June 15, 2018

Track What Is Critical to Your Law Firm’s Growth by Measuring KPI Values

Want to evaluate your law firm’s marketing success? Key Performance Indicators, or KPI, allow attorneys to measure their business, marketing, and performance successes using values that reflect how efficiently lawyers are reaching their objectives. Simply put, how do you know if you are reaching your marketing goals? Are you measuring the proper indicators? Let’s find out!

What Types of Key Performance Indicators Are Important to Attorneys?

There are two types of key performance indicators, and typically companies that market products or services can find their measurements in one type of KPI. Because of the unique nature of law firms and their audiences, their ability to appeal to markets through precise marketing efforts, and personal, less calculated approaches, both types apply to lawyers and staff.

Type One: Quantitative

Quantitative key performance indicators for lawyers is measured in the value of facts. No personal feelings, interpretations, or biases. These facts are typically numbers that are weighed against a standard, which could be the number of phone calls, conversions from the website, and new clients received over a measured amount of time. At the Attorney Marketing Network, we provide our clients with the tools they need to successfully gather quantitative KPIs to ensure that their marketing goals are measured and analyzed in real time. Our unique marketing services are web designed for lawyers based on their firm’s exclusive needs, which allows us to accurately monitor and report key performance indicators, including:

• Phone calls
• Web and social media traffic
• Form submission leads
• Review solicitation, submissions and notifications
• Retargeting and remarketing achievements
• Visitor engagement analysis
• Pay-per-click campaigns
• Pay-per-call and pay-per-text mobile campaigns
• AdWords successes
• Personalized marketing KPI measurements, designed specifically for your firm

Type Two: Qualitative

Qualitative key performance indicators for attorneys is measured in the value of influence, personal feelings, and opinions. These facts are also represented through numbers but must be manually obtained, instead of reflected through online metrics and compiled data like quantitative KPIs. Qualitative KPIs can include clients who were referred to your firm from:

• Previous clients
• Review-based contact, where a prospective client reads your legal reviews and makes contact
• Print, radio, and television advertising

The conversion rate of the individuals who heard about you, saw your ad, or read about you online is the most important performance indicator in qualitative measurements. Keep track of them!

What Are Legal Marketing KPI Values?

KPI values are used in legal marketing efforts to help attorneys understand if they are reaching their targets effectively. Because there is so much data to keep track of, especially in social media, website, and media engagements, it’s often difficult for lawyers to understand which indicators they should focus on to enhance their success. First, all data is important and serves a purpose. However, it’s not all critical to your success. Focusing on the proper KPI values will allow you to understand where your marketing strategy is working — and, more importantly, where it isn’t. Key performance indicators should be:

• Applicable to your law firm and the legal industry
• Defined and quantifiable; you must outline exactly what you are tracking
• Communicated to your staff, partners, and associates
• Crucial to achieving your goals

What Legal Marketing KPIs Should Your Firm Measure?

While it is exciting to check your online metrics and review traffic boosts, click-thru rates, and conversions — all of which are important data — focusing on successful KPI measurements should lie within the firm first. Legal key performance indicators that will allow your firm to track and achieve growth include:

• Law firm’s culture, ensuring all staff projects:
  • Consistent marketing campaigns through personal and electronic communications
  • The overall integrity of the firm’s brand, vision, and mission
• Client development, and the journey from online search/media ad/referral to consultation
• Cost of client acquisition, and where your marketing dollars are being successfully spent
• Client satisfaction, reviews, and referral opportunities and their results
• Lifetime value of a client
• Direct advertising costs spent on each channel
• Converted, revenue-driving clients acquired through each channel, its duration, and expense
• Staff time required to convert each client to an actual claim
• Staff time consumed by non-converting leads, and how they found your firm

These metrics will include:

• Number of new clients per month
• Revenue billed per month, and revenue collected per month
• Overall monthly expenses
• Client satisfaction scores
• Employee satisfaction scores

How Does Your Law Firm Measure Marketing KPIs?

Unfortunately, there is no checklist that allows lawyers to ensure each figure is accounted for, so you know what is working and what isn’t. No form, no problem. Your law firm will simply have to create a process where KPIs are recorded and tracked — otherwise, measurements cannot be qualified or reviewed, and you’re back to square one: Not knowing where your marketing dollars are effectively targeting new clients. Quantitative data, which is data that is provided in factual numbers including online performance, pay-per-click, and AdWords is easily obtained and reported to help law firms understand where their electronic media budget is going, and what’s working to increase their ranking. The Attorney Marketing Network will record the quantitative data that is important to your law firm, and deliver precise:

• Net Promoter Scores: An index that measures the willingness of clients to recommend your law firm to others
• Review Reports: Specific law firm KPI marketing metrics that create opportunities for growth and target audience expansion

Qualitative data, which is based on personal feelings, is much harder to track, but equally as important! The crucial thing about qualitative key performance indicators for law firms is that they must be tracked to ensure success. Some ways to collect qualitative data can include:

• Asking prospective customers where they saw/heard/received your law firm’s information
• Recording the information provided in a Word or Excel Document that can be reviewed and shared
• Purchasing legal customer relationship management software for attorneys

Reviewing Legal Key Performance Indicators While Building Objectives

Collecting data and understanding the key performance indicators that are the most important to your law firm’s growth is no small feat. It will require a dedicated approach to outlining, recording, and reviewing the data regularly. The measurement process is something that will need to be shared with your staff, marketing team, and vendors who help build your firm’s online, physical, and media presence. This will allow everyone to be on the same page, and understand which key performance indicators are working — and which parts of your legal marketing budget are PERFORMING? The results of measuring legal marketing key performance indicators will allow your firm to:

• Acquire more high-value clients
• Minimize your costs of reaching, connecting, and retaining clients
• Reduce your staff’s time consumption on non-converting clients
• Boost your marketing reach to effectively access target markets and audiences swiftly and accurately

Once your firm’s employees understand the importance of measuring marketing key performance indicators, it will be easier to track, review, and share the information. Getting on top of your KPIs will allow your firm to really understand how your advertising and marketing budget is being spent. The Attorney Marketing Network will get you on the right path of collecting data, measuring its success while extolling the benefits of knowing exactly which legal marketing efforts are working, and which are not. Call us today to find out how we can implement key performance indicator metrics for your firm and watch your target audience grow.