Why Lawyers Hate Marketing Agencies: 4 Shocking Reasons

Do you know why lawyers hate marketing agencies? If your answer is no, you’re in the right place!

Years of working as an SEO expert, first as a freelancer and now operating a marketing agency, have enabled me to work with several attorneys. But I can tell you, not every lawyer appreciates the work marketing agencies are doing. 

The reasons lawyers detest marketing agencies are quite obvious. Both professions are like opposite sides of a coin. 

While most lawyers have lost substantial amounts of money to over-promising and under-achieving marketing agencies, some don’t fancy the uncertainty around marketing. 

Here, we will explain some of the reasons lawyers don’t like marketing agencies. Read on!

Why Lawyers Hate Marketing Agencies

Check out why lawyers and digital marketing agencies aren’t best friends. 

1: Lawyers think they are smarter than digital marketers:

Law is a “learned profession.” There is no doubt about that. 

What does “learned profession” mean? As a lawyer, you must know a little about everything, like engineering, medicine, quantity surveying, agriculture, pharmacy, etc. 

Lawyers are the only professionals who can read through all areas of human endeavors. It doesn’t matter whether there is expertise over them or not. 

I agree with this: lawyers are “learned professionals.” They have vast knowledge of varied subjects, which is necessary because their clients come from different professions. 

Law is a great profession. It is a profession that should make anybody proud of themselves. Unfortunately, most lawyers assume they can perform better than marketers and shouldn’t be hiring marketing agencies. They believe marketing is simple. Some think they are more innovative and can do a better job than digital marketers, even without the required training. 

While digital marketing is a skill anyone can learn, experience plays a crucial role. Having the skill or knowledge of digital marketing is not enough. You need the experience to scale through specific marketing tasks or develop creative ideas.

So, “learned professionals,” let marketers do their jobs. Putting your profession in a higher position over a digital marketer’s can hurt the marketer’s emotions. Marketers may even start feeling inferior and that could stifle their creativity.  

A Handy Tip: Lawyers can learn digital marketing and use it to grow their businesses. However, this will take time and some level of commitment. 

Additionally, don’t expect to hit the ground running after learning digital marketing. You need to gather some on-the-job experience to have a huge impact.

Lawyers should only consider learning digital marketing if they have plans to run a digital marketing agency. Otherwise, it would be best to channel their free time into rendering quality legal services. 

Digital marketing and legal services are different from one another. They also do not provide the same services. It will be best for professionals in both fields to focus on their trade. The primary focus should be the quality of service rendered, not whose profession is superior. 

2: Marketing agencies over-promise but under-deliver:

Let me use the word “some” marketing firms. Yes, some marketing agencies are the reasons lawyers hate marketing agencies. How? They promise results but fail to deliver. And lawyers understand what it means to keep an agreement. 

If two parties have an agreement and one disappoints, the other one has the right to react. Many lawyers have been disappointed by marketing agencies that promise results but give excuses. 

Why are most marketing agencies promising results they can’t deliver?

Many of these agencies aren’t run by experienced professionals. Instead, they are run by people who have no sound knowledge or experience in digital marketing. 

Let me use an SEO expert as an example. An experienced law SEO expert won’t promise results they can’t guarantee. 

Unfortunately, most inexperienced online marketing agencies promise to help websites rank overnight. Some even promise to help law firm websites rank in the #1 position within a specific period. 

Consider this if you’re a lawyer looking to hire a digital marketing agency.

Paid adverts can produce immediate results. But then, ads are a challenge to run. They can drain a lawyer’s marketing budget very fast. Thus, most law firms can’t cope with paid ads. 

SEO, a unique marketing strategy, is cost-effective. Its initial cost might be higher, but the long-term benefits show it’s cheaper. With SEO, you can still get visitors to your website long after the project ends. 

Unfortunately, paid ads are the opposite. You stop getting visitors and clicks when the money in your ads account runs dry. 

Lawyers must understand that SEO requires a long-term commitment. So, let no one deceive you into thinking you can rank overnight. Sometimes, it could take months to start getting results for all the efforts you have been making to optimize your website.

So, there is no experienced SEO professional that will promise results at a specific time. They can only guess because the power to rank a website is outside their hands. 

An SEO expert will follow SEO best practices and do what is necessary for your site to rank. The decision is left for Google’s algorithm to make.

Google’s ranking system will sort through many web pages to present the most accurate and valuable ones. So, if the Google algorithm thinks your web page’s content is superior to others, you’ll rank above them in search results. 

What am I trying to say?   

No SEO expert can influence Google’s ranking system. They can only do their best and leave the decision to Google’s algorithm. Their part is to use various SEO strategies to optimize the website to improve search visibility. 

So, the reason some marketing agencies over-promise is to lure law firms. They are just after the money, not necessarily the result. 

A Handy Tip: Some lawyers working with genuine marketing agencies for years don’t hate marketing agencies. These law firms have tasted the benefits of digital marketing and are using it to grow their businesses. 

3: Lawyers want immediate results:

Imagine executing a marketing strategy that requires heavy investment. You hired a marketing agency and have to pay thousands of dollars monthly. It is over six months, and you keep paying the marketing agency their monthly fee, but results haven’t been forthcoming. 

Most lawyers in this scenario will think the marketing agency is just taking their money and not doing anything. They will feel the agency is scamming them.  

It is possible to think this way when investing in a marketing project but not getting the results or return on investment you hoped for. Anybody will feel this way. 

What’s the way forward?

Firstly, lawyers must understand that SEO is highly competitive. You are competing with other law firms who are also desperate to rank for similar keywords.

Lawyers need to be patient. Let the SEO agency do its job. You can see results immediately with paid ads, but you can’t compare paid adverts’ ROI to search engine optimization. SEO offers higher ROI. 

Again, SEO’s CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost) is much lower than paid adverts. The CAC refers to the amount of money a company spends to get one client. So, you can make more profit from SEO than paid adverts. 

Additionally, you cannot get results for your SEO efforts overnight. It will take time. Sometimes, you have to wait for 6 months to a year. In most cases, you could wait longer. This doesn’t mean the SEO agency isn’t working. They are working and want to help you rank and generate more leads. 

4: Lawyers consider marketing a waste of finances:

Many lawyers don’t see any reason to invest in digital marketing. They prefer traditional marketing methods, which include word-of-mouth and attorney referrals. 

Lawyers spend time in meetings and conferences networking. They can share their complementary cards and get clients or people who might refer others to them. Lawyers also get their clients from friends, family, and acquaintances. 

To lawyers who believe in traditional marketing techniques, an investment in digital marketing is a good use of money and time. They believe legal consumers obtained via word-of-mouth or referrals converts, which is the case. However, digital marketing still produces results. 

Lawyers, please pay attention to this.  

Getting clients via word-of-mouth or referrals is an effective strategy. But you can combine them with digital marketing strategies to ensure you don’t miss out on growth opportunities. 

Investment in digital marketing is not a waste of money. It will only be a waste if you don’t hire the right digital marketing company. 

Conclusion

You have read why lawyers hate marketing agencies. Unfortunately, most of the reasons are marketing agencies’ faults. 

Most agencies promise results but give excuses. They act like they don’t care about law firms’ projects but only care about the money. They make excuses and don’t put effort into achieving results. 

Digital marketing is effective and can help law firms grow online. If you’re a lawyer and aren’t getting any benefits from digital marketing, find an expert to help you. 

You can contact the Law Firm SEO Expert agency for your SEO needs.