Value for the money. You expect it when you lease an office, invest in software or hire staff. The money you spend marketing your law firm should be no exception. Is your firm getting good value for its marketing dollar? If not, where are the opportunities for improvement?

Measuring return on investment, or ROI, from your marketing budget can help you gain better answers to those questions.

ROI measurement is an opportunity to review your marketing practices and make smart, informed decisions about the future — which tactics to emphasize, what’s working and what’s not, and whether your message is connecting with prospects or need to be fine-tuned. And you don’t need a marketing degree to do it.

These steps will help you generate ROI information and use it to evaluate and improve your marketing strategy.

What strategies — print, broadcast, online and in-person — do you use to connect with prospects and clients? In order to gauge which strategies to leverage and which are falling short, you should define and track each of them.

Start with brochures, Yellow Pages ads, radio spots, web campaigns and other direct marketing expenditures. But don’t forget other programs that may indirectly generate new business and strengthen existing client relationships: sponsorships, client entertainment and professional memberships, for example.

Once you have a handle on all the promotional efforts that generate leads for your firm, you have a good foundation for measuring ROI.

2. Track leads and conversions
Firms that market themselves efficiently use documented, common-sense controls to track spending. Hard data goes much further than anecdotes and guesswork in ensuring your money’s well spent.

So once you’ve defined the scope of your marketing effort, put tracking procedures into place for each program — sustainable procedures you can incorporate, long-term, into your practice management. For example, you can:

Try to capture the same information from prospects no matter how they reach your firm. Your receptionist, for example, should ask prospects the same questions that appear on your online intake form. By being consistent, you can better compare the quality of leads coming from online, print and other marketing efforts.

Documenting inquiries shows you which client-development programs are successful and makes follow-up easier. It also helps identify any disconnect between leads generated and leads converted into actual client cases.

If "hits" to your web site aren’t translating into new business, for example, look critically at your site. Is your intake form clear and simple? Overall, is your site easy to navigate? Timely follow-up is another key factor. Are you responding promptly to inquiries with both a phone call and an e-mail, if possible?

Stay Tuned for the Next Blog on ROI, Coming Soon.......