Both traditional and digital media have their benefits and downfalls, but both are most effective when used to complement each other and utilized for their diversified channels of advertising. Although digital media seems to be gaining popularity, traditional media still has tremendous utility for law firms that will cannot be replaced by digital media.
What is Traditional Media?
Traditional media is a decades old media source that has proven to be familiar and welcoming for its audiences. Throughout its usage, it has tended to carry an innate sense of prestige. Because of this, law firms have found traditional media venues well worth a large portion of their advertising budget.
There are different types of traditional media that apply to the legal industry. Each has its own avenue to various audiences. Most commonly we still see radio, television commercials, and magazines, but newspapers, billboards, outdoor advertising, and mailed postcards still hold their own in the traditional media spaces.
Benefits of Traditional Advertising
There are many benefits of traditional advertising. With decades of experience, traditional media sources have homed in on how to target and appeal to their audiences and gain a large viewer base with their board, overreaching marketing tactics.
While digital media threatens to outcompete with traditional media, that is far from the actual case. Especially while learning to navigate times of COVID, it is important for law firms to be flexible and available in other fashions when more modern digital avenues are inundated and over exhausted.
More creditability. Traditional advertising has proven to be more trustworthy. There is a devoted base of people who rely on established reporters and sources to properly fact check and edit pieces found in traditional media. By default, this sense of trust carries through to the advertisements found in the same media sources.
Forum for detail. Complex messaging and details are welcomed in more with traditional media and advertising forums. In fact, audiences who crave reliable and complete stories find solace in traditional media, as opposed to the fast pace flashing headlines found on digital media platforms.
Raises local awareness. Traditional advertising sources like billboards, park bench ads, and newspapers help raise local brand awareness. These ads are entertaining and eye-catching, which promotes your legal services to a broad range of local people.
More affordable. Successful digital media requires building a social media precedence, which involves constant attention, frequent activity, and consistent eye-catching material. Traditional advertising has a better return on investment when considering time and energy spent on building and maintaining a profitable social media presence. Traditional advertising allows businesses to create one or two really great advertisements that can easily circulate in a number of traditional media platforms.
Larger viewer base. Traditional media has a devoted audience that tends to be diversified and widespread. Most importantly, it reaches the demographic of people who are not on digital forums. Digital media, contrastingly, targets specific audiences and does not aim to cast a large net across a variety of people. For example, Instagram is one of the fastest-growing digital media forums. In 2019, it only reached 37% of the peoplein the United States and is most popular among younger users. That means the remaining 63% of the older population are waiting for their newspaper or mailed flyers to find the resources they need.
Traditional Advertising Will Benefit Your Law Firm
Traditional advertising is far from dead and will benefit your law firm. Traditional advertising aims to reap the benefits of the long-term game. It has the stamina to achieve mileage and traction far beyond what the digital media forums could provide in advertising. By only investing in digital forums, your law firm is not reaching its full audience and rather disconnecting itself from potential clientele. Connect more locally by placing your law firm advertisement on the radio, on a billboard, or with direct mailer postcards.
In 2020 and beyond, traditional media is very much alive, and the most effective advertising is achieved from law firms being open to a combination of both traditional and digital media.
Meranda M. Vieyra is the owner of Denver Legal Marketing LLC. She is one of the most visible legal professionals in Colorado law with over 20 years of service in the Denver legal community. Her award-winning marketing firm has earned a strong reputation as the go-to for impactful, cost-effective legal marketing strategies. She has helped her clients secure coverage by well-known publications and has obtained local, national, and international awards on their behalf. Meranda enjoys working with solo practitioners and small law firms helping them attract recognition, promotion, and visibility to their practices. She also advises medium-sized and national law firms on business development and marketing strategy. Meranda is a lecturer and author on issues related to marketing including how lawyers can use LinkedIn effectively, how to develop a personal brand, and the promotion of legal services through community service. In 2018, she was honored to be named to the 40 Under 40 list by the Denver Business Journal and to be given the 10 Under 10 Award by the Metropolitan State University of Denver Alumni Association (top 10 alum of the decade). In 2019, Meranda was named in the Top 25 Most Powerful Women in Business by the Colorado Women's Chamber of Commerce and in the Top 100 young professionals in Colorado through the Gen XYZ Awards published by ColoradoBiz Magazine.
For more information, go to www.DenverLegalMarketing.com
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