Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome to the Relay, the legal show for personal injury law firm owners, presented by Lexamica, the number one attorney referral network. I'm your host, Gabriel Stewarts. Joining me today is Gary sarner, founder of ROI360 plus, the radio experts. Gary is one of the most talented and knowledgeable people in the brand and radio space. I see Gary honestly more than I see my own mom at these conferences. It's been really interesting getting to hear Gary's perspective on how law firms are built. I think one of the things that I say on the show a lot is that traditional media is absolutely not dead. And Gary's one of the guys who's taught me that as I've learned about this space. So, Gary, it's great to have you on the show here. We're actually doing a special episode out in Scottsdale, Arizona at Business of Law. A lot of things we could talk about today. But Gary, you, you mentioned a new concept to me and I think it's new to the legal industry and I'd love to chat with you for a few minutes about that as, as we sit down here and get settled in.
[00:00:57] Speaker B: So, you know, it's interesting being in our very small niche space that we're in and working with so many other law firm partners on the vendor side, as much as I hate that word, there's a one that works. I wanted to find something that we could offer to law firms across America that wasn't going to compete with the people in the SEO, the PPC space. And just by pure coincidence, when we were in Chicago, I ran into a guy at a conference who has this brand new product that he'd been utilizing in the automotive space for the last 10 years with tremendous, tremendous success. And I don't know that from him. I know that through a very large sales organization in the automotive space that was just crushing it with the product.
[00:01:56] Speaker A: So the first question that I have when I hear about something that's brand new is why hasn't it come to legal before if it's been an auto for 10 years?
That's the qu. That's what I want to know. Like what? Why are we not. Why haven't we got this already?
[00:02:12] Speaker B: So I believe that they started out in the legal space. They had some law firms across the country that were doing it, but they don't know anybody. They know the automotive space and then they hire this other organization to help them spread the word and get in front of automobile dealers. So they were at the conference, we met, and I'm Sitting there going, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. This is not the greatest thing since sliced bread. Because every part of marketing needs to be a part of a law firm's arsenal.
[00:02:48] Speaker A: Right?
[00:02:49] Speaker B: You have to have top of the funnel, radio, tv, billboards, and you have to do it with ownership, which I've said on countless podcasts over the last three and a half years. You have to have your home, which is your website, and then the bottom of the funnel, where are people going, I don't care if you spend a million on TV or like Morgan and Morgan and spend hundreds of million on tv, they're still ending up on Google. Now we want them to do a branded search for whatever firm we are working with. We want the end user who gets into the car accident or slips and falls or whatever the accident or injury may be. And they have heard or seen the branding of the law firm so often that they go right to Google and type in the law firm's name and they go right to their website.
[00:03:41] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. So branded search is gold standard because someone is coming to you and saying, I want this law firm. Right. That. So that's. That's awesome. So tell me, is this like, is it like an SEO thing? Is it? And what part of the funnel are we talking about here?
[00:03:57] Speaker B: This is bottom of the funnel.
[00:03:59] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:04:00] Speaker B: This is not Google. But the way that the ads get displayed is because somebody did a Google search for a law firm in the personal injury space.
[00:04:14] Speaker A: So someone's searching for my law firm and then I'm able to target them again.
[00:04:19] Speaker B: If you partner with us at ROI360 plus, we have this technology through a third party. And the reason they went with us is as you introduced me, I'm everywhere. I'm the loud shirt radio guy.
[00:04:37] Speaker A: You can't see this. And Gary's not actually wearing the shirt, but Gary is the loudest shirt guy at every conference. That's how I initially picked up on him. I was like, this guy frickin wears a different shirt at every single show. And it definitely works, by the way your loudest shirts are. But more importantly, you've been in the radio business how long?
[00:04:58] Speaker B: I worked in sales and management for radio stations for 35 years before we opened up ROI 360.
[00:05:06] Speaker A: So literally, Gary's been doing radio longer than I've been alive. And you. And you've also helped to build, and I know this personally, and that's one of the reasons I brought you on the show is because you have launched some of the absolute hottest brands in the personal injury space. And I've seen the growth and it's the real deal. I don't bring people on the show who just talk a big game. I only bring people on who I've seen them do something that is personally impressive to me. And what you've done with, with law firms that I know is actually stel. So yeah, so that was super interesting. So this is not radio, it's not Google. It is. Can I give a brief description of it? Because I thought it was really interesting as you were explaining it to me. Can I try to explain it back to you?
[00:05:47] Speaker B: You can.
[00:05:49] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:05:49] Speaker B: And that way we'll see how much you understood of a product that I presented to you at lunch today, two hours ago, that we have had on the market for nine days now through us.
[00:06:04] Speaker A: Right. So caveat one is Gary's not trying to sell this to you immediately. It's still being tested, it's still being piloted. Some big firms are trying this out right now. But it may be something that you are going to be buying in three or six months if these things go well. So my understanding, and this is really interesting is this technology aggregates, aggregates intent based user behavior. So it's rolling up an audience across multiple properties, they're looking at multiple signals and then creating an audience specifically of people who are searching, shopping for a personal injury lawyer. And so that's kind of like the secret sauce is how they do that. But then they're able to deliver that audience to. They're going to, they can display ads to that audience for your brand on many different publisher websites.
[00:06:52] Speaker B: 9,000, over 9,000, 9,000 different publishers.
[00:06:56] Speaker A: So it's not Google. It is essentially retargeting. But rather than having to put a pixel on your website and only being able to capture the retargeting traffic for your brand, you're able to retarget against all of the brands that are out there. And so you can get a much more effective audience because it's super high intent. But it's not just limited to the audience that you've been able to generate yourself. Is that roughly.
[00:07:18] Speaker B: So when you do radio, tv, billboards, you are throwing out a net that is as wide as could be across the market. 98% of all radio, TV and billboard marketing every single day is brand building. 2% of the people will be in the market for a personal injury law firm today on average. So what? I had to make 100% sure of this company. In the automotive space, the buying cycle could be a day to six Months in the space we're in, Gabriel, somebody makes a decision within three days. Days. Generally, it should be faster if the client advocates at the firms otherwise known as intake people, which we're getting away from that word. I just did something with Chad Shelley that was just incredible. But within three days. So they know people searching, doing the searches on Google, not clicking on a ppc. First, they do a search. Personal injury lawyer, Phoenix. We're in Phoenix, and they land on XYZ firm site. Now that data is out there, they're able to capture the data back to the secret sauce that you brought up and the law firms that partner with us. All of a sudden we could start serving ads, display ads, and not static ads. So the dynamic insertion onto a tmz, Fox News, cnn, not to get political. So we'll use both of them.
[00:08:49] Speaker A: It's almost. It's election season, Gary. You got to be careful.
[00:08:52] Speaker B: Wednesday can't come fast enough.
[00:08:54] Speaker A: We're almost over the hump, guys.
[00:08:56] Speaker B: So now we're serving those ads where people are now getting their news, their information, their sports, people magazine, whatever they're going to. And the ads are being served. Now. They are not getting charged for impressions. They're getting charged for clicks to their website.
Now, what is an average click cost for PPC in legal?
[00:09:26] Speaker A: I mean, it varies dramatically by the market.
[00:09:29] Speaker B: But if you were to average them all together, somebody searching for a personal injury lawyer in a market in the United States, what do you think that average cost per click is?
[00:09:39] Speaker A: You know, better than I do.
[00:09:41] Speaker B: Over $200.
[00:09:43] Speaker A: There you go. I've heard the top end on the truck accidents, but that absolutely sounds. Sounds right.
[00:09:50] Speaker B: So if you could get a click for $4 or less, not a client, a click, there's a lot of clicks available out there in the personal injury space now.
[00:10:04] Speaker A: So let me. Let me ask you this, because one of the things I'm trying to understand here is Google has its own ad network, right? So you've got your ad, and it's serving display ads all over properties as well, right? Like any website can say, hey, I want Google to show display ads. And then that becomes part of the Google Ad display network. Because Google's not just putting ads on google.com search results, right? They have their own ad network. So to some degree, you can get your ad served on sites like TMZ or what have you. It sounds to me like the kind of. The upside here is that it's deeply attributed to. It's that the audience is really, really strong that you already Know that this audience is looking for the thing that you're selling, which is, like you said with radio, very difficult to do. Because when you're targeting mass market on a CPM basis, you know, there's so much waste that you're creating. And this is a way to aggregate demand not just through your own brand, but across multiple brands.
[00:11:04] Speaker B: So it's funny you say that because radio on a CPM basis, when you work with us, is the lowest that you could find across the United States and targeted. We find your market, we work to meet the needs of the law firm. But this product specifically, you are not taking that shotgun approach and going out to everybody.
[00:11:26] Speaker A: Right? Exactly. This is bottom of funnel. This is not the top. Like, yeah, radio is great for top of funnel, but we're talking bottom of funnel conversions. You want to, and you need to have more at the bottom of your funnel. This seems like a promising way to increase that part of your funnel, if I'm understanding it correctly.
[00:11:43] Speaker B: I think you got it dead on. Now here's the interesting part, and I don't think all of your listeners are going to love this. What is the number one reason a client might leave a law firm?
[00:11:56] Speaker A: I would assume, or let me say the data that I have would suggest that it's the experience that they're having with the law firm.
[00:12:03] Speaker B: Communication.
[00:12:04] Speaker A: Exactly. Like people are not intaking them. Well, they're not closing the deal. They're not onboarding a client quickly. They're not immediately following up. They're not. It's touch points. And that's actually where bar complaints come from as well, is lack of communication from the law firm to that client or potential client.
[00:12:21] Speaker B: So knowing that somebody with intent to hire a law firm will generally do it within three days. We also know that people become unhappy early on in the case because they can't get their lawyer on the phone. They can't get the information that they want. And by the way, it's about them. They don't care whether the firm has 500 cases, 20,000 cases. They only care about themselves.
[00:12:53] Speaker A: Well, let me put a finer point on it. They don't care if the firm is going to get them $10,000 or $1,000,000. They want a great experience because they don't know what a good attorney is. They just know what it feels like to have a good experience. That's how we all are. So, yes, to agree with you, but not just caseload. You can lose a client and be the best lawyer in the world because you suck at communication.
[00:13:15] Speaker B: So it's so funny. I posted this this morning as I was sitting on the flight out to Phoenix. How do you build a business, care about the people you serve and service them better than anyone else? You remember that word vendor? I said before? That equals doing business Partner is somebody that you trust and that you know has got your back always. And that's something we strive for on a daily basis. So for back to the product, I found a product that was different than radio, TV and billboards, which we do a tremendous amount with across the country. I did not want to compete with the digital agencies that we work so closely with to help build these law firm brands. Top of the funnel, down to the bottom of the funnel, and then get the case in the end of the day. 90% of all law firms clients come from Google. They come from Google. Radio doesn't get credit, TV doesn't get credit. Billboards don't get credit. And the intake person, when you say.
[00:14:17] Speaker A: 90%, I would assume that that's last touch attribution.
[00:14:19] Speaker B: Last touch attribution, right.
[00:14:21] Speaker A: Because absolutely. The top of the funnel is generating all of that traffic.
[00:14:25] Speaker B: It's driving all of it.
[00:14:26] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. So this, this is a potential new source of last touch attribution, which is fascinating.
[00:14:33] Speaker B: Which, by the way, when tagged properly, which we're going to walk everybody through, when you look at your Google Analytics, this product's going to have its own line versus your organic, your pay per click.
[00:14:46] Speaker A: Yep. I saw, I saw the. I saw the screenshot you shared with me earlier.
[00:14:49] Speaker B: The results are amazing.
[00:14:50] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, it's fascinating. So, so I'll. Well, we're getting up on time here, so I think this is a great place to stop because it's very early. We have a few results that look very promising. We'll have to have you back on the show as soon as you're ready. Three, six months from now when, when we have some real solid data and case studies and see if this is. Look, there's a lot of stuff out there. Some of it's going to pan out, some of it's not. This seems promising to me. And Gary's not a guy who's going to look at something without it having a pretty high bar to pass already. I'm sure you get pitched stuff all the time. So for you to say this is something that I want to start piloting, fascinating to me. Absolutely want to have people keep an eye on that. So Gary will have you back on. Really appreciate having you on the show today. Anything in closing, before we wrap up.
[00:15:38] Speaker B: So one thing I did want to say, I still believe with every ounce of my body that if you don't have a brand, you cannot compete. So whether it's with us or somebody else, because there's a lot of other great people out in this legal space, radio, tv, billboards, you have to do something to build a brand. Now, here's what's interesting. If you look at the top marketing firms across America and each market has three or four big firms, they've been marketing 10, 20, 30, 40 years and never taking their foot off the gas. I believe in that more than anything for any law firm across America. But for us to now have a piece of the bottom of the funnel, I believe we are going to be able to do some more groundbreaking things while building a brand. Because remember this, you're going to get display ads on the most popular publishers out there that are seeing your display ads. That's still top of the funnel. Once they click, that's bottom of the funnel and that's your gold.
[00:16:55] Speaker A: Absolutely. Gary, great way to wrap up. Definitely need to do a whole episode on brand building on traditional media. I'm a huge fan of that. I've seen the results. So thanks for coming on. Thanks for talking about this new thing. A few details are, you know, we've omitted on purpose. So you're welcome to reach out to Gary if you want more information about what this looks like. Really appreciate you being on the show today. Thank you so much.
