The High Cost Of Listing

Clients often ask me if a given marketing action is "good." Is taking a billboard good? Is advertising on the radio good? Is doing seminars good? Is a listing in Martindale-Hubbell good?

And I usually respond, "If the budget is unlimited, it's all good. Do everything!"

Of course, the budget is never unlimited. That means that the relevant question is not "Is this good?" but rather "Is this the best possible use of the marketing dollar? Is there anything else we could do with this same dollar that would have more impact?"

Which brings us specifically to Martindale-Hubbell. For many of my clients, the high cost of their M-H listing is not "good" and provides no discernable ROI. Yet many are afraid to drop it because of its status from many years as "the directory" for attorneys and their accompanying ratings. But there are many new players on the Internet in the "rate the lawyers" game, and critics say that M-H missed the Internet boat entirely.

Kevin O'Keefe of LexBlog weighs in with this post in which he asks "Martinedale-Hubbell: Should We All Just Say No?" Dan Hull explores the same question at his blog What About Clients? where he says: "Martindale-Hubbell is no joke. It has a fine, time-honored and even classy reputation, and a history of good work and real utility in the profession. Our firm, Hull McGuire, has actively and earnestly participated in the M-H ratings processes for years; we are happy with the ratings our lawyers received. But, in good times or bad times, the current cost to list firm attorneys for any size firm, with or without multiple offices, is prohibitive and should be resisted on principle given other alternatives. It just isn't worth it. We predict that lawyers will bolt in droves in the next 2 years."

Comments

[Craig Hersch]

Mark - your comments are well taken. I would suggest that attorneys review their web page's google analytics. We found that we get several hits a month from martindale.com as well as lawyers.com which is their affiliated service. Those hits often lead to referrals.

[Mike]

FindLaw sites are by far the most visible on the Web.