Going The Pro Se Way
When defendants decide to “go pro se”, most lawyers cringe.
It seems like pro se defendants sometimes just hate lawyers. Or they don’t trust ‘em. Of course, sometimes, they just don’t have the money…
But it’s hard to argue a case when you don’t understand what case law is, or even where to sit in the courtroom.
Even after law school, rookie lawyers make basic mistakes. So rookie pro se defendants often make spectacular mistakes.
Pro se marketing is pretty much the same deal. Lawyers who also manage their own Google AdWords campaigns often make spectacular mistakes.
Maybe pro se lawyer-marketers just hate AdWord consultants. Or they don’t trust ‘em. Or maybe they don’t want to spend the extra money.
But it’s hard to make a profit on a marketing campaign for your law practice when you don’t understand the basics.
Surprisingly, “do no evil” Google encourages lawyers to waste money. In fact, when you’re setting up an AdWords campaign, just about every option defaults to “waste my money.”
For instance, Google’s first question is to ask you what “campaign type” you want. This determines where your ad will show up.
The default option is “Search Network with Display Select.” This puts your ads on Google search (a good thing), BUT IT ALSO puts those same text ads on random sites on the Internet.
This is an insane choice, as Google will then waste your ad budget on crap ads that don’t turn into leads. No professional marketer ever selects this option.
There are a huge number of spectacular rookie mistakes to be made:
- Linking your ad to your home page instead of a specially-written “landing page”
- Tracking clicks, instead of tracking leads generated (including phone calls)
- Not using “ad extensions”
- Not managing your ads differently for “mobile” versus “desktop” searches
To be honest, Google could make it a lot easier to avoid some of these mistakes, but it doesn’t. That’s good for Google’s earnings report, but bad for your practice being able to get good leads.
If you want to avoid these spectacular pro se marketing mistakes, you can work with a professional marketer to get more leads for your practice. If you want to talk to this professional marketer, schedule some time with me here:
Bob Hiler