2. You’re Unable to Differentiate Yourself in a Competitive Market
The legal and medical industries are highly competitive. In many areas across the U.S., the market is saturated with competitors. So, even if you’re doing all the right things, you can still struggle to differentiate yourself and attract the leads you want.
Does that mean you should just give up? Absolutely not! Instead, it means that your marketing needs to work harder to show potential leads what makes you different and why you’re a great choice for their needs.
Get started by conducting a thorough competitor analysis to understand what other practices are doing and why it's working. Look at their marketing materials, website, and social media presence to identify their strengths and weaknesses.
Next, focus on highlighting your own unique selling proposition (USP). What sets you apart from your competitors? What makes you the best choice for your target audience? Think about your firm's values, specialties, and customer service approach to identify what makes you unique.
You should also home in on the types of clients or patients you'd like to work with. What makes someone a perfect client or patient? How can you speak directly to that segment of people? When you really understand your ideal client or patient, you can tailor your marketing efforts and messaging to better connect with them.
And don’t forget the power of the emotional connection. You can build positive relationships and trust with potential leads by sharing success stories, client testimonials, and personal anecdotes that demonstrate your expertise and make you memorable.
A tough market makes everything more difficult. But, by working on these kinds of strategies, you can differentiate yourself in a crowded market and effectively attract the clients or patients you want.
3. You’re Not Tracking Your Performance or Making Data-Driven Decisions
Are you tracking your marketing performance and looking at the right metrics and milestones? We often speak to lawyers and podiatrists that tell us that their marketing “isn’t working.” However, when we dig deeper, it turns out that they haven’t been effectively tracking their marketing or reviewing the right metrics. They “feel” like they aren’t getting results, but they don’t actually know for sure!
To get a return on any kind of investment, you need to know where you stand and what you’re trying to accomplish. You need clear milestones that indicate positive performance, and you need targeted tracking so that you can see how each cog in your marketing machine is working. And, ultimately, you need to analyze and understand the data you collect so that you can make wise decisions about how to move forward and build on your wins.
When you track your performance and make data-driven decisions, you save money because you know where to maximize your investment and where you don’t need to waste your time. So, don’t just guess—make sure you know what’s happening under the hood.
4. You’re Putting All Your Eggs in One Basket
You see this often with law firms and podiatry practices that rely on referral partnerships or paid advertising and don’t do much other marketing at all. Eventually, the referral source dries up, or the ads come to an end, and you have nothing left in the pipeline. It’s a scramble to get another avenue for new clients or patients up and running, and you’re losing revenue the whole time.
The biggest problem with this approach is that you keep spending money, but you can’t take risks. You rely too much on one avenue, and there’s nothing to keep you going if a campaign doesn’t pan out or something changes that reduces the results you get. That’s why it’s so important to have a diverse marketing machine that keeps the gas in your tank and gives you the resilience to try new things.
An effective marketing strategy should always include a healthy mix of tactics that protect you from any dips or turns in the industry. If, for example, you lose a referral source, you still have your email campaigns, content marketing, organic leads, and other avenues working for you. If a major Google shake-up temporarily reduces leads from your website, you won’t feel the impact as much as other practices that don’t have a diverse mix.
So, if you feel like you’re no longer getting a good ROI from a singular source you’ve relied on in the past, it’s time to bolster your efforts with multiple channels that will consistently generate leads and keep you on track toward your goals. It’s absolutely the best way to mitigate your losses, multiply your successes, and give yourself built-in resilience for the future.
5. You’re Committing “Random Acts of Marketing”
Having several marketing channels working in your favor is important. But what’s even more important is bringing together all those different tactics and facets and turning them into a clear marketing strategy. Although we’ve saved this one for last, it is—without a doubt—the number-one reason that businesses fail to get a good ROI from their marketing efforts.
You might do a little content every few months. You might have a website that’s only maintained sporadically. You might send an email or two, and you might post on your social media accounts when you have time. It’s not cohesive. It’s not all working together toward the same goals. You’re essentially committing “random acts of marketing,” and that’s too much time, money, and effort to put into something that doesn’t work.
So, you need to get back to the foundations of what you’re trying to accomplish. Every part of your marketing should be rowing in the same direction. There should be a clear reason for everything you do to market your practice, and all your efforts should support the rest in reaching your goals. And, if you have staff that help you with your marketing efforts, they need to know what they should be doing and why.
Moving from “random acts of marketing” to a cohesive strategy is a major change, and it does take some effort to get it going. However, once you’re on your way, the improvements in leads, traffic, and visibility will speak for themselves.
Get to the Bottom of Your Marketing ROI Problems With Experts That Care About Your Success
There are all kinds of reasons that your marketing might not be working as it should. If you’re not getting the return you expected from your marketing investment, don’t just wait around. Find out why, and do something about it.
You can book an appointment with the FWM team to get a free marketing analysis, which looks at all your current marketing efforts and shows you what’s working and what’s not working. You’ll get valuable insights and practical tips, and we can even start drafting a customized marketing strategy that will maximize the return on your efforts. There’s no obligation or cost, and you’ll leave the meeting with the information you need to forge a clear path toward a better ROI.
