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Top 3 Law Firm Marketing Ideas for No-Budget Solos…that actually work

This article could put me out of business…it won’t (cuz most people are lazy), but it could.

One out of every 10 callers to my lawyer marketing business, or people who fill out my Client Discovery Form, so that I can do their law firm marketing is a potential client.

1 out of every 10.

The other 9, are newly minted, no-budget solo attorneys. Men and women who will straight up tell me that they have “zero marketing budget” but that they would love to work with me once they run into some money.

I don’t mind. I was one of those no-budget solos just a few years ago.

So I’m going to tell you, in this freaking FREE article, exactly how to go from No-Budget Solo, to…

BIG BALLER RAINMAKER inside of a year. On the internet. With no budget.

But first…a side note.


Side note begins here:

End side note.


No Budget Law Firm Marketing Idea No. 1: “The Gerry Oginski Method”

GOOGLE OWNS YOUTUBE.

Coming up first in the Google Search Results for your particular keyword, e.g., “Dallas divorce lawyer,” “San Diego criminal attorney,” “Detroit bankruptcy lawyer” is still the best marketing method for most lawyers in any sizeable city.

You could become a search engine optimization expert.

It only took me about $40,000 in training programs (most of which were completely useless), and about 2 years of experimentation with my own time and money.

So, you could do that.

Or, you could just make 100 YouTube videos, embed each one of them on your website, and hire someone to answer the incoming calls.

What Gerry Oginski does actually works quite well, but what I’m advocating isn’t exactly what he does, so I’ll call this The Modified Gerry Oginski Method.

100 YouTube Videos to the Next Tax Bracket: Implementing the Modified Gerry Oginski Method, a/k/a…

The DustinSanchezTV Method for Lawyer Video Marketing

Step 1: Register a branded, partial match domain name ($12).

Let’s assume that your name is Rasheed Taylor, and that you are a car accident lawyer in Houston.

Go to DreamHost and register the domain name TaylorCarAccidentLawyers.com, or TaylorAccidentAttorneys.com, or RasheedTheLawyer.com,or something similar.

It’s branded because it has your first or last name in the domain name.

It’s partial match because it has at least one of your keywords in the domain name (attorney, or car accident, or both).

I’m not going to explain all the SEO pseudo science behind this, just do it.

Step 2: Build a Self-Hosted WordPress Website ($100).

Register your domain name at DreamHost. Put it on DreamHost Shared Hosting (about $10.95/month).

Then HIRE THIS GUY AT KONKER.IO (link removed) to build you a simple $100 Lawyer Website [MARCH 2019 UPDATE: I CAN NO LONGER RECOMMEND THIS GUY OR ANY OTHER KONKER VENDOR…TIMES HAVE CHANGED…Stay tuned for my “Fastest, Cheapest, Easiest Way To Build A Simple Law Firm Website Post,” seems like everyone is out to screw lawyers so I’m going to have to make a DIY post for people who can’t quite afford me yet, but still need a dang website].

Tell him you need a home page, an about page, and a blog.

Or you can hire me to build you a “Modified Gerry Oginksi Method 5-Page Website” for $2,300.

***SIDE NOTE ABOUT LAWYER WEBSITE HOSTING***

There are 3 important issues when you are hosting a lawyer website:

  1. Website Loading Speed [largely controlled by the servers that your host is using],
  2. Ease of Use / Customer Service [no matter how easy the host is to use, at some point you will need to speak to a live human customer service rep], and
  3. Site security [protection from hackers].

Why is website loading speed important?

Website loading speed is supremely important because the internet isn’t the internet anymore. The internet stopped being the internet around 2009-ish.

Now, the internet is THE MOBILE INTERNET.

80% of internet consumption takes place on a cell phone.

Cell phones have smaller processors.

They have to work harder, and take longer to load websites.

Nobody is going to wait for your website to load on their freaking cell phone. Please get that through your head.

If somebody has to wait more than 2 seconds for your website to load, they are just going to “x” out of the site and go to the next lawyer in the search results who has an inkling of an understanding of human nature in the internet age.

This is why DreamHost is the Best Web Host for Lawyer Websites.

DreamHost is designed for optimum performance with multiple layers of caching, isolated server resources, and a highly tuned version of PHP (I think they are at PHP7 now…they are always upgrading it).

One disadvantage of DreamHost is that it is somewhat difficult to use because it is not a cPanel platform (if you don’t know what that means, then it doesn’t matter because you really have not developed a preference yet, but a lot of people prefer cPanel).

Anyway, I don’t fully know how to use Dreamhost, and I’m an expert at this stuff.

But it doesn’t matter, because they have insanely awesome tech support.

So anytime I need to do anything with DreamHost, I just get on the phone with tech support and have them walk me through it step by step.

I put every one of my clients on DreamHost (when possible) because it takes care of all the site loading speed issues.

And then we can run Facebook Ads (mobile traffic) to the site, without worrying about our conversion rate getting killed by slow page loads.

Also, loading speed is a ranking factor in the Google Algorithm.

There just isn’t a reason not to use DreamHost (if you are a lawyer).

So I’ve provided a banner link to DreamHost (DustinSanchezTV.com is hosted at DreamHost).

BEST LAWYER WEBSITE HOSTING DREAMHOST

Side Note Over.

Step 3: Create a YouTube Channel for Your Law Firm Website ($Free).

Don’t know how to create a YouTube Channel for Your Law Firm? Just (1) Google it, or (2) Look it up on YouTube. I suggest YouTube.

Step 4: Create a 100 Video Content Plan ($Free).

Don’t know what video topics to write vlog about?

Do this.

Take the highest populated city in whatever state you are in and do a Google search for “city keyword“.

For instance: Let’s take our friend Rasheed the Houston (Texas) Car Accident Lawyer.

We would just do a search for “Houston Car Accident Lawyer” in Google.

Now go look at the website of the first lawyer in the search results.

Copy the title of every one of that law firm’s blog articles.

Repeat for the next 10 law firms in the search results until you have 100 blog article topics (100 Video Topics).

Step 5: Make 100 Videos ($Free-ish).

You need adequate lighting. I recommend this: http://amzn.to/2hK3Z0V, for next to nothing.

You need a cell phone tripod. I recommend this: http://amzn.to/2hrB3LM, for next to nothing.

You need a cell phone. I recommend the iPhone because I’ve recently sworn off androids.

This is the absolute minimum amount of equipment that you need. Do not buy anything else until you are a millionaire.

Each video should be 45 seconds to 90 seconds long. Absolutely no longer than 120 seconds. Why? Because that’s all you need and editing is a biotch.

Here is the blurb I send everyone of my clients before we embark on our video content plan.

Accept that your first 20 videos will be crap. Get over it. Get over yourself.

It’s about making money. We’re not trying to win a dang video marketer of the year award. We’re trying to make money.

It’s about speed. Execute. Publish the dang videos.

 

“The R.O.I. of not giving a F$$% is SPEED” -Gary Vaynerchuk

Step 6: Upload Each Video To Your YouTube Channel ($Free).

Make sure that the Video Title (meta-title) is relevant to the topic that you are talking about, and put your contact info in the video title.

Something like this…

If you don’t know how to do this, or you don’t know what I’m talking about (meta-titles??), then spend a week on YouTube researching YouTube video marketing.

You see, that’s the kind of stuff you have to do when you don’t have a budget (research and learn and execute).

Can you spare 5 days to learn the basics of YouTube SEO (for free on YouTube) so that this time next year you have a $50,000-a-month law firm?

Can you wake up one hour earlier every day this week to learn something that will change your life forever?

Step 7: Make a Blog Article Around Each Video ($Kind of Free).

Learn how to make SEO optimized blog articles on a WordPress website (it will take about 8 hours of studying). Do you have 8 hours to spare for some self-study that will teach you how to actually make money?

Then, just listen to your video and make a short video summary out of whatever you said, or summarize the general topic of your video.

It should look something like this: Example from my own blog.

Short 2-3 sentence intro blurb.

Video Embed

300-500 Word Video Summary

If you don’t know how to embed a YouTube video on your blog, just look it up on YouTube.

If you don’t want to write your own articles/video summaries, then this person on Konker.io will transcribe 60 minutes of video for $80. Then just paste that transcription under your video.

That’s really it for the Modified Gerry Oginski Method, a/k/a The DustinSanchezTV Lawyer Video Marketing Method.

You almost can’t mess this up. Why? Because Google owns YouTube and they will SEVERELY favor any website that uses YouTube videos.

And, we are going to make sure you don’t mess it up by just “brute forcing” it…publishing 100 YouTube videos that are all relevant to your topic, and publishing 100 topic relevant blog articles on  your website, and embedding one of your own YouTube videos on each page.

Even if you did zero backlinking, if you knew nothing about SEO, this method alone will pull in a combined 1,000 visits per month to your YouTube Channel and Website.

It works like gangbusters for every one of my clients. So much so, that if you’re not willing to do video, I will not work with you.

If you’re reading this, and you actually have a marketing budget, then fill out my Client Discovery Form here and let’s get you some Clients.


No Budget Law Firm Marketing Idea No. 2: Become Lawyer Famous

I should have said this earlier, but In 2017 (and forevermore) Rule Number One of Lawyer Marketing is this: Video is Better.

  • Google favors video (your SEO is easier, better, faster, cheaper)
  • Facebook prefers video (more real estate in the Facebook feed, more organic reach)
  • Your potential clients prefer video (people do business with PEOPLE, not faceless entities)
  • Video improves conversion (website visitors are more likely to turn into phone callers…because they feel like they know you)
  • Your competition is too lame to make videos (because they quit after they realize they look like an idiot on the first video and can’t accept that the first 20 videos will be crap)
  • Video is cheaper to advertise (penny views on Facebook, almost zero auction competition on YouTube)
  • And finally, you can’t become Lawyer Famous without video

The #LawyerFamous Method…Video Explanation.

How to Become Lawyer Famous

Step 1: Create a Facebook Business Page for your Law Firm.

Don’t know how? Google it or look it up on YouTube.

Step 2: Create a 20-25 Second cell phone selfie video about an engaging topic in your lawyer niche.

Example Criminal Lawyer: Houston Crime Lab Gets Caught Mishandling Evidence…Again

Example Divorce Lawyer: Same Sex Marriage? What About Same Sex Divorce?

Example Bankruptcy: I’m Going Bankrupt…Can I keep the car?

Step 3: Upload Your Video to your Facebook business page and add captions to your video in Facebook.

Google it.

Step 4: Create a Facebook Ad Inside of Ads Manager or Power Editor.

I don’t have time to explain all the step by step to you, but you do not want to just “boost” the post or “boost” the video inside of your business page.

So you’re going to have to do a little googleing to learn how to create a Facebook Ad account or at least how to create a Facebook ad inside of the Facebook Ads Manager or Power Editor.

Full Disclosure…It is ridiculously easy and I can’t believe I get paid thousands of dollars a month to do it.

Just google it.

You are going to create a Facebook Video ad, optimized for video views, and you are going to target men and women above the age of 18 in your city + 25 miles.

Just do that.

Targeting is the least important thing about a Facebook Ad, but for some reason it is the thing that people get the most anal about.

Anyways, you are not trying to target the exact person who is ready to purchase your exact lawyer service.

YOU ARE JUST TRYING TO BECOME LAWYER FAMOUS.

So do exactly what I told you about targeting above.

You are going to promote this video ad at a cost of $5/day, every day of the month (that’s about $150/month).

If you can’t afford that…

…Then you need to take a second job at McDonalds, or just give up on your dreams completely because successful lawyers solve bigger problems than that walking from their bedroom to the coffee maker on your average Tuesday morning.

Step 5: Create a Custom Audience and Re-Target That Audience.

Set the audience duration for as long as Facebook will allow (currently 180 days).

This is why you don’t just boost the video ad inside of your business page.

You need to do it inside of the ad account…

…so that you can create a Facebook pixel…

…so that you can create a custom audience based on 3 second video views…

…so that you can re-target everyone who watched your video this month…

…with another video next month…

…so that you can become #LawyerFamous.

Re-Targeting is how you become Lawyer Famous.

You are basically “stalking” people.

In that first 30 days, 5,000 – 10,000 people will watch at least 3 seconds of your video (for 5 freaking dollars a day).

Facebook will build you a list of ALL of those people.

Those people are “self-selecting” as your potential clients.

They are telling you, and Facebook…”Hey, I’m somewhat interested in criminal law help.”

Or, “Hey, I’m somewhat interested in getting a divorce…tell me more.”

Next month, you will “re-target” that audience with a video that is geared more towards warmer traffic, i.e., people who have already told you that they may be interested in hiring a divorce lawyer (criminal lawyer, bankruptcy, whatever).

So the first 30 days, you are spending $5/day in ad spend, with an engaging video aimed at cold traffic (green text above).

The next 30 days, you are spending $5/day with one video ad that is targeted at cold traffic. You can use the same video that you created, or try a new video if you want to make another one.

And you are also spending $5/day with another video ad that is targeting the 3 Second Video View audience that we made in Step 5.

That’s $10/day, $300/month.

If you can’t find a way to come up with that, you should not have attended law school.

Why & How The Lawyer Famous Method Works

Re-targeting is really “stalking” someone on the internet.

When you re-target someone, it means that every time they log on to Facebook (which is every day), they will see your face, your video, your business.

So…everyday, 5,000 to 10,000 people see you on Facebook saying, “Hey, I’m a divorce lawyer in your city.”

That in itself is creepy.

But it doesn’t just stop there.

Facebook has marketing agreements with millions of other websites.

So, it’s not like every time this person logs onto Facebook they will see your face and video.

It’s…every time this person does anything on the entire dang internet, they will see your face, your video, your law firm…

Following them…Stalking them.

Everywhere they go…on the internet.

To that one single person (multiplied by 5,000 to 10,000 one single persons)…you become the only divorce lawyer in town.

Because they see you everywhere they go.

And when I say “everywhere they go,” I don’t just mean everywhere they go on the internet.

We are attached to our cell phones.

If your cell phone is more than 5 feet away from you right now, I will eat my hat.

They go to Starbucks, they take their cell phone, they see your video.

They go to Wal-Mart, they take their cell phone, they see your video.

They go to Yoga, they take their cell phone, they see your video.

They are sitting at home, watching television, a commercial comes on, they pick up their cell phone because nobody in the U.S. who owns a cell phone watches television commercials, they logon to Instagram to stalk that cutey from Crossfit…they see your dang video (videos have to be under a certain length to be shown on instagram…google it).

Next month, 5,000 more people join your re-targeting audience.

You start stalking them too.

You become the only lawyer in their life as well.

Soon, you’re stalking the entire dang city.

You are #LawyerFamous.

And then something magical happens…

One Monday morning, Bob, is laid up in bed, injured, trying to find a car accident attorney because he got nailed by a drunk driver on Saturday.

If this happened two months ago, he would have just logged onto Google and typed, “Houston Car Accident Lawyer” into the search bar.

BUT, instead of typing “Houston Car Accident Lawyer” into the search bar (which would return 10 different personal injury attorneys in the search results), he types “Rasheed The Car Accident Lawyer” into the Google search bar (which returns one lawyer; ten different times in the search results).

The first search result is RasheedTheLawyer.com

The 2nd result is Rasheed The Lawyer’s youtube channel.

3rd result: Rasheed the Lawyer’s Facebook page…twitter…instagram…etc.

If he had searched “Houston Car Accident Lawyer,” then he could have chose any one of 10 different lawyers…none of which would have been you (because that’s a $3,000 a month keyword, easily).

But, he searched “Rasheed The Car Accident Lawyer,” and he could only choose ONE lawyer, because every search result was YOU.

Why does he search “Rasheed The Car Accident Lawyer?”

It’s because you’re #LawyerFamous.

You’ve been stalking him on the internet for the last 3 months.

For the last 3 months he hasn’t left the internet without seeing  your face and hearing, “Hey Houston, It’s Rasheed The Car Accident Lawyer, with another quick video….blah, blah, blah.”

Truth be told, he didn’t even watch the whole video. 3 or 4 seconds max. Doesn’t matter, you’re still lawyer famous.

What Does Lawyer Famous Look Like?

(Click Image to Enlarge…it’s eye-opening re: the power of branded search induced by being #LawyerFamous)

lawyer famous brian wilson texas law hawk

Bryan Wilson, The Texas Law Hawk, is #LawyerFamous

 

#LawyerFamous results in “brand” search, not “keyword” search.

Typically, you are the only business that ranks for your brand name.

If you Google, “Dustin Sanchez,” or “Dustin Sanchez TV,” or “Dustin Sanchez Lawyer Marketing,” then I’m the only lawyer on page one.

But, if you Google “law firm marketing,” or “law firm seo,” then I’m not even on Page one.

(Click image to enlarge)

bryan wilson texas law hawk lawyer famous

Ca-Ching $$$


No Budget Law Firm Marketing Idea No. 3: COMING SOON

This 3,440+ Word Blog article is still in Beta.

You are one of the lucky few who has been chosen to test it out.

I will be re-populating the first two methods with instructional YouTube videos as part of my 100 Lawyer Marketing Videos series.

Additionally…

If you thought that the No Budget Law Firm Marketing Ideas number one and number two were awesome, then the last and final No Budget Lawyer Marketing Method is going to blow your dang mind.

But…not everybody gets to see this 3rd method, it’s too powerful, too easy, too fool-proof, and I can’t have all my competitors stealing it, and then rolling it out to all of their clients like they do with every other method that I publish here.

So if you want to see the third and final and best no budget lawyer marketing method, then you need to SUBSCRIBE TO MY YOUTUBE CHANNEL (it’s not just for lawyers), or SUBSCRIBE TO MY NEWSLETTER (not sure exactly where I’m going to publish it yet so you might as well do both).

If You Are a Lawyer Struggling to Get Clients (832) 305-5997

…And you feel like you are getting completely freaking ripped off by  your current marketing company, and you have a marketing budget, then fill out my Client Discovery Form here, so that we can talk price, and I can show you how we are going to completely change your life by this time next year with law firm SEO and online attorney marketing that actually works.

Or just give me a quick call at (832) 305-5997.

Also…Don’t be a free show Joe…

 

5 Responsesso far.

  1. While I appreciate the Gerry Oginski revised or ‘lite’ method, I have a word or caution here.
    NEVER, EVER copy anybody’s headline or content. NEVER.
    Do I need to say it again?
    NEVER.
    It’s just not cool.
    It’s not your idea.
    It’s not your content.
    It’s not cool, even if you are in a different demographic area.
    Unless of course you got the attorney’s permission to use it.
    You can model what someone is doing.
    You can model a topic that an attorney is discussing in his video, but NEVER copy his headlines or his content.
    Be creative. Use variations of what you see and read.
    Surely you can be creative, right?
    The ‘Gerry Oginski’ modified version! Haha.
    You should learn what “The Gerry Oginski version” to creating great educational video is all about.

    • dustin sanchez says:

      Thanks Gerry. What I was saying is that if you do a google search for “detroit car accident” lawyer, just about every lawyer on the first page are going to have the same blog articles. There will be an article about, “what to do if i get hit by an uninsured driver,” another one about, “3 things to do if you get hit by a drunk driver,” “how much does a car accident lawyer cost in detroit,” “5 things to ask your personal injury lawyer,”

      These are all topics that no one lawyer really has a copyright on or any kind of claim to. They are just general lawyer-ish topics. If you copy or mimic or paraphrase the blog articles of people who are already on page one, then you know that you are publishing content for which there is search volume.

      Of course, your particular video topics are based upon your personal experience, so copying topics from your particular videos might not generate the same kind of search traffic, and it would be an obvious knockoff if someone in your city made a blog article titled, “Process Server Knocks on Your Door, Do You Have to Open the Door?” But that artice on your site http://www.oginski-law.com/library/process-server-knocks-on-your-door-do-you-have-to-open-the-door.cfm generates search traffic for “What is A Process Server Allowed to Do?” and someone seeing that article on your site could easily see that article and realize they should make a “process server” article in order to generate easy search traffic. And I don’t think they would be “copying” you if they did. No one lawyer has a lockdown on process server related content.

      • Hey Dustin,
        Saw this article come up on my Linkedin profile and love the Gerry Oginski modified video program.
        You are sending commission & royalty checks when attorneys jump on this, right?

        FYI, your readers might be interested to know that the videos on my YouTube channel have now been watched over 2,000,000 times. In the past 28 days alone, my videos have been watched over 219,000 MINUTES. Yes, minutes and that’s just in the last 28 days. They’ve been viewed over 56,000 times during that same time period.

        I love, love, love the Gerry Oginski video marketing method!
        Thanks for modeling it for your readers.
        Gerry

  2. Andy Segal says:

    Great post!

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