Larry Bodine Law Marketing Blog : Law firm marketing, legal editor, legal marketing, attorney marketing, business development, marketing consultant, legal consultant, business development

Social and mobile technologies have rebooted the law firm marketing landscape over the past few years as early adopters have turned novelties into mainstream essentials. 

"Still, there are plenty of traditional marketing stalwarts out there who aren't buying all of the social media hype or can't convince their boss or marketing team to experiment in the brave new world of inbound marketing," according to Hubspot.

They rounded up several powerful stats that are sure to be eye-openers, if not total mind-changers.

• Businesses that blog get 55% more web traffic. The more you blog, the more pages Google has to index, and the more inbound links you're likely to have. The more pages and inbound links you have, the higher you rank on search engines like Google—thus the greater amount of traffic to your website. Which is why we repeat: Blogging is good.
• 78% of Internet users conduct product research online. That means your law firm website stands a good chance of being a prospect's "first impression." That also means your new business card isn't a business card—it's Google.
• In the past year, Web-based email usage dropped a staggering 59% among young people who prefer to communicate via text, instant messaging, and social networks. Web-based email usage has been on the decline among ALL Internet users under the age of 55. And by the way, today's kids are tomorrow's customers—and they're probably not going to be reading your email.
• 78% of business people use their mobile device to check email.  So that means pretty much everybody that can check email on a mobile device, does. Is your email newsletter optimized for mobile devices?
• 91% of email users have unsubscribed from a company email they previously opted-in to. We're getting savvier with technology and less patient with unwanted solicitations. And it's just so easy to hit 'delete'.
• 57% of businesses have acquired a customer through their company blog. Blogging is good. Intrusive ads are bad. 
• 41% of business-to-business companies and 67% of business-to-consumer companies have acquired a customer through Facebook. If this stat doesn't poke a hole in the "Facebook is not useful for B2B companies" myth, I don't know what will.
• The number of marketers who say Facebook is “critical” or “important” to their business has increased 83% in just 2 years. That's right—critical or important. When a channel generates not only leads, but real revenue, you can't call it "experimental" any longer.
  
• "Inbound marketing" costs 62% less per lead than traditional, outbound marketing," according to Hubspot, which offers inbound marketing. They say the average outbound lead costs $373 and the average inbound lead costs $143.

You can find sources to all of the above stats along with a boatload more eye-popping facts, figures, and how-to's here, or you can join Hubspot next week at 12pm EST for HubSpotTV where they'll share hundreds of tips.