A: A central point of contention between people who think online marketing (read: social media) is worthwhile for lawyers who want to get clients and those who think it is a waste of time is this question: Is there a critical mass of good-quality clients online, and are they ready and willing to hire you if you market yourself online?
In other words, if you go all-in with online marketing, could you get the kind of business you hope for in your wildest dreams?
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People create blogs to attract readers. And in other news, fire is hot.
But how to attract readers? Sure, you can follow Sam’s advice and strive to write well on topics you’re knowledgeable about. I’ve tried that. I’ve combined my experience with my own independent study to provide a lot of sober advice on good lawyering. Almost all those posts were greeted with a yawn, followed, I suspect, by an immediate click over to Buzzfeed.
I’ve also had a handful of posts get rather popular all at once. I’ve been wondering why, so I conducted an entirely unscientific study (okay, I thought about it for a while). You really should follow Sam’s advice—strive for informative, useful content. But when you want to mix it up a little, here are my Top 5 ways to get eyeballs on your posts.
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Website redesign projects often begin with phrases like “our website looks generic”, or “we hate our site, it looks like a template,” or “our website does not convey the image of our firm.” The answer to all of these problems is imagery. When your website uses generic images, your website looks generic. Maybe you have a fancy layout, or a tricky animated slideshow, or messaging and copywriting that you have slaved over, but none of these will survive the malignant tumor of horrible images.
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Lawyers are always asking. “who has the best law firm website?” And I always answer, “that’s easy, Saul Goodman.”
But what makes attorney Goodman’s website the best?
Is it the design? His calls to action? His messaging? The SEO?
Let me break it down for you.
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If you go to YouTube right now and search for lawyers, you’ll probably find some clips of popular lawyer movies. You’re also likely to find a lot of crappy legal marketing videos and some that might make you laugh.
But for some lawyers, video might just be the best medium to communicate with audiences.
An attorney profile is so much more important than listing where you went to law school (whether or not you include the date of graduation), your bar association memberships, and your areas of practice.
Of course that stuff matters.
But, in my opinion, even though the attorney profile has been around since the first lawyer website, it remains a largely untapped goldmine.
By following three steps to a better attorney profile, you’ll make it do what it’s really capable of: turning potential clients into paying clients.
I’m frequently asked how much time and money should attorneys spend on marketing. Like a true lawyer, I reply that “it depends.” There is no magic percentage of revenue or billable hours to be allocated to business development activities. The answer to this question will vary by practice area, geographic location and budget.
But when asked about the two most important marketing tools for attorneys, my answer is rarely “it depends.” The answer is your networking efforts and your website. No matter how much time and money a lawyer decides to spend, spend it in these two areas.
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Running a solo practice means you have to run a business and practice law, which requires a constant juggling of tasks.
The toughest challenge is marketing your solo firm—and ensuring that potential clients are consistently finding and hiring you.
One very effective way to market yourself and your firm is having a blog. A blog should not be your only marketing plan, but it should be part of it.
I’ve been working as a copywriter and marketer for lawyers since 2008. I’ve helped build hundreds of lawyer websites and wrote countless blog posts. I’ve seen the good, the bad and the ugly when it comes to direct marketing on the Internet.
And the one must-have for all lawyer websites, in my opinion, isn’t great design or clever copy or superb SEO. It’s not having all the bells and whistles like click-to-chat and video clips.
So what is it?
It’s telling a damn good story.
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Because solicitation is a bad word in the legal profession, the ABA Model Rules governing advertising and direct marketing make you read between the lines. You learn what you can do through rules that mostly state what you can’t. Because lawyers are blood-sucking vampires, our pale faces stuck in the rear-view of every tearing ambulance, these rules restrain us from the helpless sleeping public, when night falls and our urges to solicit business overwhelm.
But this is the age of Google and always-on Web connectivity. Let’s channel our unholy energies in the way I describe below and prove to the ABA we’re not that dangerous – and that the model rules on lawyer advertising should be significantly revised and expanded.
This is legal marketing as professional responsibility.
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