this year, with 37% enacting no budgetary change.
|
Inbound Marketing Budgets Compared to 2009 (% of Respondents) |
|
|
Budget for 2010 |
% of Respondents |
|
Higher |
51% |
|
No Change |
37 |
|
Lower |
12 |
|
Source: Hubspot, April 2009 |
|
More than four in 10 companies overall have acquired a customer from four major social media channels, according to other findings of the Hubspot State of Inbound Marketing report. 41% of companies have acquired a customer from both Twitter and LinkedIn. That figure rises to 44% for Facebook and 46% for a company blog.
For additional information about the study, including access to the PDF file with charts and graphs, visit http://www.hubspot.com/Portals/53/docs/resellers/reports/state_of_inbound_marketing.pdf
Larry,
Thanks for posting your summaries or key findings. If these are the top three inbound methods for businesses in general, how do law firms compare?
Best,
Aaron
Reply from Larry Bodine:
In my personal experience working with law firms across the country:
1. Social media -- lawyers are putting up profiles on LinkedIn, but not joining groups or participating in discussions
2. Blogs -- According to Blawgsearch.com, there are 5,515 Blawgs in 72 categories, so certain lawyers are definitely catching on.
3. Search engine optimization -- many law firms are using SEO and understand what it is.
Thank you Larry. Very interesting and useful.
I'm not sure how a business could ignore the fact that social media does and can bring in real customers. Apparently those businesses do not have marketing crews that are very aware of a thing called the Internet, where Facebook is the 2nd most popular site in the world. It looks like they are catching on though, as social media inbound lead sources rose by 14%. Social media has to be a lot more cost effective than running million dollar advertisements on TV! It will also leave a lot more of an impression on people, as they continue to return to your business through social media if it's continually full of fresh content.