Are Other Lawyers’ Advertising Leaving Your Law Firm Behind?

If you’re a personal injury lawyer who gets cases by referral and it’s getting harder for your law firm to get clients, you may wonder what the best way is for lawyers to start advertising.

If you’re starting to advertise, don’t have a lot of money, are tired of seeing other lawyers advertising, and want to know how to start advertising your law firm, this article is for you.

Determine Your Advertising Budget

First, you need to determine the annual advertising budget you can afford, the population/size of the market you want to target, and how much money you should spend on advertising.

Your advertising budget is like buying a house, car, or an engagement ring. You’ll spend more than you anticipated.

If your advertising budget is less than $2,500 per month, that’s OK. You can start with as little as the cost of business cards (see below to learn how to start with business cards).

The amount of money you have to invest in an annual advertising budget will expand or narrow your advertising options and determine which type of advertising media you should consider first when you start advertising.

Tip: Don’t try advertising for a few months to see if it works. You’ll lose your money. If you can’t make a permanent commitment to an advertising budget, don’t do it. Start with one of the suggestions below.

How Can a Lawyer Start Advertising Without Money?

It is possible to start a personal injury advertising campaign without money. I did. I started my law practice with just my business cards.

You have to do three things with business cards to get accident clients:

1. Design the cards to look different,
2. Your cards need to tell the recipient what benefits them.
3. Give your cards to everyone you come in contact with.

Business Cards

I started and built a busy personal injury law practice using only business cards. The cost, in 1991, was approx. $80 for 2,000 business cards.

Other lawyers don’t know how to start a law practice with business cards. Since I had been involved with advertising since 8th grade, I knew I had to design my business cards differently to attract clients.

First, my business cards had to stand out to be noticed and read by the recipient, which meant they could not look like a professional lawyer’s card.

I created the design in the image below to look like a wallet billboard. When I gave my business cards to people, they took notice and read them!

Second, my cards told people how they benefited.

• People know lawyers are hard to speak with. So my cards said: I TAKE PRIDE IN PERSONALIZED SERVICE.
• Who wants to fill out forms? So my cards said: Don’t fill out any forms!
• Medical bills are more of a pain to deal with than the injury from the accident! So my cards said: I take care of your medical bills.
• Another benefit said: No legal fees until you collect. This says they’ll get money and won’t have to pay a fee until they do.

When I first made the business cards, they didn’t have 1-800-HURT-911 on the cards because I didn’t have the vanity phone number yet. I added it a year later, but I was already on the way to building a personal injury law practice.

Adding 1-800-HURT-911® to my business cards helped a lot because people were impressed and thought they saw me on TV (I wasn’t). Later, I designed new 1-800-HURT-911® business cards that worked great. But now, we only advertise with Google Ads. This way, I don’t even know who our clients are anymore.

You can design a business card like this without a vanity phone number, and your cards will work.

The business card I used to start advertising my personal injury practice

Third, I had to give my business cards out to a lot of people, 2,000 people, since I had 2,000 cards. If I didn’t give them out, I wouldn’t have the chance to get any clients.

I made a rule that everyone I came into contact with would get a card.

It was difficult the first time, but I ignored my embarrassment and did it. I gave my card to the cashier in a store. When I gave her my money, I said, “Here’s my card in case you ever need it.”

The cashier said thank you and put it on the register. The next person to get a card said, “I hate lawyers and stepped on it.” If I ran into him before the cashier, I don’t know if I would have done that again. Fortunately, I didn’t.

I gave them to every human I came in contact with. I even started taking taxis and buses instead of walking to give out more cards. Several taxi drivers called me months and even years later. They kept my business card on their sun visor.

Sometimes, someone would say, “I just had an accident,” or my mother just had an accident,” and I got a case. Sometimes, I got a call days, months, and even years later.

Google Business Listings

Google Business Listings, now called Google Business Profile listings, is free and is a great way to get cases.

Law Office Sign

I never had an office. In 1990, I started my personal injury law practice in my apartment. It was a great way to work. I had a large terrace with a BBQ. I often spoke to insurance claims reps while I was on my terrace, and I settled cases from my lounge chair.

My doorman was my receptionist. I gave him a nice tip at Christmas. However, you probably have an office where you pay rent.

Don’t waste your office rent. Chances are you don’t have an office with a large sign visible from the street, and you’re wasting your rent money.

If you have an office with a sign visible from the street, that’s great. Design a large sign like a billboard.

If you have an office in an office building, move immediately to a street-level office where you can have a large sign, like a billboard, visible from the street. It’s a free billboard that could cost as much as your rent.

Tip: A sign on your office is a free billboard, but do not pay to advertise on billboards! Unless you use direct response advertising such as TV, Radio, or Google Ads, do not spend money on billboards. See when you should not advertise on billboards.

Don’t design an office sign like this! This lawyer must be in love with his name. The problem is that it won’t get anyone in the door. Instead of your law firm name, it should say PERSONAL INJURY LAWYERS.

Since this lawyer has a vanity phone number, he should have put it on the large sign instead of hiding it on the right.

Marketing at Motorcycle Events

An inexpensive way to advertise for personal injury cases is marketing at motorcycle events for motorcycle accident cases.

Advertising is easy but costly. Marketing is inexpensive but costly in your time.

You can get extremely valuable motorcycle accident cases for only a few thousand dollars per year. Although inexpensive, you’ll spend some weekend days at motorcycle events. Find out how to do marketing for motorcycle accident cases.

Birthday Cards

Birthday cards are a great way to get personal injury referrals and clients.

I spoke with a lawyer with 16 offices in Ohio who told me he didn’t do any advertising other than sending birthday cards. He has an employee whose only job is to send handwritten birthday cards to their clients.

However, find out why you don’t need to hire someone to send handwritten birthday cards to your personal injury clients.

Google Ads

Google Ads can be less expensive than other advertising media for getting personal injury accident cases. You can spend as much as other advertising media, but you can also spend as little as $1,500 per month.

Because Google Ads are inexpensive and highly controllable, it should be the first place for lawyers to begin spending money on advertising.

Google Ads are complex, and a lawyer should not attempt to spend money on Google Ads without using a Google Ads manager.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

Search Engine Optimization for a law firm website is a good option for personal injury lawyers but should only be part of a larger advertising campaign.

The problem with SEO is that it is expensive because it takes a lot of work from specialized people, and you’ll be competing with the largest law firms for the top 3-5 search results.

SEO takes the longest to work. Your website will need constant and continuous updating because Google changes its search algorithms 500 – 600 times per year.

Additionally, you’ll get leads from all over the country and from people looking for information who weren’t injured in an accident. Of course, you’ll also get good leads, and that’s why the big personal injury law firms spend so much money on SEO.

I’ve been doing SEO since 1996. I spent thousands of hours over many years working on our personal injury website and continue to work on our website all the time. We get several leads every day from our website. That’s how I know what you can expect from SEO. I can honestly say Google Ads is a better investment by far, very far.

Social Media

Social Media advertising and marketing can work well for some law practices, such as divorce or bankruptcy, if it is continued consistently over a long term.

However, social media should not be the first option for personal injury lawyers. This is because someone injured in an accident will need a lawyer immediately. Someone who needs a divorce or bankruptcy lawyer won’t suddenly wake up one morning and think it’s a good time to get divorced.

Social media can be a good option for personal injury lawyers but should be part of a larger advertising campaign.

Can Lawyers Borrow Money For Advertising?

Some lawsuit cash advance companies will loan money to lawyers against your outstanding personal injury case expenses. The money can be used for anything, but it should only be used for advertising.

Unknown to many personal injury lawyers is that some of the largest personal injury law firms got that big by borrowing against their case expenses and spending the money on advertising.

Where Else Can Lawyers Get Money for Advertising?

Find ways to reduce your overhead so you can increase your advertising budget.

Every dollar you spend that isn’t spent on advertising is lost revenue. You need to spend every dollar you can on advertising.

I started working out of my apartment and now work out of my house. I can write another article about how to work out from your house. If that’s not an option for you, there is one thing you can do to cut your overhead drastically.

I was able to manage a busy personal injury law practice without any secretaries or paralegals by using personal injury case management software and outsourcing some appearances, such as at some court appearances and using IME Watchdogs and Guards at defense physicals.

I also started using an Esign service to retain clients ten years before other lawyers started using them. That saved me hours every time I signed up a new client.

Now, I have a partner, and we use lead management software.

You may also be interested in reading, How Can Lawyers Advertise When Lawyer Advertising Is So Competitive?

Read Some of Our Other Informative Articles

Have a question or comment about “What’s the Best Way for Lawyers to Start Advertising?” Leave a comment below!

How to get personal injury clients? I’ll show you the best way to get personal injury clients and compete with other personal injury lawyers’ advertising.

I’ll also show how you can compete with other personal injury lawyers with large advertising budgets while you’re using a much smaller advertising budget.

How to Get Personal Injury Clients With a Small Advertising Budget

Use the following advertising media to get personal injury clients using a small advertising budget:

1. Google Ads
2. Holiday cards and birthday cards
3. Re-design your business cards

You’ll notice I left out online lawyer directories like Avvo and FInd Law. That’s because online lawyer directories were not cost-effective years ago and don’t work anymore.

Keep reading to learn more about how to get personal injury clients using these types of inexpensive advertising media.

How to Get Personal Injury Clients With a Large Advertising Budget

Use the following advertising media to get personal injury clients using a large advertising budget:

1. TV
2. Billboards
3. Radio
4. Google Ads
5. Holiday cards and birthday cards
6. Social Media
7. SEO for your law firm’s website

Keep reading to learn more about how to get personal injury clients using these types of advertising media.

The Two Most Important Strategies to Get Personal Injury Clients

These are the two most important aspects of any campaign to get personal injury clients, no matter whether your advertising budget is small or large.

Before you search for how to get personal injury clients, you need to plan how to compete with other personal injury lawyers. You need to begin with these two strategies:

1. Create a brand
2. Use cross-channel marketing and advertising, but choose which ones to start with

How to Create a Law Firm Brand

You can’t get a lot of personal injury clients without a brand. Unlike every other business, law firms were not allowed to use a trade name or brand, but now they are.

Law firms can now use a brand name or trade name instead of a law firm name like Franckel & Plevy, LLP. That was the name of our personal injury law firm, but we changed our law firm name to 1-800-HURT-911, LLP.

We can’t brand a name like Franckel & Plevy. It’s boring and not readily recognizable or memorable. I like my name, but no one else cares.

It took Jacoby & Meyers over $100 million in repetitive advertising to brand their law firm’s name, and that was 40 years ago when it was a lot cheaper to advertise. The day they stop advertising, people will forget their names.

Take some time and pick a great brand name for your law firm. A brand name is one that isn’t a generic word or phrase. In fact, you can’t brand a generic word or phrase.

Think of some iconic brand names as examples. There is no such thing as a Pepsi. Federal Express was too generic, so it became FedEx. Likewise, there’s no such thing as a HURT-911 or a 1-800-HURT-911.

The best brand name is one that stands out immediately and is instantly recognizable, even though it has never been seen before. A brand name that is impressive sounding or looking will create instant branding.

What’s instant branding? That’s when someone thinks they’ve seen your brand even when they haven’t. An example is 1-800-HURT-911®, which creates instant branding.

A good vanity phone number can create instant branding. Forbes Magazine says vanity phone numbers generate brand awareness, and when used as a prominent feature in ad campaigns, it will let consumers “get to know you at a fast pace.”

When you come up with a few possibilities, run it by 10-20 people from different walks of life.

When you decide on a brand name for your law firm, trademark it. A trademark will protect you against another law firm trying to stop you from using it.

Even better, the trademark symbol ® is a brand in itself and signifies the importance of your brand to potential clients. 1-800-HURT-911® looks more impressive than 1-800-HURT-911.

Using a trademark symbol ® in your Google Ads title improves the click-through rate and conversion.

Tip: Create a brand name for your law firm that has a matching domain name available. When you register your new domain name, forward the domain name to your existing law firm’s domain name so visitors will end up on your website.

Alternatively, if you don’t already get a lot of visitors to your law firm’s website, create a new website with the new domain name and move your content to the new website. If you do that, make sure to create a 301 redirect from the old domain name to the new domain name.

If you’re interested in using the 1-800-HURT-911® vanity number for instant branding, give Phil Franckel a call 7/days/nights to see if your state or territory is available.

Use Cross-Channel Marketing and Advertising

Cross-channel marketing or advertising is simply using more than one type of advertising media. For instance, advertising on TV and billboards, rather than advertising on TV only or advertising on billboards only.

Combining different types of advertising media is far more effective than using only one type of advertising media, but only if you advertise a brand. The more types of advertising media, the better it works.

Colling Media says, “By being on multiple channels, your organization expands its reach significantly and builds brand awareness even among individuals interested in purchasing through different ad platforms. Eventually, this improves your business’s reputation and makes it more likely that consumers will discuss your business and increase chances of conversion.”

When to Use Billboards for Lawyer Advertising

While Cross-channel advertising is far more effective than advertising on only one type of media, some types of media can be used alone while others should not be used alone.

For instance, you can be successful when advertising only with Google Ads, but you should never advertise only on billboards.

This is because personal injury lawyers need direct response advertising that should be enhanced with branding. Direct response advertising is when you advertise a message and expect a response, such as a phone call from someone injured in an accident.

You will get calls from people injured in an accident when they see your TV commercial, but you will not get calls from people when they see your ad on a billboard. This is because billboards are solely a branding tool, but billboards are the most impactful branding you can get.

Combining billboard advertising with your advertising on TV will substantially increase the number of potential personal injury clients you will get from TV alone.

The same is true with radio. Combining billboard advertising with your radio advertising will substantially increase the number of potential personal injury clients you will get from radio alone.

Billboards will even increase clicks on your Google Ads as long as you have consistent branding on your billboards and Google Ads.

Tip: I recommend using billboards or radio only if you have a vanity phone number for personal injury lawyers or a strong brand. You will brand whatever you put on a billboard, so avoid making your photo or name prominent. See examples of great and bad lawyer billboards and examples of radio advertising for lawyers.

But what if your personal injury law firm doesn’t have enough money in the budget for TV and billboards or even one alone?

TV Advertising for Lawyers

TV advertising is available on broadcast TV (think network TV), cable TV, or streaming. The most cost-effective for personal injury lawyers is broadcast TV, but broadcast TV is also the most expensive.

Broadcast TV is not only the most effective but the best TV shows for personal injury lawyers are only on broadcast TV.

Broadcast TV reaches the most number of people with only 210 broadcast TV markets (called a DMA) in the U.S. Cable TV reaches a far smaller number of people with 10,000 cable TV markets in the U.S.

An easy way to understand the out-of-pocket cost vs. the cost-effectiveness of advertising on TV is to compare the cost of advertising to the cost of hamburger meat.

Buy hamburger meat at 7-11, and you might get a 1/2 lb package for only $4. At a supermarket, you might get a 2 lb package for $6, and at Costco, you might get a 10 lb package for $20.

But as you spend more, you get more at a lower cost. The hamburger meat will cost $8 per pound at 7-11, $3 per pound at the supermarket, and $2 per pound at Costco.

If hamburger meat were TV air time, TV commercials would cost more at Costco but at a lower cost per lead or potential personal injury client.

The Best Way to Advertise on TV With a Small Budget

The best way to advertise on TV with a small budget is not to use cable or streaming TV, which is much less expensive. Instead, you can start with TV advertising on broadcast TV overnight when it’s much less expensive.

I had a lawyer advertising 1-800-HURT-911® only on billboards (against my advice). He had two 48 ft. billboards and twenty 24 ft. billboards but only got a few personal injury cases in eight months. But that created a lot of branding, and when he added TV advertising overnight for only $2,000 per month, he got 12 cases per month. That’s what billboards do for TV advertising!

If you’re advertising on TV overnight, you’ll need a great call center, but you also need a great call center during the day.

You can also start with different types of inexpensive marketing media.

Inexpensive Advertising Media for Lawyers

There are many types of inexpensive marketing media for lawyers, and you should use several of them. Below are a few types of inexpensive marketing media for lawyers.

How to Get Personal Injury Clients With Business Cards

The least expensive marketing media for lawyers is your business card. Redesign it!

If your business card is professional-looking and looks like every other lawyer’s business card, it won’t stand out. Throw them out.

Re-design your business cards so they don’t look like a lawyer’s business card. And give it out to everyone everywhere. I redesigned my boring law firm business card and gave it to cab drivers, cashiers, and everyone I came into contact with. I built a personal injury practice with 135 clients, just with my business cards.

I had a business card to get general personal injury clients and another business card to get motorcycle injury clients.

How to Get Personal Injury Clients With Greeting Cards

Holiday cards and birthday cards are one of the most cost-effective types of advertising media to get personal injury clients.

However, as with all types of advertising media, it’s crucial to design it right. Most personal injury law firms use horrible greeting cards that won’t do anything. See examples of the right way and wrong ways to design holiday cards and birthday cards.

How to Get Personal Injury Clients With Google Ads

Probably the most cost-effective advertising for personal injury lawyers, with either a small or large budget, is Google Ads. Google Ads is also among the least expensive advertising for personal injury lawyers.

Google gives higher priority and a lower cost per click to advertisers with ads that both get more clicks and convert more leads (Google knows when a lead becomes a conversion). Your much smaller Google Ads budget will let you compete against the largest personal injury law firms.

Creating a brand for your law firm is just as important when using Google Ads. It’s our brand in the Google Ads title that gives my law firm more leads with a higher placement and a lower cost per click because people will click first on a brand name.

Use a Google Ads Manager to have a well-designed Google Ads campaign. A well-designed Google Ads campaign makes a difference.

I recommend a minimum Google Ads budget of $2,500 to $5,000, depending on your market. $5,000 is a better starting point.

How to Get Personal Injury Clients With Cause Marketing

Cause marketing is the most effective type of marketing and is used by most Fortune 500 Companies. Cause marketing can be done very inexpensively.

What Is Cause Marketing? Cause Marketing for lawyers is a marketing campaign promoting a cause your clients believe in. Read more about getting personal injury clients with Cause Marketing for lawyers.

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Have a question or comment about the Best Ways to Get Personal Injury Clients? Leave a comment below!