Marketing plan for a personal injury law firm, by quarter
A marketing plan for a personal injury firm is a dated document rather than a list of channels. It names what is released in each of the 4 quarters, what is measured at the end of each, who owns it, and the condition under which the work stops. Most published plans omit the last one.
Last updated: 5 August 2026
What has to be in the document for it to count as a plan?
Six fields. A document missing the last two is a wish list with headings.
| Field | What it says | Why it is there |
|---|---|---|
| Date and version | When it was written and by whom | A plan with no date cannot be out of date, which is the problem |
| The day-zero record | What is true on the day it is signed | Nothing can be judged in month nine without it |
| The release list, by quarter | What is published and when | Turns intent into something that either happened or did not |
| The measure, by quarter | The one number checked at the end of each | Stops the review becoming a conversation about effort |
| The review date | A calendar date, in the document | Otherwise the review happens when somebody is annoyed |
| The stop condition | What would make you abandon this | The field almost every published plan leaves out |
The last row is the one worth arguing about. A plan that cannot fail is not a plan, it is a subscription. Writing the abandonment condition down at the start is far easier than agreeing one in month seven while looking at a flat chart.
The damaging admission this page rests on: we cannot tell you the number of inquiries at which the work is succeeding. We hold no benchmark for any single firm's conversion, and any supplier quoting one at you has either measured a different firm or invented it. Every stop condition below is therefore a test against your own starting position, which is the only honest kind.
What gets recorded before anything is built?
Five things, on the day the plan is signed, and none of them takes an afternoon.
- Inquiries in the last three months, by source, however roughly. Phone, form, referral, walk-in.
- The pages that exist now, listed. Not described — listed, with their addresses.
- The exact terms the plan is aimed at, written as strings. Not "personal injury" but the specific searches, sub-market by sub-market.
- Today's position and impression count for each of those terms, taken from the firm's own Search Console rather than from a supplier's tool.
- Who answers the phone, and what happens after six o'clock and at weekends.
The fifth is not a search item and it belongs there anyway. In San Diego a single injury click costs $150.75, measured 3 August 2026. A plan that increases visits without recording what happens to them is buying something at that price and not watching where it goes.
What is released in each quarter, and what is measured?
One release per quarter, one measure per quarter, one condition that ends it.
| Quarter | Released | Measured at the end | What would stop the work |
|---|---|---|---|
| Q1 | Site fixes, then the first sub-market page | Are all planned pages published and indexed | Fewer pages live than planned — the constraint is writing capacity, not search |
| Q2 | The costs page, the time-limits page, the what-happens-first page | Impressions on the named terms, against the day-zero record | No movement on any named term, with pages indexed and correct |
| Q3 | Fee-earner pages, then the neighborhood pages | Clicks and named-term positions, against Q2 | Positions unchanged across every term for two consecutive quarters |
| Q4 | The second sub-market, or deliberately nothing | Inquiries by source, against the day-zero count | Clicks up and inquiries flat — the loss is at intake, not in search |
Two features of that table matter more than its contents.
One release per quarter, not five. A firm running four workstreams at a quarter of the attention finishes none of them, and here the writing is the slow part.
The Q4 row can legitimately be nothing. If Q3 shows the first sub-market still climbing, the correct release is more depth on it rather than a second front. A plan that requires new scope every quarter is a plan written by the party being paid for scope.
What does the first quarter actually produce?
Nothing you can put in front of a partners' meeting, and that needs saying in the document rather than in month three.
The first release is construction. The pages go live, they are crawled, and they begin the slow business of being observed. A firm that reads month three as failure abandons the work at the point it has started functioning.
This is why Q1's measure in the table above is not a traffic number. It is whether the pages exist and are indexed — a yes or no answer, checkable by the firm, and not open to interpretation by whoever wrote them.
If the firm needs matters inside this quarter, the plan is the wrong instrument. Buy clicks instead. We do not manage ad spend, so that is a recommendation against ourselves, and it is the right one for a firm with an immediate capacity gap rather than a long-run visibility problem.
When should the plan be stopped?
At one of four moments, all of them written into the document before the work starts.
When the pages are not being produced. The commonest failure in this practice area is not a ranking that never arrives, it is a release list that quietly stops. If Q1 ends with three of six pages live, the plan is already not the plan.
When two consecutive quarters show nothing on the named terms. Not one quarter. Movement is uneven, and one flat quarter proves very little. Two, with pages indexed and correct, is evidence the targets were wrong — and the response is a narrower target, not more budget.
When clicks rise and inquiries do not. The visibility worked and something after it did not. Injury clicks cost $98.78 in Portland and $74.38 in Boston, both measured 3 August 2026, so a quarter of visits going nowhere is expensive whichever applies. This stops the marketing work and starts an operational one.
When the firm's constraint turns out to be fee-earner capacity. More inquiries into a practice that cannot take them produces slower responses and worse outcomes. It is a real reason to stop, and the one nobody selling the work will raise with you.
What does running the plan cost?
Practice Sprint $1,450, build tier $2,900. Fixed, published, no minimum term.
Never per inquiry, per case or per matter. Personal injury sits inside prescribed legal business, where referral fees are restricted, and the restriction binds the firm paying as well as the party being paid. Lawyer advertising in the United States also runs through ABA Model Rule 7.2(b), adopted differently in each state.
The no-minimum-term point is what makes a stop condition usable rather than decorative. A plan with an abandonment clause inside a twelve-month lock is a plan the firm cannot act on for twelve months. Of the 40 legal-marketing suppliers we read in full on 3 August 2026, twelve published a price at all and one offered work with no minimum term.
What the plan does not cover: ad spend, broadcast, and what happens to an inquiry after it arrives. The last of those sits inside the firm and decides whether the rest was worth buying.
What this is worth where you are
In San Diego, 6,600 people a month search for personal injury representation, and Google charges around $150.75 for one of those clicks, measured 3 August 2026. We hold the same figures for 52 cities.
The free report gives you yours, plus which pages are missing from your site, and what 40 suppliers charge.
No call required. Our own prices are on that page.
Where should I read next?
On the third stop condition above: client intake process for a law firm and law firm client intake form template.
If the question is execution rather than sequence: how to market a law firm. For a practice area on a different calendar: mass tort lawyer marketing, and for the channel set generally, lawyer marketing.
Frequently asked questions
What should a personal injury marketing plan contain?
Six fields: the date and author, the day-zero record, the release list by quarter, one measure per quarter, a review date, and the condition under which the work is abandoned. A document missing the last two is a wish list with headings.
What is a day-zero record?
The five facts written down on the day the plan is signed: inquiries in the last three months by source, the pages that currently exist, the exact terms being targeted, today's position and impression count for each from your own Search Console, and who answers the phone and when.
What should be released in each quarter?
One thing. Site fixes and the first sub-market page in Q1, the costs, time-limits and what-happens-first pages in Q2, fee-earner and neighborhood pages in Q3, and in Q4 either a second sub-market or deliberately nothing.
What does the first quarter produce?
Nothing that can be shown at a partners' meeting. The pages go live and begin being crawled and observed. Q1's measure is whether the planned pages are published and indexed, which has a yes or no answer the firm can check itself.
When should a firm abandon its marketing plan?
When the pages are not being produced, when two consecutive quarters show no movement on the named terms with pages indexed and correct, when clicks rise but inquiries do not, or when the real constraint turns out to be fee-earner capacity.
How do you know the plan is working?
Against your own starting position, not an industry figure. We hold no benchmark for a single firm's conversion, so every stop condition is a comparison with the day-zero record rather than with a number measured somewhere else.
What does the plan cost to run, and does it include advertising?
Practice Sprint $1,450 and build tier $2,900, fixed and published, with no minimum term, and it does not include ad spend. Of the 40 suppliers we read on 3 August 2026, twelve published a price at all and one offered work with no minimum term.