It’s always good to have a predetermined goal in mind when you launch a direct response attorney advertising campaign, but where do you start? The optimists will expect 400 calls the first week of the campaign, the pessimists will declare “it’ll never work”, and the realists will likely use math. I’m among the latter.

Cost Per Case (CPC) = Budget / Cases In

I remember an ad in Trial Lawyers Magazine in which a marketing agency touted, “Give us $200, we’ll give you a case”. In explanation, the agency pointed out that they have represented firms that got cases for an average of $200 each in advertising costs. Is that amount a reasonable goal in every market? I would argue no. If you are fortunate enough to be in a market where the Cost Per Thousand impressions (CPM) is low, say under $3, with practically no competition, and a large percentage of the population is less educated, then you could realistically aim for such a low price point.

At Whitehardt, we look at your unique market area to formulate a realistic prediction of what your market could bear for you.

Another huge factor in setting a CPC goal for your law firm is your criteria for accepting a case. Clearly, your CPC will be lower if you are willing to take soft tissue injuries than if you refuse them. That’s why setting your CPC goal as a fraction of your case fee makes the most sense.

I estimate that if your CPC falls between 10% and 20% of your average fee, you will likely be able to make a good profit. For example, if you accept smaller cases and your average fee is $4,000, we would expect your CPC to land between $400 and $800. If you beat $400, no problem – laugh all the way to the bank. If you’re coming in over $800 for each case, you’re going to have a hard time making money over the long haul.

The formula also holds true if you’re fishing for bigger ticket cases. A nursing home case would probably generate a fee somewhere in the neighborhood of $50,000. Thus, it would be perfectly reasonable to pay a $7000 CPC and still do quite well.

The law firms that do business with Whitehardt average about 13% CPC overall. Do the math for your own Cost Per Case – if yours is higher, call me and let’s talk about how to make your advertising investment produce a more profitable return.

Why is cable such a bad deal for advertising attorneys?

I wish it weren’t true, but it is. Cable sucks!

The problem is they don’t want to sell the way we want to buy. The best buy strategy for an advertising personal injury attorney is to buy exactly the shows you want to be in, and pay a bargain price on a Cost Per Thousand (CPM) impressions basis. Cable outlets, on the other hand, want you to buy broad rotators across multiple networks. I understand their motivation – it’s easier for them to fill out their inventory if they’re given extremely broad latitude. “Don’t worry about what show your ad runs in, it’s all good programming,” they’ll say.

But it does matter and you should worry! No matter what shows and/or networks you buy from them, it’s very rare when they sell them to you at anywhere close to the same bargain CPM as you’ll get on broadcast TV.

Why would anyone buy it? Actually, it would make a lot of sense for someone selling golf clubs to advertise on the Golf Channel. Despite the fact that the CPM is going to be outrageously high, the golf club maker can reach more golfers per dollar it spends. Other examples are plentiful, but cable just doesn’t make sense for advertising attorneys. You could change my mind if you could find me some cable shows that have a higher percentage of viewers who are recent car wreck victims than Maury or a daytime judge show. I’ve tried, and it can’t be done.

The name of the game is low CPM and a high percentage of less educated viewers, and broadcast TV is still king.

We are excited to have a new client in New York City. Actually it’s a group of clients running a single campaign with the phone number 1-800-LAWYERS. My production crew and I were in Manhattan on April 4-5 and shot several ads. What a great city. A member of my crew attended NYU and knows her way around. She took us to her 2nd favorite pizza joint, John’s Pizzeria in the Village. It was damn good pie!

Pictured from left to right: Felix, Kevin, Billy, Brinn, Jennifer and Jon.

We were well-behaved our first night there because we knew we had a big shoot the next day.

One of the participating attorneys in the group, Christopher Bragoli, stepped up and volunteered to be the face of the group in the ads. We shot some ads with him and some with the New York icon Bruce Davis, who owns 1-800-LAWYERS. If you live in or around The City, you would definitely recognize Bruce. He’s been a familiar figure on TV there for a couple of decades – and I must say, a joy to work with. Those ads are due to start airing in early May.

As an agency, we’ve long wanted a chance to take on The Big Apple. NYC is the largest Neilson DMA in the country with over 7 million households. Every time we run an ad during The Jerry Springer Show our lawyers’ message will be seen by approximately 193,150 viewers. I don’t know about you, but for me the idea of getting 193,150 impressions all at once of people so solidly in the demo to hire an attorney based on a TV ad, makes me giddy! I am very optimistic that we’re going to kick ass up there.

In the world of attorney advertising, Whitehardt is in an elite group. Less than six agencies are really in the major leagues and I would argue we’re the best that ever played the game (but I am biased). Having a successful client in the biggest market in the country would mean a lot to me and my team, so you know we’re going to give it our best shot. Wish us luck!

On July 12th of this year it will have been 10 years since Felix, Billy and I opened up Whitehardt, Inc. We began Whitehardt with a desire to do business in a different way than other agencies in our niche. Our pledge to ourselves and our clients: be straight-up to a fault, deliver on time every time, and work continuously to make better ads, place better buys and get our clients better results. We were excited back in 2002 that our new name, Whitehardt (which is a conglomeration of White & Eckhardt), embodied that chivalrous notion of how to do business.

Ad agencies are notorious for smoke and mirror, bullshit tactics. We decided we would not play the game that way. At times it made our jobs much harder, but I attribute much of our long-term success to that very decision. Today we have a great reputation as a rock-solid agency that can be counted on to deliver results and give honest, straightforward advice – even if it’s not the easy answer.

As we approach our 10th anniversary, it’s fun to look back at the journey. We started with 3 employees in Jackson, MS, and a handful of clients. We got a loan and bought all the equipment we needed to shoot and edit the commercials before we were 1 year old. Will Fox was with us by that time. He was the only one from the Jackson era to make the trip to Nashville with us in January 2005. His eye for production value continues to keep our ads the best in the country. I hate to admit what a dinosaur I can be sometimes, but I must confess that without Will’s insistence I’m not sure we ever would have let go of sending ad approval copies on VHS. Thanks Will! He must be proud to see Old Man White blogging right now.

The Nashville era began with Jessica Miller joining our family as Director of Operations. She and I worked together at an ad agency in Dallas in the ’90s. Her first order of business was to find us Brad Wormer. He took an entry level position and has since gotten himself promoted through the ranks to head of the media department. His innovations in research and negotiating techniques have turned media buying for this niche on its ear. It’s far more sophisticated and effective for our clients than any I’ve ever seen or could have imagined.

Now we’re up to 19 employees and I’d brag about each and every one of them except that I’ve already reached my assigned 400 words for my first blog. It wasn’t the chore I assumed it would be. I’m going to start posting on a regular basis. First because the kids say it’s going to help our SEO and also because I kind of enjoyed the reverie.

Ciao, for now.