Cost Per Case Evaluations in Orange County, CA
Whether you’ve recently completed your studies or will soon be celebrating 20 years as a paralegal, you know your contributions are crucial to your law firm’s overall success, particularly with the steep competition you face in Orange County. Drafting documents, interviewing claimants, and spearheading research are just a few of the ways you add your skills to the firm’s efforts every day. Examining current marketing choices is another way you can contribute, and a cost-per-case analysis via a monthly metric is perhaps the most beneficial, since it generates actionable data.
Marketing Investment Data: Cost per Case
In the simplest terms, cost per case (CPC) is the money a law firm spends on a specific marketing method, divided by the number of new clients that marketing effort generates.
Marketing Dollars Spent ÷ Number of New Clients = Cost per Case
Some cases cost nothing in terms of marketing dollars, while others will encompass a large portion of your firm’s marketing budget. In the instance of $0 cases, word-of-mouth, or a recommendation from another client, typically brings in these new clients. This is the ideal scenario, as it costs your firm nothing while generating revenue.
Word-of-mouth marketing only accounts for a portion of new clientele though, no matter how good a firm’s reputation. Analyzing other marketing strategies and advertising venues is therefore essential for making informed spending decisions. CPC lets your firm determine which legal marketing efforts generate the best profits and which may be sucking money from your budget while showing few or no returns.
Billboard Advertisement and CPC Analysis
Your firm strives to minimize marketing costs while maximizing profits realized through marketing efforts. High volume exposure is key, but so is strategically targeted advertising. From a CPC perspective, a billboard satisfies both goals. When well placed, it offers high exposure for your firm’s message, which in turn boosts the potential of signing new clients as a result.
According to the L.A. Times, Orange County and other Greater Los Angeles residents spend between 50 and 100 hours per year just idling in traffic on city freeways, and total commuting hours per week averages in at about 30, according to the U.S. Census Bureau and other sources. These figures, even as high as they are, don’t account for all time spent behind the wheel either.
Reaching prospective clients means putting your firm’s message where they’re not only most likely to see it, but also most likely to act on it. Forbes reports the average driver looks at every billboard he or she passes on the road. Looking at and acting on an advertisement are vastly different things though. Or are they? In fact, nearly 70% of drivers contemplate buying choices while on the road, which means a well-placed billboard puts your firm’s message in plain view of consumers who are aren’t just zipping past or glancing at an ad. These drivers are mulling over how they’ll spend their money.
According to billboard giant, Lamar Advertising, prices vary greatly by location, but Orange County and the surrounding area offers a wide selection of venues from which to choose. For example, Lamar’s holdings include a 6’ by 12’, poster billboard near the intersection of 1st Street and Harbor Boulevard in Santa Ana. Because this board catches the eye of more than 62,000 drivers per week, it offers ample local and some commuter exposure for your firm at a monthly cost of around $850.
The price of the billboard is only one factor to consider though. The area of law in which your firm focuses matters too and must be considered in conjunction with CPC when making smart marketing decisions.
For instance, A Social Security attorney receives an average payout of $3,000 upon closing a case, while a personal injury lawyer often earns $10,000 or more per case. If both attorneys advertised with the Santa Ana billboard and signed two new clients per month from their marketing efforts, their CPC would likely be the same: $425.
The return on investment would be significantly higher for the personal injury firm though, since settlements in this area of law are significantly higher. A Social Security firm, or any other firm with lower settlements, may not want to continue with the ad. Provided your firm sees a CPC of around 15% of the settlement generated, the marketing effort is generally considered a practical and profitable choice.
Posing the Critical Question: How Did You Hear of Our Firm?
Online advertising platforms often allow you to quickly determine client-sourcing data. Offline marketing efforts, like outdoor ads, radio spots, TV commercials, and billboards require a little more effort on your part. For every prospective client that calls or drops by your office, you must ask: “How did you hear of our firm?” With this simple question, you dig down into the details necessary for generating your CPC and making a critical evaluation of profitability with your current marketing methods.
Deanna Power
eGenerationMarketing
