How to Save $33,000 a Year on Your Law Firm
Marketing
SELECT® newsletter costs • printing costs •
pre-printing costs •
save $33,000 a year
Slash Your Costs With SELECT® Newsletters!
Knowing the Facts
250 SELECT® newsletters, mailed to clients: $417.50
Newsletter marketing is the most cost-effective and efficient way to
reach your target market. Marketing studies show time and again that
newsletters have a better return and a much lower cost than most other
forms of advertising. And client newsletters are welcomed, read and
valued.
In fact, "Most newsletter recipients not only read their newsletters,
but they read most issues and many articles in detail. Most respondents
(92%) read at least some issues and a quarter of respondents read most
articles in detail." (Survey administered by Survey Sampling, Inc., for
clients of financial service providers.)
Of course, not all newsletters are created equal! Your SELECT®
newsletter contains attorney-written content specific to your practice
area, is professionally designed and printed in full-color, and branded
to your law firm. The benefits to you of this premium quality include:
- Increasing Primacy of Your Firm’s Brand – Distinctive,
relevant newsletters are an effective way to maintain top-of-mind
awareness with clients, prospects, and referral sources.
- Developing a Professional Image – Your newsletter is a
direct representation of you and your law firm. A high-quality
newsletter reflects a high-quality professional image.
- Presenting You as an Expert – It is not enough to have
“J.D.” after your name, your clients want to be assured they are
working with an expert. A high-quality newsletter delivered with
consistency over time reassures your readers of your ability and
attention-to-detail.
- Generate More Client Referrals – Did you know that
newsletters with relevant content have “legs?” You will be surprised
how many of the people who read your newsletters are not on your
mailing list … and how long many of your readers retain their
newsletters for future reference.
- Nurturing Relationships With Consistency – A lasting
relationship is not established and maintained through one meeting.
It takes repeated messages delivered with consistency and frequency
to cultivate strong relationships. (And strong relationships are the
only ones that generate steady streams of qualified referrals!)
Your SELECT® newsletters deliver these benefits, and at a terrific
value. The average price to put an attorney-written, full-color
newsletter, branded to your law firm, in the hands of your top
prospects, clients and referral sources is only $1.67 (minimum quantity
of 250; postage, addressing & mailing service included).
The total cost for a mailing of 250 is just $417.50 (volume discounts
apply as your quantity increases).
But, maybe you think there is a “cheaper” way to get these marketing
benefits? Perhaps you could produce a newsletter in-house, or buy a
digital file from another provider and get it printed yourself? That’s a
fair enough question. Let’s take a look at the cold hard facts to see
what it would take to produce a newsletter of similar quality elsewhere.
A quick check online at discount digital printers showed that 250
11x17 newsletters, printed in full-color (front and back) on quality
paper would run $630 for printing alone. Add in folding (not sealed, but
folded for mailing) and shipping, the cost totals $646.38, or $2.59
EACH. And you’re not done yet. You still need to seal each newsletter,
CASS-certify your mailing list, address each one with a bar code, apply
postage, pre-sort them into trays, and deliver them to your post office
with the proper paper work properly completed, and a company check (no
credit cards accepted).
Alternatively, you could use the online printer’s mailing services
and tack on 46-cents per piece, bringing your cost per piece, mailed, to
$2.99. The total cost to print & mail 250 newsletters with a printing
quality similar to your SELECT® newsletter is $747.50 (actual prices,
effective July 16, 2008).
That’s $330 MORE than your SELECT® newsletter.
But, to tell the truth, that $747.50 doesn’t really get you anything.
You see, that’s just for the printing & mailing. So far, with our
alternative provider, you don’t even HAVE A NEWSLETTER to print or mail!
Not only are you not finished yet, but you haven’t even gotten started.
Consider these pre-printing costs:
- Topic Research - Each issue of your in house newsletter
will require research on topics relevant to client needs in your
practice area. This is attorney-time, at a minimum of a few hours
per article, per issue.
- Attorney Writing – Each issue also will require at least
two attorney-written articles, legally correct, consumer-friendly,
compelling and drafted TO FIT the space available. Again, this is
attorney-time, at a minimum of several hours per article, per issue.
- Editing & Proofreading – Alas, no one is perfect and you
will need at least one more set of “eyes” to review the attorney’s
copy for typos and sentence fragments … we employ three sets of
extra “eyes” around here just for that purpose! Several hours
invested, per issue, per article – and see how many people on your
staff volunteer for the job of correcting the attorney’s work!
- Creative – You will need a creative and marketing-savvy
professional to design your newsletter, pick the paper, choose
colors and artwork, and layout each issue so that it is appealing,
easy-to-read, and a professional reflection of your firm’s brand.
- Software & Graphics-Capable Computer – Professional
design software, and the hardware to run it, as well as the
professional to use it will be an added cost.
- Graphics & Photography – Your SELECT® newsletter is
tastefully illustrated with full-color photographs. In fact, you can
choose from an online library of photographs that will speak to the
demographics of your market. High-resolution, print-quality
photographs license for approximately $100 each. You will need two
to three per issue.
- Clerical Work in Developing Newsletter – You’ll have to
assign someone on your staff the task of coordinating all of the
clerical work involved in actually producing your monthly
newsletter, to include:
- Printing
- Addressing
- Folding
- CASS Certification
- Sealing
- Apply Postage
- Take to Post Office … EVERY MONTH!
What is your average billable rate? $150 per hour? $200? More? Many
clients tell me their billable rate is $500 an hour. We estimate that a
four-page newsletter takes an absolute minimum of 25 hours to produce.
Assume that 12 hours of that is billable attorney time at $150 per hour,
ten hours requires a creative professional at a minimum of $45 per hour,
and three hours requires a clerical person at a minimum of $15 per hour.
And in a few nice photographs, computer design time, and your four-page
newsletter will cost more than $2,500 to CREATE … BEFORE you begin the
printing process.
So, your cost-per-piece to create 250 newsletters is at least $10,
plus $2.99 to print and mail for a per-piece cost of $12.99. The total
cost to create and deliver 250 newsletters, each month, soars from just
$417.50 with SELECT® to $3,247.50 for your in-house version!
Over the course of one year, 12 issues of SELECT® would cost a little
over $5,000 (at a minimum of 250 per issue), while the same 12 issues of
250 each would cost you $38,898 to produce on your own! Even if you were
able to get a digital file for FREE (and lose many of the benefits of
branding, etc.), your printing and mailing costs alone would still total
$8,970 for the year -- $3,970 MORE than your SELECT® newsletters!
And, your SELECT® newsletter is created easily, with just a few
minutes of your time each month, using the SELECT® online system. And
the real beauty? Any time that you want or need to submit articles –
whether to cross-sell additional practice areas, highlight
state-specific changes in the law, or introduce new members of your
staff, you can do that, too. Change your half-page message on page four
or submit a full-page article to page three. It’s that easy.
SELECT® newsletters put YOU in control! We provide the resources, but
it is YOUR newsletter. And the REALLY great part? You can do as much, or
as little customization as you choose. Your SELECT® newsletter is
produced on time every time, with professional, attorney-written content
you can trust.
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