Changing the Way Law Firms Measure Return on Marketing Investment

Every time a business person decides to run an ad, develop a web site, launch a social media initiative, take prospects out to lunch or start a public relations campaign, the obvious question that hangs implicitly over his or her head is, “How do I know this will work?”

This is especially true for the more than 47,000 law firms and 1.2 million attorneys whose access to hard data is virtually non-existent; where supermarket scanners serve no purpose and there are no audit or rating resources (e.g., Nielsen) that can provide management with answers to very complex questions. 

Searching for the answers to these very same questions in regard to their own respective businesses, entrepreneurs Les Altenberg and Tom Mazanec developed a methodology they call Etiometrix. According to the two, the Etiometix approach crunches lead generation and sales data in a manner that’s never been done before, offering legal marketers the opportunity to assess their marketing and business development activities at the organizational, practice group and even individual attorney level. The result is a service that allows marketers to know:

• Which activities offer the best returns-on-investment 
• Who among the firm’s attorneys is best –suited for business development and through which types of activities
• Which practice areas should be supported and to what degree
• The role that “word-of-mouth” is playing in the growth of the business
• How well the business is perceived by the firm’s clients
• The degree to which marketing (e.g., advertising, online, PR) vs. personal networking is working for the firm.

Their proprietary program can quantitatively track the effects of previously immeasurable dynamics such as branding initiatives and the role “softer” marketing tools (e.g.,  brochures, web sites) play in generating business.

According to Altenberg, who currently heads A.L.T. Legal Professionals Marketing Group, a marketing consulting agency based in Marlton, NJ, “The program traces how individuals became customers of a particular business. In most cases, it is because of exposure to several types of individuals (e.g., professionals, referral sources) media, and/or online interactions. Furthermore, the resulting reports forego so many of the interim metrics that we hear so much about these days. Its great that we can know how many people read an ad, attend a seminar, visit or click through to a web site, but those numbers do not really mean anything unless they are tied to the revenue they bring in.”

Altenberg continues, “We were always making marketing recommendations to our clients who then inevitably ask, ‘How will we know if this is working?’ Until now, we never had a good quantifiable means for addressing that question.  Now we do.”

More information on Etiometrix can be obtained by visiting etiometrix.com , emailing jarlene@etiometrix.com or calling 856-810-2127.