Criminal Defense Marketing

• Arrest Lists & Maps

• Arrest Lists & Maps

Marketing your criminal defense practice

Every criminal defense practice should market themselves. Sole practitioners, medium sized firms and large sized firms should all have an active marketing plan. Any law firm can market effectively and efficiently regardless of their budget. Spending more money does not equal a better marketing strategy.

Choosing the proper allocation of budget funds is a key component for criminal defense marketing. Some advertising portals can be cost effective while some can be cost ineffective. Your budget size, target demographic and advertising geographic must be known before implementing your marketing plan.

The size of your overall marketing geographic and population is important. If you are targeting a small geographic area with a small population your advertising costs will be lower for radio, tv, print and outdoor advertising. You will also spend less money on postage due to the lower volume of mail with a small target population. However, even if you are mailing in a higher population geographic and using a larger arrest base, you can still save on postage by strategically targeting arrestees.

A website is a must

If you plan on marketing your criminal defense practice you absolutely must have a website. Having a web presence is as important as having a business card. The vast majority of Americans use the internet and will want to research your criminal defense practice before contacting you. A well designed website will help increase the likelyhood that a client will contact you.

Building a website yourself is not worth the time unless you are well versed in HTML code. It is recommended that you hire a company or individual to build your website. There are large companies such as Justia and Findlaw that will build and host your website. There are also small boutique companies that will build you a website from scratch and either host it for you or point you in the right direction.

Always shop around before making a decision on who will build your website as well as who will host your website. Don't make the mistake of being cheap when building a website. Internet users are becoming more savvy and will quickly recognize a cheaply built website. Your website is your first impression. You do not want visitors to be dissuaded because they believe you will treat their case as a low priority, as you may appear to have done with your website.

Criminal defense marketing strategies

Public marketing such as radio, TV or outdoor advertising have been around for a very long time. The costs of each differs greatly depending on the type and frequency of each.

Internet marketing is a strategy to consider depending on your total budget. Search engine optimization (SEO) is important for any website but can be competitive for attorney websites. Pay per click (PPC) advertising, the most popular being Google AdWords, is another internet marketing tool.

Print advertising is still around but is slowly becoming obsolete. Newspapers and magazines are going pure digital. The phone book is gone but the phone book companies still offer online services.

Direct mail marketing is a very unique advertising channel for criminal defense firms. Utilizing arrest records and targeting individuals that have been arrested is a very profitable, and commonly overlooked, marketing strategy.

SEO for criminal defense websites

Search Engine Optimization, which is optimizing your website so that organic search results rank your website, is a very advantageous marketing strategy. You will not pay per visitor as organic searches are free. Unfortunately as more criminal defense firms employ SEO tactics the competition for organic search ranking increases.

Beforing optimizing your website it is highly recommended that you do your research first. There is good SEO and bad SEO. It is extremely important that you know what the differences are between good and bad. Backlinks can be good, but can also be bad. Never buy backlinks for your website, Google is known to penalize websites that purchase backlinks.

If you pay a company to optimize your website make sure to research the company beforehand. Make sure that the company is reputable and has references which include websites they have optimized. Check the keywords of the websites they have optimized by searching them on Google. Ask to speak to the other website owners that have hired them for their SEO services. Shop around with other SEO companies, but do not be cheap. If any company promises you top ranking they are lying to you. It is impossible to know how a website will rank regardless of how good the SEO company is.

Internet marketing for criminal defense

First thing you may already know is that internet search advertising can be an expensive proposition for attorneys. Pay Per Click (PPC) for criminal defense attorneys could cost a fortune. For instance, the average cost per click for 'defense attorney miami' is $20 and 'defense attorney tampa' is $13. The cost per click can go up or down depending on your keywords and keyword terms. Use the Google AdWords Keyword Tool to calculate your potential costs. Google AdWords isn't the only search advertising network in town, so research other PPC networks.

Display ads are another method of internet marketing. You design a display ad and then pay to have websites throughout the internet show your ad. Your ad will only show on relevant websites or specific websites you request. In addition to paying per click, you can pay per impression with display advertising. Look up the Google Display Network to learn more about display advertising.

Do your research before jumping into internet advertising. Many internet advertising methods may be too expensive or ineffective for criminal defense marketing. The tools and expertise needed to perform an effective internet marketing campaign can be daunting. If you attempt to use Google AdWords and are not familiar with its interface you can become frustrated and ultimately waste money. Google AdWords can overwhelm even the most experienced computer users.

Radio and TV advertising for criminal defense

Advertising on the Radio or Television can be effective when wanting to get your name out there. Unfortunately it can also be very expensive and may not be effective for criminal defense marketing. Only a finite amount of people are arrested, and there is a small probability of having your radio or TV advertisement running around the time they were arrested. Radio and TV advertising should be considered a method of having your name associated with criminal defense, and become familiar to people when searching for an attorney.

You must first pay to have a professional radio ad or TV commercial made. The cost of creating a radio ad will be less than a TV commercial, but both can be expensive. A TV commercial could cost over $50,000 depending on production company and your preferences. The cost to run an ad can be in the thousands of dollars or more depending on the channel and time slot.

Solo practioners and Criminal defense firms that are first starting out should possibly spend their marketing budget elsewhere. TV and radio advertising is not cost effective for small budgets and may not be cost effective for most criminal defense marketing purposes.

Print advertising for criminal defense

Print advertising, such as the phone book, newspaper or magazines is becoming obsolete. The phone book is pretty much dead. Newspapers are still circulated but are becoming strictly digital. Magazines also share a paperless future.

Digital versions will have advertising capabilities regardless if they still offer print advertising. Yellow Book, even though its print version may be dying, has advertising capabilities through its online presence. Newspapers and magazines also have advertising capabilities, either directly or through advertising networks. You may also be able to purchase an affordable package deal where you are displayed both online and in the printed material.

Research the cost before deciding to market with print advertising. You may be able to find a good deal or work out favorable terms for both online and print advertising with the same company. Print advertising companies realize that their market is drastically shrinking and may offer extremely affordable advertising options.

Outdoor advertising for criminal defense

Billboard, transit and other outdoor advertising can be effective for criminal defense marketing. If you are able to acquire a nice location for your outdoor advertisement it may be a good idea to proceed. Advertising at bus stops near a jail or near courthouse locations could be effective in acquiring clients. Budget size and advertising costs are always a factor in deciding where or when to have an outdoor marketing campaign.

One of the largest outdoor advertising networks is CBS Outdoor. CBS purchased thousands of billboard locations throughout the country. CBS also purchased outdoor advertising locations in stadiums, bus stops, buildings and more. Digital outdoor ads are becoming more popular as they offer more options versus static outdoor ads. The cost effective nature of outdoor advertising all depends on location, so research available locations and even visit them in person before deciding.

If you decide to purchase outdoor advertising remember that you will need to create a professional advertisement. A poorly made advertisement can render an outdoor ad useless. The costs associated with creating a large or small outdoor advertisement can differ greatly. Make sure to project an image of professionalism when creating any outdoor advertisement, no matter how large or small the size of the ad may be.

Direct mail advertising for criminal defense

Direct mail advertising is an extremely unique, efficient and effective method of criminal defense marketing. Direct mail advertising involves mailing either pamplets, flyers, brochures or letters to individuals who were recently arrested.

Legal Grab specializes in direct mail advertising for criminal defense firms. We provide the names, addresses and other detailed information on recently arrested individuals. Use this information to create an efficient and cost effective direct mail marketing campaign for your criminal defense practice. See who was arrested in your target market and direct mail market to them. The best part is that you can strategically target individuals based on demographic or arrest criteria you deem important.

Arrest records for direct mail marketing

Arrest records provide an enormous amount of information for you to use when deciding who to market to. Use the arrest charge, ZIP-AGI, or other demographic criteria to "qualify" an arrestee as direct mail marketing target.

You can decide to only mail to individuals who were arrested for a DUI, or you can decide to mail to arrestees residing in specific locations. Legal Grab provides specific demographic information on each arrestee including sex, race, age and more. Utilize the information that we provide in our arrest records to only spend money on postage for individuals you qualify as your target market.

Legal Grab has made it easier than ever to view, select and mail to arrestees. Learn more about how our service works and see exactly how you can benefit from using arrest records as a source for direct mail marketing.

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  Arrests in the past 24hrs

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  Arrests in the past week

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  Arrests in the past month

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  DUI arrests in the past month

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  NARC arrests in the past month