Tag: Marketing

Your Guide to Developing Your Personal Marketing Plan…and Why Every Lawyer Should Have One

In my humble opinion, every lawyer in private practice –- regardless of how many years practicing law — should have a Personal Marketing Plan. Here’s why:

You Will Seize Control of Your Career

Creating and implementing your Personal Marketing Plan enables you to seize control of your career. In time, it puts you in a position to attract and retain clients you enjoy, and matters you find challenging and interesting. You will also be less dependent on others to feed you. There are two kinds of lawyers in private practice: lawyers with clients, and lawyers who work for lawyers with clients. Which would you rather be?

You Will Make More Money

Rainmakers make more money — often a whole lot more money — than non-rainmakers in just about every law firm in the U.S. Chances are you’ve heard the terms “finders, minders and grinders.” Trust me; the action is with the finders.

You Will Have More Clout in the Firm

Lawyers who bring in business also have more power within their firms. Over time, they emerge as firm leaders, influencing important decisions about the firm, its policies and procedures, and its future direction.

How Much Time Should You Invest?

Of course, implementing your plan is the key to success….and it takes time. Non-billable time. I recommend that Partners invest 200 hours a year, and 100 hours a year for Associates. It’s critical you do a little bit every day. Fifteen minutes here. A half-hour there. Effective marketing and business development is not a “start-stop” process. It’s like an exercise regimen…results come with consistency over time.

What Types of Things Should You Do?

Partners should visit top clients at the clients’ places of business each year. (Refer to my previous Marketing Tip about Client Site Visits.) Associates should focus first on honing their legal skills and “credentialing” activities. For all attorneys, lunch once a week with a client, prospective client or referral source is a good habit. Joining and being actively involved in a well-chosen organization is another good thing to do. (Refer to my previous Marketing Tip about Individual Marketing Plans.) Article writing and speech giving are good activities, as well.

Make the Commitment to Yourself

Of course, developing and implementing your Personal Marketing Plan requires non-billable time. And, herein lies the dilemma for many lawyers. Non-billable “marketing time” is not rewarded — and sometimes not even measured — in many law firms. No matter, you should invest the time anyway. In his book True Professionalism, David Maister states that billable hours are for today’s income, but what you do with your non-billable time determines your future. I couldn’t agree more.

ARTICLE BY John Remsen, Jr of The Remsen Group

Copyright 2016 The Remsen Group

How to Set a Simple Social Media Strategy for Your Law Firm

With the proliferation of new social media networks and seemingly constant changes to existing ones, attorneys aren’t the only ones confused about how to tackle social media for marketing.

Add to that the fact that most attorneys don’t have much time to devote to social media — nor do they have a department of experts at their beck and call — and you understand the need for setting a strategy that is as simple and sensible as possible for busy lawyers.

I used to recommend that attorneys be somewhat active on all social networks. That was when there were two or three of them. Now it would be silly to make that recommendation. Instead, you need to narrow your focus to the networks that your clients frequent. And how do you know what those are? You begin by defining the key demographics of your target audience.

Those key demographics include gender, age, income, occupation, industry and education level. These will guide you to which social networks you are likely to find your ideal clients. You can find demographic information for most social networking platforms on the Pew Research Center website.

This social media checklist from the Whole Brain Group will provide you with a how-to guide for completing the important exercise of setting a simple social media strategy that will work for your law firm:

How to Set a Simple Social Media Strategy for Your Law Firm

Article By Stephen Fairley of The Rainmaker Institute

© The Rainmaker Institute, All Rights Reserved

2016 Legal Marketing Challenges Opportunities – Jim Matsoukas [PODCAST]

Legal marketing can be a challenge, but it also comes with numerous opportunities. Jim Matsoukas from Pierce Atwood, LLC talks about a variety of marketing tactics in this podcast. Learn about what works, what doesn’t work, and how to use these tactics for your firm.

John McDougall:     Hi, I’m John McDougall and welcome to the Legal Marketing Review Show on National Law Review. Today my guest is Jim Matsoukas, CMO and Director of Business Development at the Law Office of Pierce Atwood. Welcome, Jim.

Jim Matsoukas:     How are you doing, John?

Legal Marketing Challenges for 2016

John:     Really good. So what are some of your biggest legal marketing challenges for 2016?

Jim:     That’s a good question. I think one definite challenge is actually a challenge and an opportunity. [We need to] be smarter about how we go about marketing ourselves digitally and making our website more friendly and more efficient and convenient for people that come to take a look at it. I think that’s very important. That’s something that we have to keep working on. The technology keeps developing and the competition keeps increasing. People keep using digital methods to shop more often, so we need to keep on top of that. That’s definitely one. I think this might be related to that, but SEO optimization is always top of the mind. What we’re finding is that our traffic is increasing in terms of people finding us through organic search. We have to be more sophisticated and more strategic about the language we use on the site and the language that we use in our ads and in our alerts, articles, and publications and how that matches up with people looking for legal services. I think that’s important.

John:     Those are two good ones. On the first one, I don’t know if you’ve heard this stat and I’m trying to think of where I’ve heard it, but Chief Marketing Officers are now spending more than Chief Technology Officers. Marketing has become more technical.

Jim:     I couldn’t agree more with that. I sort of consider myself a CMO/CIO, because you have to be these days. Obviously I don’t deal with the intricacies of the technology as much as a CIO does, but I have to know a hell of a lot about it, because I have to understand how the technology works in order to take advantage of it in the best possible way. So, I keep up with that constantly. I think you have to continue to read and go to panels that are technically oriented and so on.

Legal Marketing Opportunities for 2016

John:     Yeah, it changes like the wind. What are some of your biggest legal marketing opportunities for 2016?

Jim:     Like I said before, the challenge and the opportunity are similar there. Like in digital and website and SEO optimization – those are all key opportunities, but they’re very challenging. It’s two sides of the same coin. Other things that I consider opportunities are to focus more on what we do best and what we do well. Continue to provide proportional support across the firm. What makes a firm different from a corporation is that corporations are more hierarchical and are more able to market and select things and sacrifice other things for strategic reasons. That makes sense for them as a business. We do the same thing, but when you’re a firm, you have to make sure that everybody within your firm, regardless of whether they’re a leading service or supporting service or a niche service, they all have a role to play. So when you’re the CMO of a firm, you have to make sure that you’re balanced and a little bit adventurous in the right way and everybody’s getting that level of investment that they should and they deserve. That’s a continuing challenge, but it’s an opportunity. If you do it well, if you don’t squander resources and you sell what the firm is best at and everybody understands the role they play in sales activity, which is really healthy. That’s something we focus on a lot. Another opportunity is we’re growing quite a bit in Boston, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and DC. We want to keep that momentum going. A real opportunity for is us that we’re finding [people] are finding us more and more attractive because they see us as a high quality firm that has a relatively low overhead, so we can get people that are lead practitioners who want to lower their rates a bit for their clients, but still socialize and be part of a firm that has a very high level of performance. So far, that’s been a real success for us and we want to try to keep that going, while at the same time making sure that there’s a cultural fit with the people we bring on. We’re a team oriented firm, so everybody shares information and credit. That’s important. I guess the last thing I was saying would be I constantly advise people and train people who focus on clients before leads and look backwards. A lot of times the natural reaction in marketing is to develop more leads and raise more awareness. That’s all very important and we do that continuously, but you have to balance that with knowing where your current contacts are and what your current clients need, and branch out from that. We always know where our bread and butter [comes from] and how developing our leads relates to what we’re currently doing well with and who we’re working for.

John:     So being more strategic about the whole process, where it’s easy to just hop on the latest tactic.

Jim:     Exactly. You have to balance a lot of different variables when you’re managing the place. So we want to bring the latest techniques in and we want to do it in a way that fits within our current structure and our current approach to the market.

SEO vs. Social Media vs. Paid Search

John:     What about tactically? What holds the most promise – SEO, social media, or paid search? I know mentioned SEO quite a bit, but what do you think in 2016, given what you just said and aligning to your positioning and growth plans, what tactically do you think matches well with that?

Jim:     As far as digital marketing tactics go, I think SEO is definitely number one for us. We have to be more and more intelligent about how to do that. We’re working hard on that. Then, we’re trying to integrate all of the different digital initiatives that we have, whether they be the way we invite people to events, the way we communicate with our contacts regarding new legal developments, publications and articles, and all participation. What we’re trying to do is bring all of that together so that everything we do has a rationale and supports our search engine optimization strategy. In everything we do, we’re trying to make sure that it fits into how people find us and then build on the way in which people are currently finding us. That also opens up other paths for them to come in. So, that’s what holds the most promise for us. I think SEO is definitely the focus. We don’t do as much paid search, because we don’t think that given what we do, it really helps us a whole lot. We did do a lot of social media, in terms of keeping the word out there and spreading information about the firm, and we’re continuously pushing that out. So I don’t mean to say we ignore social media, but SEO has a more direct connection to our sales process.

John:    I was just going to ask if you had to only budget for SEO, or social media, which would you do and why? But I think you can probably knock that one off pretty quick given what you just said.

Jim:     Definitely, it would be SEO. Before the advent of a lot of digital marketing, let’s go back to 20-25 years ago, if you think about people being out and about and constantly going to events and socializing, networking, and circulating, you have to do that when you’re selling knowledge and you’re selling professional services. To me, social media is the current version of that, where you have to be out there and constantly interact in putting information up and sharing with others. And then interacting with people within this social media realm. A lot of that is very similar to in-person networking, it’s just another layer that you have to do today. That’s more of like a routine investment that you have to constantly make. But if I had to budget and choose, I would definitely put more money towards SEO than social media.

John:     Right, and just to further elaborate on where you’re headed with that, it sounds like the thought leadership piece and doing SEO, not in just the old way where it’s just kind of cramming keywords in. You have to put the keywords there, but within reason and Google is looking for topics and in-depth content. But it has to now really be based on thought leadership, right?

Jim:     I couldn’t agree more. One of the key challenges we have though is when you’re dealing with law, inserting the keywords becomes a real challenge because the way in which the law is expressed is very technical. When you’re translating legal knowledge into every day conversation, which is usually what you do on the web and in advertisements, you have to be very careful what language you use. You can lead people down the wrong path very quickly if you say things the wrong way. So we have to be real careful about that. I think it’s a bigger challenge for not only a law firm, but for anybody that is selling a complex service. The way you phrase things sometimes is in conflict with the way they should be phrased to be successful in the search engines.

Legal Compliance Issues

John:     That’s a nice lead actually into the next question. Are compliance issues for content marketing getting in the way of your legal marketing, or are they manageable?

Jim:     You know, the answer to that is they always get in the way. In terms of compliance issues, they’re pretty strict in the legal marketplace, and if you’re dealing with individual consumers, they’re very strict. If we’re marketing things like that our trust & estates practice or if we’re marketing services to individuals or maybe residential real estate or something like that, we have to be very, very careful. You can’t deceive someone who is not sophisticated about the law and you can’t go after them in a way that persuades them of something they shouldn’t be doing. For our more important market, which is the commercial market and in-house counseling and corporate officers and things of that nature, regulation is still strict, but the regulations are really designed to protect the person who is unsophisticated. That market is more sophisticated, so we can be a little more liberal. We still adhere to what we need to adhere to. When you’re talking to someone who knows a product very well that you’re trying to sell, there’s less of a chance that you’re going to deceive or mislead them, or possibly persuade them to do something they wouldn’t otherwise do. So we’re very careful. The bottom line is, they get in the way, but it’s manageable. It’s a skill that you develop over a number of years in this industry. You begin to understand how to phrase things so that the regulators are okay, the bar associations are okay, but you’re still getting your job done. It’s a constant tug o’ war.

John:     That is what you do as an attorney. It’s definitely tough for attorneys and banks and financial services and certain things, but at the same time, the good news is that you’re attorneys, so you have a leg up in that sense. But it’s still challenging.

Jim:     It’s something you always have to pay attention to, and you can’t be too free and loose about it.

PPC Marketing

John:     We talked a bit about paid search, but do you think it’s a good alternative to or in addition to content marketing, or were you basically saying you haven’t had great energy towards PPC?

Jim:     We haven’t had great luck with it. We’ve tried it a couple of times, and what we find is that our market is not as likely to pay attention to paid search or not as likely to use it to find legal services. A lot of times, when you look at the sponsored listings in search engines versus the organic listings, our market tends to go to the organic. When we tried paid search, it had some effect and some success, but we find that the market we’re going after is less likely to come to us through that path. The reason for that is a lot of the phrases that people are paying for are very, very expensive in the legal realm, or at least the more popular ones. So, what we might do in the future is we might look for specific niches, language-wise and practice-wise, that we can use in paid search that are not as popular but that we happen to be particularly strong in. Then we’ll do some tests and see what might work there. That’s been a challenge for us.

John:     Yeah, I think it’s a challenge with all of legal. We’ve managed quite a bit of legal [marketing.] Millions and millions of dollars of paid search, like mesothelioma, lawyers, auto accident attorneys. These clicks are the most expensive. It was interesting. Hubspot came out with the top most expensive paid search clicks in an infographic recently. Even mesothelioma got beat out by auto accident attorneys in specific cities.  So it’s fascinating, you know, $670 per click.

Jim:     I think those personal injury type practices are more likely to use that. I think for a good reason. They’re economic model is different. They spend a lot of money in bringing leads in, and then filtering them and hoping that they hit the right lead and make a lot of money on a contingent basis with a good case. Whereas our business model is very different. We’re not in the personal injury market, so what we do is a lot of corporate defense and working with people to strategize with them about how they can move their businesses forward and still be legally compliant and taking advantage of different things that the legal system might offer. When you do that, we don’t spend a lot of money up front and get it back on contingency, we’re much more of a retainer billed and hourly billed type of thing. This makes spending a lot of money on paid search a little more difficult.

John:     Back to our earlier thought on how thought leadership is important. Your potential customer, if they think you’re just buying ads, they’re not as likely to be impressed either. So that’s part of the reason organic is just so critical for your market. They want to hire services and legal providers that are at the top of the real results with authentic content. Not that paid search is bad, we love paid search for the right things and even non-personal injury work. We’ve certainly been doing that quite well. But the ultimate is having that organic presence.

Jim:     At least for our business. So there’s a perception of different tactics that you use in addition to the content. So if, like you said, if you used too much advertisement or too much paid search or too much push, sometimes a brand like ours gets tarnished a bit by overdoing it. So, we have to balance that very carefully. I guess the phrase would be “tasteful” marketing, because some of types of clients that we have are more likely to be impressed by our ability to pick our spots and have some restraint with what we do and not to be too over-the-top. That’s for our brand.

Legal Marketing & Blogging

John:     That makes a lot of sense. What about challenges and opportunities from blogging? What do you think the issues are there?

Jim:     You know John, I think blogging is great. I’ve pushed that as much as I can here. The biggest challenge we have with blogging is content generation. To make a blog work, you have to have a certain level of frequency with posting. It’s very difficult sometimes for attorneys that have high billable hours that are always working, and then they have other things that they’re doing with their non-billable time like other marketing opportunities and other professional opportunities. It becomes difficult for them to be a consistent blogger. Sometimes, they can get around that by having [other people] writing for them and having them review it. But what I’ve found is that only gets you so far because it’s the attorney’s knowledge that is driving the blog and it’s their ability to know what to say about what topic that really drives the interest of the blog. So there’s just so much you can help them with that. They really have to generate a lot of that on their own. So that’s the main challenge for it, but as far as a tool, it’s one of the best tools, especially for establishing your authority and your thought leadership and making sure that you have content out there all the time that is being clicked on or looked at. It opens up conversations. I think it’s a wonderful too.

John:     Yeah, you just have to keep working on creative ideas, like podcasting and video, and doing things with the attorneys that might get content out of their voice without always having them write. You know, balance I’m sure.

Jim:     It’s just making it as easy for them as possible and getting them to commit to some type of routine. Which is difficult, because their lives go up and down. You have peaks and troughs. When the peaks come, things tend to fall off the map and then the trough comes and they’re back. It’s hard to keep it going sometimes.

John:     I think the good news though is that you have quite a few attorneys, so even if they got on a once a quarter schedule, but it was enough attorneys so you at least have a blog post a week, then the challenge is partially back on the marketing team to then go promote the content. And the attorneys too should share the links to the content they create, so it’s not just post it and hope that Google does everything. It should really be a matter of sharing that content. That’s where it’s a little easier for your marketing staff to actually go share that content and these days, it’s important to have a lot of content, but a big mistake we see people making and we certainly made it for a while, was putting 90% of effort into the blogging and 10% into the promotion. It really needs to be somewhat split, if not more towards the promotion than the creation.

Jim:     That’s a good point. I agree with you, and we have to work harder at that.

LinkedIn & LinkedIn Pulse in 2016

John:     Some of that, the attorney doesn’t have to do. That sort of leads into LinkedIn, where you can certainly use LinkedIn to help attorneys share their content, whether it’s LinkedIn Pulse or doing a status update with a post that they created. Whether it’s once a month or even once a quarter for that attorney. LinkedIn can help. What do you see opportunities are for doing more with LinkedIn, or not, in 2016?

Jim:     We’ll definitely do more. In fact, LinkedIn has lowered the threshold to get the information out there than having the blog discipline. We’ve gotten to a point now where the attorneys are pretty savvy, at least the ones we’ve talked to and explained it to and that’s quite a few, and they post what they do on LinkedIn routinely. If they have a new alert that goes out, or a new article, or a panels discussion, or an engagement that they’re allowed to talk about, those things are posted on LinkedIn relatively routinely. We’re getting much more sophisticated in terms of searching for particular groups and affiliations and getting people to use their list of contacts in a very strategic way. The right people are getting the right information. I see us doing more investment in LinkedIn in 2016.

John:     That’s great, and I really appreciate your tips today Jim. How can people get in touch with you?

Jim:     They’re welcome to either go on the website at pierceatwood.com, they can see my bio on the website and all the attorney bios. They’re also welcome to call if they want to call, it’s (617) 488-8206 and I’ll be happy to talk to them. Then look at information that’s going out from the firm. Hopefully there’s enough out there that people might find out about us.

John:     Absolutely. Well, thanks again Jim for speaking to us today.

Jim:      Thanks for the opportunity, John.

John:     Check out legalmarketingreview.com as well as the National Law Review at natlawreview.com for more information and interviews on legal marketing. I’m John McDougall, thanks for listening.

Article By John McDougall of McDougall Interactive

© Copyright 2015 McDougall Interactive

Coaching Tips for Partners and CMOs

“I tried coaching that associate but it didn’t work.”

“Well,” I asked, “What did you say to him?”
“I told him to stop annoying the clients, but he keeps doing it.”

Unfortunately, both supervising lawyers and leading a law firm are far more complicated than simply telling people what to do. When facing an environment of change and uncertainty, or even when helping a single associate overcome some professional hurdle, coaching can be an invaluable strategy. With its increasing popularity, the word “coaching” is often used colloquially as a proxy for giving advice, providing direction, consulting, and other activities. Whereas, professional coaching organizations define it as helping people explore and discover answers for themselves. Have you ever repeated the same wisdom or advice to someone a dozen times but they just didn’t get it?  It is frustrating, isn’t it?  You have something valuable to contribute, but it just isn’t getting through.  Most people give up at this stage, thinking that they have done everything they can, and dismissing the person as “hopeless” or “impossible.” Obviously, one’s ability to manage such situations improves with training and experience; but even a basic understanding of coaching principles can make a huge difference in your effectiveness in circumstances where your usual approaches simply are not working.  Here are some tips to consider when coaching associates and partners.

The Relationship is the Foundation

Your ability to be effective with someone is directly proportional to the strength of your relationship.  If you don’t like them, don’t try to coach them. You can be the most brilliant and knowledgeable person in the world, but if you don’t like the person or if you suspect that he or she don’t like or respect you, game over. That lawyer won’t listen to anything you have to say. You might think, “I’m really good at hiding my opinions,” but people are far more perceptive than we imagine.  Unless you have an Academy Award for acting, don’t even try.  What you can do, however, and what does make a difference, is to make a concerted effort to improve your relationship. Go to lunch. Find shared interests, talk about family, look for common values and beliefs, etc. Once you have established a rapport, you are in a position to initiate much more meaningful discussions.

What if the person is too busy and doesn’t seem interested in taking time for lunch? Building a relationship in this situation is very similar to the challenge law firm lawyers face when approaching corporate counsel. No one has time for trivial conversation. People are busy and may not be inclined to talk about their weekends. Nonetheless, they will appreciate anything you can do to actually help them. In such circumstances, making a key introduction or sending them an article related to their practice areas, for example, are substantive ways to generate a more positive relationship with someone, even if there have been tensions or disagreements in the past.  In turn, this paves the way for more in-depth conversations and the opportunity to offer coaching or guidance.

See Their Greatness

In the world of coaching, we start with the premise that, as human beings, we all have wonderful qualities that are part of the fabric of who we are, such as integrity, generosity, caring, creativity, humor, commitment, joy, among many others. These essential characteristics are different from person to person.  On the other hand, human beings also have a less delightful side, the part that comes out when we are stressed or just trying to survive in the world.  In your role as a coach, your job is to focus on the positive and help people to act in alignment with that side of themselves.  For example, a lawyer may be angry, frustrated or recalcitrant; but those traits may be manifesting in reaction to a deep level of commitment. Lawyers who genuinely care about doing a great job for clients or creating a supportive and collegial work environment may become angry or upset when their goals and commitments are stymied. To coach such a person effectively, you should appreciate and acknowledge that he or she is, fundamentally, a caring, committed person (rather than focusing on the fact that, in the moment, he or she may be acting like a jerk).

Ask, Don’t Tell

As smart, capable human beings, we tend to look at other people’s problems and see simple solutions. Yet, think back for a minute to a time when you were stuck, really stuck. This could be when you were trying to decide whether to leave a job or a relationship, or perhaps when trying to achieve a seemingly impossible goal. Lots of people gave you advice, and it probably didn’t make much difference.  Still, maybe you got lucky, and there was someone in your life, a friend, a relative, a coach, who asked you questions and helped you to figure out what you needed to move forward.

This principle of asking rather than telling applies at all stages of coaching. Just because you see a problem doesn’t mean the person wants to talk about it. If you saw an obese person, you wouldn’t automatically assume that he or she were ready to dive in and discuss a weight loss program. It’s the same with coaching. Everyone has issues that they are working on, or that they know to be obstacles, but which they don’t necessarily wish to discuss. To coach effectively, you need to work with whatever the person wants to talk about or whatever seems most important to them. As the conversation develops, you can look for opportunities to bring up what you see as their opportunity for growth.  For example, an associate may mention that he is frustrated that he can never seem to leave work early enough to see his children before they go to bed. Maybe you think that he should be more organized or delegate more. Clearly, there is a relationship between these respective agendas. Once you start looking for it, there are usually ways to connect the concerns of the person you are coaching with whatever issue you would like them to address.

Motivation is Key

The lawyers you work with are smart and capable; or, if they are not, you will want to rethink your hiring and firing practices. Therefore, if your attorneys are not making progress with something critically important for their careers, like business development or improving an important skill, then there may be a lack of true motivation. This is tricky because even the lawyers themselves may not be clear about their own desires. I had a client recently who was of counsel and hired me because she wanted to become a partner. She wanted to make more money, have more independence, and gain more status.  We came up with a great business development plan. It was aligned with her skills, talents and interests; and it inspired her. Nevertheless, it soon became clear that she wasn’t making much progress. When we examined the situation more closely it became evident that she didn’t really want to become a partner.  Although, theoretically she liked the idea, when she really thought about the partners’ lives, from her perspective, they did not look appealing. The partners worked even longer hours, spent all their social time with clients, and had even “less of a life” than my client. Once her true feelings became clear, she realized she would prefer to work elsewhere and is now employed in the federal government. Another client with similar concerns about becoming a partner decided to stay at her firm, but with the understanding that she is creating a version of partnership that works for her, rather than emulating the life and work choices exemplified by her colleagues. Of course, it is unlikely that your lawyers will confess to you if they have mixed feeling about partnership or practicing law. However, it is useful for you to recognize, as someone trying to encourage, mentor or coach them, that one reason for resistance or lack of progress could be that they are ambivalent about their present career trajectory.

Accept Emotions

Lawyers often think that work should be separate from emotions, and that we should be objective and professional at all times. Yet, in reality, people get frustrated and scream at colleagues, burst into tears, wake up in the middle of the night worried about cases, careers, status, and work relationships.  To dismiss the emotional component is like ignoring the wind’s impact on a sailboat. Thus, in order to coach effectively, one must always consider the emotions under surface of any presenting issue.

I spoke at a legal marketing conference recently and asked participants to brainstorm about how to coach lawyers who are having trouble with follow-up. One group said they would delegate the organizational aspect to the lawyer’s assistant. When I asked what they would do if the lawyer still didn’t take the follow-up actions, one person responded, “This is why I think all firms should have an in-house psychologist.” While many, no-doubt, would echo her frustration, there are more practical alternatives. If a lawyer is behaving in a way that seems irrational, it generally is not because he or she is crazy or stupid. Rather, that lawyer is just like every other human being on the planet in that fear, anger or upset may occasionally divert him or her from making the best choices.

Consequently, when people are acting irrationally, it is very likely that fear or other emotions under the surface may be getting in the way.  While some individuals may need serious psychological interventions, for most lawyers, simply having a chance to talk about and acknowledge fear or upset makes a huge difference in their ability to move past it. If you are serious about coaching, it is important to accept individuals’ emotions just as they are. Telling someone that his or her feelings are irrational or illogical will be counterproductive. Emotions are not rational. But, on the plus side, they are also temporary. If given attention in a meaningful and appropriate way, people can move from fear to purposeful action much faster than you might think possible.

Trying to coach your associates and partners may seem daunting or frustrating, at times.  Yet, the effort is well worth it. When your best associate stops eyeing the door and reengages with the firm; two key partners resolve a conflict that has been creating tension in the firm for months; or that one attorney finally gets proactive about developing clients it will become clear just how useful and effective this approach can be.

Article By Anna H. Rappaport of Excelleration, LLC

© 2008-2016 Anna Rappaport. All Rights Reserved

Sell-abrating Sensibly re: Social Media Campaigns

Sell-abrating Sensibly re: Social Media CampaignsThe holiday season is in full swing, which means brand owners and merchants are seizing the opportunity to capture cyber market share via social media campaigns.

While social media can be a great way to quickly generate brand buzz, you may want to take heed of the following seven tips to make sure your holiday social media campaign doesn’t turn into a big bah humbug:

  1. No Special Rules Apply – social media campaigns are not exempt from trademark infringement, false advertising, copyright, and right of publicity laws.  Do not say anything or use any images in a social media context that you wouldn’t put in print.
  2. Register company and key brand names as social media user names on popular social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
  3. Monitor social media sites for uses of confusingly similar names by third parties selling counterfeit goods, or using your trademarks in a way that creates negative publicity or a false association with your brand.
  4. Keep it Positive – Negative social media posts about a competitor often backfire, and rarely have the intended benefit of improving the poster’s own reputation.
  5. Hashtag #careful – Avoid making a social media faux pas; research and be sure you understand the meaning of viral hashtags before using them in your own social media postings.
  6. A Warning About Current Events – Avoid capitalizing on current events and/or tragedies. Instead, take time to thoroughly develop marketing campaigns that will speak to consumers regardless of timing.
  7. Not Always Sweet to Retweet – As tempting as it may be to retweet celebrities’ or politicians’ tweets, such seemingly innocuous tweets/retweets may have a polarizing effect on consumers/social media followers, or create potentially damaging false associations.

Article by Shana L. Olson & Lauriel F. Dalier of Sterne, Kessler, Goldstein & Fox P.L.L.C.

 © 2015 Sterne Kessler

How Americans are Consuming Digital Media Today

The Rainmaker Institute

Digital research firm comScore is just out with their 2015 U.S. Digital Future in Focus report, which details how Americans are currently interacting with technology and consumed media. Here is an overview of the findings that can help inform your law firm marketing efforts:

Multi-Platform

Over the past four years, digital media consumption has grown 394% on smartphones and 1,721% on tablets. However, the desktop is not dead — its usage has grown 37% over the same time period. What this says is that Americans are expanding their use of ALL devices, engaging with multiple screens throughout the day

.How Americans are Consuming Digital Media Today

Mobile

At the end of 2014, U.S. smartphone penetration was at 75% and has been growing at a rate of 16% annually. Apple and Android share 95% of that market.

Social Media

Facebook remains the 800 lb. gorilla with an 81% reach of the total digital population. Time spent on Facebook is 18x more than any other social network. Google+ has a 38% reach, LinkedIn is at 37% and Twitter at 36%. Here is the demographic breakdown of who is spending time on the top social sites, by age group:

social

Video

While mobile video viewing is on the rise, desktop viewing is still #1. Nearly 7 of 8 Americans watch online video, and more than half of those watch every day. YouTube remains the #1 destination and video platform with the most engagement.

video

ARTICLE BY

Stephen Fairley
The Rainmaker Institute

Three Reasons You Need Email Marketing

RW Lynch Company, Inc.

Email marketing. You may have heard that it is old fashioned, ineffective and ultimately a waste of time and effort. Despite what the naysayers preach, this is simply untrue. We live in the internet age. It is crucial for law firms to get their name out there. Email marketing is a thriving, affordable and effective way to build and market your firm, increase conversions and remind clients who you are. We believe that email marketing is one of the best business practices for lead cultivation and management. Why?

It’s inexpensive

Perhaps the best feature of email marketing is that it is economical. Email marketing is a great way to spend less and receive a greater return on your investment. It cuts out high costs that other marketing channels, like direct mail, add on. You can communicate with contacts more frequently because an email takes less time and money to create. All you need is an effective email marketing program. Many legal marketing companies, like RW Lynch, provide an email marketing service that will take care of everything from templates to content, and more.

It’s convenient

Emails are easy to send, and they are easy to receive. A postal mailing, for example, takes significantly more time and effort. Designing, printing, folding, stuffing, stamping and mailing does not leave much time for taking care of clients. Typing a quick email and clicking send is a lot more cost effective, and saves a lot more of your valuable time. Email marketing is even convenient for you clients. Imagine the likelihood of a client carrying around a physical mail piece to share with their loved ones. Now imagine the likelihood of that same client forwarding an informative email, or sharing it on social media. Email marketing is simply an easier way to communicate with leads.

It keeps you on their mind

The best feature of email marketing might be that it is economical, but the most important aspect of email marketing is that it keeps you in touch with current and former clients. Remind your contacts that you are there when they need you, without becoming overbearing. Remind your clients that you care by sending personalized messages, holiday greetings and birthday wishes. Your clients are far more likely to refer you to their friends and family if they remember that you worked hard for them. The easiest way to remind them is through consistent email marketing.

There are a lot of options when it comes to marketing yourself and your law firm. Many options are exceedingly expensive and offer little to no return on effort and investment. Email marketing is a simple practice that will make a big impact. If you think that you are too busy for email marketing, don’t forget that there are many email marketing programs available and waiting to help you succeed.

ARTICLE BY

Brian Lynch
OF
RW Lynch Company, Inc.

Erin Smith Aebel: Integrating Legal Marketing into your Practice

The National Law Review - Legal Analysis Expertly Written Quickly Found

Erin Smith Aebel has spent her almost twenty year career developing knowledge in the field of Health Care Law, and a significant amount of her effort has gone into integrating solid marketing techniques into her legal practice.  This combination has proved highly successful, as she has accumulated a long list of awards and a bustling, busy practice. As aPartner and Health Care Practice Co-Administrator for Shumaker, Loop and Kendrick Law Firm in Tampa, Florida she graciously allowed the National Law Review the chance to ask her some questions about where she’s been and what she does in her practice.

Aebel began her career with a feeling many law student graduates have:  relief.  “I took whatever job I could get.  My main consideration at my first job was that they hired me,” Aebel says with a laugh.  For the first few years of Aebel’s career she spent getting experience—learning litigation, and really finding out what she wanted to do.

It turned out Aebel wanted to work in Health Law.  “Health Law was a new, growing field at that point, and I realized that was the work I wanted to do.  But I also realized I needed to learn, that I needed to develop the know-how so I could be effective.”  This led her to Shumaker, Loop and Kendrick, a firm that had a senior partner working in Health Law.  Along with realizing she wanted to work in Health Law, Aebel says, “I realized that I wanted to prevent problems before they started.” This realization led her away from litigation based practice to more transactional work.   Over the years, Aebel developed that expertise and grew to love the field of Health Law.  “The law is constantly changing,” Aebel says, “each new year brings new federal and state regulations, so there is always something to learn.  It’s never a rote practice.  But the longer I’ve practiced, the more I know, and my depth of knowledge has grown.”

One of the most striking things about speaking with Aebel is how fluidly she’s integrated good marketing practices into her work.  It comes across that she genuinely enjoys marketing, and she understands completely how it benefits her practice and her firm.

One thing she shares is that she works systematically to figure out a plan for her business.  She says, “I identify who I want to work with, and I figure out the steps I need to take, and I keep all that information in one place.  I make a chart, and I look at it regularly.  This identifies the steps and forces you to take them.”  By creating this road map, her marketing activities have a purpose and a function.  That said, she also works hard to keep herself active in the community and to keep herself front of mind with clients and potential clients.  She says, “I speak and write whenever I can because they are excellent ways to market yourself as a specialist.”  Aebel herself started small with public speaking.  She began by doing paralegal seminars to get more comfortable with being in front of a group, and her public speaking grew from there.  Now she is sought after for her expertise, and she says, “With practice, almost anyone can become comfortable public speaking.”

Additionally, Aebel methodically works out who her referral sources are, and where her business comes from, and nurtures those relationships.  She says,” I work to develop good relationships with other attorneys who don’t do what I do, financial advisors, and CPAs.  These relationships are like growing a garden in some ways: I nurture them, water them, making sure I’m professional, quick to return communications and that I’m generally good to work with.  I find people who are meaningfully in my business and I grow those relationships, so they will continue to want to work with me.”

To hear Aebel talk about it, marketing is easy.  But keep in mind she has been on the firm’s Marketing Committee for eight years, and she was just recently been appointed as a co-chair to the firm-wide marketing and business development committee. and she was instrumental in growing her firm’s marketing philosophy. Her interest in marketing grew from an unlikely source:  a rough mentor experience.   Aebel says,   “I didn’t have a good mentor experience, but this turned out to be a good thing.  It taught me to be more independent.”

Now, Aebel is eager to find other women in business to connect with, and she is eager to help young attorneys find their way.  Her advice is simple.  Aebel says, “I would advise young attorneys that what they do now grows the foundation for ten years down the road.  In that spirit, young attorneys should network with their peers, not just in the community, and spend time on it—think ahead!”

ARTICLE BY

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

Marketing: How to Identify Your Ideal Target Market

The Rainmaker Institute

When it comes to marketing your law firm, identifying your target market is job #1.  If you don’t do that, nothing else you do will matter.

Many attorneys may struggle with developing a concise, detailed description of their target market, but it is vital that you do this or your marketing efforts will fall flat.

Ask yourself these 10 questions when trying to determine your target market:

1.  Who would pay for my service?  People that have legal issues need attorneys, so what specific problems do you solve and who is willing and able to pay for that solution?

2.  Who has already purchased my legal services?  Take a look at your current client base and search for commonalities.

3.  What is the extent of my reach?  What geographic area can you realistically serve?  Based on the type of law you practice, you may need to restrict or expand your area of service.  For example, a divorce attorney will probably have a smaller geographic area than an IP attorney.

4.  Am I making the right assumptions?  As I have said many times, you are not your client.  You need to talk to your existing clients or prospects to see what resonates.

5.  What do people who know me think?  Check in with your network peers to get feedback on who they think is your ideal client.  They may give you some ideas you might never have considered.

6.  How am I going to make money?  Are you charging by the hour or by the case?  This can determine who will be best able to afford your services.

7.  How am I going to sell my services?  Different marketing methods appeal to different demographics.  If your target skews young, social media will probably be a top priority for you.

8.  What are my competitors doing?  Looking at what your competitors are doing can help you define your target market – and then you can develop strategies for differentiating yourself.

9.  How will I find clients?  Once you have started identifying your target market, you will need to determine how you can market to them efficiently.  If you plan to use a website and social media as a key strategy, you will need to understand their online behavior patterns.  If you plan to get referrals, you will need a strategy to build a good referral partner base.

10.  Are there options to expand my target market?  This will largely depend on your practice area, but one way to expand your target market is by creating a niche within your practice area.  For example, if you are an estate planning attorney, you may want to develop a sub-specialty in asset protection for wealthy professionals.

ARTICLE BY

Stephen Fairley
OF
The Rainmaker Institute

Register now! Only one more week until the 22nd Annual Marketing Partner Forum – January 21-23, Rancho Palos Verdes, California

Print

When

January 21-23, 2015

Where

Rancho Palos Verdes, CA

Register now!

Join us in January as a newly re-imagined Marketing Partner Forum returns to Terranea for a three day summit on collaborative strategies in business development.

The Forum continues to be the premier event for marketing partners, managing partners, in-house counsel and senior-level marketing and business development professionals who want to sharpen their knowledge about the emerging trends and forces shaping the legal business and the impact on law firm business development client service and client relations.

Set against the backdrop of the Southern California sun, attendees will meet for a series of dynamic workshops designed to test one’s ability to approach, engage and close new business with a faculty of leading general counsel and industry icons.

Unlock your business development potential or refine time tested techniques as you network and forge new partnerships with some of the most powerful professionals in the business.

Why should you attend?

• Learn practical takeaways – Depart the event with scalable takeaways that best prepare you for (r)evolutionary change on the horizon

• Hear about compelling new topics – Participate in a number of brand new topics, including how to advance your career across the C-suite, fostering collaboration between professional development and business development, and more.

• Network with a purpose – And enjoy the fresh air, as Thomson Reuters proudly introduces the Marketing Partner Forum Mixer for all attendees.

• Peer to Peer learning – Through a number of interactive seminars and workshops that ask attendees to collaborate and compete

• Great keynote presentation – Eric Siegel, Ph.D., former Columbia University professor and best-selling author of Predictive Analytics: The Power to Predict Who Will Click, Buy, Lie or Die discusses the science and strategy of predictive marketing.

• Meet the legal industry’s New Competition, as Marketing Partner Forum welcomes the Legal New Wave from Silicon Valley and beyond.

Who Should Attend

  • Heads of Marketing and Business Development for law firms
  • Managing Partners