Many solicitors today are concerned about what the future might bring.

The ongoing growth of claims farmers and the threat of ‘Tesco law’ means more and more potential work for solicitors is going elsewhere or being sold at a cost that could threaten your profits, compromise service levels and risk increased complaints and higher PI premiums.

A comprehensive marketing strategy can put you back in control and ensure a steady flow of work with a far higher return on investment than you will get from buying work in.

A complete marketing programme has many aspects, here we will look at one most of us are familiar with and most frequently get wrong: press advertising.

Good press advertising should be a vital part of your overall marketing strategy. Here’s how you can make your ad a success.

First Rule of Press Advertising – make it work

There is no point in advertising if your advert doesn’t work and the vast majority of press-ads don’t work.

When drafting your advert bear in mind the following:

• Offer a solution

o A client is someone who has a problem they want to solve. Identify that problem and tell them you can solve it.

• Keep them Clean

o Don’t clutter up your advert with logos and platitudes – ‘quality service’ – who offers poor service? Don’t overload your advert with loads of small text detailing your services, direct them to your website where all the information they want is available.

• Keep it simple

o Focus on one thing only; wills for example. If you cram everything in people will lose interest and move on. Better 10 enquiries for wills than no enquiries for everything.

• Make an offer

o People respond to offers, ‘Free consultation.’

• Give a Guarantee

o No deductions from your damages – 100% guaranteed – you might think this cheesy but research shows people actually find this reassuring, and gives you credibility.

• Have a Call to Action.

o You have identified their problem offered them a viable solution, now tell them to get in touch; be clear and confident– call us now for your free consultation.

Second Rule of Press Advertising – Ignore the Rate Card.

Right now print advertising is at an all time low and you can use this to your advantage.

If a paper goes to press at 3.pm. and if they haven’t sold the spot the chance to sell it has gone for good. Call them just before deadline, ask them what they’ve got and what is the cost; then offer them half, you may not always get it but you will get a better deal – have your advert ready to email over to them.

o One further thing with press ads is; don’t listen to anyone (normally an ad sales rep) who tells you to take a series of adverts to build brand awareness; you’re not coca-cola! Any advert you run has to generate leads, enquiries and sales.

Third Rule of Press Advertising – Test and Test Again.

As the cliché says: “I know half my advertising is wasted, I just don’t know which half.” Advertising is no use if you can’t measure it. You should test your press ads in the following ways:

• Telephone number.

o Have a separate telephone number just for a press ad so that you can really measure the results.

o It’s quality not quantity you want, if they are all ‘tyre- kickers’, they will just waste your time. Testing allows you to identify which ads and which papers produce the best results.

• Track your website visits from the advert

o You are using Google Analytics aren’t you?!

• Change the advert

o You may find that enquirers from your advert for wills are responding well to your suggestion that they consider Lasting Powers of Attorney as well, so focus your next advert on LPAs.

o Try different versions; you can change any element; layout, wording, fonts, guarantees etc. However don’t make more than one change at a time or you won’t know which change made the difference.

Press Ads should be part of your overall marketing strategy including, cross selling, up-selling, pay-per-click, email marketing, referrals etc, all of which will help you build a reliable and profitable source of work for your practice.

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If you want to get traffic to your Internet home business as immediately as possible, Google Adwords is the best option. It is simple to open[ /spin] a Google Adwords account and you can be getting targeted traffic to your website within a few hours of[spin]launching your first campaign.

However, there are more than a few key steps that you need to take in order to avoid the most common mistakes that unwary Google Adword users tend to make. Normally, those who fail to make money from their Google ad words business promotions are guilty of failing to take certain steps that are really not difficult to put into operation.

Let’s look at the most common “Google Adword Failures”:

1. Failure to Target Keywords: this is the most basic mistake you can make with Adwords. Using generic keywords will not only raise the cost per click, but it will also result in failure to convert clicks into sales. For example, the competition for single word keywords such as “marketing” will be very fierce and that will drive up the cost per click. Many Internet home business owners focus on keywords that are very popular but also, very expensive.

However, the keyword is not very specific and so even if your ad does attract a few clicks the chances of getting a sale are really very low indeed. In short, you need to be as specific as possible when choosing your keyword phrases. Otherwise you will never get any clicks and no sales to your home based business

2. Failure to Organize Ad Groups Properly: make sure you organize your Adwords campaigns into closely related Adword groups. Starting with your primary keywords, build a series of tightly focused and related keyword phrases for each ad group. It does not matter how many ad groups you create, as long as the terms within each group are tightly related and not too numerous. Twenty ad groups with 10 to 15 related phrases in each one is better than five ad groups with forty or fifty phrases per group.

3. Failure to Track Ad Performance: this is a common but crazy failure when you consider that Google supplies its own free tracking service. If you don’t track your ads you will have no idea which ones are working and which are not. You can track individual keywords within the groups, so not only can you find which groups are performing best you can also find your best performing keywords within the groups.

4. Failure to Budget Properly: If you set your daily budget to low you will not get much traffic at all because daily budget is one of the factors that Google measures when deciding which adds to prioritise. A single Google ad on a five dollars a day budget is really not going to achieve very much for you. Essentially, this means that if you have less than $150 a month to invest in Google ads you probably avoid Google ad words altogether.

However, it is also important to avoid the opposite mistake of not capping your daily Adwords budget and of trying to gun for the top spot with every ad. It is worth experimenting with ad placements to see if you can save money by aiming for third, fourth, or even fifth or sixth spots for your keyword terms. In this way you will get more exposure for your ad at less expense and you may find that you can achieve a good click through rate in those positions.

By avoiding these common mistakes you will have a much better chance of succeeding with your Internet home businesses marketing campaign

John McRae works from home reviewing affiliate marketing programs at Your Work From Home Help Center and provides a weekly news letter Earn Extra Income
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A lanyard might not seem like an important product in an age when most things are computerized to some extent. The opposite is true; it is indeed a useful item. The lanyard has numerous purposes, with the first being as part of an identification badge. Most companies require their employees to have badges and the lanyard will go around the neck holding the badge.

This is certainly not the most important purpose for this item. Many years ago the lanyards were made by weaving the material together with different type stitching. It is surely still done, but most people will buy the item already woven into a string like form to hold keys. Weaving the lanyard is a lost art.

Colorful lanyards, usually made out of a plastic-like material, sometimes hang off buttons or switches which are needed in an emergency, in order to close a machine. The item makes the button easier to locate. Lanyards are becoming more prevalent in a cotton and polyester type blends, which are becoming wider. They hang off switches and are easily recognizable and seen, where to delay can be costly.

For a business, putting a company logo and information on them is cheap advertising. These can be distributed to customers and potential clients, who will refer to the information from time to time. When they do, a sale will result for your company. In sports, referees and linesmen along with lifeguards will connect a whistle and watch to the string like product and this makes up a good percentage of the market.

The uses for a lanyard can go on and on. In this age of highly technologically advanced products, it is hard to believe that something as simple as a lanyard could serve so many functional, important and vital needs. Sometimes the small things in life are not given enough appreciation and credit.

George Pettit is a journalist and marketing specialist from New Caledonia. He is often writing about promotions, marketing, promotional products such as rubber bracelets, lanyards, silicone wristbands, key chains and similar.
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