Making Sense of Marketing
- Julie Fisher
- Aug 6, 2025
- 8 min read
Updated: Aug 19
Why Marketing Data Can Create More Confusion Than Confidence for Law Firms and Professional Service Businesses
Marketing data just needs the right story to be understood.
You had a website built, created social media profiles and started developing content. You established referral relationships, reached out to local businesses, attended events, scheduled seminars or speaking engagements, and generally did what you could to get the word out that your business was open and ready for clients.
And while you were doing all of that, you were also running the actual business.
For law firms, that means managing cases, attorneys, staff, clients, intake and operations. For other professional service businesses, the details may be different, but the reality is the same: marketing is only one of the many things competing for your attention.
That is a lot. If you have managed all of it, congratulations!
Now you want to see results: Leads. Calls. Contact forms. Consultations. New clients.
That is the way it is supposed to work, right? Marketing activity should eventually produce business results.
Then come the reports: Website traffic. Impressions. Engagement. CTRs. SERPs. CPCs. Conversions. Rankings. Analytics. KPIs.
The acronyms are endless!
And depending on how your marketing is being managed, you may either have an overwhelming amount of data or nowhere near enough of the information you actually need.
The Marketing Data May Exist. The Clarity Often Does Not.
In many small to mid-sized law firms and professional service businesses, marketing has developed one piece at a time. One vendor manages the website, another handles SEO or PPC, someone internally posts on social media, and referral relationships are managed by the owner, attorney, partner or business development team.
Each person sees part of the picture. The problem is that no one may be looking at all of it together.
A digital marketing agency can tell you how your advertising is performing. An SEO provider can explain rankings and website traffic, and your social media company can show you reach and engagement.
Those reports may be accurate.
But that does not mean the person providing them has the same level of marketing expertise as a trained marketing leader who understands how audience segmentation, positioning, messaging, buyer behavior, channels, business development, lead generation, intake and conversion all work together.
That matters when you are trying to understand what the numbers actually mean to the business.
The other challenge is that the data itself may be incomplete or inaccurate.
Lead sources may not be entered consistently into a CRM or case-management system. Referral information may live in spreadsheets, website leads somewhere else, and phone calls in yet another platform.
Sometimes a vendor only reports the information tied to the work they manage.
If the numbers behind your marketing are not making sense, this article breaks down how to connect the data, the strategy, and the business results.
Now you have pieces of information everywhere, but no clear story.
Do you really understand the reports your vendors send you? Are you keeping spreadsheets on referral sources without knowing whether those referrals are becoming clients?
Do you know how the numbers translate into revenue, client growth or the services you are trying to build?
So many questions. Sorry about that. Let’s get back on track.
Metrics, KPIs, Analytics and Data: What Does Any of It Mean to the Business?
Marketing is not supposed to be confusing.
At its best, marketing creates awareness, relatability, trust and growth. The data should help you understand whether the work you are doing is actually getting you closer to those outcomes.
That means the numbers need context. A report that tells you website traffic increased 20% may sound impressive.
But was it the right traffic?
Were those visitors looking at the services you actually want to grow? Did they stay on the site, call the business, fill out a contact form or schedule a consultation? And once they did, what happened?
Those are the questions that turn a marketing statistic into something useful.
Marketing is about creating a story using strategy, patterns and measurable results.
Those results should be explainable in real-world terms so that you can understand what happened, why it happened and whether the business benefited.
The numbers only matter when you understand what happened between each stage.
Sometimes the Problem Starts Before the Data
I have worked with businesses that believed they had a strong marketing program in place, only to discover there was no current marketing plan.
I would ask about the SWOT analysis.
Nothing.
I would ask what SMART goals had been established.
Again, nothing.
Maybe you do not believe you need all of that.
I understand why.
But without defined goals, target audience segments, positioning and a plan, what exactly are you asking the marketing data to measure?
A business can have successful clients, great case results, a strong reputation and even steady revenue while still not fully understanding what is driving its growth.
That becomes a problem when something changes.
A competitor enters the market. A referral source slows down. Advertising costs increase. A service becomes less profitable.
If you do not understand what created the results in the first place, it becomes much harder to maintain, refine or replace them.
A Case Study Example: The Elder Law Keyword Strategy That Wasn’t Really a Strategy
One elder law firm I worked with had a PPC campaign built around the keyword probate. Their business cards also promoted “Probate Alternatives.”
There was just one problem. They did not handle probate cases.
The campaign and business cards also did not clearly lead with estate planning, trusts, wills or powers of attorney, which were the services the firm actually wanted to grow.
At the time, the cost per click for probate in the city they wanted was approximately $150 or more.
When I asked why probate had been selected, the principal attorney explained that someone might search for probate, find the firm and call. Then she could help that person avoid probate by creating a trust or will.
But there was a rather significant problem with that thinking.
If someone is actively searching for a probate attorney, there is a good chance someone has already died and they are dealing with the estate.
They are past the point of creating an estate plan for the person who died.
So I asked a different set of questions.
Who is actually the best prospective client for the firm?
What are they worried about before probate becomes an issue?
What are they searching for?
What stage of the buying process are they in?
And what services does the firm actually want them to understand?
That changed the conversation immediately.
The attorney had been receiving PPC reports, but she was not reviewing them closely. There had also been no real strategic discussion about whether the campaign aligned with the firm's broader business goals.
I did not just show her numbers. I explained the prospective client's mindset, their pain points, why they were searching and what the firm's marketing should be communicating at that point in the decision process.
She understood it quickly.
The strategy shifted away from PPC and toward organic content focused on the types of clients and matters she actually wanted. We also strengthened social media, blogs, seminars, business cards, estate-planning collateral and outreach to financial advisors.
The marketing became more targeted because it was now tied to a real business goal.
The firm saved more than $5,000 per month in PPC advertising, increased website traffic by more than 40%, improved important search rankings and increased estate-planning consultations by 30% within three months. The financial-advisor referral network also grew by 45% within four months.
Then came one of my favorite discoveries.
Members of the firm's existing referral network were surprised to learn that the attorney handled trusts and wills.
That shocked me. But it is also a perfect example of why your referral network needs ongoing “top of mind” marketing and nurturing.
People may know you. They may like you. They may even send business to you. That does not mean they remember everything you do.
Bottom line: The campaign could generate activity and still attract the wrong buyer.
This Is Not Just a Law Firm Problem
The example happened inside an elder law firm, but the same thing occurs across professional service businesses.
An accounting firm may be attracting basic tax-preparation inquiries when it wants to grow advisory services. A consultant may be generating tactical project leads while trying to move into higher-level strategic engagements.
A healthcare or wellness practice may be attracting inquiries for services it does not want to prioritize. A financial professional may be marketing to people who are at the wrong life stage for the services they want to grow.
In each situation, the marketing may technically be doing what it was set up to do.
The bigger question is whether it was set up to do the right thing.
What Marketing Data Should Help You Understand
You do not need to become a data analyst to understand whether your marketing is working.
You do need enough information to connect marketing activity to the client journey and your business goals.
At a minimum, you should be able to understand:
Who is finding your business and where they are coming from
Which audience segments are responding
Which services are generating interest
Which marketing channels are producing qualified leads
Which referral sources are producing actual business
What happens after a prospect contacts you
Where potential clients are dropping out
Which marketing efforts are contributing to revenue or growth
Where you may be wasting time or money
Not every business needs the same metrics. The point is to track the numbers that help you make decisions.
When Marketing Has a Foundation, the Data Gets Easier to Understand
This is where strategy and planning matter.
If you have clearly defined the audience segments you want to reach, the services you want to grow, how you want to be positioned, what your competition looks like and what your goals are, the data finally has something meaningful to measure against.
That does not mean every number will suddenly be perfect.
It means you have a reference point.
If qualified leads decrease, you can investigate why.
If one service begins attracting more demand, you can determine whether that aligns with your goals.
If a channel is producing traffic but few clients, you can evaluate whether the audience, messaging, offer or conversion process is the problem.
Without that foundation, you are often reacting to individual numbers rather than understanding what they mean together.
This is where a marketing plan earns its keep. Your business has a business model. HR has policies and procedures. Legal work has documentation and processes.
Your marketing needs a plan too.
What Happens When the Pieces Connect
When the marketing strategy, execution and reporting begin working together, the conversations change.
You can start seeing where resources are being wasted, whether your messaging is consistent, which audiences are responding and where your strongest opportunities are.
You also gain a clearer understanding of your referral network; your intake or sales process and the tools you need to support growth.
Most importantly, you are no longer looking at marketing performance one vendor report at a time.
You are looking at how the entire marketing program supports the business.
That is the part a dashboard cannot do for you by itself.
The Data Should Tell a Story You Can Understand
I have always believed that marketing data needs a story behind it.
Numbers alone may tell you that something changed. Strategy helps explain why. And that is what allows you to make a better decision about what happens next.
Even I do not like math sometimes.
But I do like being able to look at marketing performance, explain it in real-world terms and show a business owner what it means.
Cause and effect. And, the story behind them. That is what makes the data relatable and marketing makes sense now.
If your marketing reports are giving you plenty of numbers but very little clarity—or you are not getting enough useful information in the first place—it may be time to look beyond the individual reports.
Your marketing should tell you a story you can understand, relate to and use to make better business decisions.
Julie Fisher lives in Beaumont, California, and is the founder of Fisher Marketing Services LLC, a leading fractional CMO and marketing consultancy. Julie has over 30 years of B2B, B2C, and B2G account management, SMB advertising, business development, and marketing experience that includes over 7 years of in-house law firm marketing leadership. You can reach her at juliefisher@fisher-marketing.com or follow her on LinkedIn: Julie Fisher - Fractional law firm CMO.
