5 Things to Monitor During COVID-19

Which Marketing Data Points Law Firms Should Be Watching During the COVID-19 Crisis

COVID-19 has taken over our country. Small law firms, as well as small businesses, are among the parties suffering during this pandemic. Although teleconferencing technology has helped make an abrupt pivot to new ways of working, marketing strategies and insights will continue to change during this time.  Here are the metrics that small law firms should watch.

Differences in Geographic Trends

The virus is impacting every community differently, making this an important time to dig into geographic trends in your area. For example, if renters largely populate one community within the area you serve, you may see a spike in traffic from search terms relating to eviction protection. Try free tools like Google Trends to look at search interest over time and location. If you’re running ad campaigns, you may need to adjust them accordingly and keep watching for trends associated with quarantine behavior. 

Changes in Search Terms

Whether you have a digital marketing specialist in-house or as a partner, now is a good time to see which search terms are bringing the most traffic to your website. You can review this data from your existing SEO and SEM campaigns. People looking for legal assistance now are likely to be in more dire, time-constrained situations. Shifting the focus to search terms that imply the need for immediate action can make your efforts more effective. This will be especially true for business-based law practices, as corporations in our community are reacting to real-time economic changes and need expert insight into the protections of their existing contracts. Staying on top of these trends will allow you to make the most of your advertising budget while better meeting the needs of potential clients.

How Major Announcements or Policy Shifts Impact Your Firm

It is smart to also track the effect major announcements have on your law firm’s marketing campaigns. This may prove challenging in our current situation, due to daily press conferences that can change public opinion and response to coronavirus threats. However, it is worth working through past data with the help of the timeline linked above to see how consumer actions have changed in response to significant announcements and shifts in policy. This may help you adjust your law firm marketing strategy for the next few months.

Short-Term Data

Online marketing generally relies on historical data. We are in unprecedented times, and historical data may not be as helpful as it once was. Plan on spending time reviewing recent data and using that to tweak your advertising campaigns. For SEM campaigns specifically, look at the performance of any pay-per-click campaigns as well as your website views and bounce rates. It is also a good idea to check through your existing social media ad spending to ensure that your advertising messages are respectful of the community’s experience right now with COVID-19 and that advertising money is being redirected into residential location targets rather than commercial areas that are currently empty. 

If you’re not running any ads, monitor organic engagement you’re receiving. You may need to adjust blogs or social media posts as more news emerges. 

Action Rate and Your Response Rate

Consider the mindset of your potential clients. For some, this is the scariest and most unpredictable time of their lives. If they are looking for your law firm’s legal services at this time, they are looking for immediate results or ways to take action. If your ads don’t make it easy for visitors to get in touch with you immediately, you will be passed up. If your action rates are lower than usual, consider making your call-to-action higher on the page and easier to find. Your response rate and average response time are also crucial. When clients are dealing with time-sensitive issues, the attorney who gets back to them fastest may be at an advantage.

It remains to be seen how COVID-19 will impact the economy and how long it will take the economy to return to its prior stability. However, as a small or solo law firm owner, you can use these metrics to keep your business afloat and make the most of the potential clients and online visitors you have.