Category: Law Office Management

Want to Build Business? Here’s How to Be a Better Networker

Few would argue that networking always has been and likely always will be an important aspect of building and maintaining a successful law practice. Networking is how lawyers connect with prospective clients and referral sources, build trust and loyalty, and develop the types of individual relationships that can lead to new business.

It’s also time-consuming and, for most of us, not particularly easy or fun.

So, it is not surprising that more and more busy lawyers have embraced social media and digital marketing to expand their network of contacts. While these tools give us a platform for making connections on a large scale, the relationships we develop this way typically are not as deep as those we nurture through in-person contact.

6 Lawyer Networking FAQS

When coaching attorneys on their business development activities, I frequently am asked for pointers for how to make in-person networking less time-consuming and more effective. Answers to a few key questions can put this into perspective.

1. It seems there are events I could attend nearly every day. How do I know which are the best?

• Revisit your goals. The best events are those that help you reach your marketing and business development goals. If you are looking to raise your profile in a particular industry, attend events where people involved in the industry will be. If you want to cement your relationship with a key client, ask them which events they would recommend you attend to learn more about their business or their industry. If you are a younger attorney who needs to develop a profile and a network, attend as many different types of events as you can.

• Review attendee lists. Some events will make the attendee list available in advance of the meeting. Request a copy, and review it to get an idea of whether there are people attending who would be worth meeting. If the event is predominantly attended by people you already know or those whose positions or employers are not in your business development “sweet spot,” you may want to find another event, unless, of course, you can use the event to hone your networking skills. An event where less is at stake can make you feel more comfortable.

• Remember why you’re there. You network to develop relationships, which takes time and goes beyond one brief conversation. The best professional networking groups operate as business information, idea and support exchanges, providing opportunity for you to really get to know someone. Sometimes, this might be more easily accomplished by attending a meet-up of a group of people with the same hobbies than through a bar association meeting.

2. Most of these events last a couple of hours. How do I make sure I am not wasting my time?

• Set three attainable goals. Do not let yourself become overwhelmed because there are 500 people attending a convention in one of your targeted industries. Go into the event with a few attainable goals, such as meeting specific individuals, meeting five new people, speaking with the host or chairperson about assisting with a future event, introducing a colleague to one of your contacts, or meeting a high-profile speaker.

• Set a realistic time limit. Instead of feeling as though you have to stay for the duration of the event, take some of the pressure off by committing to being engaged for one hour, or some other realistic and comfortable period of time. Not only will this keep you fresh and engaged, you are more likely to attend more events if you set boundaries on the amount of time you commit.

3. I find it difficult to initiate a conversation with a stranger. How do I start?

• Arrive early. If you get there early, the room will walk into you, whereas if you walk in late, people will already be mid-conversation when you arrive.

• Look for an opportunity to engage someone. If the room is crowded and there seem to be many conversations underway, look for people who are standing alone. One-on-one may be more comfortable and can make for effective networking.

• Don’t be afraid to admit that you don’t know anyone there. Approach a group with a smile on your face, and simply ask, “May I join you?” No one ever replies, “No, we don’t want you.”

4. What do I talk about? If I don’t know someone well, it can be a challenge to find something to discuss.

• Your primary job is to listen. The worst thing you can do when networking is turn it into a sales pitch. Networking should be about building a quick rapport – it should be informal, brief, interesting and leave people wanting to know more. People bond over commonalities. Sales pitches have the opposite effect.

• Build a bank of conversation starters. Catching up on current events and being knowledgeable in a variety of general topics will help you make meaningful contributions to conversations.

• Follow the event on social media. Many organizations will set up a Twitter feed with a specific hashtag as a way to share information about the event and engage attendees in discussion before and after.

5. I know I shouldn’t talk to the same few people the entire time. How do I make a graceful exit from a conversation?

• It’s OK, indeed, appropriate to move on. Unless the conversation is very promising, plan to spend no more than four to six minutes with any one individual. After that, you should be prepared to move on. You also don’t want to take up too much of the other person’s time. They are there for the same reasons you are. Remember, you feel more uncomfortable about leaving the interaction than the other person. It’s acceptable to say that you have to make a phone call, get a drink, go to the restroom or say hello to someone you haven’t seen.

• Make an introduction. Offer to introduce someone you’ve met to someone else you met or know in the room. This allows you to gracefully move on while also helping others expand their network.

• Glass half full. Literally. Carry a half glass of beverage and order only half a glass of beverage to more easily facilitate separation.

6. I attended four events this month. Why haven’t I gotten any new work?

• Relationships take time. It takes time for people to have confidence in you and form a relationship with you. You cannot expect someone to send you work just because they met you at an event. Instead, focus on investing in others. Find ways to be helpful, provide information, tell them of an opportunity that might interest them or introduce them to others beneficial to their own network. The rest will come.

• Follow up, and keep at it. If you have followed your networking plan for the event, you are on your way to developing a relationship. That said, you should not consider the event to be “over” until you have followed up. Send an email to those you met, following up on your conversation or providing information you promised to send. If you would like to develop a stronger relationship with a few particular people you met, consider giving them a call rather than sending an email.

The key to successful networking is to remember that you are building real, deep relationships with your contacts. What good is a network full of people who don’t know you very well? The more you foster trust and rapport with those you meet, the more you can begin forging new avenues of business.

ARTICLE BY Joi Scardo of Jaffe
© Copyright 2008-2015, Jaffe Associates

Three Steps to Leverage LinkedIn for Your Law Firm

I have yet to find an attorney who could not benefit from having their profile on LinkedIn. It’s the number one online network for white-collar professionals.

Whether you want to connect with non-competing attorneys, non-legal professionals, or potential clients, the demographics on LinkedIn speak for themselves:

  • The average age range of a LinkedIn user is 30 to 49

  • 44% of LinkedIn users report an annual income of more than $100,000

  • 50% of members have a college degree

  • 28% have a graduate degree

LinkedIn members are highly educated and affluent. Is this a demographic you would like to reach? For most attorneys, the answer is obvious.

The first step to using LinkedIn is to create a comprehensive profile. Use your entire bio in your profile and be sure to include your keywords in it. In other words, use the exact keywords that you believe prospects or potential referral sources would use to find an attorney with your skill sets.

For example, if you are a business attorney in Omaha it might sound like this:

“John Doe is a Omaha business attorney who works with small business owners and CEOs of mid-sized companies to create comprehensive operating agreements, buy-sell agreements and employment agreements. His Omaha business clients appreciate the fact that John is an attorney who has a strong business background, having owned and operated two different companies, including a high tech company with 25 employees.”

Next, go to the See Who You Already Know on LinkedIn page and import your email contact list. This makes it super simple to connect with people you already know who are also on LinkedIn. In addition, based on your contacts, LinkedIn will suggest relevant contacts for you to connect with on the site.

Then search LinkedIn Groups and join those where your clients and prospects are. Create content — blog posts, free reports, articles, etc. — that will attract their attention. You can also start your own group and invite contacts to join.

The key to utilizing LinkedIn effectively is to be involved and be consistent. You need to commit to investing at least 30-45 minutes every week to log in, post an update or a link to your blog, reach out to your contacts, answer any questions that are sent to you, and make yourself visible. Simply setting up a profile on LinkedIn will not lead to more referrals any more than a having a business card will automatically get you new business.

ARTICLE BY Stephen Fairley of The Rainmaker Institute
© The Rainmaker Institute, All Rights Reserved

Leadership Development in Law Firms After the Great Recession

​NESSO STRATEGIES Unique Perspectives Powerful Solutions

Law firm partnerships are curious entities when it comes to reconciling the attorney-owner perspective with exceptional leadership, management and business practices.  At the heart of reaching a successful balance of these two sides, which are often in conflict, are knowledgeable and skilled leaders.

As the legal market has settled from the depths of the recession in 2008 and 2009, we have seen many challenges to the traditional ways in which law firms have been lead and managed, and many old beliefs and poor habits that still hold on.

What We Know

Legal demand has only rebounded slightly.  According to the most recent data from Thomas Reuters Peer Monitor, demand creeps along at less than a 3% annual growth rate, with many practice areas seeing decreases in demand for legal work.   Many clients have pushed back on rates and bills, as electronic billing systems allow clients to compare data across firms.   What used to be a sellers’ market, is now a buyers’ market, as clients have much more information at their disposal as they make decisions.

Today, they can compare the cost to value of firms and demand concessions or go elsewhere.  This has resulted in decreased realization rates relative to desired standard billing rates, as firms make pricing concessions just to retain or get work.  While realization rates may have stabilized, they are under constant pressure and will likely never return to levels previously seen.  The billable hour has not, and may not go away soon, but new approaches to pricing (including positions dedicated to this task) are now mainstream, and many firms are spending more time on analysis of internal data and metrics relative to legal tasks and the cost of doing legal work.

Competition is fierce, and many firms maintain a growth strategy – in revenue, new clients and work, headcount and offices.  Mergers are active, as firms are willing to create new unions, and/or add practice and industry groups.  And, individual attorneys are willing to look at opportunities for greener pastures if a suitor comes calling.  Loyalty, and visions of the good old days when attorneys and staff were “lifers,” has been called into question by many, as the quest for something better is sought, and GenXers and Millennials test the waters to find the right fit.   On the other side of the coin, is loyalty as a bad business practice, as many firms continue to avoid issues of unproductive, unskilled staff and/or attorneys.  While these issues have likely existed in firms for decades, the transparency of the issues and the challenge to maintain margins, has created conflict and competing interests.

Personnel costs are the number one expense for firms, followed by occupancy.  While attorney to secretary ratios are closely watched and compared by many, and non-producing attorneys may be (repeat, may be) better managed in some firms, these are not the Holy Grail to better profits.  Many staff and attorneys would support the notion they are doing more with less, but this may not equate to improved skills among the work force, or improved processes, or better efficiencies.  Most firms recognize technology has impacted the way people work, requiring fewer staff and less space.  Yet since the recession, many firms have failed to adapt as they operate in inefficient space, and use old technology and the same processes.  And, firms continue to struggle with self-perceptions of what the law firm of the future should look like when it comes to design, doing more with less space, and fewer, hybrid or different positions.

Where Do We Go?

The future course for law firms has been delineated over the course of the last five to seven years, if they are to remain competitive and maintain or grow margins.   These actions include:

  • Address unproductive partners and staff, not by changing titles, but by jettisoning when remediation through training and skills development fail.  This can be done in a compassionate way, and need not be as harsh as perhaps portrayed here.   But, failing to recognize and address where cost outweighs value, or taking the “we’ll ride it out until they leave of their own accord,” will not reduce the pressures and demands for exceptional client service, improve efficiency or better manage resources.  The drain these individuals can have on a firm go far beyond the cost of the salaries, benefits and overhead to carry them; it also includes the time to deal with them, and the adverse impact they have on the morale of key producers.  It is likely both a disservice to the individual, and to the firm.
  • Strategic planning has long been a part of the law firm arsenal.  Through careful assessment of a firm’s current position using tools like a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis, and open and honest dialogue, the potential for the firm can be identified, and exceptional plans can be developed.  Yet, often great ideas and good direction fall by the wayside as firms get caught in the day-to-day legal work and the business direction of the firm becomes secondary.  As a result, firms fall victim to the inability to make timely (and difficult) decisions and act.  Strategic planning alone is not the be-all and end-all.  It requires carefully planned tactics, with timely execution, measures of accountability for those responsible for implementation, and careful evaluation of the results and course corrections as needed.  It requires the ability to develop a vision for the future, and the fortitude to do what it takes to get there.
  • Client service has become more important than ever, as retention of clients and acquisition of new clients is a part of the competitive legal market tied to growth.  If a firm is to grow, and perhaps even maintain its current position, it means taking clients from other firms.  Client service teams that provide a firm-wide perspective and approach to servicing the legal and business needs of the client, are increasingly important as a competitive advantage.  Quality, timeliness and results of the legal work may remain the primary focus, but developing deeper client relationships beyond the billing or responsible attorney are a must.  This extends to everyone who interacts with or services the client, from partners, associates and paralegals, to legal assistants, billing and technology staff, and even the receptionist.  It is more than just doing the legal work; it includes developing a deeper understanding of the client’s business, gathering strategic intelligence, and relationship development.  It becomes a 360° approach to client service, by everyone who services or interacts with the client.
  • Closely tied to client service is a greater focus on business development, both of existing and prospective clients.  This includes understanding where opportunities exist to extend current client relationships, through the use of strategic analysis of internal firm metrics for new business in practice or industry areas not serviced.  Business development extends to building brand reputation, and nurturing contacts and relationships over the long term, with the goal of being ready when a prospective client has a need.  This can be done through active and ongoing interaction and relationship building in a variety of venues.  Examples include: client visits; presenting CLE programs to clients and prospects; focused content management in publications, social media and websites; interaction at industry events; and, networking in professional, social and community circles.  While marketing activities such as advertising, websites and rankings are passive approaches to help build a firm’s credibility, it is the active relationship building through business development efforts that lands the work.
  • Practice and industry group management, beyond just a collective group of attorneys doing similar work and all needing to know the laws of their respective area, will be expected.  This includes needing to lead, address and integrate all of the areas noted above.  It will require active work over the entire career of an attorney, from hiring and developing the attorney for success, understanding shifting needs and potential impacts market and global shifts may have on individual and practice groups as time passes, to client succession as partners retire.  Successful practice management will require understanding the metrics in a practice or industry group:  productivity, demand, realizations, and opportunities for new work from existing and prospective clients.  It requires the ability to understand other perspectives, lead and manage egos and personalities, address conflict, persuade, influence, motivate and nurture.
  • Process improvement and project management must include a thorough assessment of staff and attorney legal processes, not just administrative work.  It is a systematic approach to help identify the right person, doing the right task, at the right time.  And, a clear understanding of the time it should take to perform the task, for a measurable outcome.  Through tools such as Legal Lean Sigma and the DMAIC process (define, measure, analyze, improve and control), a systematic approach to improve processes that are inefficient, can be utilized to redesign processes, create new expectations for how work is done, and lead to greater efficiency.  This creates the ability to manage the legal and administrative processes, and do the work in a cost effective way with better service the client.  This also can lead to better pricing of legal work as the time needed for specific tasks is understood and managed, and better explanations to clients of the costs, and value, involved.
  • Several design and real estate groups continue to research attitudes and trends in law office design.  Gensler’s Law Office of the Future http://www.redesign-law.com/ provides insight into how law firms will work, and will need to work, in the future to address changes in technology, generational attitudes, and the cost pressures we see today.  This includes, smaller, more generic size office for all, partners included, and more open and collaborative work space and gathering areas.  Cushman and Wakefield recently reported in their legal sector benchmark survey, nearly a third of associates who participated were interested in hoteling.  All of this will be driven by improved technology-driven workflows and processes, and less demand for paper files (recognizing the paperless office is still a ways off).  The bottom line:  less space is needed, and remembering where occupancy costs fit in law firm expenses, it makes good business sense to plan for this.  It is not that the changes can’t be done, but rather the willingness to embrace change for the betterment of the firm.

The Common Denominator

What runs through all of these challenges and action approaches for success?  Leadership.   Yet how well are many, some, any attorneys prepared to be future leaders?  Where do they get their leadership development?  In law school?  Likely not.  On the job?  Maybe.  And from whom?  Others who may not be the best mentors when it comes to leadership?

Research has shown, that relative to other groups, attorneys are less resilient (don’t like rejection), are more introverted, are more analytical and more argumentative.  This should come as no surprise, as some of these traits are tied to what law schools teach and prepare attorneys to do.  But do these traits make for good leaders?  And are other key traits missing?   While there are many good leaders within the ranks of attorneys, the pressures and difficulties of leading and managing a partnership where collegiality and consensus often rule, are many.

The collective nature and definition of a partnership suggests decisions in the best interest of all, yet we often see individual personalities and egos influencing the decision-making process, even when the rational, objective data suggests alternative courses of action. While the days of the largest rainmaker ascending to the ranks of managing partner or wielding tremendous informal power may be less prevalent, it likely still exists in many firms, and often runs counter to the business decisions that will help firms address key business challenges noted above. The ability to make difficult decisions that may be unpopular, uncomfortable, or seemingly impossible (depending if decisions are by partnership vote, or at the discretion of the leaders), are key to a leader’s success.

Surveys have shown that organizational members rate the level of executive incompetence at 50% or more.  And, 60-75% of employees report their immediate supervisors as the most stressful or worst aspect of their job.  Should we expect this to be any less in law firms?  Leadership Development Factbook indicates that $15.5 Billion was spent on leadership development in 2013, a 14% increase over 2012.  While the amount law firms spend is not identified, it seems reasonably safe to say, based on experience and observation, nowhere near enough.

The Leadership Solution

Attorneys, and in particular those in leadership roles and emerging leaders, need to develop the knowledge and skills to be great leaders, and exceptional business people.  Given few receive this level of training, it is imperative law firm leaders, current and future, seek opportunities to develop in-depth talents as leaders, managers and business owners.

The ability to analyze and argue does not equate to good leadership or management (i.e. business skills).  Successful use of communication skills, persuasiveness, influence, motivation, relationship building, strategic and tactical planning, execution, accountability, and/or decision making are critical in today’s competitive legal market.  Equally important is the ability to build internal support to develop and execute strategic plans, implement change related to process, or push attorneys to see client service and business development outside the context of legal work.  And these are areas where there is no set formula for action or success, but the ability to read the others’ perspectives and the context of the situation, and determine which skills are needed when and in which combination, are the key to success.  While leadership through power (e.g. the stick approach), may produce results, it cannot be done in a sustained manner that considers or addresses all of the components and actions needed for long term firm success.   Savvy leaders understand leadership, and well-equipped to dip into their tool box of needed skills based on needs and context.

Specific leadership development programs are needed to address relationships (firms comprise people, who by human nature are social and thrive on strong relationships), communications and conflict (an inherent trait of people and law firms).  The nature of legal work requires solid client relationships, again dependent on the same characteristics, just as leading and managing a law firm requires solid internal relationships between all who are members of the firm – attorneys and staff.

Providing leaders in firms, attorney and administrative, with the knowledge and skills to succeed seems common sense.  But where and how is this done to incorporate leadership development to action-oriented approaches tied to the internal and external processes of law firms?  Becoming a successful lawyer takes years of education, training and hands-on experience. How could becoming a great leader be accomplished by reading a few books, sharing ideas on blogs, or sitting in on a webinar or two?

While these can help, leadership development requires in-depth learning, and an active hands on approach.

ARTICLE BY

Steve Wingert
Nesso Strategies

This week – Register for ABA National Institute for New Partners – April 17 in Washington D.C.

ABA Nat Inst New Partners April 17 2015 Wash DC

If you are a new partner or are on the cusp of becoming a new partner, register today for the ABA’s National Institute on New Partners.

At this unique one-day Institute, you will:

• Network with new partners throughout the country, comparing and contrasting their firm’s business and professional development practices with your own.
• Learn from top practitioners as they divulge key considerations for new partners, from ownership issues to pitfalls, finances to business development.
• Meet and socialize with your colleagues during breakfast, lunch and concluding reception. All for the cost of about one billable hour!
• Hear from our distinguished Invited Keynote speaker Ted Olson, a partner at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher.  Among other accolades, he was selected by Time magazine in 2010 as one of the 100 most influential people in the world and he is one of the nation’s premier appellate and United States Supreme Court advocates.  He has argued 61 cases in the Supreme Court, including the twoBush v. Gore cases, Citizen United v. Federal Election Commission, and Hollingsworth v. Perry, the case affirming the overturning of California’s Proposition 8 banning same sex marriage.
• Receive 4 hours of CLE credit, including 2.75 hours of ethics credit.

Register now!

The 9 Top Habits of Successful Rainmakers, Part 1 of 3

The Rainmaker Institute

Successful rainmakers have certain habits and characteristics in common that drive them to greater levels of success. These habits and characteristics manifest themselves as key behaviors and specific actions, and understanding how to implement these actions on a consistent basis will distinguish you from your competitors and increase your revenues.

1.  Develop a Solid Personal Brand

rainmakerFor most attorneys, reputation is everything.  It used to be that attorneys gained their reputations primarily through word-of-mouth and personal interaction.  Today, building a reputation must contain an online element since this is where most people gather and interact.

A personal brand is the expression of your identity that answers the question of why clients should want to work with you. Having a niche is important in creating your personal brand. Plus, it is much easier to build your brand in a select niche than it is to stand out in a huge market like “attorneys”.   Even online, it’s important for you to niche your practice in an area that can provide living, breathing clients for your practice.

2.  Proactively Manage Digital Assets

What do prospects see when they type your name into a search engine? If it’s not much, that can often be as harmful as something negative. Here are some tips on managing your online reputation:

Update your website and social media profiles. Research shows that 76% of people searching for an attorney go online first, so your website and social media profiles are likely one of the first chances you will have to make a good first impression on a prospect. Be sure these are robust reflections of your expertise and the market you serve.

Create good, meaningful content. Wherever you are online – your law firm website, your blog, your social media networks – make sure you are creating and posting valuable and relevant content that your target prospects will find interesting and helpful.

Look and listen. Create a Google Alert for yourself and your firm so you can monitor what is being said. If you find something negative on a site that allows you to comment, do so professionally and unemotionally.

3.  Aggressively Build Contacts

Having a great contact list is key to being an effective rainmaker. While you may not realize it, you probably have more contacts than you think. Not only do you have all the contact information of the people you have done business with, you can look at your email contact addresses and also get the email addresses of those individuals you are connected with on LinkedIn. Right off the bat this will give you a bigger database then you thought.

You can also begin to speak, attend networking events or create Free Reports that motivate people to give you their contact information in order to get valuable information back.

In addition, any time you meet someone or someone calls your office, get their contact information so you can begin to communicate with them on a regular basis in a meaningful way.

To succeed at building contacts, you need to err on side of inclusivity in all your interactions. Be clear on your follow-up systems, maintain a process for adding new contacts and regularly review contact lists for updates.

ARTICLE BY

Stephen Fairley
The Rainmaker Institute

Can Salesmanship Grow Your Case Load?

RW Lynch Company, Inc.

The legal profession is overflowing with competition. What sets one personal injury attorney apart from the hundreds of other personal injury attorneys in their area? In such a competitive field, it is vital that personal injury attorneys are able to, not just find potential clients, but keep them.

You already know the competition is fierce. That is why you’re doing all the right things. You’re working with a top legal marketing company, like RW Lynch. You’re sending out email newsletters, direct mail pieces, and even saturating social media. You’re doing everything you can to maximize your presence within the sea of competition.

So why aren’t you landing clients?

Because your job as a salesman doesn’t end the minute a potential client calls you. Your marketing strategy worked, and that is great. But now it is up to you to reel in the leads that you’ve hooked.

Get in touch…FAST

What good is marketing your law firm if you let potential clients slip through your fingers? If you are not eager to act when an injured victim contacts you, know that there are plenty of other attorneys who are. With so much competition surrounding you, are you willing to give your lead time to find help elsewhere?

Show potential clients that you care by communicating with them right away. If they call your office, speak to them personally. If they send an email or leave a voice mail, contact them back as soon as possible. Meet them in their hospital room, at their home, or at your office. You can even meet over a work break, for coffee. Show them that they are a priority.

When someone is in need of legal advice, they will not be sitting by the phone, patiently waiting for you to return their call. They will find help elsewhere. You became an attorney to help people, so don’t make their legal problems wait on you. Your clients will be grateful for your prompt attention.

Collect information

When meeting with a potential client, your job is to gather information. You can do this simply by creating a dialogue. Don’t waste time showboating. Instead, focus on listening. Ask probing questions, and investigate every detail of their account.

Most people in need of an attorney are apprehensive and are unfamiliar with the legal process. Start the conversation by asking them to tell you about their problem. Guide the conversation, but let them do the talking. You will be surprised how quickly the conversation progresses when your prospective client feels like you are truly concerned and willing to listen.

You may want to consider creating a list of questions to keep on hand. Save them to your phone or tablet so you are always prepared to meet with potential clients and gather information, no matter where you are.

Be empathetic

Most attorneys are in the business to help people. Being a good salesman means that you need to show them why you are the right attorney for the job. Victims need to feel comfortable sharing their situation with you. Understanding your client’s needs and empathizing with their situation shows them that you care. Attorneys are hired to solve legal matters, but to a client, these matters are personal.

Many people you meet with will be cautious, and may feel intimidated, speaking with an attorney. After you’ve spent time getting to know your prospective client, and you’ve listened to their problem, clarify the legal process. Answer their questions and explain how you plan to help them using your skill and experience. Clients will feel more at ease if they understand what to expect.

It may be hard for a client to ask questions that they feel are awkward. Or maybe they have follow up questions that weren’t discussed in your meetings. Consider texting with your clients. This shows them, not only that you are available when they need you, but also that you care about their concerns and want to relate to them on a personal level.

ARTICLE BY

Brian Lynch
RW Lynch Company, Inc.

How Attorneys Are Using Social Media in 2015 [INFOGRAPHIC]

The Rainmaker Institute

According to the ABA’s 2014 Legal Technology Survey Report, attorneys are using social media marketing more than ever before, with solos and small firms leading the way in engaging on social media networks, blogging and website development.

According to the ABA report, LinkedIn is by far the most popular social media destination for attorneys, with 99% of large firms (100+ attorneys), 97% of mid-size firms (10-49 attorneys), 94% of small firms (2-9 attorneys) and 93% of solos having a LinkedIn profile.

Solos dominate Facebook, with 45% reporting participation compared with 38% of small firms and just 21% of large firms. Larger firms appear to favor Twitter, with 36% saying their firms maintain a Twitter presence compared with 16% of mid-size firms, 13% of solos and 12% of small firms.

When it comes to blogging, 24% of law firms overall report having a blog and 39% of attorneys say they have obtained clients from blogging. In comparison, 35% of attorneys say they have obtained clients from their social networks.

So according to the data, blogging delivers more clients than social media but fewer lawyers are engage in blogging than social media. (Opportunity!)

This infographic from MyCase.com details how attorneys are using social media in 2015:

How Attorneys Are Using Social Media in 2015

ARTICLE BY

Stephen Fairley
OF
The Rainmaker Institute

From Federal Prosecutor to Law Firm Life: A Conversation with Grant Fondo on Business Development Strategies when transitioning from Public Service to Private Practice

The National Law Review - Legal Analysis Expertly Written Quickly Found

The National Law Review recently had to the opportunity to attend Thomson Reuter’s Legal Executive Institute’s 22nd Annual Marketing Partner Forum in Rancho Palos Verdes, California where Grant Fondo, Partner at Goodwin Procter, LLP participated on the panel event: Coaching for Success: Collaboration between Marketing & Professional Development to Deliver Training that Drives Revenue. This Panel focused on the intersection between business and professional development, exploring the potential impact partnership efforts can have on business growth.

On this panel, Grant spoke from his experience concerning his transition from Federal Prosecutor and former Assistant US Attorney of the Northern District of California to his work at Goodwin Procter.

Post-conference, Grant was kind enough to answer our questions concerning his career trajectory and gave us some insight from his unique experiences in the legal world.  Below are his answers to the questions posed by NLR.

1.  What were the considerations you took into account when choosing a law firm to join?

I was looking for a firm that was a market leader in the technology and white collar practice areas, a firm that I thought was on an upward trajectory, a firm that understood Silicon Valley, and that was collegial and believed in a collaborative work place.  I have been fortunate to work in collaborative places before, and that type of environment is the best fit for me.

2.  What role, if any, has your firm’s business development and marketing staff had in helping you grow a book of business?

I started from ground zero, so I needed help. I still need help, as this is a long-term process and I am still working toward my goals.  The staff has had an important role from day one, both in the context of internal and external marketing.  They helped me quickly integrate with many of my partners nationwide in my practice group, as well as outside of it, and helped me feel like part of the firm.  Externally, they worked with me to train me to be better at marketing, focus on the marketing efforts I enjoyed, and presented me with opportunities.  They also acted as a sounding board for different marketing events, provided guidance to improve my ideas, and helped me execute on those ideas.

3. What role, if any, has speaking engagements and / or thought leadership, played in helping you stay front of mind with existing or potential clients?

It has helped, but it is time consuming.  You have to be thoughtful about what events you speak at, in that not all speaking opportunities and topics are created equal.  When I returned to private practice, I wanted to focus on marketing I enjoyed, and pass on areas I disliked and was not good at.  Thought leadership is an area that lends itself to that type of philosophy.  My experience as a former federal prosecutor helps in certain areas of the law that intersect well with Silicon Valley clients. For example, there is a lot of concern here with privacy and government intrusion into and demands for company and customer data. This past year we teamed up with clients to file an amicus brief in the landmark smart-phone privacy and 4th Amendment case of Riley v. California.   I enjoy spending time on areas that also hit home for clients.  It also permits you to reach out to a client to let them know about the latest development, or after a meeting is over discuss a topic that is important to them but not necessarily the focus of today’s meeting.  Sometimes they call back a few days later with something new or interesting.

4. How did you form and maintain relationships with potential and current clients?

My partners have been good about introducing me to clients that need my expertise, and letting me further develop those relationships.  When you connect with a client, you want to foster that relationship in a way that is not intrusive or pandering.  I am fortunate in that Goodwin has a really interesting client base doing pretty amazing things, so there is always something to talk about or learn from your client.  Building relationships is also about focusing on what your client wants and trying to understand their perspective–if they want three quick bullet points on a topic so they are armed for their meeting with the CEO, you don’t give them a three page memo five minutes before that meeting.  I also like to develop the relationship on a more personal level.  I love to go fly fishing, and I have a client or two that share that passion.  Simply swapping photos and stories once in a while is a lot of fun, and hopefully has the added benefit of keeping me top of mind.

5. Did you take any affirmative action to meet attorneys from other practice groups within the firm?  Has this been an effective in generating referrals or helping you transition to private law practice?

I believe this is probably the most important thing a new partner can do.  During my first year I took advantage of every opportunity to fly back to Goodwin’s East Coast offices to meet my partners from all practice groups, and I still try to do it.  I also made similar efforts in California.  Getting to know my partners and associates has helped me in a number of contexts.  First, it made me feel more a part of the firm on a professional and social level.  I want to enjoy going to work — I certainly spend a lot of time there, and this helps.  Second, as my partners got to know me, it made me more top of mind if an issue came up. Goodwin genuinely strives to be collaborative, so by making the effort to get to know my other partners, it has paid dividends in getting phone calls about new matters or interesting cases.  Third, it allowed me to respond to client inquiries when I was not the right person.  Recently a client called me, and I was able to immediately direct him to my partner in another office with the needed expertise, because I had had gotten to know him during one of my trips back East.

6. Is there anything different you wish you had done earlier in your legal career to help you with practice today?

I wish I had become a federal prosecutor earlier.  It was an honor doing public service; I learned so much about being a lawyer, particularly a trial lawyer, and working as a team for a common goal.  I was fortunate in that I worked with a lot of really good prosecutors that were willing to share their time and knowledge.  I also wished I had focused my marketing efforts, rather than haphazardly engaged in marketing activities. I look back and realize I wasted a lot of time doing things that I did not enjoy and were ineffective.  I also wish I had made a better effort to keep in touch with people whom I genuinely enjoyed working with over the years.

7.  What are the advantages / disadvantages of working in a prosecutor role vs. in a private practice defense attorney role?

When I was a federal prosecutor, people immediately returned my calls.  There is no shortage of criminals, so I always knew I would have a new case next month.  Another benefit is you have the luxury of spending as much time as you want on a case, without worrying about bills.  In private practice, you are always thinking about your next case, and constantly balancing quality legal work with efficiency.  Also, when you represent a company or individual, government inquiries and prosecutions are immensely personal and unsettling, so there is more of a human element that factors into your representation.  I do think it helps to have been a prosecutor, because you can provide your client insight into how the process works, and the likely viewpoint of the prosecutor or regulator.  One disadvantage is the level of interest in what I do.  When I was a prosecutor, my friends and colleagues always asked what type of case I was working on, and what the criminals were up to—Ponzi schemes and drug cases are inherently interesting to most people.  Similarly, my kids thought I was pretty cool because I worked with federal agents with guns, met the President, and put bad guys away.  Now, my friends and kids rarely ask me what type of case I am working on.

ARTICLE BY

Eilene Spear
OF
The National Law Review / The National Law Forum LLC

Content Marketing for Law Firms with John McDougall

Listen as we speak this week with John McDougall, CEO of McDougall Interactive, on content marketing for law firms.

Nicole Minnis, National Law Review, Legal PublicationNicole Minnis:  Hi. This is Nicole Minnis again, with the National Law Review. I’m here today with John McDougall, president of McDougall Interactive and author of LegalMarketingReview.com.

We spoke last time about Authority Marketing and thought leadership for law firms, so be sure to check out a link to that podcast. But today, we’re going to be talking about content marketing for law firms. Welcome back, John.

John McDougall, McDougall Interactive, Marketing, Authority MarketingJohn McDougall:  How you doing?

Nicole:  I am doing great. How are you?

John:  Excellent.

Nicole:  We had a great time last time. Tell me, why are eBooks and the top of the funnel calls to action important?

John:  A lot of people with website marketing make the mistake of expecting customers to only call them on the phone or fill out a form. When you don’t have a top of the funnel call to action, like an eBook or a case study that’s downloadable, or a whitepaper, you miss a huge portion of the Internet that is casually surfing and could become a lead, but a more casual lead.

A ToFu offer, as we call it — not to be confused with soy products [laughs] — a ToFu offer, a top of the funnel offer, is, again, like an eBook, and it’s somewhere around 85 percent of the Web is looking at the top of the funnel. When you search the web, do you buy something from Amazon or hire a lawyer every time you search the web? You don’t.

You tend to, most of the time, you’re searching and looking for things. You’re in the early stage of the buyer’s journey. Eventually, you’re making bookmarks, and later you go back and hire someone or buy a product. It’s about 85 percent there.

Maybe another 10 percent, roughly, are at the middle of the funnel. In the middle of the funnel, you’re comparing one law firm to another, you’re in that comparison stage. At the bottom of the funnel, maybe only five percent of people using that free consultation form on the attorney’s site or calling the phone number, et cetera, going to the contact page.

That’s such a small percentage of Web visitors that you’re really missing, a huge amount, potentially as much as 95 percent of visitors, if you don’t offer some way for them to casually connect with you — signing up for your email newsletter or getting your eBook.

Nicole:  Where are these ToFu calls, top of the funnel calls, most effective? Are we looking at a law firm home page or a blog page? Where will it have the most impact?

John:  You want to put them consistently throughout your site, so definitely at the home page level, because that’s usually the most visited page. Not always, but often the most visited part of your site. You should have at least one top of the funnel, if not a top of the funnel, middle of the funnel and bottom of the funnel, like your phone number or consultation form, call to action, at the home page level.

Then, if you go into a practice area, like intellectual property law, you might want to have a little sidebar there with a call to action for an eBook or a whitepaper or something around that topic. Then, you go to the blog, and you’re reading the blog, either in the right sidebar you can put an irresistible offer to download maybe a collection of the blog posts into one PDF for printing.

Or, at the bottom of a blog post, that’s a very effective way, after someone reads something and they’ve been very engaged, to then put a nice little…maybe a banner or a nice graphic that sells them on the idea of filling out the form to get your eBook.

Nicole:  Would you include these top of the funnel calls to action on a law firm publications page? To follow up, you wouldn’t limit it to just having a special page for all of their thought leadership?

John:  Yeah. I think it’s good to have a resources section, definitely. After Google Hummingbird that looks even more deeply at Q&A content and natural language search for mobile — Google eats up that kind of content where you’re answering customers’ questions.

It’s great to have that on a blog. That’s one of the most typical places to put it. But sometimes you can have the resources, Q&A library also, and then you have the collection of eBook and podcasts and videos and links to lots of blog posts, and break up your thought leadership in an area like that.

I would say all of the above. There are different types of people that…some are going to like the blogs, some will like the resources area, some will like video, some will like podcasts, some will like the text posts. Break it up and put it throughout your content, and ideally make content top of the funnel calls to action to match the page they’re on.

If at some point you can get around to having 30 eBooks or an eBook for every practice area — it’s a pretty tall order, but, again, made easier through podcasting. One hour of podcasting can be turned into an eBook, and that’s pretty easy to do. You can get a nice cover design and go to each practice area and then have a top of the funnel call to action for each area. That’s the ideal.

Nicole:  That way, you can cover all your bases, so to speak, in terms of who’s looking at your website and what they’re looking for.

John:  Absolutely.

Nicole:  Tell me, how can attorneys use content for their business development?

John:  I’m not a business development expert for law firms, per se. But this has been a very hot topic recently, because we’re doing so much blogging for law firms and content marketing for law firms. I’ve been interviewing people for one of my sites, both Legal Marketing Review and AuthorityMarketing.com, and talking about these issues.

I interviewed a couple of different people specifically on business development, and time and time again they’re saying that they do like to have their attorneys make use of their own posts, if possible. It’s great if the attorneys have their own content to share when they’re pitching people and following up with potential customers.

But even if there’s a blog on the law firm’s site, and then an individual attorney, even if they didn’t write the post, they can share that content. You can share your newsletters and alerts and all different things.

But the more thought leadership content you have, the better off you are at reaching out to, say, a general council, and not annoying them with, “Hey, can we get together? I’d really like to work for you guys.” [laughs] Because that’s really salesy. That’s more old school marketing.

New school, inbound marketing is more, “Hey, Mr. or Mrs. General Council, I thought you’d really appreciate this blog post that we wrote, because I know you’re going through this particular issue with your company. I saw something on the news, and we have a post that really addresses just that issue. Just thought you might like to see this and that you might find it helpful.”

I’ve heard that a lot at the LMA conferences. I spoke recently at the LMA New England conference, and I’ve heard a lot of people talking about that in both my interviews and at conferences — that it’s a healthy way to extend that strategy we’re talking about, about SEO and content marketing and doing it for Google reasons. But there’s this great, of course, offline reason that lets you extend the value of that further.

Nicole:  This content marketing that’s being produced by attorneys, is it trackable in terms of improving these sales? I was going to say they’re selling themselves, but I don’t mean to make it sound so silly. But attorneys are marketing their services, so is the content marketing trackable?

John:  Absolutely not. No, I’m just kidding.

[laughter]

John:  Here’s when it’s not trackable — when you don’t track it. It sounds really simplistic, but you would be amazed, actually shocked, if I told you how many people come to us and they have no tracking mechanism to see if it’s working. First, some people don’t even have something like Google Analytics installed on their site, if you can believe it in this day and age.

Is it trackable? It’s trackable if, number one, you take the 10 minutes to take the snippet of code from Google Analytics and put it onto every page of your site and embed the code. That’s really easy to do, but it is still amazing to us that we see people not doing it.

Number two, and this is a really big point I’d like to make, is that, with the goal tracking on your website, for example, if someone fills out the form for a free consultation, it should be set up so that they hit the submit button and they go to a “Thank You” page.

Some programmers like to make it tricky so that it doesn’t even need to produce a “Thank You” page, and there are ways to track that. But we prefer to have a traditional “Thank You” page, so yourlawfirm.com/thankyou.html kind of thing.

Then, you need to set that up in Google Analytics to register as what is called a “goal conversion”. You can do that also with phone tracking, with the free consultation forms, you can do it with your eBook signups, you can do it with the email newsletter signups.

You can do it even if you want to set up a goal conversion to track in Google Analytics if someone just views your “about us” page or an attorney’s bio page. There are all different things you can set up. But, again, it really only works if you take the time to set those up.

It’s so beautiful, and it sounds so geeky of me, but it’s so beautiful to go into Google Analytics and see basically the numbers. You can actually see, OK, last year in November, say, we got 18 leads, but this year in November we got 37 leads or 87 leads, and they came from these channels, from SEO, from social media, from Google paid ads, from email marketing.

You can track all the different channels they came from, and then you can see which lead forms or eBooks were downloaded. You can get a really good picture of the amount of leads coming in. Then, it goes a step further if you start to do lead scoring and lead nurturing.

Very briefly, lead scoring is when you’ll let your agency know, now that you’re tracking these leads in great detail, you let your agency know that, “These leads are good and these leads are bad”, or even feed back into Google Analytics the data on what the value of those leads were.

You can plug in, “This lead generated a million dollars in a mesothelioma case for the firm, and a $400,000 profit”, or whatever it might be. You can even go that far, if you want, to tell the agency that, “These are good leads. These are bad leads. They’re worth this much.” You could feed that back into the system.

Then, you can make better determinations on what keywords and what channels are driving the best quality leads, not just the most leads. Then, lead nurturing, or marketing automation is when you’re getting so many leads that you can’t even follow up manually with everyone.

Say you’re getting a thousand eBook downloads a month, or even 300. You would want to have a trigger mechanism to automatically say, “Hey, thanks for downloading the eBooks.” Send another email a few days later, “Hey, you might like this case study.” Another few days later, you might say, “Would you like a free consultation?”

You can set up a work flow in something like HubSpot or Eloqua, Pardot, to use marketing automation to send these automated emails so that people feel like, “Wow, I downloaded this eBook, next thing you know they’re giving me other ideas.”

But the salespeople don’t have to, every single eBook that gets downloaded, manually do it. That’s where you can take the tracking and Google Analytics, and then extend it with nurturing those people that are coming to your site.

Nicole:  If we’re talking about a law firm or an attorney who’s starting from scratch, how much of this data do you think needs to be collected before they can really start to implement changes for their marketing strategy, or implement their marketing strategy at all?

John:  I think it’s almost immediate. Once you start to get a few days or a few weeks of data, you can start to make assessments. But it does get a lot better when you have year-over-year data. If you’re looking at, again, November of 2014 versus November of 2013, or all of 2013 versus 2014, in terms of what channels drove traffic, the amount of leads per channel — it really gives you data to show where you’re headed and how things are improving or not.

We do something called conversion rate optimization, where we look at the data in Analytics, and we say, “You know what? Barely anybody is going to our about us page,” or, conversely, “Everybody goes to the about us page.” Usually, they’re the second most visited page on a website.

If there are pages that are hit very consistently, you want to go and fix up those pages and make them even better. Conversely, if there’s a page on your site that nobody ever goes to, but you think it’s really valuable, you can then go make more links to that page or make calls to action that highlight that content. You can definitely, very quickly get data from Google Analytics to go and make very practical changes to your site.

Nicole:  These are all great ideas and strategies for attorneys and marketing professionals at law firms. Thank you so much, John, for sharing your thoughts on this topic today.

John:  Absolutely. I appreciate you having me.

Nicole:  No problem. We hope to have you back another time. Thanks so much for listening.

Authority Marketing and Thought Leadership for Law Firms with John McDougall of McDougall Interactive [PODCAST]

Listen as we speak with John McDougall, McDougall Interactive, on authority marketing and thought leadership for law firms.

Nicole Minnis, National Law Review, Publications Manager, Authority Marketing, Thought Leadership, Podcast

Nicole Minnis:  Hi everyone. I’m Nicole Minnis with the National Law Review. I’m here today with John McDougall, the President of McDougall Interactive and author of legalmarketingreview.com. Today, we’re going to be talking about authority marketing and thought leadership for law firms.

Welcome, John.

John McDougall, CEO McDougall Interactive, Authority Marketing, Thought Leadership

John McDougall:  Welcome. Thanks for having me.

Nicole:  Thank you. Do you want to go ahead and get started with a little bit of background about McDougall Interactive and what your team is doing?

John:  McDougall Interactive is in Danvers, Massachusetts. I started in ’95 at my father’s ad agency doing Internet Marketing. I was actually a media planner before that in ’94 at the agency.

Ever since ’95, I’ve been doing all digital marketing, and now we work with a lot of law firms in different areas, both business to consumer and B2B.

Nicole:  It sounds like you have a lot of wonderful expertise that you can draw from while we’re talking today, so I’m looking forward to getting a little bit of insight myself.

John, tell me, what is authority marketing and why is it important to law firms?

John:  Authority marketing isn’t a really popular term yet and we’re trying to change that, because thought leadership is quite well known and people, in particular law firms, like to build up their reputation as leaders in certain practice areas by blogging on certain topics.

Authority marketing is taking that idea of building up your thought leadership in a systematic way, so that you can eventually turn your blog and your content into ebooks that become a printed book. Then as an author you get more media engagements, more speaking engagements. It all ties together in a way that also Google will appreciate.

That’s one of the real reasons, as an SEO company, again back from ’95, when we were saying “content is king.” Even in ’95, we used to say that.

We’ve been trying for all these years to get our customers really on board with building up content. It’s often quite hard to do that. What we realized is sometimes people are thought leaders and experts but they don’t have time to write.

Sometimes we do interviews to get their content out there, but the idea is that Google is going to pick up on that. The more you blog and have good content, your SEO rankings will go significantly up.

Authority marketing has good things about just your offline marketing and thought leadership, but it’s really good for Google Organic SEO.

Nicole:  Do you recommend that lawyers use more news story content type things, or would they write on evergreen topics, like the estate planning of a $20 million estate? Do you think it’s more of a mix, or that they should focus on one or the other?

John:  It’s probably a mix, but what we have seen when people do just news content is that it’s a little maybe boring or flat. Because if you’re just regurgitating news that other people are all talking about, there is only so much thought leadership in that.

Certainly, if there is a breaking issue, like for myself when Google Penguin happens, and different Google updates, I need to be leading the charge and blogging about those topics as they’re happening, to be a thought leader.

It’s not that news is a bad thing, but we have seen some people so overly focused on just news content that it falls short of answering the customer’s questions. So that evergreen content that you talk about and the struggles that people have with various issues — we can find those struggles by looking at the Google keyword tool, and looking at the monthly search volume of the way people are searching.

We can use social media listening tools to figure in your topically related communities what are people concerned with, what are they sharing on LinkedIn groups and Google+ communities. If you can take that content, and as you said, make more evergreen content that’s going to be heavily searched on, then it’s going to prove the test of time and keep ranking.

Google is going to rank that a little better in a long term trajectory, because the news isn’t just over with, this is content that Google will keep bringing back into the search engines, so that keeps a steady stream of visitors to your site year round, as opposed to just news content.

So a bit of a mix is good, but we’re a bit more fans of the evergreen and thought leader content.

Nicole:  That makes sense, and just to try to get in front of the readers, with the news worthy things, but also searching for the useful content is what people are normally doing.

Is there a magic number for how often you compile blog posts to create an ebook? Is there a magic number, or a magic date or time? Do you do it four times a year? Or, is there not really a formula for what works for compiling everything?

John:  In terms of content volume, once a week is sort of industry standard, that if you’re not blogging once a week, it’s a little bit weak. It really goes up from there to — it really depends on the organization. Mashable is doing maybe hundreds a day of blog posts, or certainly a hundred ish. [laughs] I don’t know the exact number, but I was just talking with one of my guys here who was quoting their editorial calendar and how much they’re producing.

The sites that have the most traffic on the Internet tend to be the sites that have the most content. There is not an exact correlation, because of content quality. If you pumped out 10,000 articles a year, and your quality was crap, then a site with 300 articles might outrank you, because Google is aware of the quality.

Again, I think a blog post a week is a good healthy start. Two, three a week is a little more serious. A blog a day, you’re going to start to get more significant SEO traffic.

Then you can turn that content — maybe at least a couple of times a year, if you have an ebook — that’s great. Hub Spot says that if you have 30 ebooks or more, you’ll have — I forget, I think it’s a 7x increase in leads.

It does depend on your industry, et cetera, but a couple of ebooks a year at least to have a top of the funnel call-to-action. A blog post a week at minimum. Maybe a video a month.

Then, certain times of day — that’s all going to be dependent on your audience. If you’re targeting kids that get home from school at two or three in the afternoon, then you might want to publish just before that, that type of thing, versus a different industry that’s targeting night owls. The time of day is probably depending on your actual audience.

Nicole:  We’re doing this right now, but tell me, John, how can lawyers use podcasting to generate more leads and improve their SEO?

John:  One of the keys to SEO as we’ve discussed is having more content, but a lot of people aren’t naturally writers. Maybe it’s somewhere between 10 percent of the population.

I was actually at the HubSpot Inbound conference this fall. They had the stats on that. I don’t remember exactly what they were, but basically not everyone is a writer. That’s why blogs often fail, because people hear someone like myself say, “Hey, you’ve got to blog every week.”

The people on the staff say, “Geez, we don’t really have any writers here.” But you think they would be able to publish content because they’re thought leaders. What we realized is there are a lot of experts at law firms that might not be comfortable writing, but they love to talk. Or certainly a fair amount of attorneys like to chat, and they’re really engaging and full of ideas and energy.

We like to bottle that up by interviewing them. Because you ask them to write, they’re busy, and they’re concerned potentially with the billable hour, of course. We all have to make money.

It’s so easy to get a great piece of content in even 15 minutes by asking three questions. Every three questions become about 1,500 to 1,800 words. So every question may be around 500 words if you answer fairly lengthily. So you’re able to, in a 15 minute conversation, get a very long blog post. The average blog post is maybe 500 to 700 words or so.

When people are thinking to write one, that’s what they shoot for. But you can get, again, 1,500 to 1,800 words in 15 minutes. That’s a lot of content. Now what you’re going to do is you’re going to transcribe the text. After this podcast is over, we use CastingWords in New York and some other places. You pay $1 to $1.50 a minute.

You put that text up on the blog post under — we use sound cloud, but that’s just one player. You put the audio file that you can click and listen to the podcast in the blog post itself, then under it, you put the transcribed text. Because you’re picking keywords as the topics before you write the titles of the post and pick the interview questions, it’s a very search-engine-friendly strategy.

You just title the name of the post in WordPress, or whatever you’re using, and that becomes the URL, then you can put that search-engine-keyword-friendly title in the heading, in the title tag. Google is going to read all that nice rich text of Q&A content, and it’s going to pop up in the search engines.

Now, you wouldn’t want to only use podcasting for your blog necessarily. We do that with a lot of our customers. We also like them to either pay us to write or for them to write a little bit of regular prose as well, but it’s an awesome way to get regular, consistent content.

Again, say once a week, if you do an hour of podcasting a month in four 15 minute interviews with three questions each, you’re going to have an easily-generated one blog post a week.

Nicole:  How about making the leap to video? How important is a video strategy for SEO?

John:  YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world. There was a guy from — it was Distilled, recently that said, “If you don’t have a video and YouTube strategy in 2014, you’re just simply not doing SEO.” [laughs] It’s that important.

Google, they own YouTube. Again, it’s the second largest search engine in the world above Bing, Yahoo, et cetera. Yet, you still have to pick keywords for your YouTube videos.

We do a similar routine with the podcasting where we ask our attorneys to answer basically one question. “What to do if you get pulled over for drunk driving”, for a DUI lawyer, or something along those lines.

When they answer that one question, and that question is something people actually search for, because we’re looking again at the keyword research and the forum social listening to see how people — what are the common questions.

Because we know that that’s an actively looked-for topic, then you’re going to pop up both in YouTube if you upload the video with the right keywords in the title, in the description, et cetera. You can also put in the transcript into the close caption area.

We do the same routine with the podcasting as with the video. We put the YouTube video up in the blog post using the embed code from YouTube. The video shows up, and you can play it right in the blog post, but under that, you put in the transcription of the conversation. Usually those are like one or two minutes long. Maybe three minutes.

You don’t want to kill people with “too long”. Those are going to be maybe 300 words or so. But again, you’re popping up now both in YouTube and your blog because you have the YouTube video in a blog post. You’re getting that extended benefit beyond YouTube of your blog’s ability to rank for the conversation that’s in the video.

Nicole:  Those are all really great thoughts. I’m actually personally excited about implementing a podcasting and video strategy for our company.

Thank you so much, John, for joining us today, and talking to us about authority marketing and thought leadership for law firms.

John:  Absolutely. Great talking to you.

Nicole:  It’s great talking to you, too. I will see you on our next post when we talk about content marketing for law firms another time. Thank you so much.

John:  Sounds good.

ARTICLE BY

Nicole Cudiamat Minnis
OF
The National Law Review / The National Law Forum LLC