By Stephen Fairley on Posted in Law Firm Marketing,Lead ConversionIt’s the second week of January and you have a lot of slots to fill on your calendar with appointments that will hopefully turn into new clients. So how are you going to do it? You can begin by watching my free webinar on the Top 5 Ways Lawyers Are Filling Up Their Calendars With… Continue Reading
By Stephen Fairley on Posted in Content MarketingHaving high quality content on your website, blog, and social media pages is the best way to improve your Google search ranking and online authority. When people — your prospects — like what you have to say online, you are rewarded by Google as well as by those who are ready to hire an attorney… Continue Reading
By Stephen Fairley on Posted in Law Firm Management,Law Firm MarketingThere are certain traits successful law firms share. I call them habits, since they must be deeply ingrained in an organization to bear full fruit. A few years ago, Forrester Research — a global business research and advisory firm — studied the successful habits of small businesses, and it is uncanny how those habits match… Continue Reading
By Stephen Fairley on Posted in Business Development for Law Firms,Law Firm ManagementDo you know how much money each lead is really costing you? How much does it cost you to get a new client? Knowing the answers to these questions can mean the difference between a profitable firm and a struggling one. These numbers are known as “KPIs” — Key Performance Indicators. They are the critical… Continue Reading
By Stephen Fairley on Posted in Law Firm Development,Law Firm ManagementOne important lesson you have probably learned by now if you’ve been practicing law for any period of time is that knowing the law is very different from learning how to run a successful law firm. There are lessons that only experience can teach us; my experience of helping more than 18,000 attorneys learn how… Continue Reading
By Stephen Fairley on Posted in Law Firm MarketingAt some time, you’ve probably been told that it’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog (especially you litigators!). So while big firms do have some advantages over small to mid-size firms when it comes to resources available for law firm marketing, my experience… Continue Reading
By Stephen Fairley on Posted in Law Firm DevelopmentBuilding a lifestyle law firm — one that enables you to do what you want when you want to do it — begins with the understanding that you are running a business. And the success of your law firm lies in how well you are able to develop your strengths in three key areas: Marketing… Continue Reading
By Stephen Fairley on Posted in Law Firm MarketingOne of the most effective ways you can distinguish yourself in the legal marketplace is by creating a brand that positions you as a leading authority in your area of practice. Without a strong brand, you run the risk of becoming a commodity — and as we all know, commodities typically have minuscule profit margins.… Continue Reading
By Stephen Fairley on Posted in Law Firm MarketingIn today’s hyper-competitive legal services marketplace, it is not enough to be smart or even to do a great job for your clients. You must find a way of differentiating yourself and your firm so that prospective clients have a reason to choose you over your competitors. And everyone who works in your firm must… Continue Reading
By Stephen Fairley on Posted in Law Firm MarketingTypically, lawyers are among those who are considered to be helpers. Other people are supposed to come to you for help — which may be why it can be hard to be the one who is seeking out help. However, there are many law firm marketing tasks that you can and should delegate or outsource… Continue Reading
By Stephen Fairley on Posted in Law Firm Development,Law Firm MarketingHere’s a lesson that many attorneys learn the hard way: you will never have that lifestyle law firm you want if you keep taking on the wrong types of clients — which are those that fall outside a pre-defined category of what constitutes your ideal clients. These five tried-and-true tips will help you attract the… Continue Reading
By Stephen Fairley on Posted in Digital Marketing for Law Firms,Law Firm MarketingThis post from June 2018 has been updated to include a slide presentation from Search Engine Journal’s recent webinar on How to Identify Lost & Missed Content Opportunities. While the relevancy of content marketing has never been greater (research shows that it generates 3x as many leads than traditional marketing and costs 62% less), we… Continue Reading
By Stephen Fairley on Posted in Law Firm Development,Law Firm MarketingThere aren’t too many excuses I haven’t heard from lawyers who won’t do what it takes to market their law firm effectively: I don’t have the time. I don’t have the money. I don’t know how. My clients aren’t on social media. My practice is highly specialized so I don’t need to market it. All… Continue Reading
By Stephen Fairley on Posted in Law Firm ManagementA law firm rarely ever fails for lack of talent. It fails due to a litany of bad business practices, inefficiencies, infighting and hubris, as well as a number of other reasons that have nothing to do with the intelligence or talent of the lawyers themselves. Being good at practicing law only gives you permission… Continue Reading
By Stephen Fairley on Posted in Digital Marketing for Law Firms,Law Firm Marketing,SEO for law firmsMost people are not aware that YouTube is the world’s third largest search engine, where three billion searches are executed every month (compared to Google at 100 billion and Bing at 26 billion searches per month). YouTube has become so enormous that videos not optimized fully for search likely won’t find an audience. Online video is… Continue Reading
By Stephen Fairley on Posted in Law Firm MarketingWord of mouth has always been important for lawyers to obtain new business — after all, what are referrals but informed word-of-mouth recommendations? Now that our lives are all online, it’s easier than ever for clients to post reviews of your services. And you can no more control that than you can order up a… Continue Reading
By Stephen Fairley on Posted in Law Firm Marketing,Legal MarketingLaw Firm 500 is a prestigious, one-of-a-kind award recognizing fast growing law firms of all sizes. It celebrates velocity, innovation, and the entrepreneurial spirit of law firms measured by revenue growth over the past three years. Law Firm 500 is similar in spirit to the Inc. 500, which recognizes fast growing, independently owned companies in the… Continue Reading
By Stephen Fairley on Posted in Law Firm MarketingMost attorneys have a finite amount of time to dedicate to legal marketing, so having a process in place that nurtures a lead along the path to becoming a client and having data that demonstrates the most effective marketing tools for your law firm is a great benefit. That is what marketing automation delivers. Among… Continue Reading
By Stephen Fairley on Posted in Law Firm DevelopmentGuiding the growth of your law firm takes a disciplined approach to law firm development. While you may not have learned much about the business of law as your pursued your JD, you will need to master certain business disciplines — planning, hiring, financial management, technology, and marketing — to make your firm successful. There… Continue Reading
By Stephen Fairley on Posted in Law Firm MarketingAs part of Affinity Consulting’s Customer Appreciation Month, I will be presenting a special 30-minute training webinar for lawyers on how to effectively manage the marketing of your law firm on Wednesday, May 2, at 1 p.m. ET/10 a.m. PT. During this free training webinar, you will learn: How to get started on a law… Continue Reading
By Stephen Fairley on Posted in Business Development for Law Firms,Law Firm MarketingThe National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys (NACBA) will hold its 26th annual national convention on April 19-22 at the Sheraton Downtown Denver. Whether you’re a member of NACBA or not, there is still time to register and attend! I will be presenting two workshops: Thursday, April 19 at 5 p.m. on Top 10 Mistakes Bankruptcy… Continue Reading
By Stephen Fairley on Posted in Law Firm Management,Law Firm MarketingThis post was originally published on Oct. 13, 2016 and updated on April 11, 2018. As the owner of a small or mid-sized law firm, your primary focus – after gaining competency as an attorney – is to understand and apply the key principles of business development, operations, management and law firm marketing every single… Continue Reading
By Stephen Fairley on Posted in Law Firm MarketingEvery year, FindLaw conducts a U.S. Consumer Legal Needs Survey that asks the question every attorney needs to know the answer to: what influences a consumer’s decision to hire an attorney? The 2017 survey revealed some behavioral characteristics of legal consumers that attorneys need to dial into their marketing strategies: 59% take action within one… Continue Reading
By Stephen Fairley on Posted in Internet Marketing for Lawyers,Law Firm MarketingLegal consumers today are a lot more savvy than just a few years ago, and law firms need to update their marketing strategies in order to reach and persuade them. In 2016, an Avvo survey provided a few interesting revelations about the modern legal consumer. The survey of 1,000 adults found that: 95% said online… Continue Reading
