The letter arrives before the lawyer does
The most urgent buyers come to you after a cease-and-desist lands. If your site has no page for that moment, the owner who just opened the letter finds another firm's.
Many business owners meet a trademark lawyer on a bad day
A cease-and-desist arrives, or an application they filed on their own runs into trouble. As your Fractional CMO, I build your marketing around those two moments, so the owner who needs help that week finds a page written for exactly what happened to them, and an easy way to get a quote.
back in estimated case value, for one client firm⁴
Results from the system
About 75 times its ad spend
Line: back in estimated case value, for one client firm⁴
I'm Joshua David Little. I've run my own consulting firm since 2004, I've helped attorneys prepare complex cases for trial, and I ran the first family-law ad on ChatGPT, before the platform allowed legal-services ads.
/ What trademark and IP firms are up against
Your clients don't plan on needing you
Many business owners don't set out to hire a trademark lawyer. They pick a name, build a brand on it, and look for help when someone else's lawyer writes to them or the application they filed alone comes back with problems. By then they're worried and in a hurry. The firm that explains their situation plainly and makes the first step easy has the best chance of getting the call.
Owners file first and call you later
In one month of 2025, 22% of direct US trademark applications were filed without a lawyer, and those failed more often: 29.8% against 13.6%.² The owner who filed alone can still become your client, once the trouble starts.
One broad search, many specific moments
Trademark attorney averages about 40,500 searches a month in the US,¹ but it can't tell you who just received a letter. A plan built on that one search misses the moments that make the call urgent.
/ What business owners search
They search for the problem first
Owners type what happened to them far more often than they type "trademark lawyer." Not everyone searching for a cease-and-desist letter has received one, and some want to send one. Both are people a trademark firm can help.
| Search | A month, US |
|---|---|
| trademark attorney | 40,500 |
| cease and desist letter | 22,200 |
| trademark lawyer | 9,900 |
| how to trademark a name | 9,900 |
| cease and desist lawyer | 480 |
What owners remember
An owner in a hurry remembers the firm that made the first step easy: they reached out the day the problem landed, heard back when promised, and had a price in writing.
/ Where trademark clients come from
Some of your best trademark clients are already your clients
For a firm that also does business work, the trademark often comes with the company. The owner who formed the business with you, or had you draft their first contracts, will need to protect the name, and later the contracts and the estate plan that come with a growing company. A founder in that spot wants the name protected and the company's first IP agreements in place while the company is still new.
/ Where to put the work
The channels that fit trademark work
Google Ads
Trademark work still has real typed search, which most business niches don't. We aim ads at the specific moments, a cease-and-desist or a first filing, and count each campaign all the way to the signed client. Top-of-page bids on trademark attorney run about $10 to $37 a click.¹
Situation pages
A page for the owner who just received a cease-and-desist, and one for the owner about to file, each in plain words.
A quick quote online
A form that works on a Saturday, a call booked for Monday, and a written quote. Your website should make that path obvious.
AI answers
In the business questions we put to AI assistants, the answers usually named firms with a page for that exact situation. The same situation pages give ChatGPT and Google's AI something specific to draw on when an owner describes the letter in front of them.
The flywheel
We track which formation and contract clients go on to need trademark work, and offer it to them before they need it in a hurry.
/ The 5 core marketing optimizations most firms are missing
How The Client Magnet System™ systematically optimizes and unifies your marketing
Instead of trying to convert visitors directly into clients, we strategically capture their information first so we can follow up and nurture the relationship.
Valuable resources
Create guides, toolkits, and webinars that help prospects understand their legal situation – positioning you as the expert before they ever call.
Strategic capture
Get contact information and permission to follow up by offering something genuinely helpful, not just a consultation request.
Systematic follow-up
Automated emails that continue providing value while keeping your firm top-of-mind during their decision process.
Testing and improvement
Continuously refine what's working through data – not guesswork – so your results keep getting better.
Clear tracking and ROI
Know exactly which marketing activities generate clients and how much each client costs to acquire so we know which platforms to amplify and which need more optimization.
How each step looks for a trademark and IP firm: The entry point is a page for the moment the owner is in: a cease-and-desist page, or a name check before filing. Follow-up keeps helping the owner who isn't ready to hire yet, tracking shows which page and which ad brought each signed client, and your formation and contract clients hear about trademark protection while there's still time to plan it.
Services that fit
Google Ads · Blogs and situation pages · Law firm websites · AI search optimization (GEO) · The referral flywheel · Fractional CMO
What we build for a client firm
/ Your first resources
Two pieces your firm can hand its own clients and the owners who find you: Got a cease-and-desist? What to do this week, and a pre-filing name check. One meets the owner in the crisis, and the other reaches the owner before there is one.
More for business-law firm owners
FAQ
Will this work for my practice area?
The system is based on best practices that work across industries, so it adapts to any practice area with customized resources and messaging for your specific clients.
Are owners still filing trademarks?
Yes. Trademark classes filed were up 7.4% in the US Patent and Trademark Office's most recent annual count.³ The moments that send owners to a lawyer are still happening, and they're the ones to build for.
Is Google Ads still worth it for trademark work?
It can be, because owners still type these problems into Google. The broad search says little about what happened to the owner, so we aim at the specific moments, a cease-and-desist or a first filing, start small, and judge each campaign by the clients it signs and what each one cost.
How do we stop losing clients to self-filing?
Many owners will file on their own whatever you do. The useful question is whether they think of your firm before they file, and remember you when the application runs into trouble. A pre-filing name check and a plain page for the owner whose application hit a problem give them two good reasons to.
Who would run this inside our firm?
I can run it for you, or train and lead the people you already have. Many firms want some of both, so you get in-house marketing without the overhead of a full department.
¹ Google Ads Keyword Planner, US, average monthly searches, with top-of-page bid ranges.
² A trademark-filing company's analysis of one month of direct US applications in 2025.
³ US Patent and Trademark Office: more than 824,000 trademark classes filed in fiscal year 2025, up 7.4%.
⁴ Case value estimated from average case value.