Tag: email

Grow Your Email List for Free in 5 Simple Steps

The Rainmaker Institute

Lots of law firms struggle with compiling and maintaining a robust email marketing list, and they really struggle with how to keep adding qualified names to help them build a better list.  If you are recognizing yourself as you read this, then the good news is that you can actually build a great list for your firm and it doesn’t need to cost you a dime.

Here are five simple steps you can take to keep growing that important list of people you want to market to:

Grow Your Email List for Free in 5 Simple Steps, Money Tree

1.  Provide something of value.   Take the top 5 or 10 questions that clients ask you most often, write down the answers and turn that content into an e-book or report.  Post this on your website and blog and offer it as a free download to people who provide you with their name and email address.  The people who take you up on your offer are good prospects since they are clearly interested in the kind of problems you solve.  Add their names to your email marketing list to continue the conversation.

2.  Tell them what to do.  Your e-newsletter, your website and your blog should always contain easy-to-find calls-to-action that invite readers to subscribe, download a free report, make an appointment for a free consultation — anything you’d like them to do that could lead to business for you.  All your calls-to-action need to be simple and have the ability to collect email addresses for you.

3.  Keep reviewing your offers.  If your readers are not responding well to your calls-to-action or offers, then what you are offering is clearly not appealing to them.  First be sure that they are easy to understand.  If you’re still not getting a good response, change up your offers.  You should do this anyway every few months to keep things fresh.

4.  Use social media.  Using social media to spread the word about your valuable content and offers is a great way to attract more prospects that you might have otherwise missed.   LinkedIn groups are a great way to spread the word, but be sure you’re not being too promotional too often.

5.  Pay attention to the analytics.  You can gain valuable insight into what people are responding to on your website and in your e-newsletter by scouring the statistics.  Google Analytics is a free add-on for your website and blog and provides great information on what pages people are spending time on, and what isn’t working so well.  If you use Constant Contact or a similar service for your e-newsletters, these services provide information on how many people opened and read your newsletter and what they clicked on. 

By using these five simple steps, you are not just adding names to your list, you are getting truly qualified leads for your marketing efforts.

ARTICLE BY

Stephen Fairley
 
OF
The Rainmaker Institute

Microsoft Ordered to Hand Over Data to the U.S. Government

Proskauer Law firm

In April, Microsoft tried to quash a search warrant from law enforcement agents in the United States (U.S.) that asked the technology company to produce the contents of one of its customer’s emails stored on a server located in Dublin, Ireland. The magistrate court denied Microsoft’s challenge, and Microsoft appealed. On July 31st, the software giant presented its case in the Southern District of New York where it was dealt another loss.

U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska, after two hours of oral argument, affirmed the magistrate court’s decision andordered Microsoft to hand over the user data stored in Ireland in accordance with the original warrant. Microsoft argued that the warrant exceeded U.S. jurisdictional reach. However, the court explained that the decision turned on section 442(1)(a) of Restatement (Third) of Foreign Relations. The provision says that a court can permit a U.S. agency “to order a person subject to its jurisdiction to produce documents, objects or other information relevant to an action or investigation, even if the information or the person in possession of the information is outside the United States.” Because Microsoft is located in the U.S. , the information it controlled abroad could be subject to domestic jurisdiction.

Microsoft had the support of large U.S. technology companies, including Apple, AT&T and Verizon. The larger issue for these companies lies in the U.S. government’s power to seize data and content held in the cloud and stored in locations around the world. When a conflict arises between the data sharing laws of the country where the servers are located and U.S. law, it can put these companies in the difficult position to choose to follow one country’s laws over the other.

Microsoft further argued that the ramifications for international policy are substantial. The company argued that compelling production of foreign stored information was an intrusion upon Irish sovereignty. It said that the decision could be interpreted by foreign countries as a green light to make similar invasions into data stored in the U.S. However, Judge Preska dismissed these concerns as diplomatic issues that were incidental and not of the court’s immediate concern.

The order has been stayed pending appeal.

ARTICLE BY

Rohit Dave
 
OF 
Proskauer Rose LLP

Employer Email Policies on Chopping Block as General Counsel Seeks to Overrule Register Guard and Board Calls for Amicus Briefs

Proskauer

In a development of importance to both union and non-union employers, the NLRB General Counsel has asked the NLRB to overrule its 2007 decision in Register Guard, 351 NLRB 1110 (2007).  In Register Guard, the Board had held that employers could bar employee use of the employer’s email for non-business purposes, including union or other communications protected under Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act, so long as the employer did so on a non-discriminatory basis.

The General Counsel now seeks a new rule that employees may use employer email for union or other Section 7 protected purposes so long as doing so does not impede production or workplace discipline. The Board has issued a notice the case, Purple Communications, Inc., Case Nos. 21-CA-095151, 21-RC-091531 and 21-RC-091584, inviting interested parties to file amicus briefs by June 16, 2014.

In its notice, the Board asked the amicus briefs to address the following questions:

  1. Should the Board reconsider its conclusion in Register Guard that employees do not have a statutory right to use their employer’s email system (or other electronic communications systems) for Section 7 purposes
  2. If the Board overrules Register Guard, what standard(s) of employee access to the employer’s electronic communications systems should be established? What restrictions, if any, may an employer place on such access, and what factors are relevant to such restrictions?
  3. In deciding the above questions, to what extent and how should the impact onthe employer of employees’ use of an employer’s electronic communicationstechnology affect the issue?
  4. Do employee personal electronic devices (e.g., phones, tablets), social media accounts, and/or personal email accounts affect the proper balance to be struck between employers’ rights and employees’ Section 7 rights to communicate about work-related matters? If so, how?
  5. Identify any other technological issues concerning email or other electronic communications systems that the Board should consider in answering the foregoing questions, including any relevant changes that may have occurred in electronic communications technology since Register Guard was decided.

How should these affect the Board’s decision?

The Board also invited amici to submit “empirical and other evidence”, which most likely means studies showing how employees use email in the workplace, how much productive time is lost because of over-use of email, and the like.  It is also possible the Board’s eventual decision could have an impact on other types of employee communications through various electronic devices and social media.

It has long been anticipated that the new Board and General Counsel would want to revisit the Register Guard decision.  Now that the time has come, it will be important for employers to engage as amici in an effort to shape the outcome and provide all Board members — including possibly dissenting ones — with both legal analysis and practical and operational considerations that should inform the Board’s policy choices in this important area.

Article By:

Ronald Meisburg
Of:
Proskauer Rose LLP