Page 8 - PIC Magazine Issue 25 - Autumn-Winter 2025

Beyond The Funnel
Why smarter marketing is
central to law firm eff iciency
and cost control
By Andrew Chadwick, Head of Business Development at Blume.
s costs lawyers and legal
Why Client Acquisition Costs Matter
AWhy Client Acquisition Costs Matter
fi nance professionals
From a costs lawyer’s perspective, the direct price of
From a costs lawyer’s perspective, the direct price of
know better than most,
marketing is often non-recoverable, and that’s nothing new.
marketing is often non-recoverable, and that’s nothing new.
success in today’s legal sector
What has changed is its growing impact on fi rm profi tability.
What has changed is its growing impact on fi rm profi tability.
isn’t just about winning cases,
it’s about managing risk, cost,
and effi ciency across the full
lifecycle of a claim.
When acquisition costs balloon, or when internal resource is tied up
When acquisition costs balloon, or when internal resource is tied up
chasing unsuitable leads, the indirect consequences show up fast -
higher case rejection rates, lower matter profi tability, reduced colleague
utilisation, and in some cases, funding shortfall risk.
While funding structures and
recoverability rightly dominate the
conversation, there’s another area of
growing relevance - how fi rms source
their work in the fi rst place.
In high-volume areas like personal
injury and clinical negligence, client
acquisition has become one of the
most signifi cant - and volatile - cost
centres within a legal practice. Firms
are spending more to generate leads,
often with mixed results and limited
visibility on ROI. In this context,
marketing isn’t just a growth tool.
It’s a cost-control issue. And one
that increasingly requires rethinking.
Left unchecked, this eats into case value, undermines client service,
and limits the fi rm’s ability to scale sustainably.
That’s why smarter marketing, whether in-house, outsourced, or
through a collective model, is becoming central to conversations about
operational effi ciency. It’s not about glossy campaigns. It’s about cost
per matter, conversion ratios and qualifi ed case volume. These are
marketing metrics - but they’re operational KPIs too.
Firms are spending more to
generate leads, oft en with
mixed results and limited
visibility on ROI.
The Collective Model: A Response To Market Reality
One solution gaining traction, especially among PI and clinical
negligence fi rms, is the marketing collective. It’s a model where
multiple fi rms pool their acquisition budgets and benefi t from shared
infrastructure, insight, and campaign expertise. The goal? Reduced cost
per lead, improved quality, and fewer internal ineffi ciencies.
Crucially, this isn’t about outsourcing marketing in a traditional sense.
It’s about gaining access to economies of scale that individual fi rms,
however capable, rarely achieve alone. For fi rms handling large
caseloads, especially in a fi xed-cost regime, this kind of structure
can help bring predictability to a highly variable cost base.
Whether or not this model suits every fi rm is open to debate. But it
refl ects a broader truth - the economics of case acquisition are shifting,
and the fi rms that succeed will be those who treat marketing not as an
afterthought, but as a function of fi nancial strategy.
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