Ask any marketing agency and you’ll learn that when a law firm chooses “A” over “B,” the price tag is usually what seals the deal. Legal marketing costs money, and sometimes those costs can seem far higher than what you believe you should be paying.
The truth is, a lot of law firms waste a LOT of money on marketing, and it doesn’t need to be that way. At MeanPug, we look at marketing not as an expense, but as an investment in your brand and your business.
Our job is to help law firms invest that money in growth opportunities for their business. While cost is an important metric, ultimately, value or ROI is what you want to pay more attention to.
A Snapshot of Legal Advertising in the U.S.
A 2023 American Bar Association survey found:
- 53% of respondents said their firm had NO annual budget.
- 80% of the solo practitioners who responded had NO annual budget.
- 69% of respondents in firms of 2-9 lawyers had NO annual budget.
If you’ve read our article on the number of law firms there are, you can calculate that there aren’t all that many firms with decent-sized marketing budgets. If our data is accurate and this survey isn’t an outlier, then the good news is that any budget is probably going to help, at least a little bit.
The bad news is that legal marketing is a $4-billion-a-year industry (and growing quickly). So while you may have fewer firms to compete against for clients, that “little bit” likely needs to be much higher to be competitive at all. This is why we believe we are going to start to see regional and national consolidation of the largest personal injury firms over the next decade.
How Much Should Law Firms Spend on Their Marketing?
How much law firms should spend on their marketing (and we know everyone hates this answer, but it’s true): it depends. If you’re a three-person firm doing a little bit of everything in Hayden, Idaho, you probably don’t need all that much. If you’re a mid-size personal injury firm trying to break into the Chicago market, you’re going to need a pretty beefy budget to compete.
The average marketing spend for law firms is anywhere from 10% to 20% of firm revenue. That comes out to being anywhere from a few thousand dollars a month to over $25 million per month for some of the largest plaintiffs’ firms. For the average plaintiffs’ firm, though, it’s typically between $5,000 and $20,000 a month.
How much you spend will be determined by what you need. A digital campaign run on its own is less expensive than one that uses digital and traditional media. The costs may also fluctuate based on where you are, whether you have an in-house person (or team), what you practice, and so forth.
What we lay out here is, essentially, a rough estimate of how much money you should set aside for marketing, with the understanding that:
- Quality marketing costs money.
- Prices can change based on global trends.
- Some types of marketing show quicker turnarounds than others.
Marketing Costs for Digital Campaigns
All of these numbers are estimates based on à la carte spending. None of them accounts for the costs of hiring a marketing professional to handle any of them permanently. Here are the costs you’ll need to account for to run your digital campaign.
Website Design and Build
Your website design and development can cost anywhere from $2,500 – $100,000+, depending on the level of customization and the functionality of the site. A basic, templated website with a handful of pages will cost far less than a custom-designed site. Certain features – a child support calculator, an encrypted folder for client documents, video reels – may add to the overall cost of the build.
Hosting Costs
Hosting costs can range from $120-$1,000, depending on the features of the provider and technical specifications — and that’s per domain. Multiple domains will, of course, increase the amount you pay annually. Generally, hosting costs are covered by your marketing agency.
SEO Costs
Your SEO costs can average anywhere from $2,000 to $30,000 per month. Your SEO strategist generally doubles as your content strategist, OR works in tandem with the content strategist to create optimized content – but that’s not all.
SEO also encompasses competitor research, researching and obtaining inbound links from reputable sources, and working to ensure your domain authority grows. They are typically in charge of maintaining your Google Business Profile listing, though for firms with multiple listings, this is typically a separate role.
Content Costs
Content marketing can be anywhere from $50 to $500+ a page. Your content strategist is the one who researches, writes, optimizes, and edits your web pages. They may be in charge of your Google Business Profile listing as well.
You may have additional costs for newsletters, email blasts, or content created for ads placed in Bar Journals or other publications.
Social Media
Social media management can be as low as $200 a month, or as high as $10,000 a month – it all depends on what you need for your firm. This can include crafting posts for Facebook, Instagram, BlueSky, and X. It can also include creating custom videos for Reels, IG, or TikTok. You may incur additional costs if you hire someone to create a posting strategy for the firm.
Video Production
For video production, you could spend up to $30,000 per video. This cost typically includes the B-reel to be loaded on other parts of the site.
Digital Advertising
For legal digital advertising, there are a couple of different ways you can approach this:
- Pay-per-click advertising (PPC): PPC ads can vary in price based on your practice area, geographic location, and competition, but they can range from $1000 – $10,000 a month. Note that these costs can increase exponentially if you practice personal injury law, which is the second most expensive practice area for PPC behind asbestos litigation.
- Local Services Ads (LSAs): Ranges from $100-$550 per undisputed lead. Once again, personal injury LSAs are the most expensive to run, though costs can vary widely for any practice area based on region, competition, and services offered.
Marketing Costs for Traditional Media
The cost for print ads can range from $100 to $10,000 per placement. Ultimately, to understand if you are receiving value from print advertisements, you need to know what you’re willing to spend (and what it may cost) to achieve the following KPIs:
- CPM (cost per thousand impressions)
- Phone calls
- Retained clients
- ROI
Billboards
Billboard advertisements are a staple in the personal injury advertising marketing mix. The most important KPIs for billboard advertising are:
- CPM (cost per thousand impressions)
- Brand lift
While billboards aren’t typically thought of as a direct response marketing source, they are vital for large personal injury firms that acquire clients through branding and traditional media.
TV Commercials
TV advertising remains one of the most powerful tools for personal injury law firms aiming to build trust and generate a high volume of leads. While costs vary based on market, station, and time slot, your focus should remain on KPIs like:
- Cost per case
- Call volume
- Branded search lift
- ROI
The right TV ad strategy can do more than bring in calls—it can make your firm a household name.
Radio Advertisements
- CPM (cost per thousand impressions)
- Call volume
- Branded recall
- Frequency vs. reach
Radio ads may not be flashy, but they still drive results, especially when paired with a broader traditional media strategy.
Other Potential Marketing Costs
Sometimes, the best thing you can do to give your law firm marketing that extra push is to look into less obvious places to advertise.
- Sponsorships (local): If you have the budget, we always recommend local sponsorships that help your community. Food banks are popular options, as are local sports teams (pee wee or professional). You can also host charity tournaments or “fun runs,” or sponsor a giveaway with branded swag (like firm-branded bike helmets for kids, or Uber gift cards as a way to reduce drunk driving).
- Scholarships: An annual scholarship award is another way to market your firm as community-oriented. (It can help a little with SEO, too, if the school links to the website.)
Can’t I Just Use AI to Save Money on Marketing?
AI can be a really useful tool, and it could save you some money in the long run. You can use AI tools on everything from intake audits to social media trends to building potential client personas based on the data you collect. Generative AI, which creates something “new” based on data it collects from the internet, can even create photos and blog posts.
MeanPug Will Make Sure Your Marketing Strategy Is Worth the Money
Remember the wise words of Warren Buffett: “Price is what you pay, value is what you get.” In marketing and advertising, this quote holds up as well as it does in investing and finance, where price is likely not the KPI that is going to best determine investing or marketing success, but the unit economics of the KPIs that correlate with value certainly will.
At MeanPug Digital, we help law firms make the most of their marketing budget. Call or contact us today to schedule a free consultation.
