Personal Injury Marketing Transformation

H2 From Business Decline to Accelerated Growth

The Challenge

A personal injury firm in a very competitive, large metropolitan area was once a market leader but had experienced a dramatic decline in signed cases over the past 2 years, forcing a cut in legal staff and a reduction in other costs. The firm owner was convinced the decline was driven by outdated marketing practices. Their marketing investment was not generating the returns they once enjoyed.
We placed an experienced CMO on the leadership team with the goal of accelerating growth and restoring the firm to a market leadership position over the course of 9 months.

The Transformation

The assigned CMO implemented our proven approach, the Marketing Transformation Flywheel, to lead the creation of a custom, scalable marketing function to accelerate growth of the firm. This involved a thorough assessment and audit of existing marketing practices, customized strategy development, build/execution of their marketing funnel, and optimization of performance to deliver accelerated growth.

1. Assessment and Audit

This phase identified gaps and opportunities across the marketing function and necessary optimizations across existing marketing channels. This also provided the foundation of their custom strategy for marketing. This work included:

1. Executive alignment of the firm’s growth goals to guide the marketing strategy.
2. Review of the current and historical marketing spend by channel.
3. Analysis of all digital marketing accounts, review of agency performance and statements of work, and ROI calculation for each paid marketing channel.
4. Review of the firm’s brand positioning and all creative assets across channels.
5. Assessment of SEO performance against competitors and an audit of all local SEO accounts.
6. Analysis of the intake process and performance.
7. “Quick wins” were also identified, which immediately impacted the firm's performance.

2. Strategy Development

This phase was guided by our assessment and audit and was specifically designed to support the growth goals of the firm. These included:

1. Development of their custom strategy for marketing to support the growth goals of the firm.
2. Optimization of their brand positioning with a clear definition of their client targets.
3. Creation of a customized marketing engine to deliver sustainable growth.
4. Alignment of the marketing budget and the internal and external marketing resources needed for execution.

3. Initiatives and Tactics

This phase focused on the development of a tactical plan for rapid execution. This included:

1. Onboarding new agency partners, rebuilding of online digital advertising accounts, and the launch of new online advertising initiatives.
2. Shifting from traditional broadcast TV to a sophisticated programmatic CTV platform that enabled accurate targeting and performance tracking.
3. The build and execution of a new SEO strategy that included all three dimensions of successful SEO performance: intent, informational, and local.
4. Developing an organic social media approach to drive stronger engagement as well as an upgraded and more targeted approach to community events and sponsorships.
5. Launching a new marketing automation platform to more effectively engage past clients for referrals.
6. Implementing reporting processes to inform the executive team on marketing performance and increase visibility of KPIs.

4. Assess and Optimize Phase

This phase was focused on the analysis of marketing performance and the optimization across all channels.

1. Development of digital KPI dashboards that track daily performance and enable a faster cycle of learning and optimization.
2. Ongoing identification of optimizations, including content, spend, and channel tactics all with a focus on accelerating lead generation and new cases.
3. Transition of marketing leadership and execution to internal resources within the firm’s marketing team.

The Results

This personal injury firm saw a sharp upward trend in cases per month, with signed cases increasing from 61 cases per month in month two to 175 cases per month in month nine – an acceleration of more than 2.5 times. This was not achieved by increasing marketing spend, but by shifting spend to more modernized and effective marketing channels, campaigns, and executions.

The Conclusion

This law firm case study shows an effective turnaround. The firm has been returned to a market leadership position after nine months. A new internal/external marketing team organization was also implemented and our CMO continued working with the firm in a mentoring/advisory role to ensure momentum continues.