There are a lot of marketers out there, many of whom acquire new business through solicitation, primarily cold calling. Law firms are very susceptible to this, particularly since the competition amongst attorneys in most areas is extremely fierce. If you’ve been on the receiving end of one of these calls, you’ve probably heard something like this before: We’re offering page one placement to only a select number of attorneys in your area… or I’m searching for your business here on Google and…wait a second…I can’t seem to find your company…oh, here you are, on page FIVE… or even We can GUARANTEE 20 unique leads, delivered to you, each month for the low price of [fill in the monetary amount, typically in the hundreds, even thousands of dollars].
To be perfectly honest, some of these companies can deliver on certain promises they make, but the circumstances under which they do so beg to be examined. In this two-part blog series, we will examine false promises and buzz words, and how unscrupulous Internet marketing companies use both to net new clients. Part One will discuss how some marketing companies provide unsuspecting attorneys with inaccurate information in order to persuade them into entering into new marketing agreements that are entirely unnecessary.
First of all, most Internet marketers who do cold calling only contact companies that already have sound marketing campaigns in place. These companies look on page one of Google to find their targets! Many of our clients, all of whom already have page one placement on major search engines such as Google, receive cold calls on a weekly basis. The majority of these calls are filled with promises of even BETTER search engine rankings, even when better rankings can’t or don’t necessarily need to be achieved. Frankly, these companies are trying to capitalize on the success of your current legal Internet marketing campaign, regardless of whether that campaign was spearheaded by you or another marketing company. A lot of persistent marketers simply want to maintain your current marketing campaign (which isn’t that hard to do), and take credit for work that they didn’t have to do in the first place.
Remember to make sure that you have all the facts about your current marketing campaign straight BEFORE entering into a new contract. Check with your Legal Internet marketing company to fact-check your existing rankings. If you’ve already obtained strong search rankings, the marketing company you’re currently retaining will have no objections to providing you with these results.
Visit our blog again later this week for more on how marketing companies will try to reel you in.