Considering hiring a marketing manager for your law firm? Excellent! Your business will benefit tremendously from having a marketing expert on the team.
But that’s not all you need. To build a legal marketing team worth its salt, you need content specialists, strategists, a design team, a local SEO guy, a PPC gal, an advertising department – the whole nine yards.
Of course, the best way to get everyone you need in one place is to hire MeanPug’s full-scale marketing agency. You’ll get all the benefits of our expertise without having to make the hiring decisions for a dozen individual people. (We do that part!)
How Many People Work in Legal Marketing?
Around 10,000 people work in legal marketing today. This may sound like an immense pool of people to choose from, but let’s put this into perspective: there are 1.32 million attorneys in the United States. That’s one marketing employee for every 139 lawyers – so, not enough to go around.
How Do I Know if I Need a Legal Marketing Team?
Many firms hire marketing employees or agencies that don’t exclusively do legal marketing the way we do. And in some cases, that may be all you need: there are some terrific companies out there that do great work for their legal clients.
But there are usually “tells” that this “general practitioner” of an agency does not specialize in law. For example, non-legal marketers tend to sprinkle their law clients’ websites with terms like “best” and “expert” – huge Bar Association no-nos.
Further, their designs don’t always align with the best practices for legal websites. Meaning that the strategy they build for you may not include the types of cases you want to attract, and if their design is poor you’re not going to rank at all for the keywords that truly matter.
SEO Is Everything
A good legal marketer knows their stuff when it comes to law firm SEO. They know that personal injury lawyers don’t want to rank for “property damage attorney” searches. They know that the terms “criminal defense” and “criminal justice” do not attract the same clientele. They know which ratings services provide real value and which just want $700 for a plaque and a badge for the site.
So do you specifically need a legal marketing team? Maybe not. But in almost every scenario, you’d be better off hiring an agency like ours to build your brand and market your firm, or to work alongside an in-house strategist or internal team.
Can’t I Just Hire a Marketing Employee to Do Everything?
Imagine you want to renovate your house. You do some research and you find a general contractor who seems to know it all – he can rewire the electricity, install the plumbing, and reroof the house. But…
- Can he also cut marble?
- Can he build the wood saddle you need for that step-down from the foyer?
- How’s his tile work?
- How’s his paint job?
- Does he know how to remove the asbestos shingles from your 1960s-era house?
- How good is he at retrofitting your house with central air conditioning?
- How about landscaping? Can he put in a pool with a grotto?
- Does he do dog houses?
And…can he do all that within 30 days? That’s not a general contractor – that’s a unicorn. And marketing isn’t all that different.
You are incredibly unlikely to find an employee with a cursory background in every marketing channel, let alone specialize in all of them. And if you somehow do find this person, you’re going to burn them out, and quickly.
Even C-level marketing executives have glaring holes in their backgrounds, which they rectify by hiring teams who supplement their skills. The marketing executive who focused most of her career on TV and radio needs a digital specialist. The executive who can build a website will need someone good with PPC. It’s the nature of the beast.
Different Marketing Jobs and Their Salary Ranges
I don’t mean to startle you but <deep breath> there are a lot of jobs in the marketing field. Just take a look at this list and imagine having to go through the hiring process for each one (not to mention the total cost):
- Digital Advertising Manager – the digital advertising manager is the general practitioner of digital marketing. They’re the go-to guru for all things digital marketing, juggling campaigns across platforms to get those sweet results. (Salary range: $67,500 to $127,000 [ZipRecruiter])
- Paid Search (PPC) Advertising Specialist – Your PPC specialist makes sure those “sponsored” Google ads hit the jackpot with clicks and conversions. (Salary range: $50,000 to $85,000 [Glassdoor])
- Social Advertising Specialist – Your SAS is a social media wizard, creating scroll-stopping ads that get people talking (and clicking on them). (Salary range: $42,000 to $62,000 [ZipRecruiter])
- Programmatic & Display Advertising Specialist – This specialist is the brains behind those targeted banner and video ads that seem to magically know what your customers want. (Salary range: $68,000 to $112,000 [Glassdoor])
- Affiliate Marketing Specialist – This matchmaker connects brands with partners who drive traffic and sales—your marketing wingman. (Salary range: $56,000 to $95,000 [Glassdoor])
- SEO Manager – This MVP has a strong background in both onsite and offsite SEO and can manage a team of technical specialists and link-building specialists to coordinate long-term SEO strategy. (Salary range: $70,000 to $117,000 [ZipRecruiter])
- Technical (Onsite) SEO Specialist – The fixer-upper of your website, tweaking it so that Google loves it and users can’t resist it. (Salary range: $49,000 to $77,000 [Glassdoor])
- Offsite SEO Manager / Link Building Specialist – The connector who builds those powerful backlinks that tell Google your site is legit. (Salary range: $60,000 to $80,000 [Indeed])
- Content Director – Your CD manages a team of writers and editors to craft the content your audience can’t get enough of. (Salary range: $84,000 to $209,000 [ZipRecuiter])
- Legal Content Writer – This wordsmith turns legalese into content people actually want to read. (Salary range: $49,000 to $186,000 [ZipRecruiter])
- Legal Content Editor – This perfectionist ensures every piece of legal content is polished, accurate, and search engine-ready. (Salary range: $60,000 to $99,000 [ZipRecruiter])
- Creative Director – The visionary in charge of your brand’s look and vibe, your creative director makes sure everything about your website screams you. (Salary range: $129,000 to $174,000 [ZipRecruiter])
- Video Producer & Editor – This magic-maker turns raw footage into killer videos that grab your customers’ attention and tell your story. (Salary range: $75,000 to $85,000 [ZipRecruiter])
- Graphic Designer – This artist crafts the jaw-dropping visuals that make your brand impossible to ignore. (Salary range: $36,000 to $100,000 [Bureau of Labor Statistics])
- Engineering Manager – This tech captain steers the ship, keeping projects on track and the team in sync. (Salary range: $116,000 to $173,000 [Glassdoor])
- WordPress Developer – This developer is in charge of all things clickable, swipeable, and gorgeous on your site or app. (Salary range: $71,000 to $84,000 [BuiltIn])
- Media Buyer – This negotiator scores the best ad spots to get your message in front of the right people. (Salary range: $70,000 to $100,000 [Glassdoor])
- Operations & Analytics – This data detective makes sense of the numbers to keep your marketing machine running like clockwork. (Salary range: $60,000 to $100,000 [Glassdoor])
- CRM / Intake Manager – This friendly face behind the system keeps leads flowing and clients happy. (Salary range: $50,000 to $79,000 [ZipRecruiter])
- Business Development / Referrals Manager – This networker extraordinaire builds the relationships that bring in fresh business and referrals. (Salary range: $72,000 to $160,000 [Indeed])
Before you mortgage your business (and your home) to hire all these folks, know that you have an alternative. Work with an agency like MeanPug, and you get this whole team in one nicely wrapped (and affordable!) package.
What Does a Typical Marketing Team Look Like?
Marketing teams are like families – every situation is different. Here are some of the possible combinations you can make:
- No Marketing Team – You fly solo with no marketing team—just figure it out as you go!
- Agency Only – You rely entirely on an agency (like us) to handle all your marketing needs and strategy.
- 1 Internal Marketing Manager + Agency – Your internal marketing manager works alongside an agency for extra expertise and support.
- Small Marketing Team + Full Service Agency – Your in-house team teams up with a full-service agency to tackle everything from strategy to execution.
- Small Marketing Team + Specialist Agencies – Your in-house team works with specialized agencies to cover specific marketing needs like SEO, PPC, or social media.
- Large Marketing Team + Agency – Your in-house marketing team works with an agency for advanced strategies or extra resources.
We can work with you to determine which agency-based solution is best for your brand.
Can You Save Money by Hiring Marketers with No Legal Experience?
Hire a marketing specialist with zero legal experience, and you’ll save around 20-30% per year on their salary. Sure, this may sound like a bargain, but while your costs may be lower, your blood pressure will be higher.
If you hire someone inexperienced in legal content, you can expect:
- A one-to-three-year learning curve: First, you’ll spend a significant amount of time training an employee who will be spending significantly less time working than training.
- A one-to-three-year turnover rate: Next, if you don’t raise that newly minted legal specialist’s salary to match the average, they’ll leave you for someone who does. And with that legal marketing training you’ve provided them, it won’t take them long to find a new job, and probably with a competitor.
- A zebra who never changes its stripes: If you hire someone without the intention of training them on legal marketing, you get what you pay for. Many marketing professionals don’t like working in legal, so they have no incentive to learn anything other than what they are already doing, and their skills grow stale over time.
Legal Services Experiences Steep Turnover
Legal services is, hands-down, the toughest game in digital marketing. With crazy competition, a steep learning curve, and tempting “feel-good” industries luring marketers away, it’s no surprise that legal marketing pros often jump ship to other fields. Most of these folks worked in legal marketing for years at their prior agency with no interest in pursuing it further than their role allowed, choosing instead to transition to (most often) software and product roles, among other better fits.
Paying a premium for a legal professional is always worth the additional cost. (And hiring an agency of legal marketing professionals isn’t a bad idea either!)
Should I Make a Budget Hire?
Good performance is far more likely when you hire a high-quality team member. Learning from your mistakes is an order of magnitude more expensive than whatever you consider to be high salary costs.
Some things we can help you avoid include:
- Wasted budget – You know that feeling you get when you drop cash on something that doesn’t deliver? That’s wasted budget—money gone with little to show for it.
- Lost opportunity cost – When you blow your budget on the wrong things, you’re not just losing money—you’re missing out on better opportunities that could’ve made a better impact.
- The smokescreen of lower cost – Sure, you might spend less money upfront, but cheaper hires can mean poorer results, and suddenly that “lower cost” isn’t so low anymore.
- Tapped-out or missing channels – Budget hires may stick to what is familiar and safe, but what’s familiar and safe becomes more ineffective as trends change over time.
An Alternative to Building Your Own Legal Marketing Team? Hire a Full-Service Agency
At MeanPug, we’ve spent years putting together the best legal marketing team. We are proud to provide our clients with employees who are specialists in every role we hire them for. Each member of our team has extensive legal services experience.
But don’t take our word for it. Contact us today and find out why law firms prefer working with MeanPug to build their teams.
