Legal Marketing

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cropped-005-lma-ne-2015-conference-email-banner_emailRather than bringing you our regularly scheduled “Two for Tuesdays” today, I’m continuing the roundup from the LMA New England Conference, with “Creating a WOW Communications Program,” another excellent session I attended.

Whether you’re tasked directly with communications or not, the truth is that we’re all communicators in our firms – we all have messages to deliver, whether it’s as lawyers to clients or as marketers to our lawyers. So there are strong benefits to gain from this session for all of us. 
Continue Reading Creating a WOW Communications Program

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Last week, we took a look at two mistakes that may be impacting your content marketing, giving up too early and not marketing your content. Continuing with our theme, and thanks to Content Marketing Institute for their inspiration, we’re going to look at another two mistakes today.

Mistake Number One: Your Offerings Have Become Passé

This mistake is really about two things – not producing enough new content, and not thinking outside of the box with your existing content offerings. Both can be problematic.

Not Producing Enough New Content

I am a firm believer in quality over quantity when it comes to content. Yes, I write a lot myself, but that doesn’t mean I advocate it for everyone – it’s just what works for me.

But when you’re producing content, it’s all about “what have you done for me lately?” If you’re not reminding people that you’re out there, and providing them with value, they just won’t think about you at all. It’s as simple as that.

So you may not need to publish a new blog post or produce a new video every week. But you can’t let months go by without offering NEW content of value. And there is SO much that you’re already doing that can be fodder for good content that there’s really no excuse.

  • Sit down and give yourself the writing prompt “I am often asked…” What is it that your clients regularly ask you about the law that you’re always answering for them? Turn that into a blog post or a whitepaper – if a few of your clients are always asking you something, the likelihood is that others who are NOT your clients but are in the industry are wondering the same thing. Why not share your wisdom and expertise with them?
  • When new legislation comes out or cases are decided, do you email some of your clients with the impact that will have on their business? Take the content of those emails and turn it into a general article or blog post that you can use to explain to a generic company in the industry how the same legislation or court decision may impact THEM. It just takes some tweaking and removing of any confidential information to repurpose something you’re already doing.
  • If you’re speaking at conferences on a subject, take your presentations and share them on SlideShare. Turn them into a series of blog posts. Pull out the most salient points and create a short video around them.

Continue Reading 2 [More] Mistakes that Are Killing Your Content Marketing

cropped-005-lma-ne-2015-conference-email-banner_emailAs I’ve mentioned, the LMA NE conference was full of really meaty, thought-provoking content. One of the excellent sessions I attended was “Lead Nurturing Ecosystems – Moving Legal Marketing from an Art to a Science.”

The panelists for the session were:

Continue Reading Lead Nurturing Ecosystems – Moving Legal Marketing from an Art to a Science

cropped-005-lma-ne-2015-conference-email-banner_emailDuring the LMA NE conference, one of the sessions I was most looking forward to was the keynote with Adam Grossman, the Senior Vice President/Marketing & Brand Development, Boston Red Sox & Fenway Sports Management. It may seem like a stretch that legal marketing and baseball marketing have anything in common, but if you’re a regular Zen reader, you’ll know that I love looking outside of our industry for inspiration. 

Grossman actually did an excellent job of tying in sports marketing to what we do – typically these speakers will leave it up to us to make the connections (something that we should be easily able to do, by the way), but he spelled it out for us pretty nicely, in an engaging and entertaining presentation that may have almost converted this non-baseball fan.

Grossman’s mentor is Larry Lucchino, himself a “recovering lawyer,” so he has special insight into what it’s like to work in this profession, and that helped frame his comments. He shared with us a few essential tips for marketing that we could all agree were great takeaways.
Continue Reading How Baseball is Like Legal Marketing – A Keynote

cropped-005-lma-ne-2015-conference-email-banner_emailDuring last week’s LMA NE conference, we were treated to quite a lot of high level, meaty content. Over the next few weeks, I’ll share recaps of the various sessions here, and I invite you to participate in the discussion!

First up, we have the crisis communications panel that kicked off the conference on the first evening: Crisis Communications: Out of Great Adversity Comes Great Opportunity! From the program description:

In times of despair, crisis communications must be faster than a speeding bullet, stronger than a locomotive, and able to leap all law firm obstructions. Our team of ‘superhero’ panelists are armed with specific pointers on how to best handle crisis communications matters within and outside of a firm. They’ll offer how-to methods and real-life anecdotes for creating a communications plan, as well as ways to use a crisis as an opportunity to strengthen your firm. Details will be provided on how to work through the knee-jerk ‘no comment’ response law firms and lawyers are known for. Panelists will share best practices for damage control and secrets to learning from past mistakes. Arm yourself and be ready to swing into action!”

Continue Reading What’s Your WOW Factor: Crisis Communications

iStock_000024718576SmallToday, I’m bringing you another post from Group Dewey Consulting while I’m traveling for our Regional Meeting of the Americas. This post looks at why the idea of connecting is better than that of networking:

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I’m not a big fan of ‘networking’ -that rite of passage for every professional with aspirations of career changes, promotions or new clients. It has its place, of course. But it’s not the business development panacea many would make it out to be. In fact, I think networking can do more harm than good in some ways. To make my point, here are 7 ways ‘connecting’ is better than ‘networking’.

Networking is about finding ways to know more people.

Connecting is about finding ways to know people more.

My linkedIn profile says that I am connected to 1,560 people. That’s not right. I am ‘networked’ with 1,560 people. But I am not ‘connected’ to them. I can’t be. How could I really ‘know’ that many people? Studies, history, and common sense indicate that the human mind is capable of knowing well only about 150 people. Playing the volume game may serve your ego but it will do little for your happiness, let alone your success. I am ‘connected’ to about 50 to 75 people who I know really well and through whom almost all of my referrals come. Deep connections build communities of people. ‘Communities’ are powerful things. They are made up of groups of people who care about each others’ success, who trust and respect one another and who exchange favors and assistance. Connecting is about finding the people most qualified for you to help and for them to help you, and building connections with those people. It is about building a self supporting ecosystem in which all boats rise together.
Continue Reading 7 REASONS NETWORKING IS DEAD – OR SHOULD BE

photo-1444703686981-a3abbc4d4fe3Last week, I had the pleasure of attending the Legal Marketing Association’s Leadership Conference, as part of my role as Technology Committee Co-Chair for 2016. In preparation for the conference, we were tasked with reading John P. Kotter’s Leading Change. I’ll admit, I was not a huge fan of the book, though it did offer some good advice – I felt that Kotter could have said more with less, and that his Harvard degree gave him too much license for arrogance.

What WAS helpful were the chapter book reports that were presented by members of the LMA’s International Board for 2015/2016, which took us through the salient points of the book. I’ll share my notes with you here and invite you to read the book for further examples and depth. 
Continue Reading Leading Change – An LMA Book Report

12080125_10153722408697792_7221889797601040086_oLast week, I had the great pleasure of presenting with Laura Toledo of Nilan Johnson Lewis and Adrian Lurssen of JD Supra during the Legal Marketing Association’s Technology Conference. Our panel focused on “Crafting your online story: Demystifying the process behind content marketing.”

It was a great interactive session, with questions from the audience and a back and forth dialogue with my two smart co-panelists. Although we covered a LOT of ground in the session, there was one piece of our presentation that we dropped out for time constraints – it’s still an important one, so I’d like to address it here.

The answer to the question “Who are your best sources?” may seem like an obvious one, but some of the ways in which you’ll go about finding the answers, while simple, are not always so black and white. Your best sources of content are going to be your clients, your readers, and the media. Let’s break these down. 
Continue Reading Who Are Your Best Sources of Content?

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SCANDAL – ABC’s “Scandal” stars Kerry Washington as Olivia Pope. (ABC/Craig Sjodin)

Yesterday, I had the privilege of moderating an LMA webinar with Lance Godard, the Client Relationship Manager for Fisher & Phillips, and Mark Elliott, the Director of Business Development & Human Resources at Eastman & Smith on “Reputation Management and Social Media.”

I consider myself a fairly savvy social media user, and a regular, responsible manager of my online reputation, but I learned quite a bit of new information during yesterday’s session, which I want to pass along to Zen readers for your benefit as well!

There are two sides to reputation management that you’re probably thinking of – one of those is crisis management, and this is what to do when someone does or says something damaging to the firm or their personal reputation online. That wasn’t the subject of yesterday’s session, but is also something you want to be conscious and aware of (there’s lots of resources for you out there on how to manage that). 
Continue Reading It’s Handled: How Confident Are You in Your Social Media Reputation?

A fisheye image of a confused geeky-looking woman.

A few weeks ago, I read an interesting piece over on the Content Marketing Institute by Carla Johnson, and I’ve been mulling it over in my mind ever since. Johnson asks whether we’re missing the most important audience for our content marketing – and with a hook like that for the title, you can bet I was going to click to read more.

I’m sure you’re wracking your brains as I was to identify who it is you’re missing – clients, potential clients, referral sources, journalists, conference organizers, influencers, amplifiers…the list goes on. But there is one important group you may be overlooking.

The internal audience at your firm.

The point being that everyone at your firm is a brand ambassador for the firm and its members – everyone, from the receptionist who greets people as they walk in the door and is the first to answer the phone right up to the managing partner of the firm who makes key decisions about strategy and direction, as well as his or her own practice. Every one of those people is telling the story of the firm every time they interact with someone else, whether it’s on purpose or not – that’s just how marketing works. 
Continue Reading Content Marketing – Are You Forgetting Someone?