Televisions commercials have long been an effective method for generating awareness and new business for many types of business – especially lawyers. Probably the most common type of tv advertisements by lawyers are made for generating personal injury and car accident cases.
While this does work, TV viewership is declining and furthermore there are some inefficiencies in traditional TV advertising. When running a TV commercial campaign, it usually broadcasts in the target areas you wish to generate new cases and leads.
Missing Your Target Areas
Sometimes the networks will end up airing your commercial outside of these bounds, may across city or state jurisdictions; places where your firm doesn’t practice law – or at least isn’t targeting.
Reaching Too Wide
Another issue is that your target audience is pretty small relative to the larger audience you are broadcasting your ads to. For instance, if there are 100 potential clients per month, but you’re advertising to 1 million people, it takes a lot of advertising power to make sure those 100 potential targets are watching the right station at the right time to see your commercial. Meanwhile, your ad is being shown to virtually 1 million other people who have no use for your service. While this doesn’t necessarily effect your CPM (cost per thousand views / impressions), it does drive up your CPA (cost per acquisition) and MCAC (Marketing customer acquisition cost).
One counter point, and a decent justification I might add, is that they may not need your services now, but it fills the need of top of mind advertising and developing brand awareness. This works well in the event that circumstances change in the future and they remember your firms name. Sure, that’s a valid point, but in the meantime, you probably want to generate more cases today.
Narrow Your Reach
Using web and mobile app platforms that social media sites like Facebook, Instagram and YouTube provide allows you to get very granular with your reach.
Unlike the conventional forms of advertising on TV and radio, where your ad is picked up anywhere they can receive that channel or airwaves, these digital ad platforms work very differently. When you advertise on Facebook or YouTube for instance, you can choose exactly where your ads appear.
In the image above, we can target cities and regions by either drawing a radius around a target city or zip code or with more surgical precision by targeting that city or region with exact boundary lines.
The best part is that if you have already invested in producing a TV commercial for these locations, then you can re-purpose them and run them as commercials on these platforms.
Creating a Facebook Video Ad Campaign like a Traditional TV Commercial
When I say traditional, I mean a run-of-the-mill, conventional advertisement that you would air with your local TV new station. In this section, we will discuss how to run the same type of traditional TV ad, by “airing” it on Facebook. Check out this article if you want to learn step-by-step how to create a Facebook Video Ad from your TV commercial.
If you have never run a Facebook Video Ad before, then I suggest you just run one tv ad as your commercial first before creating the video funnel we discuss in this article.
Once you’re comfortable and have developed some skills with the ads manager platform, you can come back and run a multi-video ad campaign as described below.
Running a Multi-Video, Re-Targeting Ad Campaign
In order to properly execute and see results from this type of marketing tactic, you will need:
- 3-4 videos of you or another lawyer discussing the topic / type of case you’re looking to attract new clients for
- Each video must be 3-5 minutes in length
- The video and audio do not need to be perfect
- Captions for each video
- Trigger keywords about the video topic and case type within 10 seconds of the video; and then again within 30 seconds
- Facebook business page for your law firm
In a campaign with multiple video ads, the goal is to warm up the audience interested in your legal services. The videos are going to comprise the majority of the funnel. Creating 3 to 4 videos is optimal, however, you can get by with 2 at minimum.
How the Funnel Works
The objective is to focus your advertising dollars more narrowly at each subsequent segment of the funnel by only targeting people who have demonstrated interest in the previous video ad. Facebook has some excellent tools that allow us to retarget to people who have expressed interest in this manner.
Video #1
The first video will be reach your broad audience. This means people you have targeted in your geographic areas and locations your firm is willing to take clients in. This first video is your opportunity to get people who might be interested in your service into your funnel. It’s important for this video to have trigger or hook words and phrases within the first 10 and 30 seconds of the video. That way, it will capture the target audiences attention long enough to keep them engaged. This works the other way too. People who are not interested in the legal topic are more likely to leave at this point as the video does not concern them.
Target Subsequent Videos to Engagers
The next videos will only be shown to people who have watched a certain percentage of your prior video. This allow you to only target your video to people who have already expressed interest in the legal topics you are discussing since they have watched for a decent length of the video.
The diagrams above use a filter for people who have watched at least 25% of the video. That means it will capture everyone who has watched 25% all the way to the end.
On the low end, this may not seem like a lot. However, remember that each of these videos is 3 – 5 minutes in length. Meaning that someone who watches 25% is going to see at least translates into them watching anywhere from 45 to 75 seconds at minimum.
If you compare this with a TV commercial that you would run, people only see you for 15 – 30 seconds. Moreover, on Facebook. They have the option to skip or scroll past your ad at any point. So 45 to 75 seconds of retention is not a metric to be underestimated.
f you compare this with a TV commercial that you would run, people only see you for 15 – 30 seconds. Moreover, on Facebook. They have the option to skip or scroll past your ad at any point. So 45 to 75 seconds of retention is not a metric to be underestimated.
What to Discuss in the Videos
Each of the videos you record have some clear objectives:
- Inform your target audience about the types of circumstances they may be going through
- Give them FREE legal information. This is not legal advice. Your objective is to inform them about the laws in your area / state, etc and how it impacts the outcomes on their cases. Are there time limits that they must act by? What does the law stipulate and how will that affect people in a number of different circumstances. Is it really better to go to court in every type of case?
- Come off personable and build a connection with them. While the purpose of the video isn’t to sell your services, you can be selling yourself. Use human language. Break down the law in a way that shows that your knowledgable, but still know how to communicate complicated topics to the average person.
- Come off as an authority. By the time they have finished watching your funnel of videos, they should be convinced that you are they lawyer they want helping or fighting for them for that particular type of law. By this point they have seen 25% of 3 to 4 videos which adds up to a minimum 3 to 5 minutes of your face on camera. They have already imagined having had an initial consultation with you because you have automated via your facebook video funnel.
Make sure to Include a Link to Your Website
Once people have seen your videos, they are now awareness of your services and what types of cases you handle. They may be ready to call your firm. Before calling your firm though, they may be likely to check out your website and learn more about your practice before being convinced to dial your number or email you.
A simple way to increase your conversions and allow people who are considering your services to make the leap is by adding a link to your website. Since the purpose of these videos is to target a particular type of case, you will have to decide whether to link to your homepage or a page specific to the area of practice you are promoting.
In any case, make sure the landing page has:
- Helpful information about your firm and services
- Loads quickly on mobile and desktop devices (high speed internet and cellular)
- Have clear calls to action. This means a phone number they can press on their smartphones, prominent on desktops.
- Have a contact form for people who prefer to message over calling initially.
Include your Firm’s Brand and Phone Number in the Ad Copy
Another way to create brand awareness and drive more consideration is by having your firm’s name and phone number in the ad copy. You can add this in the text area above the ad or in the News Feed Description area.
Re-Target to People Who have visited your Website
Another crucial part of getting as much ROI and leads out of your funnel as possible is incorporating Re-Targeting Ads to anyone who has visited your website as a result of watching any of your videos.
Use re-targeting to push people further into your funnel as well as display image ads to them. Image and Video works well together in re-targeting to increase conversions and opportunities to have your firm considered by your audience.
Above is a diagram of the entire funnel – start to finish. It also displays website activity and traffic coming the video ads and how to push site visitors back through your funnel on Facebook.
Conclusion
If you’re looking to get more cases for a specific area of law, then a multi-video ad funnel on Facebook is an excellent choice. This even works very effectively for types of cases that are usually more difficult to acquire, such as Personal Injury and Criminal Law cases.
By following the steps outlined above and applying these tactics to your desired area of practice, you can start hearing your phone ringing and email popping in.
