Data is the new black. From tech startups to governments to global conglomerates, organizations across multiple industries are recognizing that the ability to gather and use data more effectively can put you in the driver’s seat.
For law firms, a frequently under-utilized data point is your law firm website. Many firms don’t track website usage at all, and many more take only a very ad hoc approach to doing so. Firms seeking a more data-driven approach to their marketing activities can use website analytics tools to quantify and improve their marketing efforts.
Website Goals & Conversions: Begin With The End In Mind
Those familiar with Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People know that one key habit is to “begin with the end in mind.” Google Analytics (the most commonly used website tracking tool) encourages website owners to take this same sort of results-driven approach by building “goals and conversions” into their website monitoring activities.
Think about the different business objectives you might have for specific sections of your website. For example, if you want to increase the audience for an upcoming construction law conference your firm is hosting, signups for the event are the “goal” for that part of your website. Consider what specific action a website visitor must take to hit that goal. We call that action a “conversion point.” In this example it would be when the visitor hits the “register now” button and signs up for your event.
When a website visitor does exactly what you hoped they would do – register for an event, submitting a form, emailing you directly from the link on your bio page, or hitting the “call now” button from a mobile phone are all possible examples – they have hit a conversion point. Website analytics tools such as Google Analytics now allow you to specify your own custom goals and then monitor how frequently you’ve achieved them.
Evidence-based Marketing
Website visitors hitting conversion points provide quantifiable evidence that the website is doing its job – attracting leads and delivering them to you. Further, beyond providing specific data about when and how often those conversions are occurring, we can increasingly also analyze which pages on your website and which online marketing practices (SEO, Google AdWords, Social Media, Blogs, Client Newsletters, etc.) are performing at high levels and turning into conversions and which are not.
By identifying specific business goals, tying them to conversion points and building that into your website analytics, you can analyze your data to see where “the good leads” have come from. A roadmap then emerges enabling you to measure your marketing performance more objectively, and focus on high-performing activities and channels to increase your conversions further still.
It’s a truism that lawyers like to make decisions based on evidence rather than conjecture. Increasingly, website analytics tools are allowing us to provide that evidence.