Every attorney dreams of having a powerful firm where there is no lack of client appointments to keep the schedule full and busy with plenty of billable hours to keep it nicely afloat. The thing is that when it comes to getting clients for your firm, it’s not completely organic. Yes, you’ll have some clients that come in because they were referred to your firm by another of your clients or found you through the yellow pages, but marketing is a necessary fact of life for any business, including a law firm. Learn the pros and cons of using affiliate marketing sites for your business to make an educated decision on whether this is right for your firm.
Pros
The biggest pro of using affiliate marketing sites to get your firm noticed is that the affiliate marketers have a vested interest in helping to get your firm’s schedule filled up. Affiliate marketing gets people interested in contacting your firm and using your services as an attorney. Another pro is that this can be relatively inexpensive to market this way when you consider the value of a client. In addition, affiliate marketing can turn around quick results. A final pro is that it can deliver a high volume of leads for your firm.
Cons
There are also some cons that can come from affiliate marketing for your firm. The first is that these leads are not qualified leads, and there’s a good chance that not all of them will pan out for your firm. This may mean that you’re paying out for leads that will never result in any money coming in for your firm unless you specifically set up the affiliate marketing to not pay out until the lead is qualified. Another thing to keep in mind is that when doing a search that includes the terms affiliate marketing and lawyers is there are a lot of results for lawyers that have practices that revolve around helping affiliate marketers. In addition, not all affiliate marketers are equal in being able to find your firm leads or how they go about doing it. They may skate around ethical boundaries that normally shouldn’t be breached by attorneys. Research is your friend in these matters.
Now you have the information you need to decide on whether you want to move forward with affiliate marketing for your firm. It can be a great way to get attention from potential clients but can have some pitfalls that you’ll want to avoid. The key is to find a program that works for your business while remaining within the ethical boundaries that are set for lawyers.