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Apr

25

The Recession and your Law Practice

Filed Under News and Commentary | Leave a Comment

Turn on the nightly news and chances are the lead story is the economy, and the endless speculation about whether we are, or are not, in a recession. Obviously, with oil prices continuing to climb, the dollar continuing to weaken, and the housing market not yet hitting bottom, the question of whether we are “technically” in a recession is really academic.

The real question (for this audience) is what does the current economic state actually mean for the boutique and mid-sized law firms who desperately need to invest in the growth of their practices?

A lot of wisdom can be found by listening to Warren Buffett, the “Oracle of Omaha”, and the world’s second richest man. In a recent interview, Mr. Buffett said the possibility that the U.S. economy will go into recession will make no difference in how he runs his Berkshire Hathaway empire. “We don’t spend any time talking about where the economy is going. We have a basic belief that the country will do very well over time.”

I point this out, because the propensity of many law firms (and other privately-owned businesses) is to make investment decisions based on the economy at that specific point in time, and make these decisions using emotions.

“The market is doing poorly and my phones aren’t ringing. I can’t possibly spend money on marketing. I’ll focus on marketing when the economy picks back up.”

Unfortunately, this thinking can actually exacerbate an even more dramatic downward spiral. In most markets across the Country, competition among law firms continues to grow and the successful firms over the long term are the ones who have aggressively built their brands and captured the larger market share.

These firms, like Warren Buffett, don’t stop marketing because of a slow economy. They understand that recessions bring opportunity. While other law firms may be in retreat mode, successful firms use the opportunity to redouble their efforts, build their brand, and ultimately pick up new clients and new market share – market share that was vacated by those firms in retreat.

I’m not saying it’s easy, but Mr. Buffett didn’t build his empire by only investing when the economy was growing. You need to stick with your plan. Perhaps, you focus a little more on lower cost marketing initiatives, such as PR, blogs, e-Newsletters, etc., but you can’t stop your marketing efforts. As an added bonus, since everyone is feeling the same pinch that you are, you may even be able to find some deals and pay lower costs for some of your marketing efforts, because right now, everyone is willing to negotiate.

When the market does turn around, you’ll be far ahead of those firms who elected to sit this recession out.

-John Sailer, BARD Marketing

Apr

1

The Bible, Harry Potter and telling a great story

Filed Under Business Development Strategies, marketing tips | Leave a Comment

What do the Bible and the latest Harry Potter book have in common? At first glance, maybe nothing. However they actually share an important trait – both are stories and use effective storytelling techniques to evoke emotion – and in the case of the bible, the stories help provide Christians with a deeper meaning of life and how we should live.Now, I promise not to get theological here. Really, what I want to point out is the power of “storytelling” and how law firms and attorneys can use storytelling concepts to help in your business development efforts.Let me provide an example of the power of storytelling:

‘One morning a man is out on his daily walk and comes across a construction site, with 3 bricklayers busy at work. Curious, the man asks the bricklayers what they are building. The first bricklayer is very busy and as such answers, “What does it look like?” and continues his work. The second bricklayer tells the man that they are busy building a brick wall. The third man, pauses for a moment, saying that they are building the most beautiful museum that will hold great and beautiful art from around the world.’

Obviously, asking the same question to the three workers yielded greatly varied answers, and though all of the answers where accurate, only one of them would help build a mental image and evoke emotion.

Now apply this example to a recent conversation where someone that you didn’t know may have asked what you do for a living. Did you tell him that you are a lawyer? Or did you tell them something more – something that actually helped that person create a positive mental image of you and your law firm – an image that may provoke that person to tell his or her family or friends about you or perhaps remember your name should he or she ever need your services.

Effective trial attorneys are often great storytellers in the courtroom, realizing that while people rationalize and legitimize with their brains, they often make decisions with their hearts, and cognitively use stories to help remember key points.

However, when it comes to business development, many attorneys, when asked what they do for a living, provide answers are anything but emotional in nature.

The same concepts of storytelling used in the Bible or the latest best-selling novel should be used by an attorney or law firm to create an emotional bond with potential clients and strengthen his or her law firm’s brand. Every law firm should have a core story – that is to say, a story that transforms the values of ideals of the law firm into a single unified message. And every attorney should have a compelling story that is in concert with the firm’s core story.

Need more proof? Think of two pervasive consumer brands – Nike and Apple. Both have very strong brands – Nike’s brand pure and simple is about the will to win. And one can very easily understand Apple’s brand through their “I’m a Mac” commercials. The truth is, when looking at most brands that have endured, they have, at their very root, stories that help build the brand and emotional connections with their clients?

Why should your law firm be any different?

-John Sailer, BARD Marketing

Mar

3

Florida Bar Advertising Rules and the First Amendment

Filed Under News and Commentary, State BAR Marketing Regulations | Leave a Comment

Any attorney who has advertised in Florida has probably experienced a few calls with the Florida Bar Ethics Committee to discuss what is and is not allowed in their print or television ad. Right or wrong, the Florida Bar’s advertising rules are among the most restrictive in the nation, prohibiting slogans, descriptions of the quality of service, testimonials, or ads depicting “suspense” or of “solving a problem”.

In January 2008, Public Citizen, along with a prominent Jacksonville attorney, filed a lawsuit in federal court, contending that the Florida Bar rules violate free speech, and impose arbitrary and unfair restrictions on how lawyers can communicate with consumers.

While it is way too early to tell what the outcome of the suit will be, this is not the first time that a suit has been filed against a state Bar organization on the basis of First Amendment Rights. There appears to be a trend by both attorneys and watch dog organizations including Public Citizen and the FCC to fight overly restrictive regulations. Both the New York State Bar and the Louisiana State Bar have also had suits filed by Public Citizen in the last few years.

States with restrictive advertising rules adopt these rules ostensibly ‘to protect consumers’, however the common complaint against these Bar organizations from their own members is that the rules are arbitrary and restrict fair competition.

For its part, Public Citizen is “interested in the right to engage in truthful legal advertising because commercial speech in this context not only encourages beneficial competition in the marketplace for legal services, but can also educate consumers about their rights, inform them when they may have a legal claim, and enhance their access to the legal system.”

Furthermore, Public Citizen claims that attorney advertising restrictions “appear to be targeted at basic techniques used in effective advertisements. There is nothing actually or inherently misleading, however, about any of these techniques. Consumers are accustomed to the notion that actors, mottos, and dramatized scenes appear in commercials, and are unlikely to make the assumption that everyone and everything they see in a commercial is literally real.”

In a statement responding to the lawsuit against them, the Florida Bar says that it “supports the most restrictive limitations on lawyer advertising consistent with constitutional requirements so as to better protect the public.”

So, what’s the moral of the story? Well, the moral of the story is that more and more state Bar organizations are coming under fire for restrictions on first amendment rights in regards to attorney advertising. And while I wouldn’t predict quick victories for Public Citizen and the plaintiffs in all cases, these suits clearly mark a change in practicing attorneys’ attitudes about legal advertising. An increasing number of attorneys and law firms are realizing that being a reputable attorney with traditional ideologies on practicing law - and being an attorney / law firm who advertises - aren’t mutually exclusive. Advertising isn’t just used by ambulance chasers anymore. In fact, one could argue that the public needs to know about the reputable, credible attorneys in their market.

I doubt that many attorneys want to see the profession sullied. But given increased competition, more and more attorneys understand the need to advertise and market their practice in order to grow their business and expect to be able to use commonly accepted advertising and marketing styles and practices.

-John Sailer, BARD Marketing

Feb

20

ABA website survey - many firms still missing out

Filed Under News and Commentary, marketing tips, web strategies | Leave a Comment

Recently, the ABA reported the findings from their annual Legal Technology Survey. One survey topic was the usage of websites among law firms. The survey identified that 73% of respondent firms have websites, which is consistent with the 2006 survey findings.While it’s not surprising that the respondents from law firms with 50 or more attorneys all had websites, it was surprising that only 2/3 of small firms (between 2 and 9 attorneys) had websites, and even more surprising that less than 1 in 3 of solo practitioners have a website.The reason that these findings are startling is that by and large, across the majority of law practice areas, the most cost effective business development mechanism is the website. Usage of Google, Yahoo (and other search engines), Google Maps and local search continues to grow. Many demographics don’t use phonebooks; if they want to find a business, they only use the web. With this in mind, it is apparent that the need for a firm website will continue to grow.

Also, a law firm website can be the great equalizer. What I mean by this is that while large firms usually have an edge when it comes to promoting their firm given their large marketing budgets, Google and the other search engines have absolutely no bias for the big firms. Many of the best websites (from a search engine performance, branding and content perspective) are from solo attorneys and small firms. It’s not unheard of for the small firms to get 2000 - 4000 or more website visitors every month, with many of these visitors converting to clients.

Among other interesting findings is that only 5% of respondents’ firms have blogs. While those firms that do use blogs see strong business development benefits, the implementation of law firm blogs is increasing quite slowly. Again, this is unfortunate, because in many cases, a law firm blog can be a great tool to keep top-of-mind with referral attorneys, and help build an overall web presence. When we talk to firms, many are interested in blogs, but cite lack of time as the reason for not doing. However, when put in the context of being a business development tool, the time commitment to write blog entries are not unreasonable.

Many firms that don’t have a website may argue that their practice is specialized, they have a strong flow of business, they don’t need to market themselves or that they just don’t have the money.

Pragmatically speaking, every day you don’t have a website is one more day that you may be missing out on getting new business and building lucrative new relations. Who can afford this?

-John Sailer, BARD Marketing

Feb

7

LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell and Findlaw Lawyer Directories – the next casualties of Google?

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First it was The Yellow Book, The Real Yellow Pages and all the other phonebook directories. Now it’s the online attorney directories like LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell and Findlaw’s attorney listing service that just may be the latest casualties of Google and the other search engines as more and more law firms develop websites and leverage pay-per-click and search engine optimization (SEO) strategies. As recent as five years ago, it was a sign of success for a law firm to advertise on the back cover of the local yellow pages directory and have firm listings and attorney listings with LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell and Findlaw – and it made good business sense. But the benefits of using these legal directories have been declining for the last several years with many law firms either reducing their spending on directory services or are canceling their agreements altogether. The directories and their ala cart services are typically overpriced for the value they provide as client-acquisition tools, especially when compared to pay-per-click campaigns, banner ads and other web-based marketing efforts. While these services do not price their services by the number of people who “click-through” from a directory listing to a law firm’s website, it is fairly easy to identify how many people are clicking through to a law firm’s website by looking at the site’s performance metrics. As I discussed last September in “What your web provider doesn’t want you to know”, your website statistics will identify the number of visitors coming to your site and where they are coming from. By tracking the number of visitors that have come to your site from a directory site and dividing the cost of the service by the number of visitors, you can easily see the acquisition cost of each visitor. From here it is easy to compare this cost with the costs of other web-based marketing techniques. The directory sites may provide value to your law firm, and the LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell’s of the world may continue to innovate and improve their offerings. In any case, savvy law firms will compare the cost-benefit of their directory listings with the cost-benefit of other potential marketing and business development strategies.

- John Sailer, BARD Marketing

Jan

30

30 years since Bates vs. Arizona, what’s really changed?

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In celebration of the 30^th anniversary of Bates vs. State Bar of Arizona, I wanted to talk about the true impact of this landmark case. Discussing Bates vs. State Bar of Arizona typically raises a lot of passion among attorneys, with many attorneys praising the protection of First Amendment rights, and the remainder lamenting the decision and its impact on the ethics of the profession. What both of these groups rarely acknowledge, however, is that while Bates vs. Arizona was a landmark decision, it is far from being the only factor that influences how consumers choose attorneys today. Often those against the decision cite television advertising as the downfall of the legal profession. And while television advertising is a main issue of controversy among attorneys, those who believe that Bates vs. Arizona dictates how attorneys and consumers interact are missing the point. In the age of YouTube, Google, social networks, 24-hour news channels, blogs and readily available public information, consumers operate from a position of power. There is no mystique about the “man behind the curtain” anymore, just transparency. Consumers have access to much more information than they ever did, and it is this transparency that truly is changing how consumers make their choices. Consider:

Car shoppers know dealer costs, rebates and holdbacks of every vehicle on the lot before walking into a car showroom.
Casual investors with online-trading accounts have access to virtually the same information that a professional stockbroker sees, and at the time that the broker sees it.
WebMD.com gets 40 million visitors to its website every month – primarily people looking for information on various heath topics.
The upcoming primaries and general elections are being played out on YouTube and on blogs across the country. In case you forgot, this rant by Howard Dean signaled the beginning of the end of his run in the last primaries.

While Bates vs. Arizona may have changed the mechanisms of how attorneys could market themselves, many successful law firms were selling their brand long before this ruling came into play. These firms understood their differentiators, and provided this information to consumers –they just couldn’t do so using mass-market advertising tactics. So, in one sense, nothing has changed since Bates vs. Arizona – successful firms are still selling their brand. What has changed is that consumers now demand that same level of information and transparency from law firms that they get from other businesses, and If you aren’t providing the types of information that consumers require to make their decisions, you probably are losing out to those that are – whether you advertise on television or not. -John Sailer, BARD Marketing

Jan

24

Streaming videos, blogs and Facebook, oh my!

Filed Under News and Commentary, marketing tips | Leave a Comment

Streaming videos and blogs; social networking sites like Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn; Pay-per-click campaigns, Wikis and RSS; These are a few of the “new” mechanisms that you can use to help market your law firm. Are you using any of these? Have you thought about how to leverage them in your marketing and advertising efforts, and how they can integrate with some of your traditional marketing programs, such as television and print advertising, your firm website, or your direct mail and newsletter campaigns? While it would be foolish to declare traditional marketing and advertising strategies to be old and ineffective, it definitely makes sense to understand the “new-media” techniques and how to best apply them in your overall marketing plan. Streaming Videos are a definite part of the internet culture and will continue to grow in usage and popularity. One only needs to look at the rise of YouTube, and the advertising dollars that are flowing into YouTube from traditional advertisers to understand its relevance. This, coupled with the ability to quickly and effectively produce and publish professional-quality video at a low cost will only continue to increase the usage of web-based Streaming Video as a powerful sales tool. Facebook and other Social Networking sites have transforming how young adults communicate with each other and the outside world. Just as the baby boomers grew up writing letters, and the GenX-ers grew up using email, the millennials are using Facebook to communicate with one another. Blogs and Podcasts continue to grow in popularity, and their usage in the legal profession is fast growing as well, prompting the term “Blawg”. A relevant, well written blawg will draw readers, and help you cement your brand and draw new cases. RSS (Real Simple Syndication) is starting to replace email (and fax) as the method to share information with those who are interested, and is transforming how media professionals are getting story ideas. There are a lot of ways to market and advertise your law firm. With technology ever-evolving, traditional media trends shifting and demographics changing, law firms built for the long haul need to keep pace. While we won’t proclaim the NBC Nightly News or Sunday Times dead, law firms do need to understand how new media and technology can help positively transform their law firm marketing to generate more cases and clients. -John Sailer, BARDMarketing

Jan

9

David vs. Goliath. Who Wins?

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Recently, we have worked with several successful law firms interested in protecting their home turf in the face of dominant regional law firms that are expanding into their areas aggressively looking for clients. We are seeing this trend with personal injury law firms as well as firms in other practice areas. A recent Altman Weil study also highlights this growth and consolidation of these large firms.

Clearly, the large law firms have several advantages that give the smaller, boutique firms reason for concern. In many cases, the biggest concern is in the battle for new clients. The large firms often have extremely large marketing budgets, and can afford television advertising, billboards, phone book covers, and aggressive business development efforts.

In the face of this aggressive marketing, the smaller, local firms often worry about how they will thrive with the new competition, and in some cases they concede to the larger firm without fighting back. And unfortunately, many of these smaller firms don’t realize that they do indeed have competitive differentiators against these firms. Just a few of these differentiators are below:

Personal Service- Ok, this one is easy. In smaller firms, clients are typically handled by a partner or shareholder rather than an associate or a paralegal. To many clients, especially those with serious cases, this is very important. To put some perspective on this issue, imagine if your primary contact with you accountant, broker, or doctor was through their staff.

Deep knowledge in specific sub-practice areas– In many situations, the large firms have wide breadth of knowledge, but little depth in any one specific sub-practice area. It’s the old saw “Jack-of-all-Trades, Master-of-none.” They have grown either by selling additional services to current clients or by economically handling general issues. In contrast, smaller firms often build their business around a narrowly defined area of law- such as accidents resulting in catastrophic brain injuries, SEC Arbitration, etc. This specialization should be highlighted and branded. It provides for a differentiated message that resonates both with prospective clients as well as other attorneys who may refer a case. It is an easy way to build a reputation and differentiation.

Flexibility– Compare the difficulty that a large ocean liner has in making a course correction with that of a smaller pleasure boat. This analogy holds true when comparing law firms and their ability to change. In many big firms, bureaucracy, overhead constraints and the inability to get shareholders together to make decisions cause these powerful firms to be slow to react. Smaller firms, on the other hand should use their agility to their advantage. Whether pertaining to potential new practice areas, changes in law, marketing opportunities or technological trends, the smaller firms can take advantage of these trends to grow both their top line revenues and bottom line profits.

Web presence– Google doesn’t care how big your law firm is when ranking your website. Smaller law firms have the same ability to create a high-impact website that is both found and positively ranked by the search engines and that is read by prospective clients. Given some of the issues highlighted above, smaller firms also have better opportunities to create high impact blogs, take advantage of the latest web trends and use the web as a lead generator, rather than just a firm brochure.

Large law firms clearly have some inherent advantages over smaller firms. But smaller firms can compete and succeed through strategic use of their strengths. Remember, Goliath doesn’t always win.

-John Sailer, BARD Marketing

Dec

12

Hello sir or ma’am. My name is anonymous.

Filed Under marketing tips | Leave a Comment

Have you ever gone fishing with a shotgun? It doesn’t work too well. Successful fishermen use specific lures, equipment and casting techniques for the type of fish that they want to catch.

What does fishing have to do with lawyer marketing? Well, many attorneys approach marketing to other attorneys in the same fashion as a fisherman with a shotgun tries to catch fish. By this, I mean they typically buy the entire list of practicing attorneys in the state from their state bar organization. They then send out a generic, unbranded direct mail piece to everybody on that list, hoping that someone will respond. While some law firms get response to these pieces, they are usually the ones that have demonstrated expertise over time and have strong brand recognition and a strong value proposition. For everyone else, sending out generic direct mail pieces to large groups of other attorneys provides little short term benefits or results, and typically these efforts cost a lot of money to do so. Granted, over time, this strategy may work, in combination with other marketing efforts, but it’s a tough road to travel. Alternatively, we can take queues from the successful fisherman and learn from their techniques.

Know what you are fishing for. Are you a(n):

Trial attorney looking to co-counsel cases with non-trial attorneys?
Divorce attorney marketing to other attorneys who have high-net worth clients?
Criminal defense attorney specializing in white-collar crime?
Personal injury attorney looking to touch base with past referral partners?
Experienced attorney just opening shop in a new city?

Each one of these situations is different and requires a unique strategy. As such, spending the time to define what you are trying to accomplish with your marketing effort is the first step.

Fish in the right location

Once you have defined what you are trying to accomplish, it is much easier to identify the target audience. In some cases, you may want to purchase a list of attorneys in a geographic location, or that are in a specific practice area. In other cases you may want to leverage your own list, but rarely do you need to send a direct mail piece to every attorney in a 6-county area, much less the entire state.

Use the right bait and the right equipment

What is the right format to communicate your message? It could be a newsletter, customized mail piece or a personal letter. It could potentially be a blog, podcast, or a video. What message will work best to help you achieve the desired outcome? In some cases, the message is a reminder of your firm’s brand and value proposition, in other cases it may be an educational message, and in others, it may be a recap of your recent successes. A generic message will not entice your audience to take the bait, so to speak. A well-thought-out message for the appropriate audience will, however, get bites. Remember, a successful fisherman goes home able to feed his or her family. An unsuccessful fisherman talks about “the one that got away.” -John Sailer, BARD Marketing

Dec

3

The 7 Deadly Sins of Attorney Newsletter Production

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Every month, mailboxes at law firms across the country are crammed full of newsletters from other firms. Some of these newsletters get read and provide value for both the sender and receiver. Many others don’t, but rather, end up in the trash can. To help you with your next newsletter, I’ve create a list of “The 7 Deadly Sins of Newsletter Production.”

Thou shall not create a “brag rag.” While communicating your successes in recent trials and settlements helps validate your credentials, this cannot be the only focus. Over time, the respect that you may build often turns to disdain. Your newsletter needs to focus on your readers and their needs, not the victory lap of your recent courtroom conquest.

Thou shall not be lazy and send out newsletters infrequently. Newsletters, like all advertising works on the concept of frequency. To keep top of mind with your readers and build a connection, your newsletters can’t be something that “you will get to when you have the time.” They need to be published consistently – whether monthly, quarterly or every six months. Create a schedule and stick to it.

Thou shall not be aimless. You editorial strategy can’t be just to fill up your newsletter with random “stuff”. You must have a specific editorial calendar and a plan on articles and information that you want to include. If you fill your newsletter with “filler”, you are wasting your readers’ time. Don’t waste your readers’ time.

Thou shall not be tedious. A good newsletter has several different types of articles. You may have a couple of case write-ups, perhaps an article designed to educate your readers, a spotlight on your client and information on recent laws or legislation.

Thou shall not be unfocused. Sending out the same newsletter to everybody on your State BAR attorney list is inefficient and ineffective. A generic message to a general audience is a waste of money. Focus on specific messages to specific audiences. Technology exists today that enables you to personalize your newsletters with relevant information based on specific segments of readers. A laser-focused approach will be a shotgun approach ever time.

Thou shall not be penny wise and pound foolish. Often, there is a tendency to focus on sending out as many newsletters as possible, while trying to cut costs on the newsletter production. A good newsletter has strong production values and quality content. A dated, cheap-looking, poorly written newsletter does more harm than good.

Thou shall remember that the benefit you receive is based on the value received by the reader. Its simple- a high quality newsletter with articles that benefit the reader will be read, and will have a greater impact on your phones ringing, while a low quality newsletter with little information will just be thrown away.

Producing a firm newsletter requires a significant investment of time and resources. If you are producing a newsletter, make sure that it is consistently of high quality with content that your audience actually wants to read. Otherwise, find something else to spend your money on.

-John Sailer, BARD Marketing

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