Main takeaways:
- Importance of Lead Tracking: Implementing lead tracking software is essential for understanding where your leads are coming from and optimizing your marketing efforts.
- Data-Driven Decisions: Lead tracking provides crucial data that helps law firms stop ineffective strategies and scale successful ones, ultimately boosting profitability.
- Customized Client Follow-Up: By identifying the source of leads, law firms can tailor their follow-up process to better convert cold leads into clients.
Imagine knowing exactly where your next client is coming from and how they found you.
In today’s competitive legal market, having this insight isn’t just a luxury—it’s a necessity.
Let’s explore the game-changing power of lead-tracking software for law firms.
In this episode of The Optimized Law Firm Podcast, Patrick Carver dives into the importance of lead tracking software for law firms. Learn how these tools can transform your marketing strategy, improve transparency, and drive profitability. Perfect for law firm owners ready to take their business to the next level.
Timestamps:
Applications and Examples of Lead Tracking
Timestamp: 00:03:29 – 00:07:00
Secondary Benefits and Coaching Opportunities
Timestamp: 00:07:00 – 00:10:25
Call Tracking Software: Setup and Implementation
Timestamp: 00:10:25 – 00:20:48
Final Advice and Importance of Investing in Lead Tracking
Timestamp: 00:20:48 – 00:25:30
Transcription:
00:00:05:21 – 00:00:48:03
Patrick Carver
Today’s legal market is extremely competitive and it’s no longer a luxury to use tracking software. In fact, it’s a necessity if you want to grow your firm and outshine the competition. Welcome to another episode of the Optimize Law Firm podcast. My name is Patrick Carbone, the CEO of Constellation Marketing. This podcast is all about helping you run a more profitable and enjoyable law firm, and we’re going to focus on the profitable and I guess a little more enjoyable component as well in today’s podcast, we’re going to talk about the value, the game changing power value of lead tracking software for your law firm.
00:00:48:05 – 00:01:14:14
Patrick Carver
Do you ever wonder why some law firms are much more successful with their marketing? Well, a piece of that largely has to do with their ability to track and analyze every potential lead and client that comes in. So we’re going to dive into what lead tracking software is and really why It’s an essential tool for every lawyer who’s doing marketing, marketing and wants to grow their firm.
00:01:14:16 – 00:01:38:01
Patrick Carver
So let’s get first to what is lead tracking software and what are some applications for it and what should you should be looking for. So you are probably familiar with a tool called Call Rail and this like other ones we prefer to call called what converts. They are effectively going to track the source of where your leads come from.
00:01:38:03 – 00:02:01:24
Patrick Carver
So this is all happening in the back end, but it’s basically a script that you put on their website and as people come to your website, it’s going to capture the source of those incoming leads. It’s going to be data about those people who ended up taking action on your website or just came. But you will get this very important good data about how those people got to you.
00:02:01:24 – 00:02:32:14
Patrick Carver
So let’s go through an example. Let’s say Sebastian comes to your website. They were on Google, they searched for a state planning lawyer in New Jersey. You show up in the search results and they click on your website. So in the the back end, the data is going to show that they came through organic search. They came through a Google search.
00:02:32:14 – 00:02:55:28
Patrick Carver
It was organic that gets tied to that person. And then that that lead data is going to be available and always will be tied to that person as they came in. So there’s some different models that you can use as far as like first touch attribution, last touch, things like that. I’m not really going to get into that because it’s I think it’s more detailed than you really need.
00:02:55:28 – 00:03:29:21
Patrick Carver
But the basis of this is just trying to get a better feel for where your leads and ultimately clients are coming from. So another application, this or another example would be Viviane. She’s going to come in from advertising on social and then on Tik-tok. And so these levels of information, the way we do it, is channel platform and then channel type and then ultimately the specific platform that we use.
00:03:29:21 – 00:03:52:27
Patrick Carver
So we would file that one with Viviane as part of the advertising bucket. So that would be a channel. And then we’re going to say whether where that advertising came from in this case it was social. And then finally we’re going to say the actual platform where that came from. Now, what are some of the reasons why you would would want to do this right?
00:03:53:00 – 00:04:26:03
Patrick Carver
Number one, it creates transparency between you and your marketing team. I think this is the absolute best way to work with with your marketing teams. And one of the core values or things that we’re trying to accomplish with our business is run a marketing agency that has is clear transparency with with clients. And there’s really no no, no challenge in terms of misinformation or miscommunication between the two groups.
00:04:26:04 – 00:04:49:23
Patrick Carver
From my perspective, we want you to have a very, very clear idea of what you’re paying for and really what the results are. Are we getting you and our why are the things that we’re doing actually having an impact on on your business? And so the best way to do that is to count the actual results by looking at ROI, we volume.
00:04:49:23 – 00:05:08:28
Patrick Carver
Those are some of those indicators of whether or not your marketing agency is doing a good job. We want you to look at that information. But part of that is truly understanding where those people are coming from because otherwise you’re you’re relying on your gut or you are relying on what those folks tell you as to how they found you.
00:05:08:28 – 00:05:35:04
Patrick Carver
And a lot of the time they’re going to give you a good answer, the right answer as to where they came from. But, you know, we’ve done this for a long time and we have provable examples of where someone actually found you, as you know, initially through a organic search result or and then the last thing they did before they reached out to you was was go to your your social page.
00:05:35:04 – 00:06:08:08
Patrick Carver
And so they report, oh, found you on Facebook or something like that when it’s not actually the case. Probably a more common situation that we see is people just don’t understand the difference between an organic and a paid result on Google. So they’re going to click a a paid ad and they’re going to say, you know, when you asked the question, hey, how did you hear about us and say, oh, Google doesn’t really give you that that specific granular level data that we need to make effective marketing decisions so you’re not even have any idea if that was a organic or ad lead.
00:06:08:08 – 00:06:37:07
Patrick Carver
And so the net result is you’re not going to have good data and in an inability to make smart marketing decisions. So this prevents you from stopping bad strategies. So if you’re paying an enormous amount of money for four ads and they’re not really converting and you’re lumping all of that in, any leads that come through that channel with organic leads that come through Google or another search engine, you’re you’re running into a big problem.
00:06:37:07 – 00:07:00:14
Patrick Carver
You have no idea which one is actually doing the converting. And so you’re probably pumping money into ads, even though SEO is giving you better results or vice versa. So it allows you, when you have this information, stop those bad marketing strategies quickly. And then on the flip side, we can actually scale good marketing strategies much faster, right?
00:07:00:14 – 00:07:23:15
Patrick Carver
So we know that one of those channels is producing an outsized r y and we can go in and put more value or put more investment behind that. So that data, all of this is super important, right? You want clear understanding of where your leads and business is coming from, helps you pick, hey, where my most high value cases coming from.
00:07:23:15 – 00:07:48:03
Patrick Carver
Is there any pattern I can I can identify? Here are all the cases coming from one channel or another is blended. That’s all the stuff that you need to know from a month to month perspective of, you know, as if you want to improve your your overall marketing and continue to to scale those results in a positive manner.
00:07:48:06 – 00:08:15:18
Patrick Carver
There are also some secondary reasons to deploy tracking. So when you have lead tracking, you can do website tracking. So like form and data tracking around those where those people came from, it’s some of their behavior On your website. You also a tracking. So a couple of advantages to that as well that are secondary reasons why you would want to do that.
00:08:15:19 – 00:08:36:19
Patrick Carver
So number one, you can listen to recordings and coach your staff. So if you have not only tracking but it’s recording, you can go in and listen to how they’re talking with potential clients. Are they following the script, really doing a good job of trying to convert those people? Good, good coaching moments as well. You can also identify your customer value by channel.
00:08:36:19 – 00:09:00:28
Patrick Carver
So I already touched on this, but another reason for this is that not only do you get data and knowing where those people came from, you can make those adjustments about whether one channel is providing more value or the other. But another secondary benefit here is you can customize the follow up process based on the prospect profile. And so let’s imagine you have two different people.
00:09:00:28 – 00:09:22:15
Patrick Carver
One came through Google search, one came through a Facebook ad. We know from years of experience that the person’s coming through Google search. If they have found you via what we call on high intent keyword, somebody searching with lawyer or attorney in the in the query, that person’s going to be infinitely more qualified than someone who found you through a Facebook.
00:09:22:15 – 00:09:56:27
Patrick Carver
At Facebook ads are notorious for not having great relevancy. The people are more tire kickers. They’re not really actively looking for a solution. It’s more something popped up seem interesting, but they didn’t go on to Facebook to actually search for a lawyer. And so based on that, if you know that this person is more of a cold lead as opposed to a really hot lead, you can do, you can adjust your process, you can adjust those follow up emails with the sequences that you want to use to try and nurture that person.
00:09:56:27 – 00:10:25:15
Patrick Carver
And so somebody coming in from the Facebook side, maybe you’re just kind of approaching them with more of an educational type of approach, giving them educational content as opposed to really hard pushing for that call like you might do on the search engine results side. So another piece of this as well is that you can visualize you get this vital data and you can visualize it as you transition to a law firm owner versus operator.
00:10:25:15 – 00:10:51:27
Patrick Carver
So this is going to allow you to never make those decisions based on gut level feelings about what you want to do so that on a monthly basis, you don’t have to get into the weeds as to try to understand why you know how to improve certain aspects. You’re really just looking at your marketing agency’s performance on a month to month basis and evaluating the data.
00:10:51:29 – 00:11:25:27
Patrick Carver
Are they creating leads and ultimately cases based on the strategies that they are looking to utilize that there that they’re doing for you? Are those producing leads in those categories That ultimately is what you want to focus on? Because if you are going to kind of develop yourself into more of the SEO where you’re you have assistance, you have associate attorneys doing more and more of the work, you don’t want to be doing this full time, just like you don’t want to be doing actual legal work full time.
00:11:25:27 – 00:11:54:11
Patrick Carver
And so this gives you a very good bird’s eye view of all of the data coming in. Then you can make really good strategic decisions about what you should be doing with your marketing. Have you heard about call tracking software but you have no idea how to start? Well, I’m not going to lie. It’s fairly complicated to set up, but I promise is the most high value activity you can do as a law firm owner.
00:11:54:13 – 00:12:18:05
Patrick Carver
Let’s talk about the different types of call tracking how to implement it, and then we’ll go from there into some practical next steps to get this up and running for your business, because it’s such a great high value or a Y activity that you can do as law firm owner number one, Most ubiquitous and common is going to be call tracking.
00:12:18:05 – 00:12:43:26
Patrick Carver
But then we also have this other side which is form chat tracking, so called tracking probably most common and you probably heard about this call real is, I would say, the most popular choice in the space, especially for lawyers. And the basic idea here is that you are going to create some phone numbers that are not your own, but they forward to your phone.
00:12:44:03 – 00:13:08:19
Patrick Carver
And the way you implement them then gives you the ability to know where that person came from to get to the number. There’s two ways you’re going to implement this or what they offer from a call tracking software system is you’ve got static and then you have dynamic static tracking numbers are just one single number that will forward to your main phone line.
00:13:08:19 – 00:13:40:17
Patrick Carver
So an application for this is let’s say you have a billboard or you’ve purchased an ad in a newspaper, you have a specific law firm profile, a directory profile. You can choose one single number. The software you’re working with allows those numbers are provides those number for you. You’ll take that number. Go, go put it into the directory listing are on the billboard, and then you are going to say specifically, okay, this is the billboard number.
00:13:40:19 – 00:14:09:10
Patrick Carver
And then as that number gets called immediately, that data point is going to get fixed on to the lead. And so as the lead comes in calls to that number, it’s going to identify that person as a billboard leader or something like that. If you already have a billboard out there or an ad or profile listing, you cannot retrofit actively go in and and say, Oh, I want to make that a tracking number.
00:14:09:12 – 00:14:43:06
Patrick Carver
If you’re using your regular phone number out there on it, you’re you know, you have to go and swap that number out. There’s just no way to turn your main existing phone line into a tracking number. So the best you can really do is once you start to implement this is to go and replace those numbers. And if you do have an ad or on a billboard, you want to just go make sure that it gets changed next time around so that you can get that into your your list of tracking numbers.
00:14:43:08 – 00:15:07:28
Patrick Carver
The other way to do this is called DNI or dynamic number insertion. And this is going to be for your website the way you use this is, you know, put a little piece of code on your website and then it’s going to swap out your regular number. That’s listed on the website and use one of their tracking numbers.
00:15:08:01 – 00:15:37:18
Patrick Carver
Typically, they’re going to create a pool of numbers. So like 4 to 8 numbers. And then as a user comes on to the website, they are going to dynamically change the number that they’re calling. This is the way that they’re able to identify where the the person is coming from. So they’ll tie that number that they’ve shown to where to the referral source.
00:15:37:21 – 00:16:04:11
Patrick Carver
If they came from Google, search, Facebook, any other website, all of that data. So they’re the software. This is really the special sauce here so that as it comes in, it’s going to know where that referral came from right? So if you ever use Google Analytics, you’re able to see the same thing where it’s the source of the the lead is is getting attached to the person.
00:16:04:11 – 00:16:39:00
Patrick Carver
That’s how they do it. And that’s really where the magic happens. The other type of this is the form and chat tracking. So the, you know, the the color tracking is basically the same thing. But using this, you want to make sure you’re also doing it for any forms, any chat tracking. It’s basically the exact same as the the DNI is that as somebody comes onto the website, the software is going to pick up where that person came from.
00:16:39:00 – 00:17:03:05
Patrick Carver
And so if they if they don’t call, but they go through and use the former or chat started chat or text, whatever, that that data is going to get fixed, okay. It’s going to be fixed and attached to the person. And that’s really the special sauce. Then as you can, you can get that and then look at it in the back end of the website.
00:17:03:08 – 00:17:24:12
Patrick Carver
There’s a couple of exceptions that are going to prevent this from working properly that you should be aware of. Number one is retroactively attaching a tracking number to an ad campaign, like I mentioned just a moment ago with, you know, if you’re already here to pay for a billboard, the billboards are out there on the highway or something with your regular phone number.
00:17:24:15 – 00:17:42:23
Patrick Carver
This isn’t going to work. You would need to attach a tracking number for for it in the future. So when a client comes on, one of the first things we do is map out, Hey, where are you doing ads where you listed in terms of law directories? Do you have billboards? You have, you know, all that sort of stuff.
00:17:42:26 – 00:18:08:12
Patrick Carver
And so we put in tracking numbers for all of that. So then everybody coming in, no matter where they’re coming from, they’re going to the GDP. The, the fine law directory listing, billboard, mailer, etc. All of those have a fixed phone number and are being tracked accurately in the back end. Another exception when this won’t work is if someone calls your true number directly.
00:18:08:12 – 00:18:32:07
Patrick Carver
So again, you any calls to your regular true number are not able to be tracked. You have to have this tracking number as part of it. So another that sometimes can create confusion and obscures some of the data to a degree is if someone searches your name directly in Google, this can get categorized as an organic search leak.
00:18:32:10 – 00:18:53:12
Patrick Carver
So really hard to tell because we can’t get the keyword level data coming in. And so there is going to be a certain amount of people who do search your name and then that’s going to get, you know, get get found as or organic, but you’re not going to really know if it’s for a keyword or searching for a name.
00:18:53:19 – 00:19:19:19
Patrick Carver
And then finally, sometimes the software just does not work. Okay. This is you know, we’ve tried a handful of different softwares for this, and it’s just not realistic to think this is going to work 100% of the time. I think for most part it’s probably 80 to 90% effective. It’s very close to a panacea, but it’s not going to work all the time.
00:19:19:19 – 00:19:58:15
Patrick Carver
So when you’re utilizing this, don’t think of it as gospel necessarily, but just a really great tool that you generally want to rely on. Right. And if you can get you know, I always think about focusing on the where the the margins are, right, the bigger piece of the pie, Right. So if you can get the most cover these these these larger value items like knowing generally where your leads are coming from, you’re better off than 95% of law firms out there.
00:19:58:17 – 00:20:48:21
Patrick Carver
Lead tracking software is going to have a profound impact on your law firm profitability. So let’s dive in and see. You can see how you can get this set up. Lead tracking software can have a profound impact on your law firm’s profitability. Let’s dive in and I’ll show you how you can get this set up. So my first piece of advice on how to get this going is to hire a professional, someone who’s tech savvy and really understands web development, preferably someone who has experience a lot of experience setting these up because this is tricky and it’s not it’s kind of easy easiest, but to make it all work and really get the value that
00:20:48:21 – 00:21:14:27
Patrick Carver
you want out of it, make sure it’s firing properly and all of that stuff is way beyond your average person. If you don’t have a tech background or especially tech savvy, not impossible. And you can try working with the provider themselves who can certainly provide tech support and stuff like that. But if you’re anything like me or average person, you’re busy and you don’t want to necessarily learn this.
00:21:14:28 – 00:21:35:21
Patrick Carver
So the best way to handle this is just go find technical professional. And so where where do you go to find that, number one, Upwork that’s going to be your best shot? You can go on there, talk about specifically what you need. Hey, I’m looking for somebody who has deep experience with call rail or web converts, and you’re going to get a bunch of people who already have it.
00:21:35:21 – 00:21:57:16
Patrick Carver
They, you know, they’re experts at it, cost you a hundred bucks to get this implemented, but it’s going to save you thousands or hundreds of thousand dollars, you know, down the road or help you add hundreds of thousands of dollars based on it. So you can do that. You can also try go into like Facebook groups or the call tracking software itself.
00:21:57:18 – 00:22:24:00
Patrick Carver
And, you know, we have a great relationship with what converts. So, you know, we’re able to connect you with people in their team who can, you know, do anything. But we do all of that in-store for our clients anyway. The next thing you want to do outside of the actual technical implementation of this is spend an hour watching videos from the provider on understanding how this works.
00:22:24:00 – 00:22:52:15
Patrick Carver
So I’m giving you like the crash course of this, but you know, it may take you a couple of times to really synthesize how this all works and fully understand it from a conceptual point of view. Just spend one hour or 2 hours watching videos from the provider and you learn how it works, right? So you have a better idea of how to get the most out of it as it’s going next.
00:22:52:23 – 00:23:18:06
Patrick Carver
Get your tech professional to create a simple project plan and timeline going into any with any contractor. I think it’s important to just sketch out what, you know, kind of what’s the end goal, How long is it going to take? Just get basic details down and then you just are going to follow along and provide oversight to this so that, you know, you just are going to project manage it like anything else.
00:23:18:09 – 00:23:43:04
Patrick Carver
You don’t need to be a tech wizard to accomplish this and get all of the benefits that we’ve talked about. You’ve just got to get the right people right. So start thinking more of like a CEO of your law firm and not somebody who’s, you know, pinching dimes to, you know, to try to figure this out. If you’re spending thousands of dollars on ads on other SEO, this is such a no brainer.
00:23:43:08 – 00:24:17:21
Patrick Carver
To spend a couple hundred dollars is the best investment you are ever going to make because it’s literally going to save thousands of dollars every month moving forward. It’s going to build trust between you and your marketer or show that they’re not really effective. Giving you opportunity to scale good marketing efforts, stop bad marketing efforts, just overall a super, super valuable task that you can incorporate in your law firm’s marketing program.
00:24:17:23 – 00:24:45:19
Patrick Carver
Implementing lead tracking software for your law firm is not just a good idea. It’s essential the technical set up can be complicated, but you are 100% burning cash if you don’t lean into this and get it done for your law firm today. If you’re thinking about implementing lead tracking software, reach out with any challenges. I’d be happy to go over any questions or thoughts you have about the topic.
00:24:45:21 – 00:25:08:08
Patrick Carver
I will not pitch you. Don’t worry about me receiving phone calls and emails for the rest of your life from me. Just honestly want to help and you know, I’m a very big, passionate person about this topic because I think it makes a better bridge. It makes for a transparent, honest and open relationship between marketers and law firm owners.
00:25:08:15 – 00:25:30:18
Patrick Carver
And that’s a huge source of frustration on both sides. Is making sure we’re all aligned and on the same page. So like I said, I’m passionate about I don’t care if you’re a client or not, just honestly want to be part of the solution. So I really appreciate your time today. Thanks for listening and best of luck with your lead tracking journey.
