Welcome to LawyerCastingTM, a new blog from eLawMarketing (edited by attorney/Internet marketer Joshua Fruchter) covering "best practices" in online marketing for lawyers and law firms, including websites, blogs, podcasts, webcasts, email marketing and much more!
Read the posts below and in our archives to learn all the latest tips and strategies for using the Internet to market your law firm and develop new business. Enjoy and prosper!
Rather than competing, seems email and social media are complementary tools. According to a recent Marketing Sherpa survey, about 80% of marketers agree that sharing email content on social media sites "extends the reach of email content to new markets," and "increases brand reputation and awareness." So it makes sense to embed social sharing tools within your email marketing campaigns (similar to how the "forward to a friend" option has long been included in emails).
See the chart below then click here to read more about the survey.
Do You Agree or Disagree That Social Sharing...
Let's face it. We are always looking for efficient and quick ways to assemble email marketing campaigns. One of the most common shortcuts is the copy & paste function (good 'ol "ctrl-c" then "ctrl-v"). However, if you create subject lines for campaigns in your email marketing software by copying and pasting content from programs like MS Word, you may end up distributing emails that display strange characters in the subject line when viewed by recipients. Why does this happen and what can you do about it?
With each new collaborative technology adopted by the masses - yesterday it was RSS, today it is social media - the pundits have predicted the demise of email as a marketing and communication tool. However, once again, reports of email's demise are exaggerated. As per a chart recently released by MarketingSherpa summarizing the results of a survey on how people share information, email remains a key communication tool utilized in tandem with social media to "increase engagement, deliver relevant content and build contact databases."
As an example, the survey reports that when asked what methods they use to share something from the Internet with their friends or family, such as a video, link or article, 78% of consumers responded that they forward a link to the content via email. Only 22% cited social media as their "sharing" method of choice.
Click here to view a large, printable of the chart displaying the results of the survey.
Click here to read MarketingSherpa's complete analysis.
Lawyers are always looking for new channels to publicize their expertise, and thus catch the attention of prospective clients who require that expertise to address legal issues. In a recent post titled "7 Steps to Using Podcasts to Grow Your Practice," divorce lawyer Lee Rosen provides some helpful tips on how lawyers can use podcasts to develop new business.
Rosen observes that a growing segment of the population prefers to learn by listening rather than by reading, resulting in the growing popularity of podcasts. While attorneys can benefit from this trend by creating their own podcasts, such an approach can be time consuming and expensive.
Instead, Rosen suggests the easier path of becoming a guest on podcasts produced by others (which will often already have a solid audience base).
Rosen proceeds to identify seven "tricks" for becoming a guest on an existing podcast and making the most of these opportunities. We recommend it.
In the world of SEO, there's always a heavy focus on developing inbound links from third party sites. This is good, but what marketers often forget is that internal links within a website can also help search engine rankings. In a recent article, MarketingSherpa spoke with Eric Ward, one of the search industry’s top linking experts, about how to use internal links to improve SEO.
Some key points:
Establish benchmarks for testing: First and foremost, Ward stresses the importance of developing traffic baselines showing, for example, the amount of traffic coming to various pages on your website that you deem important. The baseline numbers will help you measure the impact of changes you may later wish to make.
More and more business professionals are consuming emails on mobile devices such as Blackberries. I'm a Blackberry devotee myself, and regular use has reinforced the importance of "best practices" in email design to ensure that alerts and newsletters are readable on Blackberries.
We've blog before about email design best practices. In the case of Blackberries, it's very important that you:
1. Design banner graphics that are short. Otherwise, Blackberry users have to scroll down too much to get to your main message. Good design can deliver short, but visually appealing banners for regular email users that can still work well with Blackberries.
2. You use ALT tags to describe your images so at least Blackberry users will know the nature of the images they are not seeing.
3. Position key body copy (e.g., alert headlines, calls-to-action) in the lefthand column so Blackberry users will see them immediately at the top of their screen after they start scrolling to read the message (that is, Blackberries won't respect your multi-column layouts - instead, lefthand column is displayed first, then columns to the right).
And on the lighter side, here's a very funny critique of Blackberry users from Jerry Seinfeld.
Marketers often mistakenly assume that font, color, layout and other style guidelines applicable in the print world can also be used for online media. The problem is that online media is typically viewed on a monitor where the resolution is far lower than in print. As such, to deliver optimum readability to clients, prospects and other users, marketers need to follow different style guidelines on the Web (as an aside, we sometimes find that attorneys protest when marketers deviate from the styles the attorneys are accustomed to (e.g., full justification vs. left justify); what needs to be pointed out politely is that styles that work in briefs and other print communications that attorneys are familiar with don't necessarily work well in online media).
Reproduced below is a short list of 10 legibility guidelines published by Tim Ash, a landing page expert, in an article on SearchEngineWatch, that legal marketers should follow when designing and publishing web pages, blog posts and email communications (our additional comments are in italics in brackets):
Continue... "10 Key Style Guidelines for Law Firm Websites, Blogs and Email Communications" »
MarketingSherpa recently published an interesting chart displaying the results of a study exploring how highly marketers ranked social media as a marketing tactic versus email and search marketing, which have been around much longer.
The chart shows that almost all marketers (97%) agreed that social media will complement other marketing tactics like email and search, while a large percentage (88%) of marketers also agreed that social media will become a standard tactic for most companies (with 74% predicting social media will eventually have its own budget line item and staff).
Only a small percentage (24%) predicted that social media will displace email marketing in targeting prospective customers, and an even smaller number (12%) predicted that social will displace email marketing when communicating with existing customers.
Here's a link to a large version of the chart.
At the end of the day, what's needed is a holistic strategy of the kind we preach here at eLawMarketing that utilizes each online marketing tactic in a manner that follows "best practices" and maximizes ROI. In general, for law firms, we find that email marketing is most suited to marketing to existing clients and referral sources (simply because these subscribers are accustomed to receiving emails from attorneys at your firm on a regular basis), while blogs and social media are more effective at marketing to prospective clients, the media and other unknown parties.
Prospective law firm clients often ask us why they should pay a bit more for our email marketing service than they might pay for, say, a standard blast service like Constant Contact or Campaigner. I respond that email marketing is not just about sending emails, but about getting them delivered, and that (among other benefits) they'll get better deliverability with our service using tools such as private IP addresses, and authentication. Plus we can monitor a firm's "email reputation" for any red flags that might affect deliverability, such as blacklists.
To illustrate the point, compare the deliverability and reputation reports for three email alert campaigns distributed recently by three leading law firms.
Continue... "With Email Alert Deliverability, You Get What You Pay For" »
Came across a case study on MarketingSherpa that offered some useful tips on using LinkedIn for lead generation. While the case study was based on the experience of a marketer at a software company, several of the insights would be applicable to lawyers seeking to use LinkedIn to develop more business.
In a nutshell:
1. Join groups related to your area of expertise (e.g., private equity group for a private equity lawyer), but focus on groups with a highly engaged audience, rather than simply the largest audience. This means looking for groups where the discussions elicit multiple comments from members, rather than just one or two (or none). You can perform this research by reading through recent group discussion posts of groups you have joined both to assess group members’ interest areas, and how much activity new posts tend to generate.
2. Freely share white papers and other resources with your group, but not in a "salesy" manner. For example, in the case study, when promoting a new white paper, the marketer would write a message to the group announcing the new title, sharing a link, and asking group members to provide feedback on the white paper itself.
3. Monitor ongoing conversations to find opportunities to comment on other people’s topics. You may include a link to marketing collateral when appropriate, but often consider just sharing an opinion or giving feedback on other group members’ comments.
4. When providing links to materials on LinkedIn consider creating custom landing pages that specifically address the LinkedIn audience for a more seamless transition.
Access the full case study (subscription required).
We are pleased to announce a complimentary webinar series focused on Internet marketing "best practices" for law firms and lawyers. The webinars will be held on Tuesdays at 12:30 PM EST throughout the summer and fall on the dates set forth below. There is no charge to attend!
Don't worry if you can't make a particular presentation. All will be recorded and available for download after the webinar.
Browse the list of topics below, then click a "register" link to sign up for one or more webinars.
When we pitch the value of an email marketing program for a law firm, we explain that it's all about staying in touch with clients, referral sources and other established contacts. Specifically, if you proactively reach out to these contacts on a regular basis with valuable content that reinforces your expertise, they'll remember you more readily when an opportunity to refer new business arises.
This point is well made in a recent post by Stephen Seckler on his Counsel to Counsel blog entitled "Don't Be a Stranger." Stephen's basic point is that it is important for service providers, including lawyers, to remain visible to past and prospective clients and referral sources. Because while doing a good job and delivering good value are obviously prerequisites for getting more work, they are not enough to insure that satisfied clients will call you the next time they have a need (or that referral sources will continue to refer work your way). Instead, maintaining visibility through ongoing marketing to clients and other contacts is the key.
Email marketing does that for you.
A recent survey of social media marketers released by MarketingSherpa found that a significant percentage rated social media as "very effective" or "effective" at influencing brand reputation (92%); increasing brand awareness (91%); increasing site traffic (88%); and improving search rankings (87%). A substantially smaller percentage felt social media was effective at generating leads (65%).
In terms of social media tactics, the most effective cited were user reviews, relationships with bloggers, discussion groups, and online news release distributions. Albeit marketers found the impact of these tactics sometimes difficult to measure.
Read a more detailed discussion of the survey results on eMarketer.com.
Download our online press release brochure.
A recent article on Search Engine Watch suggested a clever strategy for adding inbound links to a website (which, as is well-known, helps boost search engine visibility). The article recommended identifying the websites of local business groups, such as a Chamber of Commerce or regional business council, and tapping them as a source of inbound links. Since only a few high-quality inbound links can make an appreciable difference when it comes to SEO, law firms should reach out to local business organizations for opportunities to obtain inbound links. Read the full article for further details.
The blogosphere was abuzz last week about a YouTube video (called "United Breaks Guitars") complaining about a bad customer service experience with United Airlines that allegedly caused United Airlines' stock price to drop 10% costing shareholders a reported $180 million!
The PR fiasco suffered by United Airlines as a result of the video raises the question of how law firms should deal with negative references that show up online. As an example, we are aware of one firm that, when you plug their name into Google, some of top references in the search results include news about a major malpractice lawsuit against the firm, associate layoffs, and other negative items.
How does a law firm deal with negative references in Google search results? As explained by SEOMoz (a leading SEO resource), an online reputation management program has 3 components:
Continue... "United Airlines YouTube Fiasco Highlights Issue of Online Reputation Management" »
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