The competitive landscape for plaintiff lawyers is perhaps more challenging than any other area of law. The market seems to get more crowded every day, and the fight for clients is fierce. Moreover, plaintiff lawyers often have to overcome the unsavory, ambulance-chasing reputation inaccurately associated with this practice. With all of these obstacles, establishing your marketing strategy can seem like an uphill battle.

Yet, even in this difficult atmosphere, it’s possible for plaintiff firms to stand out from the rest. This was the topic of “David vs. Goliath: The Competitive World of Plaintiff Firm Marketing,” a session at this year’s Legal Marketing Association Annual Conference. Speakers Pamela Foster, Director of Marketing and Business Development at Howie Sacks & Henry LLP; Danelsy Medrano, Marketing Manager at Feldman Shepherd Wohlgelernter Tanner Weinstock Dodig LLP; Adrian Dayton, Founder of ClearView Social Inc.; and Erin Watson, Director of Communications and Marketing at Motley Rice LLC discussed best practices and lessons learned from their years as legal marketers for plaintiff firms. We recapped the session on our LMA Conference webinar and broke down their strategies into three areas:

Use Marketing 101: Differentiation

There are lots of firms that do plaintiff work, from auto accidents to slip and falls to medical malpractice. A quick Google search can tell you as much. So, when compared to all the other firms out there, what makes you different? It could be that you’ve been doing it the longest, that you’re more hands-on than anyone else or that your firm is all women. It doesn’t matter what makes you different; it only matters that you know what that differentiation is and then market it.

This is marketing 101, because you can’t communicate a message without understanding exactly what you bring to the table. Being clear and focused in your message not only resonates better with prospective clients, but it also makes your marketing budget go further, too. Truly understanding what makes you unique will make the rest of your marketing strategy fall into place and differentiate you in the minds of prospects.

Go Beyond SEO

A decade ago, it was possible to write a few blog posts with keywords and do reasonably well in search rankings. That’s no longer the case. Online marketing has gotten more complex and detailed, and it takes expertise to do it well. Today’s legal marketers need to understand much more than SEO; they also need to understand syndication, what kind of content ranks high and which algorithm changes can upend their approach.

Especially in plaintiff law, where the landscape is crowded and firms need to rank high to survive, DIY search marketing doesn’t cut it. Whether you have an in-house marketing team or hire an outside agency to help, you need to be sure that the person in charge of your search strategy is a true expert.

It’s true that investing in good marketers and digital strategy can be costly, but the return on investment is just too good to pass up. Digital marketing offers so much insight and opportunity for measurement. Where are your clients coming from? What search terms are they using to find you? Once clients do find you, where are they losing interest—or where are they making contact? Digital tools can help you find the answers to these questions and track clients at every stage of the decision-making process.

Be Proactive, Not Reactive

Plaintiff lawyers know better than anyone that the best time to seize an opportunity is before anyone else does. The same goes for your marketing. Rather than waiting for things to come down the pipeline, anticipate and identify where they’re coming from before your competitors do. It’s all about being proactive rather than reactive.  When you’re ahead of the curve you’re at an advantage, at least for a little while—and that time can make all the difference.

Click here to watch our LMA Annual Conference Webinar Recap.

The post How Plaintiff Firms Can Make Names for Themselves in a Crowded Landscape appeared first on The National Law Forum.

Advertising and marketing have always played an important role in increasing a company’s brand awareness and in helping them acquire new customers to reach their corporate financial goals. Law firms are no exception. With the increasing competitiveness among law firms, it is extremely important that they understand the fundamentals of marketing in a competitive marketplace.

As early as the 1970s, most states didn’t allow lawyers to engage in any type of marketing efforts. In 1977, the US Supreme Court case of Bates v. Arizona, 433 US 350, changed all this and held that advertising regarding attorneys’ services was “commercially protected speech,” according to the First Amendment, and that truthful advertising should be allowed as a matter of public policy. The court held that lawyers serve society and that allowing them to advertise their services would provide consumers with valuable information about available legal assistance.

After this landmark case, attorneys could advertise to obtain clients. They relied on traditional marketing methods, like display ads, brochures, business cards, and word-of-mouth advertising. Although these marketing strategies are still effective in 2019 and beyond, lawyers must also combine them with other creative marketing strategies—including, but not limited to, pay-per-click; search engine optimization; email, article, video, and digital marketing; and social media marketing.

Additionally, attorneys who want to stay ahead of the marketing game must have stellar and properly optimized web content, engaging social media and blog posts, informative guest articles, engaging display ads, and more. However, unlike regular corporations, law firms are held to a higher standard of responsibility, in terms of marketing, than their corporate counterparts.

Law firms have to remain in compliance with rules and regulations concerning ethics and professional responsibilities, especially in advertising. This means that attorneys and their law firms have to be careful when treading the path of marketing their legal services. They have to engage in ethical and truthful marketing practices and have to steer clear of false or misleading marketing strategies.

That said, what are the ethics of marketing legal services? What should attorneys avoid to ensure that they don’t engage in any professional responsibility violations? Well, let’s have a look at the dos and don’ts of legal marketing.

Abide by Prospective Clients’ and Existing Clients’ Wishes

As an attorney, you have to be mindful when engaging in electronic marketing strategies. In my home state of Illinois, attorneys can’t continue to contact prospective and/or existing clients if they tell that attorney to not contact them. See Rule 7.3(b) of the Illinois Rules of Professional Conduct for details.

Basically, this regulation stipulates that you should never spam someone’s email or regular mail, even if they initially agreed to give you their email or physical mailing address in exchange for a free report or other offering. Therefore, if the individual asks you to “Take me off your list,” you must do so immediately. If you don’t, you will be in violation of Rule 7.3(b) or another professional conduct rule in your state.

Also note that certain state professional conduct rules, like Rule 7.3(c) in Illinois, require the words, “Advertising Material,” on the outside of every physical envelope mailed to everyone, as well as at the beginning and the end of every recorded or electronic solicitation—unless said contact person is exempt from this rule.

Avoid Making Misleading or False Claims

An important ethical element of legal marketing is that you practice honesty and refrain from making unsubstantiated or false claims that can’t be verified. Rule 7.1 of the Illinois Rules of Professional Conduct states that a law firm or an attorney cannot engage in misleading or false communication in reference to their service offerings. Any such miscommunication is a clear violation of the Illinois Rules of Professional Conduct.

One rule of thumb: Would a rational person read such statement and be misled by it? What would they believe to be true? If they would be misled by such statement, then you must alter the content so that you don’t violate any ethics rules. Always double-check facts before making any statements. Additionally, if you include any statistical information in your ads, make sure that it is correct.

Don’t Set Unrealistic Expectations in Your Ads

Whenever you create online and off-line marketing strategies, make sure that you maintain high ethical standards and don’t engage in any type of marketing efforts that might lead the reader to false assumptions. That is, set realistic expectations for your clients and be clear that “Results may vary.”

Yes, you can have a testimonial page but don’t include statements like “My lawyer got me more money than I ever dreamed of.” Although it might be true for this one client, this statement might create an expectation in the reader that you can do the same for all your clients. Instead, you should only include testimonials that share verifiable factual information and don’t forget to add disclaimers to keep client expectations in check.

4. Never Use Comparative Statements If Your State Disallows It

Some states have specific rules about using comparative statements in your advertising copy. So, if you’re in a state that disallows this wording, you should avoid it. For instance, in Illinois, you are not allowed to use comparative declarations, like, “We are the best bankruptcy law practice in Illinois.” The fact that such statements cannot be proven with verified facts leads them to fall under the category of “false and misleading communication.” On the other hand, you may be allowed to mention a few successes of your firm through statistical data, like recent court cases won. But make sure that such data is factual and verifiable and current. Either way, check your state’s professional conduct rules and then find a way to creatively convey your skills and instill confidence in prospective clients without violating any rules.

Avoid Claiming to Be an Expert

Several states have rules prohibiting attorneys from portraying themselves as an expert or a specialist. These rules have been created to ensure that no individual practicing law can make misleading claims in relation to themselves and/or their services.

I often recommend that law firms work with a marketing consultant that has legal experience for just this reason. I recently reviewed a prospect’s website and it stated among other things, that the firm specialized in family law. This is a big mistake in Illinois. Had the prospect worked with a marketing consultant who was also an attorney or who had legal experience, this could have been avoided.

In Summary

At the end of the day, effective marketing is the key to having a successful law practice. However, law firms must practice honesty in all their marketing and advertising efforts. By following the above-mentioned guidelines, firms can avoid ethics violations, can win the trust of clients, and can bolster long-term growth for their law firms, while assisting those who need the legal help the most.

The post Marketing Ethics for Lawyers to Follow in 2020 and Beyond appeared first on The National Law Forum.

Analytics is the science behind the art of digital marketing and is an invaluable part of any law firm’s marketing strategy.  Digital analytics can provide a wealth of information that not only tells you how effective your digital channels are, but if analyzed properly, can provide fact-based information that can help identify prospect behavior and needs.  Legal marketers must be familiar with the proper web analytics tools to be able to capture and interpret the performance of their website but must also be able to go beyond their website to properly assess the performance and return of their digital marketing efforts. In this article we discuss  how law firms can merge web analytics and digital marketing analytics to improve the overall performance of their online marketing efforts.

Why Marketing Analytics Matter

To benefit from your marketing analytics, you must understand why they are important.  Analytics enables you to measure, analyze, and manage the performance of your digital marketing strategy in real time.  Legal marketers can leverage analytics to pinpoint problems and uncover areas of opportunity and potential growth. Knowing which digital marketing analytics are important to your bottom line will help you stay focused on the metrics that matter.

Why You Need to Measure Your Efforts

Your analytics should always include a measurement of your efforts. This is for one simple reason, sustainability. Essentially, you want to ensure that your marketing efforts are contributing to the growth of your firm and producing a positive return on investment (ROI).  By learning to create custom reports and glean actionable insights that actually matter to your firm, you can begin to make data-driven decisions and strengthen your marketing strategy.  At any point during your campaign, you can apply the data to tweak or remove tactics that are not producing the desired return.  By effectively leveraging data intelligence, you will build a more insightful and effective marketing plan.  The good news is that the process of tracking digital marketing has become very straightforward.  Your chosen marketing tool probably has analytics built-in, helping you measure your efforts.

Web Analytics Can Measure Those Efforts

Supplementing the built-in analytics with your marketing analytics is simple. Numerous websites offer web analytics tools, with Google Analytics being among the most famous and most popular. The most attractive reason to use Google Analytics is that it’s free!  Google Analytics will show you the number of views and visits to your website, where those visitors come from and what pages they are looking at. This information enables you to easily see how your website is performing in real-time. Google Analytics will even allow you to organize and track website data across all devices – smart phones, tablets, computers and even smart TVs.  To learn how to create a custom Google Analytics report, checkout this blog post.

Using KPIs

Evaluation of your efforts will come down to KPIs or Key Performance Indicators. You choose these criteria as measurements to demonstrate how effective your marketing strategies are at achieving your key business objectives. As such, they let you see if you are meeting your business goals, whether they are brand awareness or lead generation. Your marketing plan should include the KPIs that most closely meet your specific business objectives. Consider the following KPIs, as they are the most important for optimizing your campaigns:

• Qualifies leads: This KPI lets you confirm that your campaign is generating qualified leads for your law firm
• Cost Per Conversion: This metric allows you to evaluate how much you pay for each conversion to help you confirm that your marketing expenses are worth the expenditure.
• Online Marketing Return on Investment: It should go without saying that your return on investment will let you know whether your efforts are worth it.
• Form Conversion Rates: Form conversion rates help you determine how well your content marketing drives people to your law firm’s website and encourages them to take action. You can even use the combination of data from the forms and the form conversion rates to develop strategies that boost conversions.
• Reach and share of voice on Social Media: Don’t forget to consider the conversions that you get from social media as one of your KPIs. This lets you determine which social media network is the best for you so that you can concentrate your efforts for the best ROI.

Takeaway

As a legal marketer, you must understand the impact of your marketing efforts through the effective use of digital marketing analytics and web analytics.  Applying data intelligence is invaluable to the process of improving and optimizing your marketing strategy.

The post An Introduction to Digital Marketing Analytics for Law Firms appeared first on The National Law Forum.

Join John McDougall from McDougall Interactive and Nicole Minnis, Esq. from The National Law Review for a free 60-minute digital marketing webinar, where you will learn:

• Step-by-step actions you should take in the next 12 months to substantially increase your revenues.
• Powerful strategies that are based on the 10,000 keyword study from Searchmetrics, including the latest Google ranking factors including Content, Social Signals, Technical Factors, Backlinks, User Signals, and User Experience
• Highlights from the Orbit Media study of 1,000 bloggers and what they do to stand out.

Some examples of cutting-edge topics we’ll be discussing (this is way more than just “add keywords” and “add more content”):

• Why click-through-rate, time-on-site, and bounce rate are more important than ever
• Why merely having keywords in your meta tags and copy is not nearly enough
• How the length of your content can affect your search rankings
• How video and podcasts can enhance your thought leadership and improve your mobile user experience and search rankings at the same time
• Why links are still significant, especially deep links to inner pages
• The extremely high correlation between social signals and ranking position
• How your website load time can directly affect your search rankings, especially on mobile devices

Click here to register now.

This webinar will leave you with 12 must-do action steps for success, based on data from industry leaders, as well as a list of ridiculously great tools you can use to speed up your process and spy on competitors.

In today’s hyper-competitive legal SEO landscape, your either need to do SEO deeply or don’t waste time doing it at all.

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

The post How to Develop an Effective Law Firm SEO Action Plan for 2017 [WEBINAR] appeared first on The National Law Forum.

Join John McDougall from McDougall Interactive and Nicole Minnis, Esq. from The National Law Review for a free 60-minute digital marketing webinar, where you will learn:

• Step-by-step actions you should take in the next 12 months to substantially increase your revenues.
• Powerful strategies that are based on the 10,000 keyword study from Searchmetrics, including the latest Google ranking factors including Content, Social Signals, Technical Factors, Backlinks, User Signals, and User Experience
• Highlights from the Orbit Media study of 1,000 bloggers and what they do to stand out.

Some examples of cutting-edge topics we’ll be discussing (this is way more than just “add keywords” and “add more content”):

• Why click-through-rate, time-on-site, and bounce rate are more important than ever
• Why merely having keywords in your meta tags and copy is not nearly enough
• How the length of your content can affect your search rankings
• How video and podcasts can enhance your thought leadership and improve your mobile user experience and search rankings at the same time
• Why links are still significant, especially deep links to inner pages
• The extremely high correlation between social signals and ranking position
• How your website load time can directly affect your search rankings, especially on mobile devices

Click here to register now.

This webinar will leave you with 12 must-do action steps for success, based on data from industry leaders, as well as a list of ridiculously great tools you can use to speed up your process and spy on competitors.

In today’s hyper-competitive legal SEO landscape, your either need to do SEO deeply or don’t waste time doing it at all.

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

The post How to Develop an Effective Law Firm SEO Action Plan for 2017 [WEBINAR] appeared first on The National Law Forum.

The post Digital Marketing and Your Law Firm: Essential Tips for Attorneys appeared first on The National Law Forum.