Legal advertising and marketing communications are a multi-prong, highly sophisticated undertaking by trial lawyers that spans broadcast and digital venues. This is not a resource-starved, grassroots effort but very much a well-funded and coordinated endeavor. The plaintiffs’ firm marketing explored in this report takes advantage of a full set of network, cable, syndicated and spot television options and a full range of digital tools and systems, including Internet search and social media.
This report seeks to address who the major players are in trial lawyer messaging, and what their strategies are for reaching potential litigants. Additionally, the report explores the scope, placement, and messaging of these strategies, and how they compare to other industries with large advertising presences.
While the advertisements range greatly in quality and caliber, this class of marketing communication benefits from robust collective support behind the scenes. This analysis of trial lawyer marketing communications focuses on three unique, yet intertwined parts:
- Broadcast advertising, examining both change over time and general patterns of placement and targeting of messages;
- Internet search, considering both search engine marketing and search engine optimization; and
- Social media, revealing the connections between trial lawyers and other actors in the social web.
The report finds that lawyer spending on television advertising is growing faster than all others – a rate six times faster than all other television ad spending – and online legal key word advertising is among the most expensive in America. In 2015, lawyers are projected to spend $892 million on television advertising alone, 68% more than they spent in 2008. The report also finds that 23 of the top 25 Google key words linking ads to user searches are for personal injury law firms.
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