When Google advertising first launched in October 2000, the personal injury lawyer marketing industry was gifted a huge opportunity to affordably reach prospects who had an immediate need for a local PI attorney who could help them with their case.
Back then, PI attorneys could get hundreds of visits to their website for less than $100 a month. A small percentage of that website traffic would be ready to book a consultation right away, leading to new cases every month. For that early-adopter group of personal injury law ad buyers, life was great, competition was low, and N’Sync’s new hit single “Bye Bye Bye” was the #1 song on the radio.
Fast forward to 20 years later… Google quickly realized that personal injury marketing for lawyers was one of the most lucrative revenue generating industries for their PPC advertising business. Large firms with deep pockets drove up the cost per click to what it is today – averaging out at about $133 per click!
Here’s a shocking statistic… did you know that the term “personal injury lawyer” gets about 726,000 searches per year? Multiply that by the average cost per click ($133) and Google makes about $96 million annually by selling sponsored “top of page” search results for that keyword alone.
Now that PPC competition is at an all time high for personal injury law marketing, industry leaders must understand the levels of intent their clients have after getting injured. This is where the PI client journey pyramid comes into play….
Let us explain…. at any given moment, your PI prospects are in 1 of 4 stages:
1. “Ready To Sign” Mode (3% of your prospects)
2. Information Gathering Mode (17% of your prospects)
3. Aware They Have A Problem – But Aren’t Taking Action (20% of your prospects)
4. Not Aware They Have A Problem And Are Feeling Stuck (60% of your prospects)
The main problem with PPC advertising for personal injury lawyers is that everyone is competing for the top 3% of “ready to sign” clients, while ignoring the SHOCKING 97% of qualified clients who need to be handled a bit differently to get them to take action.
Now if you have the budget, it’s easy to throw $5000/mo or more on PPC ads with little to no strategy.
A decent ad will get you about 40 clicks for $5000. On average, you’ll get 4 of them on the phone and with an average call-to-close-rate of 25%, that’s about 1 new client per month that costs you $5000 to attract… but that’s not the most sustainable way to grow your client base.
Today, there’s a better and more affordable way to attract your prospects. What most marketing plans for personal injury law firms aren’t doing correctly is educating their prospects about how to solve their greatest FEARS, CONCERNS, and DESIRES that happen after getting injured. To do this effectively, you’ll need to build a content-based sales funnel. A great example of how this can achieved is illustrated below using video-based content.
By staying in front of your prospects over time, while answering their most pressing questions through video and blog content, you can start retaining a greater percentage of the 97% of qualified leads who aren’t ready to take action today, while positioning your firm as the best resource that can help.
The alternative is to continue blowing thousands per month on PPC ads hoping you’ll land the diamond in the rough client who can not only cover your expensive ad costs, but also result in an ROI-positive case.
Are you interested in learning how to build your first sales funnel for your firm? Book a meeting on our calendar at: calendly.com/keychaindigital
