Making a Murderer…er Marketing Plan Part 2

Now, let's continue where we left off last week. We are now moving to step 4 in making a Murderer...er Marketing Plan. Make sure you read the steps 1 to 3 from last week so you can easily follow. 

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Step 4: How to Use Money to Get Cases

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So, let’s say our now hypothetical marketing firm gets cases from 

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1) Referrals from other in our space (lawyers/doctors/financial advisors/accountants/etc.)

2) Current and Former Clients

3) Advertising

4) SEO

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Let’s say we get cases evenly across those 4 channels. So, 156 divided by 4 = 39.  (No, I did NOT think the 156 would make my life this easy)

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So now I need 39 referrals from other professionals, 39 from clients, 39 from ads, and 39 from SEO.

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And (keeping the math going) I can spend $44,100 on each part. (or $3675 a month).

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Referrals

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So, for referrals, if the average connection sends you 1 lead a year, you need 39 people.  If it’s 2 leads a year you need 20 (I am not Solomon cutting people in half).  

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So, let’s assume you need to build relationships with 30 people as some are 1 lead a year and referrers and some are two.  And now you can spend on average $1700 per person (1130.77 CAC times 1.5 leads per person).

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So, if you want to see everyone 4 times a year you need to “network” 120 times a year (30 people multiplied by 4 times each).  Which is just over 2 times a week.  

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So, let’s say you go out to lunch every Tuesday and Friday (100 lunches) and then twice a month you do some other events like golf/sporting events/etc. (24 events total).

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If everything costs the same amount between lunches and events you can (in theory) spend $425 per meeting).  I don’t know what 24 karat gold leaf plated organically sourced A5 grass fed prime meat you’re eating…but…if the numbers check out, they check out.

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Even if you doubled it to 8 times a year, you could still spend $212 per meeting.  That’s a lot of Superhero movie tickets! ;)

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Clients

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I split up clients from other referrals for a reason even if in theory it’s still a referral.

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I don’t know about you, but I don’t hang out with 99% of my clients.  Not that I have any issues with it, but we don’t.  Mostly because they have normal jobs and work during the week, but still.

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So instead of the easy 1 on 1 meetings like referral sources, let’s look at client referrals in more batches.

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Let’s say you want to throw 2 parties a year (for example a Cinco De Mayo and a Friendsgiving event). 

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And then you want to do 4 other things for clients every year (let’s say hypothetically you buy girl scout cookies or other fundraising things from their kids, invite them to a movie over summer, host a holiday photo shoot for them, and do a gingerbread house contest for them).  Where did I get these complete random ideas?  No idea (yes, this is what my firm does for clients…or at least most of it).

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Remember we had $44,100 to spend here.  So I am going to budget $40,000 and leave $4,100 for break in case of emergencies.  Which is what I don’t get about all the superhero movies…why are so many of them NOT a time to break the glass and call in all the Avengers?  Oh, random villain we never heard of wants to STEAL OUR SUN…meh, no need to bother everyone else we have 3 heroes and a bunch of alien cats…it’s just the sun.

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I digress.

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Let’s take those one at a time in an order that leaves us the rest for parties.

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Gingerbread house contest - about $1400 on the houses and $600 on prizes ($2000, so $38,000 left).

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Photo Shoot - $1800 for photographer, $200 for marketing ($2000, so $36,000 left)

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Renting out a movie theater - $500 in tickets ($5 a piece for 100 tickets) $1500 in food (so $2000 or $34,000 left).  No, I did NOT think everything costs about $2000…

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Girl scout cookies and other fundraisers for their kids - $1000 ($7 a box times 10 boxes a family x 10 families with $300 left over for other stuff).  Or $33,000 left).

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Now…assuming I want to split it evenly for each party…I have a little over $16,000 per party.  

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We throw a pretty fun Cinco De Mayo for $5000-$7500 a year so if you REALLY had this sort of budget breakdown I might consider a third major event, but more likely…

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$10,000-$15,000 spent on extra staffing.  Obviously, this isn’t going to get you a full-time person doing marketing full time.  But it PROBABLY covers 8-12 hours a week 50 weeks a year for a $20 an hour receptionist to call former clients and check in on them and see what sort of extra service you could do for them.

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Advertising

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I am going to stay WAY high level here. However you can spend $1,130.77 to get a lead works and follows your plan.

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If it’s Local Service Ads for $565.39 per call and every other one becomes a true lead you’re set.

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If it’s pay per click for $56.54 per click and it takes 20 clicks to get a real call, you’re set.

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If it’s social media ads for $113.08 CPM (cost per 1000 views) and it takes 10,000 views to get a real lead…you’re still set.

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If it’s billboards for $2,261.54 a month and each one gets you 2 real leads, you’re still set.

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As long as you know your CAC, you know what advertising is worth it as soon as you can get enough data in place to see how much you spend per lead and then compare it to what you’re plan allows for.

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OBVIOUSLY, once this is going, you’re still going to mess with the numbers (or your marketing team will) to try to get the costs down and the lead flow up, but this at least gives you a target to start for.

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Social Media

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Remember we can spend $3675 a month. So, for social media this is probably something like

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$1000 a month for a half day photo/video shoot.

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$2000 a month for editing, graphic design and placement.

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$175 a month for software to edit faster, fix audio, post better, find hashtags and track analytics.

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$500 for some part time help engaging on posts.

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$0 because you are coming up with ideas, scripting them out (or using Chat GPT to help), writing copy (or using Chat GPT), also engaging on the posts, etc

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Or it might be you just hiring a company to do all of it for you and you just show up and speak/perform/explain what you do/answer questions at whatever time intervals they tell you (weekly? monthly?).

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This is going to be WAY different depending upon your platform of choice, style of content, whether you’re a weekly interview show, or a long form well produced video every so often, or webinars but you get the idea.

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Step 5: And Now What?

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You honor the plan.  Hold everyone accountable to their roles in this (ESPECIALLY yourself).

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Track the outcomes and see where you need to tweak.

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If you are getting a ton from social media, but referrals are coming slower than you expected, I would suggest pull SOME of the referral budget and SOME of your time and effort on it and put that into the social media a bit more and see what happens.

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If a big competitor came to town and your advertising costs just doubled (this has absolutely really happened to people), then you might need to reassess that budget…or you might have to change your ads to the platforms that didn’t get so much more expensive and redo your advertising plan.

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If you keep getting more and more clients who send you more and more referrals, you might need to rent a second movie theater, extend the photographer hours, or order more food and games for the parties (which will all cost more) and so you might pull some $$$ from the other sections to make up the difference.

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Unfortunately, we don’t have a DeLorean to travel into the future to see how this turns out (or into the past to undo it).  But if you have a plan, you follow the plan, you track the results, and you’re willing to make changes…well then success is just a matter of time.

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Next week we are diving into transformative power of Smart Delegation! Until then…have a wonderful weekend!

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