In this episode, Grace and Liel discuss traditional legal marketing strategies and their effectiveness in 2020, contrast them with digital legal marketing strategies, and point out the reasons why a multichannel approach to attorney marketing can be a winner.
They explore attorney TV ads, radio ads, billboards and print, and explain terms you will commonly come across with when you liaise with your traditional marketing account executive. Furthermore, they uncover the sources you will need to consult before any media buy to make sure your law firm will target the right market.
This episode will empower you to buy media under your own terms and make sure your investment will generate you the best results possible.
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Transcript
Liel: [00:00:00] Tv, radio, billboards are all shiny objects, but do they really work? On today’s episode, Grace and I embark on a journey to uncover which traditional marketing strategies work and which have reached their expiration date. I’m Liel Levy, co-founder of Nanato Media, and this is in camera where we hold legal marketing strategies accountable.
Liel: [00:00:57] All right. And welcome back. To in camera private legal marketing conversations. I’m joined here by Grace. Grace, how are you today?
Grace: [00:01:05] Hi, Liel. I’m fine. How are you today?
Liel: [00:01:07] I’m doing great, Grace, thank you very much for asking. And I’m very excited to start our second episode in on a topic that I think it’s extremely interesting, somewhat controversial, and I’m really looking forward to to hear your opinion and ideas. And most important what are the takeaways that our listeners can can get from the conversation we’re going to have here today about traditional media channels right?
Grace: [00:01:39] Tan tan tannnn.
Liel: [00:01:39] So traditional marketing. And so what of, well, what was formerly known as marketing 20, 30 years ago was the only way of doing marketing. And nowadays that we live in the digital era, we referred to it more so as the traditional marketing ways. And so what do we what are we referring to when we’re saying traditional marketing, Grace?
Grace: [00:02:02] So specifically, I mean, and most people, I think, define traditional media channels or traditional marketing as what we see on TV. Right. Commercials in the standard TV. I’m talking about your actual cable box not streaming. We’ll get into that later, radio. You know, actual F.M. radio channels, possibly even AM, which I don’t think too many listen to that. But again, we’ll talk about that later. And even experiences I’ve had with the AM Station. So we’ll talk about that again later. And the billboards and print, I think those are the topics that we’ll discuss between us.
Liel: [00:02:41] I’ve always been intrigued about traditional marketing. I’ve always been intrigued about how efficient running campaigns some TV is as a strategy. How efficient is having billboards scattered across the city and how many billboards do you actually need to really make that strategy efficient? And really, what’s the return on investment in a radio strategy? So all of those hard topics that we’re going to dive into. And so let’s let’s get started. Right. Let’s talk about the biggest and most meaningful of of of strategies. Probably it was the holy grail of advertising back in the day. And it was getting yourself on TV, right?
Grace: [00:03:28] Yes.
Liel: [00:03:28] Being on TV, which bucking the very, very early days, it was also kind of like frowned upon in the legal world, like how would you think you are to go and put yourself on TV? And then it was just regarded as a that’s a clever move. Why? Why wouldn’t you do that? Right. Because it worked. But what’s happening now? Like, can you steal good results from putting yourself at the law firm in TV?
Grace: [00:03:57] Right. So I guess that’s a loaded question, right? Because.
Liel: [00:04:01] It is you know.
Grace: [00:04:02] TV is what I do. Thanks for lobbing that at me. No, that’s great. I’m glad you did. So, you know, looking at the traditional marketing mix for a firm just as a whole, you always need to do what makes sense. Right. But even in what makes sense, you need to be multi-channel. And that’s something that I think you and I talk about constantly, right Liel?
Liel: [00:04:26] Yes it is.
Grace: [00:04:27] Put your money where it needs to be when where it makes sense. And so let’s discuss specifically TV as leal’s asking me. You know, I think there are things that we want to know. Right. Does it work? Doesn’t work. Do you need to pay your money? What if you can’t afford it? You know, there’s certain expectations that you have when you put money into TV. However, there’s a lot more to look at and a lot more to think about. So I’ll give you an example. Most recently, we actually put some commercials out for Mass Torts and Roundup and we did them in Spanish and we did do TV commercials. However. With the expectation and understanding that depending on where we put it, meaning TV has basically two different types of commercials, you can put commercials in the traditional channels that that’s going to be expensive, meaning regular channels that everybody sees. Let’s say CBS, NBC, etc., etc. Even shows like Judge Judy. Right. We all know about Judge Judy.
Liel: [00:05:31] I love Judge Judy.
Grace: [00:05:32] That’s right. We love Judge Judy. Yes. That’s where you put your commercials, right? Because people are watching Judge Judy. So that’s where you put your commercials and that’s where it’s the most expensive. So what happens with that? A lot of times you’ll end up getting your commercials placed in slots that aren’t taken up. What are those? Two o’clock in the morning? Three o’clock in the morning, four o’clock in the morning slot. So you need to really think about your expectations where you’re headed.
Liel: [00:06:01] I’m sorry that I’m stopping you there. But you’re you’re getting into something so important, right? Yes. So, so important. So it’s not just about getting on TV is how you get to TV and how you’re strategizing your your campaigns on TV. Right. And so there’s two tangents here that you can take. You can either go in cold networks and negotiate with them yourself. Right. If you know what you’re doing. But the other route is to actually hire a media buyer that can negotiate and broke deals on your behalf and get you to show on the right at the right times for the right on the right networks that you actually care for. And so that’s already a big differentiation. Right. Like that you can approach it in it by just trying to doing it and sorting it out yourself at a cost of potentially missing out on important elements in the strategy and not necessarily seeing your results or hiring a professional to do it for you. Now, let’s suppose that we’re going to take down the route of “I want to do it myself.” Why do I need to you know what? I’m paying so many people to do things around me.
Liel: [00:07:22] I don’t want to pay another person to do TV to manage my TV advertising. Right. I had to already pay for for the content, to shoot the commercial, edit it. And so I’m done with it. I want to now just take it to the networks and get it on these shows because I know it’s going to work. Are there any considerations thought our listeners should have about taking that approach?
Grace: [00:07:49] Yeah, so I want to talk about again from the internal service and our internal side, right from my point of view and I know you as an agency has almost a different kind of point of view or perspective even and ideas. So as an internal person. You have to look at the time value and money and the cost-benefit. So is it worth it for you to do that? It might be. If it is worth it for you to go down that route. As Leo was mentioning to us here, then go down that route. But there is a couple of considerations that you need to think about. What about the advertising fee? So there’s an ad spend that they charge you for basically managing the account. So there will be additional costs that you may not have thought of in your strategy because you didn’t know or you weren’t aware of those as a non-advertising company. So that’s that’s a huge consideration. You know, the return on investment and thinking about specifically where your ads are going to be, what networks, you know, if you’re going to have a digital component to it or not. So as a TV advertiser, you need to diversify. You need to think about the different channels that you might be on. And if you’re going to be doing it on your own, you really have to have it, not just simply to find you need to have it extremely defined how you’re going to do it, how it’s going to be targeted, how you’re going to get your return on investment and the time value of your money of your might have the money being spent in your time. So you really do think about all those different levels. Liel, I know that you can speak probably better on this in terms of an advertising company for a media agency. So I want you to. Can you discuss that just a little bit because you have a better idea than I do on media buying?
Liel: [00:09:43] There’s a few things here. And thank you very much for acknowledging that experience that we have. So there’s a few things you want to keep in mind. And so those are how are you buying for the media? Are you buying the spot like the actual spot or you’re buying the impression which most commonly known as course cost per thousand?
Grace: [00:10:05] Liel, I’m sorry to interrupt you, but can you explain that just a little bit? cost per impression on TV because I know some of us understand that when it comes to digital, but maybe not so much for TV.
Liel: [00:10:17] Right. So, so basically cost per a thousand across all marketing channels. That’s basically how you make sure your impressions. So if you want to compare, for instance, how much it cost you on digital to reach a thousand impressions against how much it costs you on TV, you would basically calculate it using this metric of understanding what was the investment you had to put upfront to get in front of a thousand to get a thousand views. The other thing worth mentioning here, and I think here is an area where sometimes when you’re kind of like take a hands-off approach on your media body and you’re not necessarily working with someone that sees you as a big account or as a or as a major part of their business may end up being in a situation where your ads are not getting played in either the timeslot stuff matter to you or even if they get laid, that the time slots that matter to you during shows that are of importance to your audience, they’re actually not get played ad positions during the outbreak that are likely to have greater impact, which tends to always be the first spot, right when they cut the commercials and the last point before they go back into the show.
Liel: [00:11:42] And so those are the things that I want to keep in mind. Right. It’s not just about having your ad on TV. It’s when it’s it’s actually showing. And another thing that you also want to keep in mind, these are their competitors showing ads during that same spot. And if they’re not showing them that same spot, will world they be showing within that same hour or half an hour-long show that you’re running your ads. And so while you cannot 100 percent control that, you want to be strategic about it. And one thing that I’ve seen like I was just last month in the Colorado meeting with a prospect client, and I was in the hotel having breakfast in the morning and I was seeing their TV ad, how we’d got sandwiched in between two outs from competitors.
Liel: [00:12:33] It will be bad
Liel: [00:12:35] Very bad. Right. Very, very bad. Very, very bad. And so that’s the result of a lousy media buy, right? And those are the kind of things that we should be paying attention to. So that we ensure that we are not ending up in that position. And those things can be negotiated. And whether you’re dealing directly with a network or with an agency, you have to put pressure on them. You have to put pressure on them. You cannot just let them do what they want. If they see an opportunity. They’ll just squeeze you in a way that it’ll work for them. They just need to make things work and they’ll try to find the weakest link that they can shape to the form that fits their needs the best. And they’ll slot and they’ll squeeze you right in the correct as opposed to as adapting others so your needs are met. And so that’s the one thing that we really have to keep in mind, particularly when you are going to the lengths of investing in TV, particularly if you’re signing long-term contracts with the networks.
Grace: [00:13:41] Yeah, that can be extremely expensive and give you absolutely no Arclight. So exactly what you’re talking about Liel. I hate to beat this to that, but this is such an important point in terms of the competitors. I saw a commercial just yesterday right after some controversial show. Well, let’s say the moonshiners. Right. That’s essentially an illegal thing. So if you want to be on the commercials after moonshiners, let’s hope that you are a criminal attorney. So, you know, or something of that nature that, you know, actually makes sense to be on a commercial after that show. So that’s something that I saw yesterday. But the other day, I saw three, like you just said, sandwiched, whereas ad of an attorney, another attorney and a third attorney. And they were all the same thing. They looked the same almost the same kind of ad, the same look, and feel. So I don’t know if they were all from the same location, the same advertiser or what, but they all got sandwiched in the same time one after another. And that was terrible to see because they spent a lot of money to be on primetime TV to get sandwiched between multiple law firms.
Liel: [00:14:54] It’s not a great it’s not a great thing. Right. And so you want to try to prevent and avoid and strategize in a way that they’ll be seen. You can capture smart actual views from the people who are who are tuning into the shows and therefore having a greater impact on your overall marketing strategy. Here’s another thing also to keep in mind. Right. Particularly because we’re not talking about if you’re going to be buying directly from the network.
Liel: [00:15:20] One thing that I’ve noticed lately is that networks are also selling digital packages in a way that, “hey, you know, we can also get you to show your banners or prerolls or that sort of thing in our, you know, app.” And so for many wonder who’s using their mobile phone to stream a show or to watch a clip or to listen to something on our app, we can get you to show your binders and your ads there. And so my advice for people who are getting pitched for those packages is don’t buy it.
Grace: [00:15:55] That was going to be my question, Liel, because, you know, with all the combo proposals that they get, you know, I’ve gotten those, you know, even for radio as an example, they give me radio and digital.
Liel: [00:16:05] Don’t buy it. You want it. You want it.
Grace: [00:16:07] I didn’t.
Liel: [00:16:08] Did it work?
Grace: [00:16:09] No, I did not. I did not buy it. So I.
Liel: [00:16:11] Good.
Grace: [00:16:12] Because I thought the same thing. I’m like, why am I going to spend money in an additional package when I’m already doing display network?
Liel: [00:16:18] And you have more control over it. And if you want to show pre-roll some bumper ads, just go and do it on YouTube. Go and do it in Facebook. Go and do it in networks where you really have tons of people watch.
Grace: [00:16:30] Go where the people are go where the people are.
Liel: [00:16:33] that is using network hops to stream and watch or anything. And if they’re doing it, it’s a really, really, really, really. Fraction of the market who’s doing it. So it’s really, really not worth your money. And even, you know, like it’s funny to say, but for instance, you know that we specialize in Hispanic marketing. So, for instance, Telemundo is part of the Google Partners Network. So you can get yourself in some of their platforms to the display network of Google. Right. And so there. Yeah. And you can that you can actually build a campaign that allows you to specifically target Telemundo pages. And so that’s the reason that you should really, you know, know very well what to buy from whom. And so one thing is. Networks do the TV part, if that’s what you’re interested in. They’ll do their digital packages.They tend not to work.
Grace: [00:17:22] So Liel, Regarding that. So, guys, just so you know what I’m saying and I agree completely having done it both ways where I did buy the digital package and where I didn’t and I didn’t the second time because the first time I realized it was crazy and didn’t make sense. Right. So in keeping with what you’re saying, I heard something about being able to like launch your own advertising company to get some kind of an agency discount or something like that. Can you tell me just a little bit more about that? I don’t have the bandwidth in terms of, you know, individuals or staff to be able to create that, but maybe some others do, or maybe they just make sense anyway. Can you explain that just a little bit to me?
Liel: [00:18:07] So so so yeah, of course. And you don’t really need that much of a bond with Grace, but the point is that if if you’re actually going to commit to do TV advertising for a year, just create your own advertising company, like literally just. And even if you are the only client of that advertising company. Right. You introduce yourself to the network as an advertising company. And I happen to be my client. And you get a 50 percent discount on your ad buy. Why? Because your buying as an agency. And so, therefore, you’re getting a 50 percent, 15 percent cut on the actual retail price. And so you’re just paying the eighty-five percent presuming that the fifteen percent gets to you. So basically because it gets to you, you’re not actually paying it. And so that’s why a lot of you see a lot of law firms now that do the media buying for all their law firms and so forth and so on. It’s because they’ve cut these deals and they have them already going on. And so it just makes sense for them to be media buyers for orders. Right. And it’s not forever one. Right. You may as you very you assume very likely rightly said, you know, all of these take things, take, take, take some time and take some planning. And so if that time in planning, it’s not like if it doesn’t balance off, if the amount of that 50 percent of you’re going to be spending, it’s not necessarily going to offset the overhead. Yeah, that has a way of putting this together. And you may not want to do it, but if you are if you were heavily buying in TV, two things, you probably already know what you’re telling you now. If not, you probably want to consider some sort of arrangement like this. And I know because we’ve had that going on for a client of ours. And it just it’s you know, it led to put a ton of savings.
Grace: [00:20:09] Well, exactly. So that’s why I asked that, because, you know, there may be some who… I’ll give you an example. Write that in mass torts. This is a huge deal. Right. So round-up is coming up. Let’s say the roundup gets settled in the next few months. Well, then I’m going to have a huge windfall. So they may want to actually put a plan together that’s going to go towards TV advertising for their possibly their P.I. or a new tort or something. Right. Where it makes sense for them to create this agency now because it’s going to the time value of money makes sense for them and the 15 percent makes a big difference. So that’s why I say I agree with you that it may not be in your bandwidth, but it also may not be. If you are big enough, you should know about it already. But sometimes you’re not that big. You get the big case. That big case hits your firm. Now, what are you gonna do with that money? Well. You know, I’m not an accountant. I’m not a CPA and tax person. But you could take that money and spend it on advertising rather than pay taxes on it. So is it. Again, I’m not a CPA, not attack the cabin. That’s just another thought.
Liel: [00:21:18] Tax advise with Grace Montealegre. I’m looking forward to that podcast, Grace. I, unfortunately, I won’t be able to be your host there, but I will definitely be a listener because I need some of that. So, yes. Yes, very. I mean, I think your thoughts on all the interesting ideas and valid points. And so one more thing, because, you know, we’ve just spent so much time talking about TV, but we’ve talked about TV in the shape and form that we have always known it. We’re not we haven’t really, really put a lot of attention to talking about over-the-top services such as Hulu, sleeping in the opportunity that they bring to the table when it comes down to advertising. Kind of like combining the best of both worlds. Right. Which is all the advantages so far of that the digital and the hyper the hyper-segmentation capabilities that it has and the benefits of, you know, just getting your eye on to big you up on the big screen where a lot of attention goes.
Liel: [00:22:21] That’s probably going to be a topic off of its own. It’s not that we did not want to talk about it or we don’t think that it’s important. We think that it’s extremely important. But for the sake of this purpose, when we said traditional, we’re really, really meant like the most traditional TV, which is like your local and cable networks.
Grace: [00:22:39] And we’re not talking about streaming services.
Liel: [00:22:41] We’re not we’re not talking streaming. We’re not talking about all that good stuff. Right.
Grace: [00:22:46] Right.
Liel: [00:22:46] OK. Good. So now moving on to another topic. Let’s talk about radio. What about radios? Does the radio work?
Grace: [00:22:54] Radio. Radio. So radio can work for different industries. I personally don’t feel like personally because of actual experience, having put certain things on radio and radio alone. OK. So I’m not talking about a multi-channel idea, whether it’s TV, radio, billboard, print, etc, etc, all the traditional channels plus your digital channels will work. Of course. Because if you have a channel program, then it should work, of course. But I’m talking about radio in and of itself. Radio by itself or radio alone. If you do that on and alone. I personally don’t feel like it works. It hasn’t worked for me, hasn’t worked for the firm. Radio by itself, unless it has to do with, let’s say, a special event or something that you’re jumping on, something that makes sense. But let me talk to Liel a little bit more about that because I know that he had some ideas specifically about, you know, let’s say the audience reports and kind of how you would get into radio if it makes sense.
Liel: [00:23:57] Yeah. And so it’s kind of like the same strategy that we did TV in the sense that you really need to breathe down the neck of your account executive in the sense that you want to ask reports, you want to understand who’s listening to what in which places. Who’s the audience, who are demographics. And to think that they know they that they don’t know that or that you know better.
Grace: [00:24:21] Yes.
Liel: [00:24:21] Probably one of the worst mistakes that you can make. Nielsen doesn’t make mistakes. And they have access to all of these data and reports. So you definitely want that. You definitely want to see that information so you can make the best decisions. Otherwise, it’s really like playing the lottery. So you should know already. Who do you want to target? And so with the help of your account executive, what you’re trying to do is to find out at what times those people are listening and to what shows and which days of the week. And try to get yourself during those times and test and see are actually getting calls. When your odds are playing, you’re building up right at the same time. But you also want to see if there is actually calls to action taken when your ads are playing. So there’s a few things here that you can do to test your market and see whether you’re actually talking for the right ideas. But at the end of the day, Grace, I’m going to have to agree with you that I feel that radio is no longer a platform. One should see as a priority.
Grace: [00:25:27] I mean, look at us. We’re on a podcast. This is not traditional media. This is there’s no way this is not going to go on radio. So I just think about myself and.
Liel: [00:25:37] Unfortunately not.
Grace: [00:25:38] I know. I mean, hey, hopefully, possibly and potentially we get invited to a radio that’s like Clear Channel or something big like that. But, you know, we’ll discuss that another day before we’ll make it big, Liel. Radio specifically and radio on the traditional F.M. channels. In this sense and alone, it doesn’t work. You can’t do it stand alone. You definitely cannot do it stand alone. Like I cannot emphasize that enough. But possibly, again, if there’s an event or something that, you know, you’re your market is there and you’re doing it together with TV, billboard printing and they’re used to seeing you just know in your head or in the back of your mind that at some point it probably is going to fall off, if not be in a get to a point where it just doesn’t make sense at all to do it.
Liel: [00:26:27] Here’s why. And I think like going and tying this whole back to your initial message. Grace, when we started the conversation and it’s like, you know, marketing, those have to be omnichannel, right, as much as you can and as much as you can afford, as much as you can make yourself visible and heard across several platforms. The more top of mind you’re gonna be to your market, to your audience. Now, I do think that if you have a strong presence in radio, that pulling some in some shape or form help you convert more true digital platforms. Right? Right. Because when people will come across your brand, whether it’s through Facebook or whatever, it’s true searching for your Google, they’ll recognize something about it from what they’ve heard on the radio. Maybe. OK. And so that’s where I definitely think that, you know, those radio supports or their marketing efforts that reinforce it. Does it then has the impact? Yes, it does. But as far as like, is it sustainable as a stand alone? I just don’t have the data to say that it is. And I’m going to tell you something here. Last year we ran a campaign with Pandora and now we’re talking digital radio for a client. And it just didn’t it just did not generate results right now.
Liel: [00:27:57] The client was very, very adamant that they wanted to try it. And so we went as an experiment, created really amazing spots, very engaging. And so we just did not see results come out of that within the three to six months, period of time that we actually run the spots for that reason alone. And like looking at the cost of doing it.
Grace: [00:28:25] And I going to ask you, that seems expensive.
Liel: [00:28:29] And the likely results that you can get out of it, it’s not worth it now. Now, could what some of those listeners that listened to the spot a year ago, later down the road, six or eight months or twelve months later, called the client and use their services. Maybe they did. But at the end of the day, not having a real way to quantify and measure results for something that is as expensive as radio is, it was just like there’s better places where we can put and make use of thought of got available budget.
Grace: [00:29:06] Yep. Yeah.
Liel: [00:29:07] What do you think?
Grace: [00:29:07] Well if you’re doing any of it right. And the only way because it’s very not measurable. Right. I mean we keep saying how not how hard it is to measure. You have to have a tracking phone number, you’ll have to have a special landing page for each of the different channels so that at the very least you can attempt to try and track it. So I’ll give you an example of an Atlanta personal injury attorney. So I’ve been marketing for lawyers for over 20 years. Not specifically personal injury, but import-export law and some other laws out there, other types of attorneys. But in marketing for these attorneys and most recent one that I know of, the Atlanta personal injury attorney, it’s a female attorney in Atlanta and she runs billboards, radio, and commercials. But on the streaming services. And why does she specifically do that? It’s because she has she targets trucking, trucking, accidents, truckers, what the truckers do? They see billboards. They listen to radio. And most of them actually still listen to some regular stations. So for that particular instance and again, she’s doing multi-channel. It’s not one specific channel, right. In that specific instance. It worked. But why? Because she’s putting them all together. She’s targeting a specific practice area that still listens to regular and some traditional radio and sees billboards because that’s part of their job. Right. Again, has to be multi-channel. Have to combine all of them. And it’s still not streaming radio, Pandora or Spotify, or any of those.
Liel: [00:30:50] Yeah. No, I actually grace, love, love, love, love. What you’re saying here, because it’s really thinking about, you know, which platforms is your audience interacting with and be present on those so they can actually touch your brown multiple times throughout your day, throughout your week, and you become synonymous with whatever it is that you do for them. And so, you know, they’re not actively seeking for the kind of help or representation that you can provide as an attorney at this point. But the data will need it. You’re gonna be so fresh in your mind that there are. You’re either going to go directly for you or they’re going to search for something that’s going to lead them to you and they’re going to recognize you and just go for you. Right. That’s the way it works. And so just to be a little too specific about this example that we gave on Pandora, like it was, it was actually a well-thought-out scenario in the sense that this was actually a workers compensation campaign for an attorney who was seeking to generate a worker’s compensation. And so this was in Chicago. And so as part of this study, we talked to construction workers to find out what they’re all using their cell phones, each in whichever part of the of the construction site where they’re working. They take out your phone and they’re actually streamed or their music. And the most popular platform that these people were using was Pandora and other than YouTube. Right. And so those were the two platforms that were used the most that we said, OK, let’s give it a try. But even then, the cost of getting our client in Pandora, did not really pay off the results that we were generating out of that company. So I don’t know, maybe we should have kept for a longer period of time.
Grace: [00:32:41] No.
Liel: [00:32:42] I think, you know, we were able to reallocate those that ad spending to other networks as just ISIS said that YouTube actually did generate some results and display the search network and faith we’re doing great.
Grace: [00:32:56] I was going to say my my husband’s in construction. So to your point, he hit my husband’s been in construction for 30 years. So, I mean, as part to your point, that’s what he does, actually. He goes on YouTube and that’s what he primarily uses. I have seen he used to have Pandora, but he had too many ads. And so I actually have a YouTube subscription premium subscription. So we don’t really get ad roles. And he listens to YouTube on there. And even when he’s not logged into this premium subscription, he still prefers YouTube because he can find just about any music he wants. And he’s not like Fattah’s station. So, yeah, that’s great. I see that YouTube definitely display network and the, you know, YouTube guys. It’s the biggest thing. Google’s the biggest thing. So stop forgetting about Google. Right.
Liel: [00:33:46] So that’s. So that’s radio. Radio. It’s fair enough to say that it’s not really being a winner here around those. We’re not necessarily hearing a lot of five great success stories lately about the fact that radio is having. However, if one of our listeners would like to prove us wrong and they actually have a compelling story about how radio has helped them over the past few years to really capture the market, grow their businesses. So then, by all means, please share that story. Hopefully we can we can help others use the power of radio for growing their business. But as of now, it doesn’t seem like radio has a lot of power. Should we move on, Grace?
Grace: [00:34:25] Let’s move on. Let’s move on to billboards,
Liel: [00:34:28] Yey, billboards. So so what is our what’s our first take on billboards? Great. What what comes to mind? You briefly mentioned our billboards when you were talking about your client in Atlanta.
Grace: [00:34:43] Yes. So billboards for me and in my opinion and in my experience. Billboards work if they’re done again strategically. So we keep talking about strategy, strategy, strategy. Why? Because your strategy is a big deal. It needs to fall in line with exactly what your goals are for the firm as a whole, not just specifically look at billboards and say, OK, I’m going to throw my money at billboards. Now, again, back to that multi-channel back to the strategy, back to the idea. So what do you think about billboards? You’ve got to think about your own commute. When you look up, do you notice billboards? Do you notice where they are? Do you notice multiple billboards? Do you notice?
Grace: [00:35:30] You know how many there are about a particular subject or a product or whatever. And the locations. So it can work, but it has to be multi-channel. And there are things that you really need to think about that Liel and I will really kind of get go a little more in-depth.
Liel: [00:35:48] So, Grace, as you go over. Well, I live in Texas. Yes. And I may or may not be right in saying that Texas is the capital of billboards. I think you’re right. I honestly got convinced by it because several times some on-time draw, I’m driving from city to city meeting with clients. And I really get a huge opportunity to look at other lights billboards in. And so here’s here’s my thing about billboards. The only billboards that I remember are billboards of people that I already knew before I actually saw their billboard. Such a good point. OK. So if I already knew the brand, either because I’ve seen them on TV or I’ve seen them too many times on Facebook or another digital marketing platform, I’ll see the billboard. I’ll recognize them and I’ll be able to correlate, you know what the message is there that’s being communicated to me. But when I see the billboard of a guy that I’ve never seen in my life before, he’s showing me a picture of himself. Then. Blast his telephone number in there.
Liel: [00:37:04] And then potentially some sort of attack line. And then leaves his brand as the smallest element in the billboard itself. I drive through it. One thing, because, of course, this is I mean, I. You know, I’m I want to. I am paying attention to these things for all the reasons. But I’m I’m. My point is that I want to remember I want to know who that person is, who that law firm is. Right. Maybe I can I can I can call them and sell them my services. Right. But I can’t remember who they are because nothing on that billboard tells me the name of their brand or anything that I can really remember the photo. I’m not going to remember the telephone number. Of course I’m not going to remember. I don’t care if it’s only one number. Ten digits of the same number. I’m not going to remember it. There is no need. People need to understand that. You no longer have to learn telephones by heart. Nobody cares. Nobody pays attention to it. Nobody’s trying to even learn. Just telephone numbers by heart and so for me, the only thing that’s really, really important is the brand name. That’s the one thing that even though I may not get it perfectly right, I’m going to be able to somewhat then go into Google and search something that may sound similar correct. Or something. And then I’m going to be able to get back to these. But I won’t be able to do that by just having some vague memory of how the picture of the person on the billboard looked like.
Liel: [00:38:31] And as I’ve said, I mean, nobody’s remembering telephone numbers. So I think people who a lot of people who are doing billboards are doing them bad for several reasons was their brand is not big enough yet by the time that those billboards go out. And so therefore, like people are seeing them, but they’re not remembering it. And I know who they are. And secondly is that they’re forgetting to put to the most important part of it all, which is the brand. And if the brand is your name, then it’s your name. But your name should be there. Super.
Grace: [00:39:07] Huge.
Liel: [00:39:07] Right. I know people. You may have had the best idea that you want to send the message that you would that you’re the most expert and efficient attorney handling trucking cases and whatnot. But at the end of the day, the fact that you’re telling me that on your billboard is not going to make me remember who you are. Because you’re not giving me your name, you’re not giving me all the information that I can take away from me. You’re just leaving that as an afterthought on a corner or the billboard, and it’s not visible to me. And so by the time that I finish or tried to reading your message there. That’s it. I’m gone. Your billboard is now 500 feet behind me. And I wasn’t able to see your name. I was unable to take anything away with me and I could be. Am I being overly dramatic here about.
Grace: [00:39:53] No. No. To your point. Oh, my goodness. I’m just thinking about Florida, because, I mean, you know, we have tons of highway and a million billboards on I-95 from all the way down south, you know, Homestead Keys, Key West, all the way up to the top of the Panhandle and Florida. Right. So, you know, talking about Texas being a billboard state, I know we’ve got a million billboards and I’ve seen a million lawyer billboards. Right. And what I’ve noticed that most of them tend to do, again, if you have a brand, it’s OK to do this. But even these guys that do this do what you’re saying. Meaning they put their brand big. Right
Grace: [00:40:33] So Anidjar and Levine, they’re really well-known in Florida as a as a you know, as really, you know, big attorneys. They’ve been around a long time. I’ve hear them on the radio. I hear them. I see them on TV. Actually, I don’t know if I’ve seen them on TV, but I know I’ve seen commercials of some sort, whether it’s display network or digital or what.
Liel: [00:40:54] But they do omnichannel. Right. And I noticed they have billboards and their billboards, say Anidjar and Levine. I know. And Anidjar and Levine because they’re attorneys and they’re on the radio. They’re everywhere. I’ve I’ve heard them. I’ve heard their name. And so when I see that billboard, I remember it’s Anidjar and Levine and it’s big. And then the names are huge. So they did it right. Now I’m going to talk about the other firm that didn’t do it right. And I’m not going to mention their name, of course. But the other firm had everything, all this text talking about how wonderful they were and all the things they could provide you with. Now, where was the phone number or even a Web site landing page, for goodness sakes? And where was the name? It was on the right-hand side or on the. I don’t even remember. That’s how I didn’t even pay attention. Right. It was on the right bottom left. I don’t even know. And it was so tiny and it didn’t make sense. I’m like, yeah, that’s great. You can provide me with all these services. But so can every other attorney that I’ve ever seen, because there’s a million of these out there. So what do you do? Who are you and what is your name? Like, I don’t even know who you are. So exactly to your point has to be done right. Has to be done multi-channel one or two probably won’t deliver results if you are not strategically done along with everything else that you might be doing. And those are just some of the points that personally I’ve experienced and I’ve seen. And I think that. Liel, you’re right. You know, you’re not being dramatic. I think.
Liel: [00:42:27] I think it’s yours. I mean, to summarize, it pointed out that, you know, I think both you and I could agree with is that billboards make sense. If you want to boost your brand, if you want to boost your strategy, and if you can do it right now, if you’re trying to introduce a brand, if you’re trying to introduce your law firm to a market. Don’t do stroll billboard.
Grace: [00:42:56] No. we talked about in an episode…
Liel: [00:42:56] It’s not going to work.
Grace: [00:43:00] We said if you know, you have limited amount of money, you’re not going to go throw it at TV billboards. You’re not going to do that. It just costs too much and it doesn’t make sense. You’re trying to get brand awareness. This is at the consideration phase or further.
Liel: [00:43:15] Now what that means, you know, what’s the average cost per thousand impressions across all different platforms? The second cheapest option, which of course, the first one is social media, is billboards. But yeah, yeah. But here is here’s the point, right? In social media, you have so much control over your audience segmentation, which is fantastic.
Liel: [00:43:43] And or your billboard strategy, particularly if you’re just going to go for one billboard or two billboards, like even if you made a huge study as to who is driving past that billboard, what’s the number of times that your billboard would get seen during different times of the day? Even then, it’s just not an effective way of introducing a brand. You’re better off promoting and advertising yourselves through other platforms. If you’re gonna integrate a billboard strategy, go and do it properly. Go into it big. Go do it in a way that it’s going to be so substantial that, you know, going back to the example that you giving about the law firm in Miami. People are going to be able to recognize your name and know exactly what the billboard is all about. But when people need to figure out. Who is the brand in that billboard? What is it that I have to remember from that billboard? And specifically, when you’re trying to give them too much information for them to take. It’s just not going to work like a billboard is. It’s an element that gets a split second of attention. Right. And so it’s it’s. Go bigger, go high, guess? Yep. I guess, you know, there’s no many other ways to to explain this. And also, like, make your messaging on your billboard make sense.
Liel: [00:45:06] Like, you know, don’t write three sentences. I can’t read it so much as I wanted. I can’t read it. I don’t have time to read it.
Grace: [00:45:14] I mean, if you want to tell me you’re a trucking accident attorney, that’s fine. Brent, you know. Yeah. Stop putting your face on everything, people. I’m sorry. Yes. I want to know who you are. I want to know who my attorney is. Yeah, that’s OK. Put it on your Website like I need that on your Website because I’m going to go to your Website and see who you are researching it right. But putting your giant face, unless you have a brand where that’s known, that’s what you do with your name in huge letters next to it. Yeah. Don’t do that.
Liel: [00:45:44] You know what? Grace. I mean, to your point there. Like, it’s OK. I think attorneys is one of those industries where it’s fine. You want it to be personal. You want to. You want to see the face of the attorney. You want to know who’s going to be representing you and so forth and so on. But I guess my biggest point here is that let people remember your brand. People will go and Google it and they’ll get your telephone number and they’ll get your Website and all of the information that they need from there. Like I know you want to. I know you’re a sophisticated marketeer and you want to be able to measure how many calls your particular billboard brought in.
Liel: [00:46:24] So you allocated at a specific telephone number hoping that you’re gonna get calls from that specific telephone number. But here’s the thing. Unless the person actually stopped their car right there as they were driving, pulled out their phone and dialed and called you from there, just as they’re not going to use that telephone number to call you. They’re gonna they’re gonna want me remember something about your brand that they can go and refer back to later to a digital platform, find you and then convert from there. And so I think sometimes the whole billboard part and element and like measuring and stuff gets over or over elaborated. And I you know.
Grace: [00:47:05] That’s a good point. Very good point. You’re right. I mean, even if you put that on there, it’s they’re going to go online this year.
Liel: [00:47:12] Let me ask you something. Right. Because I know I know there’s there has to be someone out there in the audience thinking. “Yeah. But, you know, you just take a picture of it and then you’re cool afterwards.” When was the last time you. When was the last time that you were driving and you saw some sort of billboard and it doesn’t matter. What was it for that you actually pulled out your phone and took a picture of it?
Grace: [00:47:37] Never.
Liel: [00:47:38] OK.
Grace: [00:47:39] I’ve never done that. So I. But there’s even worse. No, no, no. There’s even worse to that because. So commuter loss, you’re not supposed to have your cell phone in your hand.
Grace: [00:47:49] So unless you have a passenger who’s going to you tell ’em. “Oh, my God, take out the picture. Take a picture of it. Hurry up.” You’ve already passed it. So even then, impossible not going to happen.
Liel: [00:47:59] So, yeah. No, it very, very good. Thank you for for for keeping me in line with loss here. Oh, to rephrase that question, when was the last time that a passenger riding in your car took out your phone to take a picture for you, for you or for themselves for that matter. Right. Right.
Liel: [00:48:22] Anyhow, not very frequently. Right. So now let’s move on. I think we’ve made up our minds.
Grace: [00:48:30] Exhausted.
Liel: [00:48:31] So, so, so so our last point here, OK, it’s going to be just like print in everything that comes with print, whether it’s direct mail. This could be newspaper and this could be also, I don’t know, handing out flyers and some other things. So very quickly, let’s start with the with, you know, with the printed material that gets promoted. For instance, magazines, newspapers, flyers. What do you think? What how important are those? Is that kind of marketing?
Grace: [00:49:08] So I’m going to go to we’ll start with newspapers and magazines and that type of print, because that’s the more expensive type that if it makes sense as part of your strategy. And it actually has readers for a particular market. Then I say, OK, you can possibly add that as part of your channel. But what I like to focus on and you tell me if this is what the topic should be about. I like to focus on the stuff that you can actually do that won’t cost you as much money, whereas you know, a full page ad in a nice glossy can be pretty cost-prohibitive. Right. Because they do it by quarter a lot of times and they charge you like anywhere from a thousand to six thousand depending on the size and location of the ad in the newspaper or in the print magazine. So what I want to talk about is more and easier actionable print that a law firm can do that is part of their channel. Is that OK? Do you think that would be OK to talk about?
Liel: [00:50:11] It is 100 percent. And so I remember when we were first having a conversation that the planning on this particular episode. Right. That we actually said, you know what? I would have you have recently heard of anyone who has had a success story from advertising on a newspaper. And we were we were like, I haven’t heard a lot of those lately. And so I actually very, very recently, like last week, met with an immigration attorney in Houston. And he built he built over the past two years his practice from the ground or the newspaper ads. Like that was his only source of advertising. And that actually worked for him very well. And so with that being said, I think newspaper advertising has become somewhat accessible. It’s not extremely hard to get your ad or the newspaper to start out if you have something very niche in a market that is not that competitive. Maybe it could work, maybe it could fly. Now, an immigration attorney in Houston is by no means niche. It’s still got results. So I’m not saying that It has to be niche, has to be a small a small market for it to work. No. Like there’s not necessarily a set rule here. My point is that you don’t have to tie up thousands of rollers into testing out newspaper advertising. So if you have that little book that is telling you, “hey, but I could potentially try this. This could potentially work for me.” Like I know that my market does tend to read these newspapers or refer to this newspaper for they give it a try. They give it a try. And you know what? If it doesn’t work, then. Then it did not work. It’s you know, it’s experimenting all the time, experimenting. That’s my take about newspaper or not doing newspaper. If you have good reasons to believe that it could work. Give it a try. Doesn’t work. Cut it off.
Grace: [00:52:20] Right. To your point, if you read a newspaper in your market, you personally read the newspaper in your market as an as the partner of your firm. Well, your people probably do, too. Right. Your clients probably do, too. So again, think about your own use case, about how you look for people, for things, product services, whatever, particularly services. Right. So if. How do you look for an accountant? How do you look for, you know, an attorney? How do you look for different things that you might be searching for?
Grace: [00:52:52] And if it makes sense to put it in print in newspapers as an ad, then do it because it makes sense. Right. But you’re looking at it as a whole. So when I was talking about print, I like to discuss traditional print in terms of keeping top of mind and also nurturing your current clients or prospects that you already have in your database. Right. So they say that there’s people you know, there’s a lot of firms that have been around for a while, let’s say, and they have addresses for a lot of different people. Print is very expensive. OK.
Grace: [00:53:29] You know, Liel and I were talking about this and he was telling me that, you know, it can get very cost-prohibitive, but there are ways around that. And there are ways to target a specific zip code with direct mail postcards. There’s ways to target specific areas or only a segmented list from your current database. And we actually use a company called the newsletter Pro, and they do it all for you. Right. So with your approval, of course, they write out different little blog posts type of things that you can then put on your blogs. But it also comes out in print. You give them the list and they actually mail it out on your behalf. And one thing they think that might be important to mention, it’s not specifically about print per say, but it has to do with the way you write or what is written.
Grace: [00:54:23] I just learned something yesterday that I was told most lawyers need to write about 10 percent more colloquially than they think they do. So what Newsletter Pro does is they add a recipe or they add a community event or they add something that has to do with your area that is more personalized about you or your firm or about something that you might have done a charitable event. So I know that’s a side note and I should probably not discuss that. But just again, if you’re doing print when you’re doing print. Newsletters work really nicely because they want to know about your community. They want to know about you. And you look at you as you affirm and even as an individual, your family, and things like that. So print does work when you can target it when you can do it as part of your overall strategy.
Liel: [00:55:14] Grace, you know what? I have been targeted by law firms with some very, very, very, very relevant letters. Right now, we’re not talking here about newsletters because I was already an existing client of one or not, to be more specific. I the first time I was involved in a car accident earlier this year. Right. And so nothing. I’m you know, I was perfectly fine. And thankfully, after a quick visit to the emergency room, I was set on my way in all good. And nevertheless, you know, the emergency room fire the lean and so forth and so on. And so there are databases that law firms can have access to and find out about all of these leads that are getting filed and then sent letters directly. The people who what, where, who are related to the hospital visit or whatnot. And so I receive very, very high-quality letters from law firms across the state. I actually took time to open them up and read them up. And I did not call them for representation, but they had my full attention for a moment. So obviously, this was for for for for our personal injury kind of case. But you can do the same thing for traffic tickets. You can do this stuff for a crime, for if you’re a criminal lawyer like you can. I get to the database with the kind of information and with the kind of targets that actually are of relevance to you and target those specifically and send them very, very high-quality material that is personalized and very relevant to their current situation. And you can actually have a fantastic return on investment on these. The one thing that I’m really interested in going back to this life marketing charge that I’m looking at. So again, what is the cost per thousand views or impressions on different platforms? So as I’ve told you, the cheapest one was social media with two point five dollars per thousand views. And I would argue that that number is probably overly generous. Like I’m not too sure if you still get a thousand views for that.
Liel: [00:57:22] But hey. But these are not actual interactions. These are just views. Now billboards. Five dollars. Radio $10. Newspaper $16. Right. Same with magazines, 60 dollars. Broadcast TV 28 dollars. Direct mail. Fifty-seven dollars. And so it’s considerably more expensive, but it’s so highly targeted that you’re more likely to convert and see.
Liel: [00:57:56] And so your return on investment. I do think that there is a lot of opportunity with direct mail strategies. I think for those who are doing newspaper and other kinds of print. Yeah. I mean, if you have another success story that you’d like to share, please bring it forward, because this is what we love. This is what we’re passionate about. We like to hear and learn from others who had great success stories. Because there’s always something you can learn and implement, Grace, So we’ve actually covered a lot. A lot.
Liel: [00:58:26] And so what are the takeaways for our listeners? So whether you are a brand new law firm who’s just started, what is the takeaway from this one episode?
Grace: [00:58:37] The biggest take away my opinion about this entire episode and traditional media channels, you know, having covered TV, billboard, radio print is that you still need to be a multi-channel omnichannel, including in the traditional media channels.
Grace: [00:58:53] Ok. And the reason I’m saying this is because just yesterday I read on marketingprofs.com about our demographic. Right, being our age, believing that an item that’s in print is something that they can actually believe because somebody spent the money and the time to write it and put it in print. So I know that’s it. It’s very odd and kind of general, but the takeaway from this in the traditional media channels is make sure you have you strategize that you make this a part of it. And in the way that makes sense that you have a measurable return on your investment. So if you can’t get a measurable return on your investment, perhaps it doesn’t make sense and put a little bit of money in it. You know, not tons and test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test to see what does work.
Liel: [00:59:44] So, Grace, if I understand correctly if I’m a big law firm and I have the money and I’m already a multi-channel advertiser, so continue doing so. But make sure that I’m results-driven and that I’m measuring a return on investment and not just that. But in this new year, I’m actually taking the steps to audit all of the strategies that I have in place. So if I’m already showing TV ads, well, how good of a deal am I getting?
Liel: [01:00:16] How will my ads are being scheduled during the break spots? Am I getting, being seen what I wanted to be seen? If I already have a radio contract in place and I’m airing ads on the radio. Do I want to test whether I’m getting called, more calls or not during the times that my radio spot is being played? Do I want to test out what happens if I take my ads of flying for a month? If it has any sorts of any sort of impact, would those be the kind of things that we should be doing to measure whether traditional marketing is working for us?
Grace: [01:00:52] Yeah, that’s exactly right. It’s a continual improvement process, right? It doesn’t matter whether it’s digital or traditional. You should always have split a/b tests right where you’re trying to make sure your message is coming across. But that’s also at the very overarching marketing level. Audit, audit, audit. Once a year, every three months, every six months. You know, give it time, obviously, in some cases, right. Three, six, nine, twelve is usually the markers, right, Liel? Three, six, nine, twelve. Right. Three months, six months, nine months, and twelve months. Those are your baseline metrics. Use those and audit your entire strategy.
Grace: [01:01:30] Make sure that it makes sense that you’re getting a measurable return on investment that is giving you what you expected and lean on your vendors. Make sure that they are giving you what you’re expecting that there and have somebody audit it, meaning actually put their peepers on that commercial. Did it actually air when it said it was supposed to air? Because that’s something that I actually pay attention to. I’m like I just spent $30000 on a commercial. Did it air when it was supposed to? Yeah. You’re telling me, of course. Metrics and numbers, Nielsen ratings, they don’t lie. Right. But did it. So go look, go pay attention. Go make sure an audit, audit, audit for a measurable return on investment.
Liel: [01:02:12] What happens when you are not at that level yet, when you don’t have the money to get into TV? Now, you’re not even entertaining the idea of doing radio or any of those things because you’ve just heard such bad things about it. So but what are the things that you could actually consider doing? Would you say to our listeners that, hey, there is a huge opportunity in print? Maybe. Maybe you wanna maybe you want to make sure that as part of your strategy, you’re having a system in place where you’re actually sending either newsletter to existing contacts or you’re reaching out to highly relevant individuals, as you said, and those that are pros and is a ton of other companies there that are offering services, you can find me one that is relevant to the kinds of file practice area that you’re interested in and partner up with them so you can set up a program in place with that. Would you say that it could be a good recommendation?
Grace: [01:03:11] It’s a very good recommendation.
Grace: [01:03:12] So if you’re a smaller firm in let’s say, you know, in Episode 1, we did say, you know, go digital, you know, but now we’re talking about traditional media channels and it costs less to have a current client become a client again. Right. Recurring revenue as opposed to all the stuff that it takes to get a new prospect to become a client. So print is a great way of maintaining top of mind, nurture, marketing and highly targeted. So, yes, print is one of those things that you can entertain. You can send to your list. You can use a system like Newsletter Pro. There’s many, many vendors out there that will allow you to do that. So, yes,
Liel: [01:03:52] Excellent. So print works, whether you’re on an established law firm with a decent database in place so that you can continue and nurture relationships. But it also walks where you’re brand new in the field and you want to approach individuals with a specific offer that it’s highly relevant to what they need. The one takeaway that sums. He’s tried to be multi-channels, tried to in as many platforms out there that are relevant to your market, to your audience, understand which ones are those. Take the time to analyze things just like your attorney-client in Atlanta did, which is OK. If I’m going to be targeting truck drivers, I need to understand where is their attention? What is it that they’re doing?
Grace: [01:04:37] So customer journey,
Liel: [01:04:40] Grace, it’s been lovely talking to you again and I’m looking forward to our next episode,
Grace: [01:04:45] Me too, Liel. Thank you so much for your time.
Liel: [01:04:52] If you like our show, make sure you subscribe. Tell your co-workers. Leave us a review and send us your questions at: ask@incamerapodcast.com We’ll see you next week.
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