How To Know For Sure If An Internet Marketing Service Is A Scam

With all of the conflicting information out there, how can you tell whether paying for an online marketing service will work for you?

Occasionally, someone asks if certain internet marketing websites bring in clients and whether it is worth it to pay for their premium versions. I won’t mention the names of these websites, but let’s call them Kelp, Lawdingdong, or Blabbo, to name a few.

Many attorneys say that they had bad experiences with paid services. Their responses resemble something like, “No, I didn’t get any clients through the service” or “HELL NO! ARE YOU ****ING STUPID OR SOMETHING? YOU’RE GIVING MONEY TO SCAMMERS!” Then come the stories about constant cold calls from pushy telemarketers using every hard-sell tactic in the book until you sign up. But wait, there’s more! Once you give them your credit card information, they try to upsell you on all kinds of super-premium services that can lead to you paying hundreds or even thousands of dollars per month. Then they complain about the labyrinthine cancellation procedures designed to frustrate you into renewal.

But some attorneys sign up for and continue to use the marketing company’s paid premium services. A few openly mention that it has brought them new business. But others stay silent. I think some would be reluctant to disclose their success because they don’t want their competitor-colleagues to sign up. Others may not have generated a return on investment yet but they stay on because one day, that million-dollar client will check out your profile and be awestruck by your five-star reviews and perfect 10.0 rating. Well, that’s what the telemarketer keeps promising whenever lawyers try to cancel.

With all of this conflicting information, how can you tell whether paying for an online marketing service will work for you? No one knows for sure because marketing is still a crapshoot. So if you really want to know, you’re just going to have to take a leap of faith, sign up, pay the fee and see for yourself. However, there are some steps you can take before signing up to at least get an idea as to whether you will succeed.

First, if a potential client gets in touch with you, ask her how she found out about you. If they say they found you on the internet, ask them to name the website they used. If you hear the name of a certain website consistently, then it may be worth it to learn more about what their paid services offer.

Second, find out what you are getting for your money. Are you paying money just to get rid of your competitors’ ads on your profile? Do they take steps to make it easier for clients to get a hold of you? Find out how they will expand your internet presence. I would be skeptical of guarantees that your name will show up on the first page of a Google search because the company is probably making the same promises to its other paying customers.

Third, think about whether your ideal clients would use the internet to find an attorney. For ultra-high-end or niche practices, subscribing to a paid service may not be useful because potential clients already know whom to contact. But if your target audience is the general public, an expanded internet presence might give you an edge over your competitors.

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Finally, if you decide to subscribe to a paid plan, try to commit for at least one year. I heard a lot of stories from colleagues signing up for three-month trials only to be disappointed because they did not get client calls during that time. I personally think three months is not enough time to develop an internet presence. I think one year is sufficient because it gives you enough time to see how clients interact with your profile, make any changes to improve profile visibility, and determine whether it would be sensible to continue or try a different marketing plan.

Internet marketing is the new Yellow Pages and will continue to be a controversial subject among the legal blawgers. Some attorneys swear by it while others think it is an overpriced scam. So will it work for you? I don’t know. You don’t know. Nobody knows. So you’ll just have to try it and find out.

While I was snooping on forum discussions doing research for this column, I noticed that some lawyers do not like marketing at all. But that’s a discussion for another column.


Shannon Achimalbe was a former solo practitioner for five years before deciding to sell out and get back on the corporate ladder. Shannon can be reached by email at sachimalbe@excite.com and via Twitter: @ShanonAchimalbe.

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