A Special Note to Current Advertisers:

What advertisers cannot measure may be more important than what they can measure. Frequently television advertisers track (measure) the number of new clients their television advertising generates. Tracking can give advertisers reliable data on both the number of new clients generated and on the total revenue generated through advertising.

Unfortunately, though the data are often accurate and reliable, the data are often misleading: advertisers cannot track end-users who, after being interrupted with unwelcome commercials for months or years, are driven to select competitive providers. That is, advertisers can measure what they capture (numbers of new clients or revenue generated), but they cannot measure the number of clients their advertising diverted to competitors. It is not unusual for an advertiser to air commercials that capture X new clients while driving 2X new clients to competitors’ doors. This advertiser measures X and incorrectly concludes “my advertising campaign is successful.”

Other factors to consider before buying television advertising:

Are other law firms advertising on television?

Have law firm advertisers dropped or significantly reduced their television advertising in the past five years?

Can your firm afford a sustained advertising effort?

Can you coordinate your television advertising to coincide with an overhaul of your yellow pages’ advertising?

What coverage will your dollars buy? Are you paying to advertise to viewers who cannot conveniently do business with you? Can you mitigate that?

Can you fee share?

What will your state’s Rules of Professional Conduct allow?

Which programming will produce the greatest ROI? Jerry Springer or the Evening News?