Gyi Tsakalakis:

The people who have acquired the links are the winners.

Chris Dreyer:

How many more times are we going to put injured, question mark, on a billboard? You’re never, ever going to stand out or be different or be memorable.

Gyi Tsakalakis:

I can’t believe legal services consumers would do a search and without clicking through to the firm’s website, make a phone call and hire a lawyer. And guess what? As we know, they do all the time. It’s wild.

Chris Dreyer:

Welcome to Personal Injury Mastermind. I’m your host, Chris Dreyer, founder and CEO of Rankings.io, the elite legal marketing agency. Each week you get insights and wisdom from some of the best in the industry. On these special toolkit Tuesdays, we dive deep into conversations with the leading vendors in the legal sphere, the masterminds behind the technologies, services, and strategies that help law firms not just survive but thrive in today’s competitive landscape.

Now, this isn’t about selling the latest software or getting kickbacks from affiliate links. It’s about bringing you the best so you can be the best for your firm, for your staff, for your clients, and for you. This is Toolkit Tuesday on PIMM, your weekly guide to staying sharp in the legal world. Let’s go

On the surface, the logic is simple. To grow, you need leads. To get leads, you need an integrated marketing strategy. But understanding how the marketing flywheel is powered can get pretty complicated. Gyi Tsakalakis, president of AttorneySync, offers a manual on best practices for omnichannel marketing. Whether you’re a high volume pre-litigation firm or selective litigator, his insights will help your firm dominate the competition.

Today, he emphasises locally relevant links over general domain authority, why social media can be leveraged for brand building, why traditional media is still relevant, and why your budget should inform your tactics, not the other way around. Here’s Gyi, president of AttorneySync.

Gyi Tsakalakis:

My mom’s so proud of me because I get to wear the two worst titles of all time. Personal injury attorney ambulance chaser and SEO spammer. So she’s super proud. I actually started out as a computer science major my sophomore year of undergrad. Java was brand new. It was the new programming language. And it was darkroom pro coding all day. And so I was like, “I’m not going to do this.”

Halfway through undergrad, I’m like, “I’m not doing computer science anymore.” And so I went to the lucrative major of philosophy, which I don’t regret because I loved my philosophy degree, naturally because philosophers were not in high demand at the time. I went to law school, and I think I was probably a little bit enamored by Law & Order. When I actually started practicing , I was like, “This is not what it’s like on TV.” But I loved being in court.

I worked at a small plaintiff’s firm in southeast Michigan. Very brief career. My business partner, who’s a friend of mine from undergrad, he was actually doing lead generation at a different company for at-home services and we said, “Hey, we think we can maybe do this for lawyers.” And so that was really the genesis of the company. But the thing was, so this is back 2007, 2008, and we were doing the total attorney’s thing. It was pay per lead, but it wasn’t clear that lawyers could even do pay per lead. They got a grievance filed against them in all 50 states by one of their customers, yada yada. So we’re like, “We can’t fight this fight. We’re tiny and don’t have any money and are losing money.” And so we just pivoted to do the agency thing. But the real impetus for starting it was really lawyers were like, “People aren’t going to use the internet to hire lawyers.” And I was like, “This cannot be right.” And so-

Chris Dreyer:

So you saw the Blue Ocean.

Gyi Tsakalakis:

Yeah. It’s funny we say that and it was still like 2008. You’d think by 2008 it wasn’t that blue, but gosh, it really was. So I got lucky that I stumbled into it.

Chris Dreyer:

It is certainly a bloodbath now, but yeah, that’s amazing that you saw the opportunity. So that was AttorneySync was born. You are at the top of Bloom’s Taxonomy for not only SEO, but I would say digital marketing in the legal space. And just what are best practices? What has impact? How are attorneys generating leads? That’s the name of the game, right? So let’s start with SEO. What’s it look like today with the future and those impact items? What do you really see that’s generating results?

Gyi Tsakalakis:

I’m still a big links guy. The three buckets to me… You might bucket them differently, so you tell me how you think about it too. But I think about links, I think about technical stuff you can do to the website, and I think about content. You can go to any competitive search engine result page. There are no sites that are showing up there with zero links. Period. Now can you find out? Can find some random, low volume query that no one’s ever searched for before and get a site to rank with no links? Sure. But you’re talking about lower funnel head terms? No chance.

The other side of that coin, SEO, as you know, is if you’re starting out brand new and you’re not going to compete, go super local and go with the longer tail stuff. Think about those questions that people are asking that are relevant and a local level because… And this is… Every personal injury lawyer, you ask them, “Who do you serve?” “Well, anybody who’s hurt in the state.” “Oh really?” “Oh, if it’s a good enough case, I’ll drive all the way to Northern California from Southern California and take the case.” But from an SEO standpoint, as we know, the results are super hyper localized. I mean, local map packs, good luck trying to rank outside of a few miles from your office location, right?

Chris Dreyer:

It’s becoming more centralized where… I use this example a lot. Our audience is probably sick of hearing it about it, but if you go on vacation, you type best restaurants near me, you expect to see in your proximity. You don’t expect to see a restaurant 20 miles away. Why would you think differently about your law firm? Your proximity is a factor. So I agree with that.

The other thing too is, I got to be honest, I’m on the links camp side with you too. Those endorsements, those votes, that’s how they differentiated, that’s how they categorized the web. It wasn’t from user behavior. Yeah, maybe it’s advanced and maybe you do split test results for engagement and click-through rates, but there’s still a lot of strength in that foundation for the links. The thing that I would ask you too is it’s not like your competitor can’t see your content, so it’s just this hamster wheel scenario. Oh, he’s got two images. Oh, you know what? We should probably put four in a video. See that in the H2? We need to do that geo tack. And it’s like you get in this scenario, it’s like what are we doing here? How much better can you make a piece of content when it’s on car accident orders, St. Louis car accident orders?

Gyi Tsakalakis:

No, and I always think about it from Google’s perspective too. It’s like if Google’s… They’ve got all this data. They’ve got all this noise that’s going on on the web. Links is the thing that’s a gatekeeper. And we can talk about how even links are manipulated and people are buying links and yada yada, yada, but it’s still the gatekeeper, right? I think Google would love to be able to… They talk about entities and their knowledge graph and all this stuff. They would love to know everything about the world as it is and be able to Star Trek computer, spit back an answer for almost everything. They’re trying to get there, but they’re not there. Every site that we pop the hood on, every time someone comes into us and we’re like, “Let’s get a look at the competitive landscape,” the people who have acquired the links are the winners for the most part.

And as you know, it’s now not all links are created equally. So it’s not… I say this because people are like, “Well, I’ve got less links and I’m ranking for stuff.” And it’s like, “Sure, but it’s the quality of the links and the relevance.” And for local, the thing that I’m always been banging on the drum on is forget about page authority and domain authority and all this stuff. Go for those local, relevant links.

So I was thinking about this too from Google’s standpoint. Google will tell you what the most relevant sites it thinks are for any given query. You want to know where they are? They’re in the search results, right? Just do a search. That’s what Google thinks are the best results. The problem is of course all your competitors are showing up for those queries and they’re not going to link to you. But as a starting point, as a framework, that’s the place to start. Find those sites that are topically relevant to you, that are locally relevant to you, and go find opportunities to get in front of people that will actually link to you. That’s the way I think about it.

Chris Dreyer:

Yeah. On the link side, and again, running an SEO agency, a digital marketing agency, that’s one of the most challenging things to do is link building in the legal vertical. It’s hard. So a lot of times we get these prospects that aren’t ranking. And the first thing you do is like, “Oh, you haven’t built any links for seven months. No wonder you’re stagnant.” Gyi, I did a competitive analysis for Los Angeles today. The top three sites all had the most referring domains. It is what is. Right.

Gyi Tsakalakis:

Pretty simple. It’s pretty simple.

Chris Dreyer:

You’re endorsing the content. So I look at local a little different. Obviously, you got relevance, distance, prominence, right? And all those factors. How do you look at it from the actual brick and mortar? Some individuals get a shared office suite or a Regis or a WeWork or God knows what to get the approved rating, but I got to imagine that when a consumer looks at it and doesn’t do that request for directions, maybe that’s a signal that they don’t think it’s reputable or real brick and mortar. Where do you think the engagement metrics come into play in terms of on the local level?

Gyi Tsakalakis:

Oh, I think engagement’s huge. And you’ve said something else in there that I think people forget that’s so, so important. You can rank all day in the local pack number one spot. And if the number two spot has better reviews, higher sentiment, more of them, they’re closer. Maybe they’ve got some video testimonials in their Google business profile, you still got to convert. They still got to convert them into a call or to get them to click through it. When local really started and they started showing the map pack, I was like, I can’t believe legal services consumers would do a search and without clicking through to the firm’s website, make a phone call and hire a lawyer. And guess what? As we know, they do all the time. It’s wild.

So it’s another thing to keep in mind. Lawyers spend all this money on building these fancy websites. And I always loved when they used to have the little guy that would walk out and talk to you at the bottom of the website. I was like, “God, that’s expensive stuff.” And a lot of your target audience, they’re not even clicking through. They’re making that decision to call right from the local pack there. And so that’s another thing I think is important for folks to keep in mind, which is why it’s so important also to track, right? Track those phone calls from your Google business profile.

Chris Dreyer:

The consumer definitely has become more educated, but I would say that it still occurs, right? Back in the day, there wasn’t all these social networks and that’s where they went to make the decision. Obviously, SEO, tonne of value, right? Some of the best case acquisition costs. Where do you see LSA? Probably the most frustrating spot on Google search results. I mean if you miss a call, you’re toast for a while. So where do you see LSA fitting in?

Gyi Tsakalakis:

Yeah, I love LSA, right? High intent, tons of real estate. The profile, the ad units have the little Google screened endorsement. They’ve got your hours of operation. Hours is a huge one too. If your competitors are answering the phone 24 hours and you’re answering them 9:00 to 5:00, guess what? A lot of your potential clients, they’re not calling you 9:00 to 5:00. So the other thing that LSAs have, it’s got the reviews in there. And so as you mentioned, though, the challenge is you can’t pull any levers on budget. So if you’re not answering those calls, if you’re not marking them in the platform as booked, if you’re not working the system, Google’s not going to spend because Google wants to show the ones that are giving a, quote, unquote, “great experience” to the people who are engaged with the ads.

We’ve done some things to try to play around with that, but I think to your point, a lot of it just come down to the engagement with the platform, adjusting stuff, adjusting budgets, adjusting practice areas, adjusting locations even. Gosh, if you can get those LSAs to spend, they’re great. I was just looking at a CRM today of a client, and LSAs were the… Except for referrals, they were the highest conversion rates of all of the channels that they were tracking. And so it’s high intent with reviews. It’s like local PAC on steroids.

Chris Dreyer:

There are PI attorneys out there killing it on LSA a or local services ads. If you’re in that sandbox and you can’t get out of it, think about broadening your categories, go wider, and work that platform. But LSAs aren’t the only way to go. Paid ads can help with brand recognition. There are different types of paid ads. Search ads, display ads, social media ads, banner ads. They all work the same basic way. The advertiser pays the website or app to show their ad and hopes it will lead to more business. The website makes money by selling ad space. Now, the cost per click on paid ads can be incredibly expensive because they’re bid on real-time auctions. The good news is you can bid on incredibly relevant slots for your target demographic. The bad news is so can all your competitors. Lower funnel local search terms like car accident lawyer St. Louis costs hundreds of dollars per click. So what’s the smart way to think about spending it in the ad space? Gyi gives us some solid advice for every budget.

Gyi Tsakalakis:

Now if you’re going to do something unpaid, I would spend money trying to build brand. I think direct response, personal injury. If you don’t have budget, search ads? Good luck. Now, branded social campaigns, very targeted Google display network, if you’ve got an ad that can show up as you’re a… Let’s make something up, but you’re a top lawyer in your area and you’ve got all the accolades, you’re super lawyer 0.1%, best lawyer, everybody loves you. You’ve got a decent amount of reviews. You put that on the digital news site in your area. Chicago Tribune or if you’re in a local market that’s got even a much more local digital newspaper, go spend some money there because you can get eyeballs on, you start building your brand. And it’s cheaper to build brand that way than it is, say, on TV. That’s just an idea for paid.

But gosh, you can go after long tail, but guess what happens? I mean, we see it all the time. You try to bid on these crazy long tail queries and Google’s getting away from the match types anyway and so they end up serving the ads of the people with budget anyway because they want to get that inventory in front of the people who are spending. You’re not going to go do an exact match long tail query on paid. They’re just not going to show your ads.

Chris Dreyer:

Yeah, I see that the same. And some of those individuals with the high economies of scale, the high bids, their query is going to be encompassed in that long tail. So you’re getting hit. Now, obviously if you’re doing exact match and things like that, it wouldn’t occur. But it still may drive up the price. I will say from what I’ve seen, definitely agree with the brand. I don’t think many people are utilizing display how it’s intended to be sniping it versus just letting them put it on gaming sites and going down that route, which is… Or mobile apps, which is just-

Gyi Tsakalakis:

Great way to burn money.

Chris Dreyer:

Yeah. Yeah. The thing that I see, those mid… And I would say in the PI space, just being candid, you’re below 20K. I mean, you’re not in the big budget range to bid for those high intent phrases. Performance max I’ve seen work sometimes. And what I’ve noticed and I’d like to hear from you is if there’s some big brands, players, big TV guys, big billboard guys, the first thing that P Max is doing is it’s going out and bidding on their name. And even if you’re not bidding on enter their keyword, right? P Max selects it’s bidding on their name and before you know it, you’re getting that Morgan & Morgan cease and desist that pretty much every person that’s done ads in Florida’s received. Which, hey, if I’m Morgan & Morgan, I would do it too, but what do you think there?

Gyi Tsakalakis:

Yeah, well, what you’re saying is exactly right. And it’s even worse because it’s not just limited to P Max. What happens is this. The machine thinks that John Morgan is synonymous with personal injury lawyer. And so if you bid on personal injury lawyer, the machine will show your ads for searches on John Morgan. It’s happened to us a bunch of times where we’re like, “We’re not bidding on your name. Here’s our keyword list. Go look at it. We’re not bidding on your name, so you can take your cease and desist letter and put it wherever you want.”

And so then you’ll say, “Well, what are you supposed to do?” And there are agencies now that are… They’re scraping directories and they’re negative every lawyer name that they can find. Now, that’s a good idea, actually. It doesn’t scale great, but that will help. But even if you do that because of the way the machine works, like the close variance, if the machine thinks that your name is a close variant to a category term, it’s going to show the ad. So huge problem.

Chris Dreyer:

Yeah. And we’ve seen that for sure. Exact same scenario. And Dan Newland in Orlando is a really big advertiser and his name is kind of synonymous with PI. And I’m speaking just giving Florida examples. There’s examples all over the country that I could give as well. To be successful on Google Ads, it is an economies of scale thing. It’s a big budget because then you can get the lower CPAs on the bigger territory that you bid on instead of doing a radius targeting where… Of course, everybody’s doing targeting where you bid a little bit bigger counties or state or even nation.

Gyi Tsakalakis:

Totally.

Chris Dreyer:

So social media, organic social, where do you see this play as a strategy and just your overall thoughts on it for personal injury attorneys? Who have you seen that’s done it well? Maybe some examples for our audience and your just thoughts on social.

Gyi Tsakalakis:

Specifically organic social. I don’t know if you follow Law by Mike at all, but-

Chris Dreyer:

Oh yeah.

Gyi Tsakalakis:

If you ask me, an example of somebody who’s, quote, unquote, “crushing it” on social, he is. He’s got Attorney Tom. They’ve got the following, the reach, they’ve found a way to get that reach and really, really effective for brand building, right? If you go watch these folks… And look, they’re mixing the content up. Some of it might be more practice relevant. Law by Mike, he does legal stuff, but as a direct response play, I don’t have access to any other data, but my hunch would be very, very small percentage of it is direct response marketing stuff. I watched the Law by Mike video right after I was in a car accident. I’m sitting in a hospital and I’m calling Law by Mike. Instead, though, they’re like, “Oh, yeah. Who’s that guy on TikTok that I watch all the time? Oh yeah, Mike.” And I think that that’s extremely effective. It’s a very, very affordable way to build brand and gain affinity audience. I think it’s super, super effective where there’s an overlap between the content you’re doing and a local play. Because if you’re covering local sports…

And John Morgan’s been great at this, even outside of social. He did the whole Tebow in Florida, bring Tebow to Florida thing, got national attention for it. Same type of idea, but that’s brand, right? That’s all about… It’s not direct response. And so you see a lot of these lawyers that try to do the direct response thing. The 10,000,000th video about what to do after a car accident. And think about if you’re trying to actually get a following that’s going to consume this stuff. If video after video is 10 things to know after a car accident, 10 things to know after your doctor screws up your surgery, 10 things to know about this latest mass tort thing, people are just going to block you. No one wants to follow that stuff on a daily basis. Now you mix it in once in a while, sure, but organic social for brand is great.

And here’s the caveat. Even if you get the reach, even if you get the awareness, you get the 10,000 followers and perhaps a lot of legal services consumers who don’t know any lawyers and they follow you and they’re going to make their decision by their TikTok lawyer. A lot of people, even people that are engaging with your content and liking it, they’re not going to hire you for your case because you dance on TikTok. Did you do something that persuaded them that you’re the person that’s going to maximize the value and take care of them through their litigation? Not necessarily from your dancing on TikTok. Now again, there are lawyers that do it and they do it effectively and I’m sure that they can hashtag the show and say, “Hey, Gyi’s totally wrong. We do all direct response on organic social.” I’m sure that’s going to happen, but for the most part, you’re talking about efficiency of time and dollars spent. I would focus on brand there, not direct response.

Chris Dreyer:

Yeah, I 1000% agree. I think the big thing is it’s got to be entertaining. You got to have a hook to keep the user engaged, otherwise you’re not going to get any of those signals to show up in the feed. We know that the monetization strategy for social media is first you get enough content and then you make it pay to play, unless you have those engagement signals. The thing that I see a lot on social is we’re talking about different marketing. We’re talking about owned. We’re talking about paid or earned, right? So owned, you might get some followers. It may be really challenging if you’re not making something entertaining. You could do paid. You could blast it out. And that’s an avenue. You could do some retargeting. But where I see most fail is the earned. You’re not getting the retweets or the reXes or whatever it’s called now.

Gyi Tsakalakis:

Yeah, what is it now?

Chris Dreyer:

Right, right. The re-shares and things without that, and that’s the real viral component missing for most.

Gyi Tsakalakis:

Yeah, no, I totally agree. And you actually made me think of something else. But every time we talk to personal trade lawyers, I’m like, “What are you doing to stay in touch with your former clients?” “Nothing. Why would I stay in touch with my former clients?” And so in this context of this conversation, custom audiences, right? If you don’t want to go just blast everybody, at least show some ads to people that already know and trust you because presumably you did a great job and helped them recover. Because that’s the thing people forget.

Even for referrals, it’s the same thing. “Oh yeah, they’re going to refer me regardless of whether I nurture the relationship.” I’m like, “No, they’re not.” I can’t tell you how many times I’ve talked to personal injury lawyers and they’ll be like, “So-and-so totally forgot what I did.” And I’m like, “I know, because you’ve done nothing to nurture that relationship. You’re not advertising, you’re not sending out nurturing emails, you don’t take people out to dinner. So why do you think that people sit around and just remember your name and your firm name and are just waiting to send you a referral?” “Oh no, they already know me. They’re going to refer to me anyway.” I’m like, “No, they’re not. They’ve just met five other personal injury lawyers last week.”

Chris Dreyer:

Digital marketing is a critical component to the success of most firms, but where does traditional media like TV, radio, and billboards fit in? Gyi breaks down traditional media and prioritization of budget.

Gyi Tsakalakis:

You’ve got a huge budget. You’re an established firm or you’re trying to take more share of voice in an area. For personal injury, yeah, you need to have that offline presence. We even still talk about billboards now. I think the lawyers I love are the ones that are doing direct response billboards with no vanity phone number, right? Because you think about Glenn Lerner. 222-22-22, everybody knows that. Great. So you put that on a billboard. People are driving down the street. You’re hitting them over the head with 222-22-22 every single day. Great. But I love these guys that are doing the… They just have a local phone number. You think people are driving in their car and they’re like, “Oh, I’m driving past the billboard. I’m going to call you.” Or they got in an accident. So the only person that your addressable market is is the person who got in an accident where they can see your billboard. But they have a place, right?

People are still listening to the radio, and I think it’s the same in a lot of these more… If you talk about traditional. The good news is that lawyers are like… Everyone’s going to be so mad at me, but I guess I can say this because I’m a former lawyer. I still am a lawyer, but I’m not practicing anymore. They’re lemmings, right? So they all rush over to SEO, right? “Oh, we got to go spend money on SEO.” Well, guess what? The good news is that those traditional channels, they start working better because they get less competitive. The radio channels are dying to have advertisers, and so their rates come down. TV, same thing. There’s all sorts of creative ways you can buy TV to bring your costs down because in certain markets there’s not as much competition. But the thing is about all this stuff is you got to know who your people are. You got to know your local community, right?

Because people will say that it’s like you don’t advertise a personal injury firm in Chicago the same way as you do in the middle of nowhere and pick your middle of nowhere. Right? You got to know how people are consuming media, you got to know what they’re interested in, and you got to find those overlaps where it’s like if you care deeply about your local sports teams, that’s a great audience to tap into. Be there. Be on all of the local podcasts that are talking about the local sports teams. Or if you’re into food, do the food thing. But whatever it’s going to be, you got to know that community. The event stuff, like the local events, getting your name out there… And again, not direct response. You’re not trying to put your local phone number up on a booth at your state fair, but getting out there, giving stuff away for free, getting people to… Maybe you’re giving away some kind of safety checklist.

I know firms that have done the… They’ll become a registered car children’s safety seat installation facility, so people are coming to the firm not to hire the lawyer, but just instal their car seats effectively. But guess what? Now they’re seeing your firm, they’re meeting you, they’re getting to know you. Maybe you get them on some safety tips list. That kind of stuff works really, really well. Guess what else? It’s awesome for links because then all these sites, these safety education sites, are linking back to you being like, “Hey, you’re a certified safety centre.” To kind of stop my rant here, it all overlaps, right? It all works together in harmony. And so the idea that you’re just going to pick this one thing, this one channel, this one tactic, and it’s going to be some kind of magic bullet whether it’s SEO or paid or whatever, it’s the wrong way to do it.

Chris Dreyer:

I think there is the compounding, the one plus one equals three. I think if you’re going to run a radio campaign, having billboards, so they’re listening, they hear you on the radio, then they see you on the side of the road. I think where there’s a lot of missed opportunity is with that authenticity that you’re referring to is how many more times are we going to put injured, question mark, on a billboard? You’re never, ever going to stand out or be different or be memorable. Versus, and I love this example, looking… You think of Jim Adler, an older gentleman, charging at a semi-truck with a sledgehammer, yelling at it. If I’m seeing injured daytime television person, “Have you been hurt?” And then I see this gentleman charging at a truck… And yeah, we can make fun of this style, but guess what? You might watch it. You might tell someone and get that earned media. So I think there’s just so many strategies on all of this.

Gyi Tsakalakis:

No, and I love that example too. And this is, again, back to the lemmings thing. People see that and try to recreate it and copy it, right? And it doesn’t work as well. And they’re like, “Well, why didn’t it work for me? I did the same thing.” I’m like, “That’s the problem, right? It’s not you. Jim’s had that position for a long time. Everybody knows his name, and so you’re not going to do that.” So to your point, go find your hammer or whatever it’s going to be that’s unique to you that you can actually gravitate to. That you feel great about too. That’s the other thing too is lawyers… You mentioned the authenticity thing. They try to do stuff that’s not them. Someone like us tells them, “Oh, you got to be on TikTok and you got to do the dances and stuff.” And then they do it, and you’re like, “Gosh, that’s so cringey. Please stop doing it.”

Now, sometimes that cringeyness maybe goes viral because people are like, “That’s the cringeyest lawyer dance I’ve ever seen in my life.” But the point is that you’ve got to do the stuff that you are passionate about that’s really your authentic self. The other thing too that lawyers… We always run into this all the time, is like, “Well, I don’t want to share my personal stuff. I don’t want to share who I am online.” I’m like, “Well, great. You’re going to look just like every other lawyer that doesn’t want to share their personal stuff.” Don’t waste your time with it then, right? If you’re not willing to do that, if you’re not willing to be a little vulnerable, if you’re not willing to let a little bit of your human side show there, don’t waste your time with it. Go do other stuff because these lawyers that… This is the one I love. The stock imagery.

They feel like, “Oh, we’ve got to have something up for 4th of July.” And so you see these firms that hire these agencies that just post organic social stuff. The same American flag image with the same post caption at 12 different firms. You go and look, and they’re all using the same agency. And I’m like, maybe you feel good that you’ve got something that’s filling up some server space and getting in people’s feeds. This is the stuff. There’s no engagement with it. People are flying by it. A lot of people are just going to hide it. They’re not going to go like your content. And I get it because we’re talking about stuff that takes significant investment. And so if you’re like, “My budget’s 500 bucks and all I can afford is the stock photography automatic feed thing. Is that better than nothing?” We could argue about it, but you could probably find a way to spend 500 bucks better than that.

Chris Dreyer:

Yeah. Yeah. Handwritten letter, maybe?

Gyi Tsakalakis:

Right? It’s an expensive letter.

Chris Dreyer:

You mentioned budget. The thing that’s not talked about enough is capitalization, right? So when people are talking about investing in the marketing, what’s your thoughts on budget? What percentage do they invest? How should they invest? What’s your thoughts on overall this kind of topic here?

Gyi Tsakalakis:

So you’re already way so far ahead of the power curve here because you’re already starting to think about things like, “Hey, what if our marketing budget is reflected as a percentage of our total revenue or something?” And we have these conversations with lawyers every day, and we’ll ask those questions. “What’s your marketing budget?” “Marketing budget? Don’t have a marketing budget.” So right there, the stuff that we’re talking about, yeah, you can’t dabble in it like that. And so, to answer you directly, though, you’re either thinking of it as a percentage of total fees or you’re thinking about it as a percentage of profit, in my view.

And for total fees, depending on where you are in your growth trajectory, I always think I always use the number 12% because it’s like it hedges between… I think the floor that the small business association uses is like 6% of revenue, but if you’re in a competitive place and you’ve already grown and you’re trying to get those incremental share of voice, you’re probably in the 20, 30% marketing budget. So I think 12 is the magic number I always bring up. But the point is that that should instruct… That budget should instruct your strategy, not vice versa. People will say, “Oh, I want Google Ads.” You want Google ads, and your total firm revenue last year is a $100,000 and your marketing budget is $10,000 for the year? Don’t go waste your money on Google Ads. Go find something else to do.

Chris Dreyer:

From what I see, it also depends on the type of firm, right? And I think you’d agree with this, right? You’ve got these extremes, right? You’ve got the pre-lit firm that’s staffing up a lot of paralegals and non-attorneys, right? A lot of bodies, a lot of headcount, and they’ve got cashflow so they can deploy the cashflow. And they’re probably looking. They might try to shoot for 20%. Then you’ve got the litigating firm who maybe they don’t invest much at all. And most of these individuals are very anti the billboard guys anyways, right? And they’re getting a lot of their fees through the referral, but guess what? They’re still paying the marketing budget, right? Because they’re paying the referral person’s marketing budget. That a third guys, that’s a marketing budget.

Gyi Tsakalakis:

Absolutely.

Chris Dreyer:

Right. So you need to factor that in.

Gyi Tsakalakis:

I love that you said that.

Chris Dreyer:

Right. So that’s the thing that’s not talked about, but you’re originating. That’s how you’re getting the cases is through that. So you’re still paying the marketing budget, but you’re paying theirs.

Gyi Tsakalakis:

Well, and think about this. I’m going to do you even one worse. You’re paying the referral fee and then guess what else you’re doing? You’re paying for all the travel you did to nurture those referral relationships. You’re paying for all those steak dinners that you’re taking all those people out to. You’re paying for all the stuff you’re doing to stay top of mind with that referral partner, so put that in your marketing budget too. And so your cost for acquisition… It’s a, “Oh no, we just do all referrals, so our marketing’s free.” No, it isn’t. And then, we haven’t even talked about the time, right? The time that you sat on the plane to go to the networking thing or the time that you spent to go to the baseball game to network with your referral partner. Your time has value too. It’s not infinite.

Chris Dreyer:

And those fees too. I mean, you look all over the country. You look at California. It used to be maybe a third, and then it’s 40%, now it’s 50%, and it just keeps going up. So the cost to acquire that lead, you’re still paying it. You’re still paying it no matter what you say, “Hey, we don’t need to advertise.” You are. You are. You’re doing their advertising, so. And then you got the middle, this new type of firm, that’s been created due to technology, right? Due to Zoom, due to Slack, due to connections. So you’ve got the referral firm, who the only thing they do is biz dev and they have no delivery costs. So they’re doing biz dev and sales, and in that scenario, at least what I’m seeing, I’m seeing they could go upwards to 30 to 40% or more just because they don’t have to pay the heavy price on the attorneys and those costs. Any thoughts on that?

Gyi Tsakalakis:

It kind of goes back to this idea of what do you love to do, right? Do you love being a trial lawyer? You want to be in court? You want to try cases? That should inform your strategy. On the other hand, you’re like, “I don’t care. I went to law school and happened to fall in this position. I’m a CEO lawyer, and I just want to run my business, or I don’t want to practice law, and frankly, I don’t want to do marketing either.” Right? That takes you in a different direction. And then you’ve got the people you’re talking about where it’s like, “I don’t like practicing law. I don’t like running a business. But gosh, I love dancing on TikTok.” And so then you’ve got those, quote, unquote, “influencer” lawyers that are just… They’re doing the referral thing, right?

And so, look, I’m like, to each their own. You do whatever it is you like. I think the thing that’s tricky for folks is you see somebody else having success with something and then you’re like, “I want to be that person. I aspire to be them.” And it’s just not who you are, and so it doesn’t work the same way. And then you get frustrated. A lot of these lawyers go to… And I’m a huge fan of coaching, so I’ll just say that right away because I know if I’m going to say this then people are going to jump all over me. But there’s a difference between learning from a coach, learning from another lawyer who’s got experience, who’s built a firm, and trying to be that lawyer, right? Trying to copy their marketing strategy, trying to do what they’re doing. And they get frustrated. It doesn’t work. They’re like, “Why doesn’t it work?” Right?

We talk about it in SEO. It’s like, “I want to dominate like so-and-so dominates in SEO.” And I’m like, “Are you capitalized to do that? Are you willing to do the things that it takes to make that happen?” It’s so important that there’s alignment on those things because then if you don’t define success for yourself and you don’t love what you’re doing, eventually you’re going to stop doing it. It’s not going to work. It’s not going to be as effective as it could be if you find the things that you love and you’re really in the right spot.

Chris Dreyer:

Well, I think that’s a great piece of advice to everyone listening at the end here. Gyi, this has been amazing just talking about all the marketing strategies, capitalization, just our wheelhouse. For those listening, how can they connect with you?

Gyi Tsakalakis:

Well, you can search my very unique name and something about me will come up, but you can also go to AttorneySync, attorneysync.com. Then I waste a lot of time dancing on X, I guess. I don’t really dance on X, but you can find me on X and LinkedIn, I would say, are probably the two best places to connect with me. And Chris, thank you so much for having me. Folks that listen to you already know this, but I have tonnes of respect for you. I’m so grateful to be here, and one of the few people if I was running a law firm that I would take my business to. So just again, thanks so much for having me.

Chris Dreyer:

Thanks so much for Gyi for sharing his insights. Let’s go over those takeaways. Competitors can see your website. They can even copy your content. But can they get the links that you’ve acquired? Focus on acquiring local relevant links rather than just focusing on overall domain authority. A handful of quality links from reputable sites in your geographic area can be more valuable than 100s of random links. If you want to take deep dive into link building, check out the interview with Rankings link building queen, Kat Taylor. It’s linked in the show notes below. But for now, think about links from Google’s perspective.

Gyi Tsakalakis:

They’ve got all this noise that’s going on on the web. Links is the thing that’s a gatekeeper. I think Google would love to be able to know everything about the world as it is and be able to spit back an answer for almost everything. They’re trying to get there, but they’re not there. Every site that we pop the hood on, every time someone comes into us and we’re like, “Let’s get a look at the competitive landscape.” The people who have acquired the links are the winners

Chris Dreyer:

With the right budget, traditional media is a critical component of the brand recognition flywheel. But to do it right, you need to understand who your people are.

Gyi Tsakalakis:

You don’t advertise a personal injury firm in Chicago the same way as you do in the middle of nowhere, and pick your middle of nowhere. You got to know how people are consuming media, you got to know what they’re interested in, and you got to find those overlaps. If you care deeply about your local sports teams, that’s a great audience to tap into.

Chris Dreyer:

Like I said in the beginning, there’s no magic bullet or quick fix that will guarantee all the leads you want. Go where you are interested and where your budget will allow. Think of your marketing budget as a percentage of your fees or profit. Understanding budget allocation and where the overlapping channels compliment each other is where you’ll find the most success. Whatever strategy you draw up, just make sure it’s aligned with what you want for your firm.

Gyi Tsakalakis:

What do you love to do? Do you love being a trial lawyer? You want to be in court? You want to try cases? That should inform your strategy.

Chris Dreyer:

All right, everybody. I hope we added a few more tools to your kit. For more about Gyi and AttorneySync, head on over to the show notes. While you’re there, leave me a five star review. I’ll be forever grateful. Thanks for listening to Personal Injury Mastermind with me, Chris Dreyer, founder and CEO of Rankings.io. Catch you next time. I’m out.