Find Out What's "Old" About Social Media and Law Firm Marketing
I’ve been in the business of law firm marketing and business development long enough to know that the tools involved in law firm marketing change over time.
In recent years, the rate of change has multiplied due in large part to the rate at which technology is evolving. But also due to the rate at which clients accept (or drive) that change.
I’ve written extensively about the social media phenomenon – its growing impact on law firm marketing practices, and on law firm business models.
But the point that should not be missed among the technology jargon is that social media has its roots in relationship building.
The “phenomenon” of social media is not so much about the differences between Twitter and LinkedIn and Facebook. It’s about their similarities.
Each is a means to reach out to potential clients in order to understand what clients are concerned about. And they are a force that empowers clients to insist on law firms who listen to their needs and interests – and respond.
The point is this.
If your partners and existing clients are not ready for the current wave of law firm marketing tools, you need not force that particular issue.
Your energy is much better spent emphasizing the more fundamental principle that clients of all generations (from Baby Boomers to Millennials) are more and more choosing law firms that know their business and personal concerns, and understand their challenges and opportunities.
Successful firms of the future will invest in law firm marketing tools of many kinds to gain that knowledge and to respond in a timely, thoughtful manner.
Two Things You Must Know about Blogging and Law Firm Internet Marketing
There has been a lot written about blogging and how it relates to your law firm Internet marketing efforts. Some of it focused the importance of “backlinks” and Search Engine Optimizaton. Some of it about creating a consistent, visible voice for your law firm Internet marketing brand.
But there are two things you may not know that are very, very important when it comes to creating a successful, law firm Internet marketing blog – that gets read!
The first is that consistency is key.
If one of the most (if not “the most”) valuable roles of blogs is to create links back to your law firm’s web site, the action that makes that happen is writing regularly. When you post regularly, you train your audience – both readers and search engines – to come visit your blog site habitually.
And both generate traffic and a pool of potential clients for your law firm.
The second thing you should know, but probably haven’t heard, is that the focus of your blog should be on something you feel passionate about (and that may or may not be your area of practice). This may sound silly, but the point is actually quite logical.
If you must write regularly about a topic (and by “regularly”, I mean 2-3 times per week), it had better be a topic that you really care about. Because if you don’t really care, the process of writing 2-3 times a week will become a chore. Not only will you be tempted to quit within a month or two, your readers will be tempted to quit too.
Your blog simply will not get read.
In the end, 50% of your objective will go unmet.
If you are considering adding a blog to your existing law firm Internet marketing plan, remember these simple principles. Write regularly. Write about something you feel passionate about.
You will stand the greatest chance of meeting two of your top law firm Internet marketing objectives – attracting search engines and creating loyal readers.
Five Steps to Effective Law Firm Marketing Positioning
In my last posting, we discussed the importance of creating effective positioning in your law firm marketing strategy.
Today, you will see a proven, five-step process you can use to formulate a solid positioning statement.
Not to be confused with a unique selling proposition for your entire firm, a positioning statement is specific to a particular area of practice, such as estate planning, product defect or personal injury law.
The goal of an effective positioning statement in your law firm marketing strategy is to clearly define what perception you want to instill in your clients’ minds when they think of how your law firm practices a particular area of law.
In the end, your law firm marketing positioning statement must be . . . .
- Unique – it must clearly differentiate you from your competitors and your other areas of practice
- Positive – it must create a positive image in the clients mind.
- Memorable – While your clients certainly do not have to know or recall the specific words you use to describe your unique position, the key ideas should come through loud and clear.
Steps to creating your law firm marketing positioning statement:
Step 1: Know and Understand Your Competition
- Names of law firms
- Names of their partners
- Which services they do and do not provide
- How much they charge (per hour, any retainer size)
- Who they target with their legal marketing efforts
- Approximate annual revenues
- Which law firm marketing techniques they use to find clients
- Growth strategies
Step 2: Know How the Top Three Position Themselves
Are they. . . .
- Elite
- Inexpensive
- The biggest firm in the region, in the field
- Highly-specialized
- Bi-lingual
Step 3: Know Their Strengths and Weaknesses
- Do they have a reputation for settling out of court or do they litigate more often than your firm does?
- What is their win-loss record?
- What do they do better than you do?
- What do they not do well?
- Where are they vulnerable?
Step 4: Identify What is Unique About Your Area of Practice Relative to the Competition
Once you know your competition very, very well, the next step is to use that information to clarify how you are
- Different
- Better
- Faster
- More responsive
- More experienced
- Smarter
Step 5: Articulate Your Position in Two Sentences or Less
When you are able to clarify your law firm marketing position in a concise manner, it is easier for you, your associates to remember it, articulate it, emulate it and use it to guide your law firm marketing messages.
That is where the greatest value comes. The result is a consistent, clear voice that guides your interaction with clients and your law firm marketing efforts.
Why Positioning in Law Firm Marketing Matters
Positioning is one of those little-known and less understood law firm marketing ingredients that can make a very big difference in the success of your law firm marketing approach.
But only if it is done well.
Positioning gets its name from the role it plays in law firm marketing. In essence, positioning is the unique place your firm carves out for itself in your area of practice.
- It is the perception your firm wants to instill in the client’s mind.
- It defines how your services are different from and how they are like the competition
- It spells out what place you hold in the competitive landscape.
In essence it defines how you practice your particular area of law and why clients should choose you (by the way, you can have more than one positioning statement if your firm practices more than one area of law).
The biggest mistake law firm’s make with positioning
As I mentioned above, positioning is only valuable to your law firm marketing strategy if it is done well.
All too often, positioning in law firm marketing is used to make your firm look, sound and act like every other law firm in your field of practice.
Like many business people, attorneys sometimes think there is only one “right” way to position themselves in the minds of clients.
The problem is if you look, sound and act like every other firm, you give clients no reason to choose you. In fact, if all firms were exactly alike, there would be no reason to choose at all. One firm would be the same as the next.
One has only to look in the window of the nearest vending machine to see that positioning of what seem like very similar products can make all the difference.
Who doesn’t see a difference between Coke and Pepsi? In fact, they are nearly identical products, but the perception we have of them is very different.
The truth is that there are unique reasons why clients should choose your firm.
- Perhaps it is because you specialize in a little-served niche that no one else serves.
- Perhaps yours is a personal injury firm with long-standing connections to the automotive industry that enable you to settle sooner and for a higher amount.
- Perhaps you serve as an elder care advocacy firm and you make a point of getting to know your clients on a personal level.
In each of those cases, there was something unique about the firm that would be meaningful to the end client. And that is the point.
If you want to up-level the message you deliver about your firm and increase the return on your law firm marketing investment, spend some time clarifying your law firm marketing positioning.
In my next blog, I will share some proven questions to help you define your positioning.
Three Ways to Listen that Will Transform Your Law Firm, Marketing and Your Thinking
While perusing some blog posts by others in the law firm marketing and business growth business, I ran across this quote from Marianne (a consumer of legal services, as she defines herself), who had this to say.
“I have never ‘met’ the lawyer who looked at their business through a ‘client service’ window or felt the need to try an innovative approach or solution.”
An overstatement to be sure. But the point is that Marianne’s perception is indicative of a larger perception by would-be clients of the legal profession – that attorneys as a group are generally not attuned to what clients really want from a law firm.
As I mentioned in a previous blog, there are outside forces acting upon the legal profession in much the way they have acted on other sectors (such as high technology, manufacturing and even tax services).
Those forces will undoubtedly drive down fees for the average law firm and reduce client numbers (also for the average law firm) and increase the need for effective law firm marketing.
So the challenge is to become an exceptional law firm, that is impervious to economic downturns and fee pressure from low cost centers in developing countries. The way to accomplish that is by listening. . . .
- Listening to clients past, present and future in order to understand precisely what they need, and therefore what you can do that no other law firm is doing to earn their trust and their business
- Listening to your staff because that is where you will find some of the most innovative ideas about how to test your business thinking, transform old-style law firm marketing techniques and to increase profits
- Listening to other businesses outside the legal profession – particularly how they market themselves. It is there among fast, agile, hungry entrepreneurs that you will find really outstanding ideas that you can apply to your own law firm marketing approach.
Whether you are currently feeling the sting of price pressure or thinning client lists or you simply want to become one of the elite firms in the nation, try these simple steps.
Respond to what you hear and apply what you learn to your business processes and systems and to your law firm marketing plans.
Social Media Rules: A Good Investment for Law Firm Marketing
How many times have you heard attorneys either inside your practice or in someone else’s say that social media just doesn’t work?
I would agree with these attorneys, and add just two words.
Social media “used badly” doesn’t work.
In much the same way drivers who don’t follow the rules of the road get into accidents and collect tickets, lawyers who don’t follow the rules of social media will not get the response to their law firm marketing efforts they seek.
However, when you take the time to understand the rules (some of them written some of them simply understood by the community), you open yourself and your firm up to the immense power of these law firm marketing tools.
There is a long list of social media to choose from, to be sure. Some of the most notable are . . . .
· Facebook and LinkedIn – two different approaches to building personal networks
· Digg – an innovative approach to customer-selected news networking
· Twitter and Jaiku – offer something new called “microblogs” in which members can log in to view and participate in a wide array of topics and comments
In each case, you will get the best law firm marketing results when you. . .
· Engage with other members by asking and answering questions
· Watch and “listen” carefully to what is on the minds of potential clients
· Offer thoughtful insights and sound legal advice at no cost
· Refer clients back to your own site only after building trust
The value of social media to the consumer in many ways mirrors the value to your law firm marketing strategy. Consumers get free information from a trusted source, and you become the credible trusted source for them.
Ultimately, they will turn to you when they are ready to engage council – not because you have solicited their business – but because they see you as an empathetic, expert whose council they have come to rely on.
When you become impatient, and attempt to turn forum participants into paying clients immediately, you break their trust, and ultimately lose the law firm marketing value of social media.
In Sum
As you enter the world of social media, remember what the real law firm marketing goal is – to build trust among consumers and credibility for your firm. Clients will choose you only after you accomplish those goals.
You can also connect with me on LinkedIn and Twitter. Here's how:
http://www.linkedin.com/in/StephenFairley Send me an invitation to connect. Mention you saw my blog post.
http://twitter.com/stephenfairley Sign up for a free twitter account and then just click on the “Follow” button to start “following me” and get regular updates on what I'm up to.
Find Out Why the Next Five Years May Mean "The End of Lawyers?" Or a New Era in Technology, Efficiency and Law Firm Marketing
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“While other sectors have struggled, lawyers have endured and prospered unstoppably,” said Richard Susskind, the author of The End of Lawyers?, in an interview with Am Law Daily.
But that is all about to change.
According to Susskind, there is a fundamental transformation occurring in the legal profession that will drive fees downward and push legal services overseas.
There will also be less available work, as clients share legal information and costs on subjects such as standards and compliance.
If what Susskind says is true, how can US law firms respond?
There are several ways individual attorneys and law firms can respond – all of which have to do with embracing change rather than trying to prevent it.
The first thing attorneys must do is to acknowledge the role technology plays in the world. Networking sites, directories, social media, search engines are not just law firm marketing mediums.
They are desirable alternatives for clients who want fast, low cost legal information.They should be used as part of a creative law firm marketing strategy to reach out to and attract new clients, and to listen to what is on the minds of consumers at large.
Increasing brand visibility via other law firm marketing means such as blogs, article marketing, etc. is also key.
Law firm marketing is not the only response, however. Firms will need to consider ways to use technology to increase efficiency and to automate in order to lower costs and increase responsiveness. Knowledge management capabilities, for example, can be used to enable attorneys and paralegals to perform research and analysis more quickly and more precisely.
Susskind contends that call centers, online legal services and outsourcing will play a key role in law firms of the future.
In fact, says Susskind, “The Big Four tax firms have already shown how complex professional work can be outsourced to India and other low cost centers.”
As you ponder the future of your law firm – marketing, technology and innovative, new business models that include outsourcing, online capabilities and efficiency should be at the top of your list of considerations.
LinkedIn: A Top Networking and Law Firm Marketing Opportunity?
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In a recent survey focused on LinkedIn users, two key statistics stood out that are highly important to law firm marketing.
- Nearly 60% of active LinkedIn users are executives (or consultants), whose personal income is greater than $100K, and (perhaps most importantly), they are the decision-makers in their organizations.
Those executives with a personal annual income of $200K to $350K were seven times more likely (than those who made less) to have more than 150 LinkedIn connections.
- Approximately 6.6 million of the active LinkedIn members (or 22% of its overall active population), belong to a category called “Late Adopters”, who have reluctantly joined the networking site.
And lawyers (along with teachers, medical professionals and accountants) make up a large part of this reticent population.
From a law firm marketing perspective, these statistics point to an incredible opportunity to increase contacts with executive-level decision makers.
On the one hand, a lucrative market is available via this Internet-based networking forum – with top earning executives being the most likely to participate at a high rate, and to include a long list of colleagues in their network.
On the other, there is a void in attorney representation – a void savvy law firm marketing professionals will quickly step into.
In sum, if you want to increase your connections with top earning professionals, who make hiring and legal consulting decisions for their organizations, consider including LinkedIn as part of your law firm marketing approach.
When you do, you can find me there, as well http://www.linkedin.com/in/StephenFairley .
Send me an invitation to connect. Mention you saw my blog post.
Top Three Questions to Ask a Law Firm Internet Marketing and Optimization Firm
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In the last blog, we reviewed some of the basics of search engine optimization and its role in law firm Internet marketing.
The purpose of that information was to help make you a more informed consumer when it comes to optimizing your web site.
In this post, I’ve listed three questions you should ask potential law firm Internet marketing providers, and the answers you should look for.
- How long have you been performing search engine optimization? The answer should be three years or more. While three years of experience may sound like a short time to an attorney, search engine optimization (or SEO) is still relatively new. Three years is a reasonable amount of experience, provided they have a verifiable client list to support their claim.
- What are the first 3-4 things you would do to optimize my site? Organizing your site’s information should be in the provider’s top four. The information should be organized in a “site plan” that outlines in what order your pages will appear and how they link to one another. As good site plan is usually based on a pyramid structure with your home page at the top, and supporting pages listed below.
Creating a “backlink” strategy designed to increase your popularity with search engines should also be in their top four.
- How long will the work take? If the work will take more than two months, consider another candidate. An experienced law firm Internet marketing agency should be able to have a functional site up within eight weeks of start date.
In sum, use this information to ensure that your law firm Internet marketing provider has the experience and expertise needed to optimize your site and ultimately to land your site on the top or second page of search results.
Law Firm Internet Marketing: Solving the Mystery behind Search Engine Optimization
When you hear the words law firm Internet marketing, you are almost certain to hear the term “search engine optimization”. But what does it mean?
More importantly, how does it affect your law firm Internet marketing efforts?
Put simply search engine optimization is the most basic tool used by law firm Internet marketers and web masters to increase the amount of traffic to your web site.
The first thing you should know about SEO is that your Web site must appeal to both people and search engines. If you remember to keep these two in balance, not only will potential clients come to your site, they are more likely to spend time there learning about why your firm is the best choice to meet their legal needs.
Below you will find the basic, working information you need in order to choose a law firm Internet marketing provider who can really help you.
Search Engine Spiders: A well-designed web site will appeal to search engine “spiders”. Search engine spiders (also known as web crawlers, web robots, and more) are the part of the search engine (such as Google or Yahoo!) that crawls the Internet in search of Web sites that match the “search words and phrases” that someone has typed into the search box.
If your site is a good match for the viewers search terms, your site will appear in that person’s search results.
What Search Engines Look for: Different search engines look for different things. Some things they all have in common is that they like popular, well-organized sites that make it easy to find the search words and phrases. Search engines like:
- To find several instances of the exact keyword phrase it is looking for – optimally, the exact keyword phrase should appear 2 to 5 times per 100 words.
- Bulleted lists
- Bolded headings
- Links from outside source into your site
- Links from your site to outside sources
- Very often, they like “metatags” and “alt tags” (key words in the “code” of your site)
Those are the basics regarding how search engine optimization works with your law firm Internet marketing approach.
To learn more about optimization and law firm Internet marketing where I will share the top three questions you should ask a law firm Internet marketing provider before making your selection.
Law Firm Marketing Campaigns: What We Can Learn from the Presidential Election
The election is over, and we have a new president-elect. There are several lessons we can take from these campaigns.
Perhaps the most important one (related to law firm marketing) is the importance of tracking your campaign results.
Dating back to the primaries, results-tracking played a key role.
More than one analyst has said that Hillary Clinton’s campaign team may have botched her chances because they did not break down and track the number of electoral votes needed to secure the democratic nomination.
The point is that if you don’t set targets and track your progress in a campaign (whether a political campaign or a law firm marketing campaign), you are likely to miss your goal.
Obama’s campaign team did that and more. As a result they found innovative ways to get the votes they needed.
They then tracked there response rate day by day, precinct by precinct, electoral vote by electoral vote.
How can you apply these methods to your own law firm marketing campaign?
By using these simple tools . . .
- Landing pages – when you run an advertisement (as part of your law firm marketing approach), whether in a printed magazine or on the Web, provide a unique URL to a unique landing page.
In this way your web master can track how many people went to that specific page, how much time they spent their. He can even track how many of those individuals contacted you as a result of coming to your landing page.
- 800 numbers – in much the same way you can provide unique URLs for potentials clients to type into their web browser, you can provide an 800 number that is assigned only to particular ad.
- e-Mail marketing tools – There is a long list of e-mail marketing providers, such as aWeber, Constant Contact and iContact. Each enables you to track how many messages went out, how many recipients of your e-mail opened the message, and how many took action as a result of reading your message.
By using these simple tracking methods, you will be able to see which advertisements in which media are performing well and which ones aren’t.
You will know where your law firm marketing investments are paying off, and where you should de-invest or adjust tactics.
Ultimately, you will have the critical data you need to run a winning law firm marketing campaign.
Law Firm Internet Marketing: How to Create a Marketing Mix that Works
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With all the law firm Internet marketing options available to you today, it can be difficult to determine which ones to implement.
It can vbe equally difficult to decide what mixture of different advertising and marketing media will give you the best response rate.
In past blogs, we’ve discussed the different roles the various law firm Internet marketing mediums play. There are several, such as newsletters and blogs, that are typically very good investments.
There several others, such as social media, Google Adwords and even offline advertising that may give you an even greater return.
How do you decide which law firm Internet marketing mediums to invest in, and which to leave for your competition?
Below are a three key things to consider when deciding which law firm Internet marketing tactics to use:
- The habits of your target clientele – If your target client is aged 18 to 35, it is likely they rely heavily on social media to communicate and to get their information. Your advertising and outreach marketing efforts should leverage those habits.
- Your area of practice – Much the way the habits of your clientele influence your marketing mediums, your area of practice should influence your choices and the way you deliver your message.
If your area of practice is estate planning, for example, you would do well to advertise in more traditional media such as senior’s magazines (both electronic and print).
- Your competition – If your competitors are all using Google Adwords and targeting the same keywords, you may want to refocus your law firm Internet marketing in an area less crowded. Or find a way to differentiate yourself among all the others.
To learn more about how to create a law firm Internet marketing mix that works for your firm, look for my next blog about tracking law firm Internet Marketing success rates.
When it Comes to Business Growth and Law Firm Marketing - Choose Profitability
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A recent posting on Market Watch said, “If it isn’t a recession, it sure feels like one.”
It does not matter what financial analysts label the current economy. What matters is that credit is more difficult to get, new clients may be harder to find and existing clients may be slower to pay.
Yet it is still possible to flourish today.
The key is to make choices that make sense (whether in business growth or law firm marketing efforts).
Below are some choices I recommend.
Choose profitability. There are times to set aside profitability in order to invest in the growth of your law firm. And there are times (like today) when you need to maintain cash flows.
If you cannot grow AND increase profitability at the same time, choose profitability.
Focus on profitability. Ensuring that your firm survives (and perhaps flourishes) in down times means you may need for deemphasize less profitable parts of the “business” of your firm.
To do that, consider the following questions:
- What areas of practice are the most profitable? Deemphasize those that are less revenue-rich.
- Which are your highest margin clients? Is it time to pass on those clients who require a great deal of resources but deliver little in revenue and referrals?
- Review outgoing expenses – services, law firm marketing tactics, personnel. Those that do not increase profitability may need to be cut or replaced.
Invest in law firm marketing, but only the sort of law firm marketing from which you can see a solid line between action and income.
To do that, track the response rate you get from individual law firm marketing activities, and then choose wisely.
For example, if you invest your law firm marketing dollars in law firm directories, track the number of new clients and associated revenue you gained via this medium.
If the answer is “very few new clients” or the revenue from them does not warrant the investment made, it may be time to reduce your participation or replace that law firm marketing tactic with another.
The bottom line
Those business growth and law firm marketing activities that are not paying off should either be modified to increase the margin, reduced to a minimum allowable level or replaced with another provider or tactic.
Build a Strong Foundation for Your Law Firm Marketing Efforts with these Proven List Building Techniques
We’ve talked in previous blogs about the need to build trust with potential clients by first building a relationship with them.
There several law firm marketing mediums you can use to build those relationships.
Some like Twitter, are designed to create a two-way dialogue so you can engage your potential client base in online conversations that help you understand their needs better. Others, like legal blogs, help present you as an expert.
Each plays a role in your law firm marketing strategy.
But when it comes to reaching out to potential clients on an ongoing basis, few can match the success rate of newsletters.
However, before you can engage clients through law firm marketing newsletters, you must first be able to find them.
That brings us to one of the foundational tools of law firm marketing – list building.
There are list services such as iContact and TouchSource from whom you can purchase names, e-mail addresses and home addresses that match your demographic
However, I do not recommend them for law firm marketing.
Because the client’s choice in legal council rests so much on trust, my opinion is that contacting clients without their permission is suspect.
However, there are many proven ways to build law firm marketing lists, without purchasing names from a service. Below are some of the best.
· Insert a newsletter sign up form on your most highly trafficked pages of your web site. Include a brief summary of the benefits of receiving no-cost, ongoing legal information they can use.
· When you speak publically, provide a sign up sheet for your “complimentary” newsletter. This technique has a very high response rate because the audience is already interested in your area of the law. They also see you as an expert, whose legal council they could benefit by.
· Partner with other professionals who serve a client base similar to yours. For example, if your area of practice is estate planning, financial planners or brokerage houses might have a target client similar to yours.
Once you locate these “list partners”, you can insert your offer for a free trial newsletter into their outgoing communications to that client base (and they can do the same with yours).
In that way, you are getting permission from the recipient prior to sending your law firm marketing newsletter – which is much more effective than purchasing a list.
In addition to using these proven ways to build your law firm marketing lists, be sure to make it visible and easy for recipients of your newsletter to unsubscribe. It does you no good to contact someone regularly, who does not want your information.
On the other hand, making it clear they may cancel at any time sends the message that you care about them and they can trust you.
Include these list-building tactics in your law firm marketing strategy, and you will be well on your way to building a solid, highly responsive list of clients.
