Today, we want to offer you some concrete steps to plan your law firm’s marketing budget. Let’s start with an important question:
What do you want to accomplish this year?
Although we recommend that law firms budget between 1-3% of their gross revenue for marketing, you may want to adjust that number – taking any larger projects, such as a new CRM or a new website, into account.
Once you have an idea of your budget, break it down further into more specific categories.
Every firm is different, and the budget spreadsheet CMO2Go uses with our clients has several categories and subcategories – you can download ours from the link at the bottom of this post. But not every category needs to be completed. Pick the ones that make the most sense for your firm’s goals.
Some common categories include:
🧩Marketing activities – This includes events, sponsorships, advertising, directories and rankings, public relations, social media and design, and tools such as technology, research and subscriptions for the year.
🧩Lawyers’ business development expenses – This covers expenses for your lawyers when they travel, speak, visit with or entertain clients, as well as any of their business development training.
🧩Marketing consultants – If you use fractional marketing staff and consultants, your anticipated costs should also go in your marketing budget. Some firms may also include marketing staff salaries and benefits in their budget, although it makes sense to add them to your HR budget instead.
🧩Marketing team expenses – Your marketing budget could also include travel and expenses for your marketing team to visit firm offices in order to build stronger relationships with the firm’s lawyers. And we highly recommend including professional development and team building, like attending conferences or other educational meetings, to build up the team’s skills and morale.
Want to get started?
Steal the budget spreadsheet template from our Resources page.
And, if you want help talking through the categories, reach out so we can figure out what works best for your firm.
