LawyerCasting

Will Social Media Kill Email?

Pundits have been predicting the demise of email marketing for years. Culprits have included, at various times, spam, RSS feeds, blogs, texting, and now, social media. We've addressed the fallacy of these predictions before here and here.

An interesting perspective on this issue was recently provided by Mark Brownlow on his Email Marketing Reports blog.

Brownlow observes that while the highly simplistic "is email dead?" question often garners headlines, more sophisticated marketers realize that email marketing and social media are not mutually exclusive options, and so will consider how they should adapt their email marketing strategies and tactics to changing online behaviors and preferences. Let's explore some of these adaptations, whether with respect to social media or other Internet trends.

The Top RSS to Twitter Tools

One of the beauties of blogging is that you can write the content once and then have it distributed across multiple social media channels (e.g., Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook) automatically and instantly, thereby broadening your audience by many times. Sort of like hub-and-spoke (with the blog being the "hub" of content, and the "spokes" being the various social media channels through which the blog content is fed).

A key tool in the distribution of blog content through social media channels is the RSS feed. For example, LinkedIn has an application that will monitor your RSS feed and add new blog content to your profile whenever your blog is updated.

When it comes to Twitter, there are some blogging services (like Typepad) that will automatically connect directly to your Twitter account via a web services API.

Another option (for those using blog services that can't connect to Twitter via an API) are various RSS-to-Twitter applications that will monitor your RSS feed, and publish any blog updates on Twitter at appropriate intervals.

This December 2009 article on BlogTips does a great job of reviewing the various RSS-to-Twitter tools. Of particular interest was the news that Feedburner (the #1 RSS feed management tool acquired by Google) now offers a tool called "socialize" that will monitor your RSS feed and publish new blog posts to Twitter. Given the efficiency of using a single interface, we're going with Google going forward. But I can say we've had a good experience with TwitterFeed.

American Lawyer Media Publishes Our Article on Team-Authored Law Firm Blogs

We're happy to announce that American Lawyer Media has published our article on team-authored law blogs in the August 2010 issue of Marketing the Law Firm: http://bit.ly/TeamAuthoredBlog.

A key point of the article is that many lawyers needlessly shy away from blogging because they are concerned about the time commitment required to publish regularly. The solution is to adopt a "team" approach to blogging under which several attorneys in a practice area collaborate on a blog according to a publication schedule overseen by an editor. This lessens the burden on individual attorneys while still allowing a practice group to secure the benefits of blogging in terms of thought leadership and search engine and media visibility.

Some of our own clients that have successfully adopted this approach include: Farella Braun + Martel with their insurance coverage blog; Pomerantz Haudek Grossman & Gross with their PomTalk blog for institutional investors; and Meyers Nave with their Public Law News public agency blog.

Of course, the "team-authored" approach will only work at mid- to large-size firms where there are several attorneys working in a particular practice area that lends itself to blogging. Busy solos and small firms may still need to turn to a law blog ghostwriter.

Does Your Law Firm Tie Leads to the Appropriate Marketing Touchpoints?

Here's food for thought for law firms seeking to trace the source of new leads, and determine which are their best marketing tools.

A recent study found that nearly half (44%) of B2B marketers surveyed said their highest level of lead generation measurement capability was to give all credit to the last marketing touchpoint.

In a law firm, this might mean giving full marketing credit to the lawyer(s) who pitched a prospect and successfully persuaded the prospect to retain the firm.

But how did the prospect find that lawyer (or the firm) in the first place? Did anyone ask?

The study further found that some B2B firms were able to employ more sophisticated techniques that would more accurately attribute lead generation across multiple touchpoints.

In a law firm, this would mean that if an individual received an email newsletter from the firm, clicked a link to read an article, and then contacted the lawyer who wrote the article, someone will record that the lead resulted from the initial click through from the email newsletter.

In short, employing a more sophisticated approach to lead tracking can help law firms better understand which are their most successful marketing vehicles.

Read more about the study on eMarketer.

Donna Senft of OberKaler Launches Medicare for Geeks Blog

Congratulations to Donna Senft, a partner at client Ober Kaler (a leading Maryland-based law firm) who recently launched Medicare for Geeks, a new blog focused on legal issues related to Medicare enrollment, including PECOS compliance. The blog is running on a customized installation of Drupal.

Another Reason for Law Firms to Authenticate the Domain Used for Their Email Marketing Campaigns

One of the trends in the email deliverability space is increasing implementation of domain-based reputation by ISP's and other organizations as an anti-spam and filtering tool. Briefly, for a long time, a particular sender's reputation was tied primarily to the IP address from which their email was sent. Now, a sender's reputation will also become increasingly associated with the domain from which the email is sent. 

As explained by George Bilbrey in his article "The Myths (And Truth) About Domain Reputation," one of the consequences of the trend towards domain-based reputation is that marketers looking to maximize deliverability need to authenticate their domains with Domain Keys (DKIM) in order to take advantage of what domain reputation has to offer. In other words, authenticated domains is what the new reputation systems are assigning value to.

At the same time, Bilbrey also notes that the rollout of domain-based reputation won't necessarily save marketers from the risks of using a shared IP - very common among the cheaper email blast services. This is because IP-based reputation systems will remain in place. So if you are sharing an IP with other entities that engage in spammy activity, your deliverability will likely still suffer even if you have a stellar domain reputation.

eLawMarketing's clients who take advantage of our premium sender authentication package will continue to enjoy the best of both worlds - a unique private IP address untainted by the activity of any other entities, and an authenticated domain.

Download our advanced email deliverability and authentication brochure to learn more.

SpamAssassin Announces New Release

SpamAssassin is the most popular open source spam filtering software. It has won numerous awards, and has been incorporated into many commercial filtering applications. 

So it's important for law firms seeking to maximize deliverability to keep an eye on the tests used by SpamAssassin to assign scores to email messages. 

At the end of January, SpamAssassin announced version 3.3.0, their first major update since 2007. The new release contains many of the already familiar tests (e.g. assigning points for use of the word "Viagra"). But there are some interesting ones - for example, you can be penalized if your email contains the following: 'Dear (something)' - so much for personalization. 

Also interesting: the word "free" in the body doesn't appear to earn a penalty, unless spaced oddly (or capitalized).

What Law Firms Can Learn About Online Video From the Pink Glove Dance

Happy holidays and New Year to all of our readers - we're back in action after a month-long hiatus (very busy December! Sorry we fell off people's radar screens!).

It's unfortunate that so many law firms are ignoring online video - it offers so many opportunities to creatively promote a firm.

As but one illustration, play the video below produced by a hospital in Portland to promote breast cancer awareness. Dubbed the "Pink Glove Dance," it has become a YouTube sensation (viewed over 5 million times!), no doubt garnering much positive publicity for both the hospital (even if only as a great place to work!), and the cause of breast cancer awareness. I can envision a law firm, say, producing a video about "going green."

For any law firms or lawyers that want to take the plunge into online video in 2010, we've partnered with a video production firm - we can handle directing, lighting, editing, etc. - download our online video brochure to learn more.

Enjoy!

Businesses Increased Email Marketing Spend in 2009

In an effort to find cost effective ways to dialogue with customers and prospects, businesses are continuing to increase spending on email marketing.  A chart recently published by MarketingSherpa showed that a substantially higher percentage of companies across multiple industries increased their email marketing budgets rather than decreased them.

The reason for this trend is that email marketing has an established reputation for delivering a strong ROI. According to the Direct Marketing Association, email's ROI in 2009 was $43.52 for every dollar spent on it!

Law firms should be encouraged by these trends to continue investing in email marketing campaigns that reinforce their expertise with clients, referral sources and other contacts.

Attention Solo Lawyers and Small Law Firms: You Need to Spend Money to Make Money

Faced with a difficult economic environment, many solo practitioners and small law firms have slashed their marketing budgets. Indeed, I recently spoke with an attorney practicing in a specialized niche that is currently doing poorly - shopping centers - who declined to invest in a blog because "times are tight." I told him I thought this was a big mistake, and advised that the right time to invest in a blog was when business is slow and he had "downtime" to spend researching and writing posts. Over time, the blog posts would reinforce his expertise and reputation for thought leadership in the area of shopping center law, and thereby help him develop a readership of prospective clients that could convert into new business when the real estate industry turned around.

Happily, this advice was recently corroborated in an article on eMarketer, which dicussed a report showing that increasing marketing spending in a downturn can help a company prosper when the economy improves. According to the report (from Hurwitz & Associates), there is a correlation between small businesses that had raised marketing spending and businesses that expected increased revenue. The lesson? You need to spend money to make money.

That is not to say, however, you need to spend lavishly. The report also found that small businesses are shifting marketing spend to less costly online marketing tools such as social media, e-mail newsletters and search engine strategies.

Go here to read the full article.

Developing a Team-Authored Blog at Your Law Firm

It's well-established that blogs are a great way for lawyers to promote their expertise, and to create keyword-rich content for search engines. But managing a law firm blog with multiple attorney contributors can pose challenges. An excellent recent case study on MarketingSherpa explored how one small accoustical consulting firm got eight of their engineers to begin contributing on a regular basis to a blog that now accounts for more than 50% of natural search-generated visits to the firm's website. Since this consulting firm sells expertise (to architects, building owners, etc.), their step-by-step tactics are useful for law firms.

In a nutshell, here are the steps that the firm followed (to read the full case study entitled "Create and Manage a Team-Authored Blog: 8 Steps to Reap SEO Gains" visit MarketingSherpa; subscription required for access):

Step #1. Establish a goal for the blog

The firm settled on two primary goals for the blog: (i) to educate readers about major issues in the acoustical engineering industry, and thereby position the company as a thought-leader without being excessively self-promotional, and (ii) to create a new source of keyword-rich content to complement the SEO strategy for their website.

Step #2. Develop keyword lists to incorporate into blog posts

The company developed a list of their target audiences -- architects, engineers, building owners, and attorneys -- and then identified the different phrases used by each group to describe their acoustical consulting needs. The blogging team also developed keyword lists of different phrases associated with their major industry sectors, such as: healthcare, auditoriums, industrial, education and worship.

Sharing Compelling Email Content on Social Sites Makes Sense

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...

Why You Should Always TYPE the Subject Line for a Law Firm Email Alert or Newsletter (Instead of Copy and Paste)

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?

Is Social Media the End of Email As We Know 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.

How Lawyers Can Use Podcasts to Publicize Their Expertise

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.

The SEO Value of Internal Website Links

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.

Email Design Tips for Blackberries (With Bonus: Jerry Seinfeld Blackberry Routine)

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.

10 Key Style Guidelines for Law Firm Websites, Blogs and Email Communications

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):

Marketers See Social Media Emerging as a Complement to Email and Search Marketing

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.

With Email Alert Deliverability, You Get What You Pay For

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.

How Lawyers Can Use the Groups Feature on LinkedIn for Lead Generation

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).

Registration Open for Webinar Series on "Best Practices" in Internet Marketing for Law Firms and Lawyers

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.

Making the Case for a Law Firm Email Marketing Program

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.

Marketers Believe Social Media Is an Effective Branding Tool

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.

Clever Inbound Linking Strategy for Law Firms

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.