Keep up with our blog to learn the latest news in marketing for lawyers.
Stating their goal is greater transparency, Martindale-Hubbell announced it’s changing the rules governing how it displays your peer review rating online. They’ve also changed how you will learn of and what occurs when you suppress or comment upon written feedback made by other lawyers and clients on your profile.
It surprises many of our clients and friends to learn that other lawyers and clients can make solicited and unsolicited comments about your work on www.martindale.com and www.lawyers.com. From what we can tell, about 25 percent of lawyers now have clients, referral sources and co-counsel who have posted such feedback there. Oddly, you could do this anonymously last week, but this week it appears anyone giving a review from now on will be identified. We encourage you to seek reviews but you may want to make sure you are within your firm’s social media policy, if any, and in compliance with your state’s rules relating to testimonials before doing so.
The reason we encourage obtaining feedback is because a recent study by Cone, released September 8, 2011, shows positive online reviews and ratings cement a personal recommendation/referral for 90 percent of consumers. As well, the study reveals that negative online information has subverted a personal recommendation for 80 percent of consumers. The data shows this is true not just for personal recommendations related to consumer products, restaurants and hotels— it’s true for nearly 40 percent of personal recommendations made related to professional services providers, including lawyers. So it’s a best practice that your law firm marketing plan and personal business development efforts include obtaining positive online ratings and reviews like those available from Martindale, Super Lawyers, The Best Lawyers In America, AVVO, Chambers and other services used by your clients and referral sources.
We recommend you check to see if anyone has posted feedback about you on the Martindale sites. I’m sure you’ll want to know your options if you don’t like what’s there. Here’s a link to your options https://www.lexisnexis.com/ratings1/. It’s where you’ll find Martindale’s explanations of the changes in ratings displays and notifications, as well.
Posted in law firm marketing, Lawyers ratings, legal directories, Uncategorized |
It is generally known that Americans now spend more time online than they do watching television. However, I think most lawyers would be surprised to learn that 85.6 percent of the U.S. Internet audience viewed at least one online video in June of 2011.
The duration of the average online content video was 5.4 minutes, while the average online video ad was 25 seconds. Those numbers clearly define an opportunity for your law practice in producing educational videos. When creating a video remember:
- Don’t talk about yourself! Talk about issues that affect your client and potential client’s decision-making. Divorce attorney Lee Rosen has had more than 100,000 visits to this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9D7eTLZn8I. It’s one of a series of highly-instructional videos he says prospects have said they viewed before contacting him. This is the wrong way to do it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zR6RX86ZUk&feature= related – nothing but a video brochure.
- • Demonstrate your understanding of how the law affects them. He’s an LA corporate attorney explaining the legal issues and planning related to selling a closely-held business http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aysL3cPD3Xs. Sure, the opening is a bit overdone but what he says is impressive and helpful.
- • Show your approachability and character. These lawyers both do it well.
Advertising agencies have always said there is nothing more powerful than a demonstration. The Internet’s video capabilities bring that opportunity to you on a cost-effective basis.
Academic research also supports that the online video revolution is an opportunity to make a better impression and increase your chances of being retained. Hee Jun Choi and Scott D. Johnson of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign wrote in The American Journal of Distance Education that “there is a significant difference in learners’ motivation in terms of attention between the video-based instruction and traditional text-based instruction. In addition, the learners reported that the video-based instruction was more memorable than the traditional text-based instruction.”
Forget an elaborate firm brochure. Given the resources consider moving beyond your firm blog or supplementing it with the firm video channel.
According to data from the comScore Video Metrix service, which like Nielsen monitors TV watching monitors digital media use, in June 179 million U.S. Internet users watched online video content for an average of 16.8 hours per viewer. The total U.S. Internet audience engaged in more than 6.2 billion viewing sessions during the course of the month, an all-time high, they said. Video ads accounted for 13.6 percent of all videos viewed and 1.3 percent of all minutes spent viewing video online.
Posted in law firm marketing, legal marketing, studies on law firm marketing |
The chief marketing officer of the country’s largest lawyer television advertising agencies recently sent a newsletter, one of a series, confirming what we have been telling personal injury lawyers seeking higher case values for years— success lies in having a comprehensive measurable law firm marketing plan addressing online reputation management, personal selling, community relations, database driven communications and your advertising to compete for decent value cases.
Here’s what Harlan Schillinger, who has been with Network Affiliates since the early 1980s and a pioneer of effective personal injury lawyer marketing, just said, “Here’s a news flash: the old days of just placing ads on TV and waiting for the cases to role in are dead.
“The future of the web is on social media. Eventually, these (platforms) may end up replacing your current websites. The other problem with this expectation is that many law firms are expecting the web to create the sort of business their TV campaigns did in the 1980’s.” That not going to happen, we and Schillinger agree. In today’s fractured media environment only a multi-faceted approach will work.
Schillinger goes onto recommend something else we have long said. That being you must have analytics on your website to have any idea if it’s working.
“It’s impossible to make intelligent decisions online without having the numbers to back up your decisions. Knowing how your website performs and establishing realistic goals and expectations is the first step to growth,” Schillinger said.
As we know so well when we first begin working with most referral-based personal injury practices for which we write law firm marketing plans: “Most law firms are completely in the dark in terms of how many visitors come to their website on a monthly basis, how they rank in search engines for key search terms and how many leads their website has actually generated,” Schillinger said, adding that “Most law firms are completely in the dark in terms of how many visitors come to their website on a monthly basis, how they rank in search engines for key search terms and how many leads their website has actually generated. Without knowing this information, how can your law firm make an informed decision on how to improve their presence online? Furthermore, without a baseline, how can your law firm set reasonable goals for their website?”
Reviewing those statistics is as basic and requisite as glancing at the instrument panel of your auto as you drive. Site performance reviews are a requisite monthly or bi-monthly action item for your law firm’s marketing agenda.
“Without knowing this information, how can your law firm make an informed decision on how to improve their presence online? Furthermore, without a baseline, how can your law firm set reasonable goals for their website?”
If you don’t have analytics on your site, get them. Google Analytics, the industry standard, is free.
Posted in law firm marketing, law firm marketing effectiveness survey, lawyer marketing, social media, Social Networking |
Many state and local bar associations, and a few notable national entities, have now abandoned their printed membership directories.
More broadly, our analysis and recommendations in response to this, which appear below, prompts us to remember lawyers and firms must have a process for managing all of your online contact information. Every law firm marketing plan should have as a tactic to regularly find, claim and cleanse every online listing and profile related to its lawyers and the firm.
It’s with good reason that printed memberships directories have moved online all of the information that what was once in a book lawyers and professional staff routinely consulted and kept on their desks. This is because nearly all of this information can be obtained through direct inquiries via Internet search. And once online, it can be updated in real time.
These new online directories will be used, but many of the associations have few statistics to provide regarding traffic on their overall sites and specifically to these directories. Eventually they will share what traffic statistics they have so firms can evaluate the overall value of their memberships. Selling advertising within or adjacent to the directories eventually will become an obvious revenue opportunity, as well. Traffic statistics, just like circulation and viewership studies used by traditional broadcast media, will be generated to allow comparisons and spur these advertising sales. (We were taken aback in mid-2011 when we learned from the publisher no such statistics were available or contemplated concerning traffic to Best’s Recommended Insurance Attorneys. We expect that will soon change.)
While we wait for this transition and information, it’s important to recognize the value of the inbound link to your website from a directory on a well-known, long-standing, credible, highly-trafficked website is not to be ignored. That kind of link from a major association or organization website can significantly help your search engine optimization results. So you should list your firm and lawyers in these directories.
Tags: Law firm directory listings, Lawyer biographies, Lawyer directory listings, Lawyer ratings, legal marketing
Posted in Best Lawyers in America, best marketing tactics, best marketing tactics for lawyers, Chambers USA, law firm marketing, law firm Web site marketing, Lawyer biographies, lawyer business development, lawyer directories, legal directories, legal trade groups, Martindale, online marketing for law firms |
The ABA Commission on Ethics 20/20, reporting at the association’s annual meeting in August, has decided there is no evidence of a ‘pervasive problem’ caused by lawyer rankings services.
“We found no evidence that anyone has been caused any harm by this,” said one of the commission’s co-chairs. Existing ethics rules adequately govern advertising and promotional claims, she said.
The result will be a hands off stance from the ABA on guidance or model rules pertaining to individual lawyer rankings. The commission’s report cited the prohibitive cost of an exhaustive study of the burgeoning number of rankings and attendant First Amendment issues.”
Posted in Best Lawyers in America, Chambers USA, Lawyers ratings, legal directories, Super Lawyers |
Research has long shown nothing is more powerful than a word of mouth recommendation from a trusted source— but a new study shows failing to fully back it up by properly managing your online reputation will quickly subvert the hard work you invested to get someone to pass your name along.
In other words, due to the near-universal reach and acceptance of the Internet, online recommendations are now approaching equality in importance with offline advice.
So says Cone in its 2011 Online Influence Trend Tracker report: “Our latest research reveals four-out-of-five consumers have changed their minds about purchasing a recommended product or service based solely on negative information they found online.”
That’s up from 67 percent of consumers in 2010, according to Cone, one of the country’s oldest and most respected advertising, public relations and strategic branding agencies. And, it’s consistent with what we see in our own law firm marketing surveys and hear when interviewing law firm clients, both business executives and in-house counsel, about how they vet lawyers.
“Online information, a trustworthy source for 89 percent of consumers, has the power to make or break a recommendation,” Cone reported.
That backs up what recent surveys, one of more than 500 in-house lawyers, have revealed about how lawyers can best market their practices. Failing to have listings and having no or a weaker ratings in databases such as Martindale-Hubbell, Super Lawyers, AVVO, or having no presence on, say, LinkedIn, all served to hinder or make retention unlikely, said house counsel in recent landmark surveys conducted by BTI Consulting and American Lawyer Media. And those surveys, plus Cone’s, show the vast majority of people go online and look at sites, blogs, ratings, and reviews to verify personal recommendations.
“Personal recommendations are just not enough,” said the Cone report. “The explosion of online word-of-mouth channels and the adoption of online verification have forever changed the marketing landscape.”
Tags: best legal marketing tactics, law firm marketing, Lawyer business development, lawyer marketing, legal marketing
Posted in associate marketing, best marketing tactics, best marketing tactics for lawyers, law firm marketing, lawyer directories, lawyer marketing, lawyer personal business development, legal marketing, studies on law firm marketing |
A best practice is to list representative matters in which you have been involved on your biography on your law firm website.
The test for that list being most effective for referring and retaining lawyers is:
- The representative matters shows familiarity with a potential client’s industry, say, oil and gas
- The list shows familiarity/experience with the claims, legal issues, regulatory schemes involved
Who the clients were is not critical, until you are contacted and get to the conflict check, of course.
This information comes from several past surveys of in-house counsel appearing in publication including Corporate Counsel Magazine. All those surveys showed industry knowledge, so the client doesn’t have to explain the jargon of their business, and familiarity with the legal issue at hand are the two most important criteria for lawyers hiring or referring other lawyers to you.
Posted in best marketing tactics, law firm marketing, Lawyer biographies, lawyer business development, lawyer marketing, lawyer personal business development, legal marketing, online marketing for law firms |
Research has long shown nothing is more powerful than a word-of-mouth recommendation from a trusted source, but a new study shows failing to fully back it up by properly managing your online reputation will quickly subvert the hard work you invested to get someone to pass your name along.
In other words, due to the near-universal reach and acceptance of the Internet, online recommendations are now approaching equality in importance with offline advice.
So says Cone in its 2011 Online Influence Trend Tracker report: “Our latest research reveals four-out-of-five consumers have changed their minds about purchasing a recommended product or service based solely on negative information they found online.”
That’s up from 67 percent of consumers in 2010, according to Cone, one of the country’s oldest and most respected advertising, public relations and strategic branding agencies. And, it’s consistent with what we see in our own law firm marketing surveys and hear when interviewing law firm clients, both business executives and in-house counsel, about how they vet lawyers.
“Online information, a trustworthy source for 89 percent of consumers, has the power to make or break a recommendation,” Cone reported.
That backs up what recent surveys, one of more than 500 in-house lawyers, have revealed about how lawyers can best market their practices. Failing to have listings and having no or a weaker rating in databases such as Martindale-Hubbell, Super Lawyers, AVVO, or having no presence on, say, LinkedIn, all serve to make retention unlikely, said house counsel in recent landmark surveys conducted by BTI Consulting and American Lawyer Media.
“Personal recommendations are just not enough,” said the Cone report. “The explosion of online word-of-mouth channels and the adoption of online verification have forever changed the marketing landscape.”
Posted in Alyn-Weiss, best marketing tactics, best marketing tactics for lawyers, competing with national law firms, Create powerful Linked In updates; using social media effectively, in-house counsel selection process, law firm marketing, law firm marketing effectiveness survey, lawyer business development, lawyer directories, lawyer marketing, lawyer personal business development, Lawyers ratings, legal marketing, marketing trends for law firms, Uncategorized |
How much should your firm spend on marketing every year? As budgets are finalized and final numbers parsed for 2011, here are some basic budgeting guidelines for marketers and firm management based on data we’ve collected from hourly and contingent fee firms nationwide over the past 20 years.
Our bi-annual national survey of corporate/transactional and defense firms indicates the average marketing budget for local and regional firms of about 40 lawyers equals 3.25% of annual hourly fee volume. That total includes out-of-pockets for: website development, maintenance and optimization; client entertainment; seminars and other events, both in-house and external; commercial sponsorships; trade and community group dues and any associated travel, plus advertising. It does not include bar dues, consulting fees, salaries for in-house marketing personnel, or your charitable contributions.
Of course, the size of your firm, what the partners expect of your marketing staff, your firm’s strategic plan, where you are located, in what areas of law your firm practices, particularly if you have a consumer practice or do insurance defense work, all effect, and to varying degrees, what your marketing budget should be. I quickly explain here the nuances of law firm marketing budgets and address contingent practices below.
Size of firm matters because larger firms can harness economies of scale. Among other things, size of firm affects how marketing materials are distributed, our surveys show. National firms tend to send more of their promotional communications by email as opposed to snail mail. In local firms, the opposite is more common. From what we can tell, larger firms have better IT spines and staff to assign to this task, have more control cooperation from partners, and wind up more efficient at capturing and managing email addresses. Your firm’s strategic plan, if it calls for growth or establishment of new practice areas, will affect marketing costs. Growth, new offices, lateral hires and new practices area plans, or repositioning of lawyers from low-paying into higher paying areas, will increase near-term marketing costs as a percentage of revenue.
Advertising costs vary geographically on a per-thousand persons reached basis. They also vary from industry to industry, so this may distort your budget from the norms indicated above. The advent of social media and website advertising, not yet fully accounted for in our tracking surveys, may also explain and justify variances.
Posted in law firm marketing, lawyer marketing, marketing budget |
Media coverage, including comments and linking by influential bloggers, can create credibility for lawyers and firms, and result in file and case inquiries. Here’s the outline of a mechanism that can help maximize traditional and online media coverage for you and your firm:
- Create a list of publications and blogs, including any key trade publications of your clients and referral sources, which when they cover law/legal issues you want to ensure contact you for comment or contribution.
- Obtain the editorial calendars of each publication. Some will have calendars, but some won’t.
- Have as a standing agenda item at your Marketing Committee meetings to review the editorial calendars and the upcoming special editions at each. Specifically discuss which you might participate in, or to which you might contribute articles or expert comment. If you do contribute, keep your copyright.
- In addition to addressing scheduled coverage, have as a standing agenda item at Marketing Committee to discuss trends, rulings/decisions (whether you or your firm were involved or not) and about which you might alert writers of the influential publications or blogs.
- Try to have an ongoing conversation with key editors and writers at the influential publications about what your firm sees happening. A couple of times annually will do. Most of the time this effort will not be to obtain coverage, but be backgrounding to help them understand business transactions and trends and changes to the law. The message is something like: “Here are three things we see and about which you might want to be aware…” This would be done by lawyers over coffee, or even simply by email. Make sure someone is listing the editors and writers and which lawyer talks with them. Yes, this is much easier said than done since the media bluntly and universally tells me lawyers historically only talk to them when it’s to their immediate advantage. This process I’ve outlined can help you get past that. You have to become a resource to them. They understand you can’t talk about clients and pending deals and cases.
Posted in law firm marketing, law firm web sites, lawyer business development, lawyer marketing, legal marketing, writing for the web |
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