20% of Firms have Blogs, 60% have E-Newsletters, Almost None are Podcasting

Primary Research Group has published a new study -- The Survey of Law Firm E-marketing Practices.  Data in the report is based on a survey of 46 (mostly major) law firms.  A few results are presented below:

BLOGS & BLOGGING

A shade less than 20% of the firms in the sample published their own blogs. Firms with 20 or more distinct practice groups were the most likely to publish blogs, and nearly forty percent of the firms in this category did so.

More than 37% of the law firms in the sample plan to increase their spending on blogs as promotional vehicles, although close to 44% have not used blogs for this purpose.

WEBSITE DEVELOPMENT

More than half of the firms in the sample hired a consulting firm when they overhauled (or initially created) their firm’s website.  Only a shade less than 12% of firms in the sample did most of the website design or overhaul work in-house, and these were mostly smaller firms

Mean spending on website overhauls was $40,583 for the firms in the sample, with median spending of $27,500.

The firms in the sample received a mean number of 27,462 unique monthly visitors to the firm website, with a median of 8,000.

E-NEWSLETTER PUBLISHING

Close to 60% of the firms in the sample published e-newsletters, as did nearly 90% of the firms with 200 lawyers or more. The mean number of e-newsletters maintained by the law firms in the sample was 7.45; the median, 4. 

Nearly 58% of the firms in the sample use opt-in email marketing to promote the law firm. 

BANNER ADS AND SITE SPONSORSHIPS

Mean spending by all firms on banner ads and website sponsorships within the past year was only $2,038.50, a figure that also incorporates the many firms that did not spend anything on banner ads or website sponsorships.   

SEARCH ENGINE PLACEMENT

Only 12.5% of the firms in the sample have paid search engines for higher search engine placement, a practice that was more common among smaller than larger firms.                           

A bit more than 32% of the firms in the sample say that it is “likely” or “very likely” that within the next two years that they will hire a consultant to help the firm to appear higher in search engine rankings. 

PODCASTING & WEBCASTING

Less than 3% of the firms in the sample have ever done a podcast to help market the law firm.

Primary Research Group publishes research reports, surveys and benchmarking studies for businesses, colleges, libraries, law firms, hospitals, museums and other institutions. "The study presents more than 175 tables of data describing the use of various emarketing practices by major law firms.  Data is broken out by firm size and by the number of distinct practice groups," said James Moses, Research Analyst with Primary Research Group Inc. in New York.  For more information visit www.primaryresearch.com or contact Moses at 212-736-2316.

Comments

[Marco Antonio P. Gonçalves]

Interesting results but they have missed RSS completely in the survey. Feeds are very useful and can be used in many different ways by law firms.