Why Law Firms Need a Full Marketing Program Assessment (Not More Marketing Spend)
- Julie Fisher
- Oct 23
- 5 min read
Updated: Oct 27
Most law firm marketing
conversations sound like this:
"Our SEO isn't working."
"We need more social media engagement."
"Can you help us rank better on Google?"
These are valid concerns. But they're symptoms, not diagnoses.
When law firms seek marketing help, they typically get tactical recommendations: optimize these pages, post more frequently, run LinkedIn ads, write thought leadership content. This advice isn't wrong—it's just incomplete.
What's missing is the strategic foundation that makes tactics effective. And that requires something most law firms have never done: a comprehensive marketing program assessment.
The Problem with Tactical-Only Marketing Advice
Research shows that 83% of law firms outsource marketing to external agencies (Legal Marketing Association), yet many still lack strategic direction. They're spending money on marketing activities without knowing:
Whether those activities align with business goals
Which vendors and programs are actually delivering results
Where budget is being wasted on unused features or wrong audiences
What critical capabilities are missing that limit growth
How to measure ROI across all marketing channels
The result? Firms improve individual tactics while their overall marketing remains inefficient, unmeasured, and disconnected from business priorities.
Consider the statistics:
Only 47% of law firms have an annual marketing budget (American Bar Association)
78% of law firms engage in paid search marketing, but 82% of these firms question the ROI (CallRail)
High-growth law firms spend 16.5% of revenue on marketing while no-growth firms spend just 5% (Hinge Research Institute)
The gap isn't just spending—it's strategic spending. High-growth firms invest more because they know what works, what doesn't, and how every dollar connects to measurable outcomes.
What a Full Marketing Program Assessment Reveals
A comprehensive assessment goes beyond "here's how to improve your SEO." It examines your entire marketing ecosystem and reveals:
What you're actually spending versus what you think you're spending:
Most firms underestimate their total marketing investment because costs are scattered across departments, buried in partner expense reports, or automatically renewed without review. An assessment consolidates everything into one clear picture.
Which vendors and programs are delivering results and which aren't:
Without tracking, firms renew contracts based on habit rather than performance. An assessment measures actual ROI and identifies which investments should grow, shrink, or stop.
Where money is being wasted on unused features or misaligned services:
Premium directory features never activated. Lead generation services delivering wrong client types. Sponsorships renewed annually with zero attribution. These budget leaks add up fast.
Critical gaps in your marketing capabilities that are limiting growth
No content marketing. No email nurture system. No CRM. No tracking infrastructure. These aren't nice- to-haves—they're fundamental capabilities competitors already have.
Opportunities to reallocate existing budget rather than always asking for more:
Most firms don't need bigger budgets—they need optimized budgets. Reallocation often funds new capabilities without new money.
The Difference Between Tactical Advice and Strategic Assessment
Tactical advice helps you optimize one thing. "Rank better for these keywords." "Post three times per week on LinkedIn." "Add video to your website."
Strategic assessment optimizes everything. It reveals how all your marketing pieces fit together (or don't), where investment should flow, what's missing, and how to measure success across channels.
'"This is the difference between improving one thing and transforming your marketing function from a cost center into a growth engine."
My 4-Phase Marketing Assessment Process
I built a comprehensive marketing assessment that follows a structured methodology but flexes where my clients need me too:
Phase 1: Discovery
Discovery begins with understanding your firm's business goals, ideal client profiles, competitive positioning, and current marketing landscape. This phase includes:
Interviews with partners and practice group leaders about growth priorities
Review of existing marketing materials, campaigns, and data
Documentation of all current marketing and business development investments
Analysis of historical performance where data exists
Identification of internal resources and constraints
The goal is to understand not just what you're doing, but what you're trying to achieve and whether current activities align. What is your current state versus your desired state...
Phase 2: Assessment
Assessment involves a comprehensive audit of every marketing dollar spent and evaluation of which programs are delivering results. This phase uncovers:
Complete budget visibility across all marketing and BD expenses
Performance analysis of each marketing channel and vendor
Identification of gaps in marketing capabilities
Analysis of competitor positioning and market opportunities
Evaluation of internal processes, systems, and workflows
Review of tracking, measurement, and reporting capabilities
This is where we uncover wasteful spend, underutilized assets, and missing strategic elements that limit growth. Where are you spending your resources wisely or not so wisely...
Phase 3: Recommendations
Recommendations translate assessment findings into a strategic marketing plan with SMART goals, budget reallocation strategies, new capability requirements, and performance tracking frameworks.
The recommendations should include:
Strategic priorities aligned with business goals
SMART goals for each priority area (more on this below)
Budget reallocation recommendations showing where to cut, maintain, and invest
New capability requirements to fill identified gaps
Performance tracking frameworks for every channel and investment
Implementation roadmap with timeline and accountability
The recommendations connect dollars to business outcomes, prioritize investments based on potential impact, and move the needle towards your desired state. This phase has the highest purpose of your legal practice in mind and generally takes the most care to ensure all questions, objections, and truths are realized. What you truly need to implement or remove versus what you think you need...
Phase 4: Execution/Leadership
Execution and leadership provide ongoing strategic direction and accountability. This phase includes:
Implementation management of the marketing plan
Vendor coordination and oversight
Performance monitoring and optimization
Regular reporting to leadership on ROI and progress toward goals
Ongoing strategic adjustments based on results
Without this phase, even the best recommendations sit on a shelf. Execution turns strategy into results. Where the marketing magic truly begins and your law firm's growth begins...
The Bottom Line
Tactical marketing advice—improve your SEO, post more on social media, create better content—can help you optimize individual activities. But it doesn't answer the fundamental questions:
Are we investing in the right activities?
Is our budget aligned with our business goals?
What are we missing that's limiting our growth?
How do we measure success across everything we do?
A full marketing program assessment answers these questions. It transforms your marketing from a collection of disconnected tactics into a strategic growth engine with clear goals, measurable outcomes, and accountability at every level.
"I’ve worked at law firms that had over 15 years under the belt in business, but never had a real marketing plan and zero assessments done. I showed up, quietly listened, asked questions, and produced their first ever marketing plan. The beauty of it? The loved it and they stopped adding tactics and started allowing me to bring in strategy."
You don’t have to spend more—spend strategically, guided by an assessment that aligns goals to your business needs. That's the power of assessment over advice.
Ready to move beyond tactical advice to strategic assessment?
A comprehensive marketing program assessment reveals exactly where your budget is going, what's working, what's not, and how to optimize every dollar for measurable growth.
Strategic marketing starts with knowing the full picture.
Julie Fisher lives in Beaumont, CA, and is the founder of Fisher Marketing Services LLC, a leading fractional CMO and marketing agency. Julie's agency focuses on law firm marketing leadership and related counseling, with a strong focus on marketing strategy and planning. She serves solo, small to mid-sized boutique law firms nationwide. Julie has over 30 years of B2B and B2C account management, 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.
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