What is Share of Voice and How to Measure It for Law Firms
Date: March 14, 2024
The rise of digital marketing has provided lawyers and law firms with numerous opportunities to promote their services and engage with potential clients. However, the number of options also means that there are many different metrics to keep track of.
At 9Sail, we believe that law firms should pay attention to the metrics that truly matter and can make a significant difference in their business. Share of voice, or SOV for short, is a vital metric to track. It allows you to compare your law firm’s performance with your competitors. Without this comparison, it is difficult to put your other metrics into context. Share of voice can give you a clearer perspective on your law firm’s marketing performance.
What is Share of Voice?
Share of voice is a key metric in legal digital marketing. It measures how often your law firm is mentioned compared to your competitors. For example, suppose a renowned journalist acknowledges your law firm’s expertise in an article. In that case, your law firm’s voice share will significantly impact your search engine optimization (SEO) and digital public relations (PR) results compared to your competitors.
Before legal digital marketing, share of voice was used as a way to measure whether pay-per-click (PPC) advertising was working. Today, share of voice is used not just for paid ads but also as a way to track organic website traffic, earned media mentions, and social media mentions.
Having a higher share of voice on various digital channels can help your law firm establish stronger brand awareness and authority. Measuring your law firm’s performance in SEO and digital PR compared to your competitors is crucial to achieving this goal. By analyzing and improving your law firm’s share of voice, you can enhance your brand’s visibility and credibility within your target audience to generate more leads.
Measuring Share of Voice
Measuring the share of voice for your law firm is an excellent way to assess your digital marketing efforts. It provides a better understanding of your position in the market and helps your law firm establish appropriate goals moving forward. The measurements and metrics your law firm will use depend on what marketing channel your firm wants to focus on and the goals for each channel.
How to Measure Share of Voice for Legal SEO
In today’s digital age, search engines such as Google and Bing have become go-to tools for people searching for information on the best law firms in their area or seeking legal advice on a particular issue. It’s important to note that if your law firm ranks higher in organic search results, you are more likely to generate “free” traffic to your website.
To measure your law firm’s share of voice in organic search, you will need to analyze how frequently your law firm is shown in search engine results pages relative to your competitors. It is also essential to identify the organic keywords your law firm ranks for compared to your competitors. This information is crucial as the higher the number of keywords you rank for, the more likely you are to appear in your target audience’s search results.
Share of Voice Measurements for PPC
Pay-per-click advertising, also known as PPC, is a form of online advertising that is different from organic search. With PPC, your law firm pays to get your ad in front of the audience that you want to target. Your firm’s ad usually appears at the top of the search engine results page before the organic rankings.
To calculate your law firm’s share of voice in a Google Ads campaign, Google Ads provides a tool that automatically measures your firm’s PPC campaign’s share of voice metrics. Your law firm will only need to decide which key metric, such as impressions or clicks, you will want to focus on. When your firm spends money on campaigns, knowing your PPC share of voice can help you budget for advertising and measure each campaign’s effectiveness.
Measuring Share of Voice for Digital PR
Digital PR professionals typically measure media mentions as a metric to understand how often your law firm’s brand is mentioned across news outlets and blogs compared to your competitors. However, media mentions are only one metric to calculate your firm’s digital PR share of voice. Depending on your law firm’s PR goals, you can utilize organic keywords, impressions, media reach, and hashtags to calculate the best share of voice for your firm’s digital PR campaign.
Share of voice is crucial in legal digital PR as it helps PR professionals better understand where your law firm stands in the media compared to your competitors. Analyzing your law firm’s digital PR share of voice can help your firm better understand whether or not your law firm’s competitors’ media coverage is viewed positively or negatively and how it could impact your firm. PR professionals also like to stay updated on what unique story angles your competitor may have used in the news that has resonated with audiences, as it helps them evolve your law firm’s PR strategy.
It is worth mentioning that share of voice is traditionally a quantitative metric, but in PR, it has limitations based on specific scenarios that your law firm should consider. For example, an elder law firm’s share of voice could be inaccurately high from bots duplicating news articles on spammy sites. There could also be situations where a law firm’s share of voice could soar high in 24 hours due to negative press. However, qualitative data like case studies, interviews, and quotes in an article can also positively increase your law firm’s digital PR share of voice.
Increasing Your Law Firm’s Share of Voice
By understanding the different shares of voice metrics and measurements in digital marketing, you will want to increase your law firm’s share of voice to gain leads. Below are some tips to help boost your law firm’s share of voice in various digital marketing channels.
Consistency
It is crucial to prioritize increasing your law firm’s share of voice in search engine results through any digital marketing channel. In order to boost your law firm’s SEO share of voice, it is important to create and maintain a strong online presence intentionally. This can be done by regularly publishing informative and engaging blog posts or social media content. On the PR side, providing insightful quotes and opinions on trending topics and current events can help raise your law firm’s share of voice metrics and brand awareness and establish your law firm as a thought leader within the industry.
Creating Conversations
The person leading a conversation often ends up doing most of the talking. As a result, it is important to not only react to ongoing conversations but also to initiate new ones. Your law firm can grab the attention of its target audience by sharing thought-provoking content that encourages them to engage. Ask clients and potential clients questions and invite them to participate. Make it easy for them to include your law firm in their story by leveraging social media platforms such as LinkedIn and Facebook or by creating surveys on your firm’s website or newsletter.
Engaging Content
Content is a big part of the digital marketing share of voice. It gives people something to engage with and talk about. Match your firm’s content format to the channel where you want to increase your SOV. For example, short-form videos like those found on TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram are great for engaging with potential clients. However, other marketing channels, like PR, prefer infographics as they help share important information quickly with journalists, who might include the information in an article for a broader range of audiences to see. Understand your law firm’s demographics and learn what they like and respond to. Then, let their interests guide your content creation.
How a Digital Marketing Agency Can Help Your Law Firm’s Share of Voice
Tracking your law firm’s digital marketing progress can help you determine whether or not your efforts are paying off. With the right digital marketing agency, like our team at 9Sail, your law firm’s share of voice metrics tracking and strategy becomes less of a chore as we provide key data insights to help increase your law firm’s lead generation and brand awareness. Reach out to learn more about how we can help your law firm today!
