David M. Ward, Author at The Attorney Marketing Center

Business cards and attorney websites

August 5, 2013 by David M. Ward

Awhile back I wrote a report about business cards–what should go on them, how to use them, that sort of thing. A few attorneys who read the report asked me whether they should put their photo on their business card as they had seen real estate agents and others do. They wanted people to remember their face after a networking event, for example, but thought that kind of card might be unprofessional, especially in court.

I pointed out that they could have more than one card. They could have a plain, traditional card to give to lawyers and judges, and a card with their photo, a slogan, a list of practice areas, and anything else they might want, to give to others.

They could have several cards, in fact, each one tailored for a specific target market. If they ride a motorcycle, for example, and want to target bikers for their personal injury practice, they could have a card that shows them riding.

What’s true of business cards is also true for attorney websites.

You don’t have to limit yourself to one website.

Your could have a main website (or page on your firm’s website) that is plain and professional, to show lawyers and judges, and other websites for other purposes. You can have websites with content optimized for different keywords. You can have websites for different practice areas or different niche markets. You can have a personal blog, where you write about your personal life, causes, and hobbies.

You can have more than one business card, more than one brochure, more than one youtube channel, and more than one website.

The most effective marketing is targeted marketing. The more focused and specific you are, the more your message will resonate with a specific market.

If you want to learn more about attorney websites and Internet marketing, get this.

Filed Under: Business cards, Image, Law office management, Marketing legal services, Online Marketing

Internet marketing for attorneys and handymen

August 2, 2013 by David M. Ward

My wife and I hired a handyman yesterday. She found Dan on a review site for trades people. He had nearly 100 positive reviews, more than any other on the site.

Dan doesn’t have his own website. He probably thinks he doesn’t need one. He’s got all that business coming in from the review site and I’m sure he also gets lots of referrals.

But what if that review site shuts down? Yes it does happen. Sites that aren’t making money, sites that are mismanaged, sites that get sold to someone who has different ideas.

Just like that, Dan’s online presence would be gone. All the business from that site, gone.

Then what?

Okay, he would still get referrals. But when the people getting referred go online to “check him out” and find nothing, what do you think they will do? They’ll go find someone else, that’s what they’ll do.

Now then, how about you? What kind of online presence do you have? Do you have a website? If you don’t and someone goes online to “check you out,” what will they find? Bad stuff? No stuff? Don’t you want them to see some good stuff?

If you do have a website but it is hosted on a site that you don’t own, what will you do if that site goes away?

It won’t happen? That’s what everyone who had their sites at Posterous.com said, just before they shut down.

You need your own site. Hosted on your own account. www.yourname.com.

Directory listings and reviews on other sites are fine. Having a page on your firm’s site is fine. You still need your own site.

I get a lot of emails from attorneys who use the email account at their current employer’s law firm. joelaw@myemployerfirmname.com But what happens when they leave that firm? They lose that email address.

A year from now, if someone has a referral and wants to email them, they can’t. They don’t work here anymore. Do they track him down? Who knows.

So, if you’re not ready to create your own website, at least get you own domain name and your own email address that will never change. you@yourname.com

Here are some of the resources I use and recommend for domains and hosting.

And here is my course on Internet marketing for attorneys.

And, if you need a good handyman. . .

Filed Under: Email, Law office management, Marketing legal services, Online Marketing, Technology Tagged With: Attorney website, Internet marketing for attorneys, Internet marketing for lawyers

Audit your website

August 1, 2013 by David M. Ward

When was the last time you audited your website?

Okay, you need to do that. You need to go through the pages of your site and make sure that all of the requisite elements are present.

Like your contact form. Have you made it easy for website visitors to contact you by phone and email (at least)? Is there a link to this on every page?

Or your newsletter sign up form. You want visitors to join your list so you can stay in touch with them until they are ready to hire you or refer someone. That should also be on every page.

How about a page that lists all of your services, with links to sub-pages providing details about each of those services?

But here’s the thing. Your website may have these and other essential elements and you may think you’ve got things covered. But having them isn’t enough. They need to be easy to find, easy to understand, and easy to use. It’s hard to be objective about things like this.

So, after you audit your website, I suggest you find someone who has never seen your website and ask them to do the same.

Ask them to go through your site, page by page, and tell you what they see and what they think. You might do this with another lawyer, i.e., they go through your site and you go through theirs.

Give some instructions, i.e., “find the services I provide,” “sign up for my newsletter,” or “email me and tell me you want an appointment.”

Have them report if they hit any snags along the way. Was everything easy to find? Was it easy to understand? Did anything slow you down? Did you have any questions that weren’t answered?

Have them start on your home page, and then start again on one of your blog post or article pages, i.e., “landing pages” where they might enter your site if they find it via search.

After they read the home page, ask them to tell you what page they went to next. How long did they stay there? How many pages did they click through to get to something they wanted to see?

The best way to do this is to sit them down in front of a computer and watch them. As they go through your pages, have them narrate their journey–what they see and what they think.

See if they can quickly navigate through your site and find everything you have asked them to find and anything else they are attracted to. This is very valuable information.

You’ll learn what your website visitors encounter when they arrive at your site. You’ll see what you need to add, improve, move, or replace. You’ll know what questions visitors ask themselves as they arrive at and click through your site. And you’ll see how long it takes them to find the key elements that make your site work.

In Make the Phone Ring, I identify nine essential website elements for attracting (prospective) clients and getting them to hire you or take the next step. Whether you create your own websites or hire someone, if you want to get more clients online, you need to know what these elements are and how to implement them. Check it out on this page.

Filed Under: Blogging, Law office management, List building, Marketing legal services, Newsletters, Online Marketing, Technology, Web traffic Tagged With: client audits for law firms, website inventory

Lawyer advertising on Craigslist: Why You Shouldn’t (And How to Do it)

July 31, 2013 by David M. Ward

Most people who look for a lawyer on Craigslist are primarily looking for “cheap prices”. The same is true of most classified advertising sites or publications targeted to the low end of the consumer or small business market. Experience, reputation, “customer service,” and other hallmarks of professionalism are secondary.

Offering “discount prices” is, for most lawyers, ill advised. You’re competing with other lawyers who will undercut you, as well as paralegals, form preparers, and others who troll in the lowest depths of the market.

Unless you wish to position yourself as a “discount lawyer” and offer rock bottom “prices,” stay away from Craigslist and publications like it. Clients who hire the best lawyers and are willing to pay top dollar for those lawyers usually don’t look for them on Craigslist.

There are exceptions. Some people who look on Craigslist do want a good attorney and are willing to pay top dollar. They may go to Craigslist out of habit, because that’s where they go to find other deals. But wanting to save money when buying a used car doesn’t necessarily mean you have the same mindset when hiring an attorney.

But how do you find these people unless you are advertising on Craigslist?

You find them not by advertising your services but by advertising your seminar. Or you book. Or your report.

You sell your book or give it away and build a list of prospects. Yes, most of the people on that list will have a “low price” mentality, but so what? Some won’t. Some will hire you and pay your regular fees.

In addition, some of the people on your list know people who aren’t “low pricers” and will refer them. Others on your list who today demand low prices may tomorrow find their circumstances (and attitude) changed and be willing to pay your “higher” fees. (Probably after they hire one of your low cost competitors and find that they got what they paid for.)

Lawyer advertising on Craigslist is possible. Just don’t advertise your services.

How to market legal services on the Internet. Click here.

Filed Under: Advertising, List building, Marketing legal services, Online Marketing Tagged With: attorney advertising on craigslist, classified ads for lawyers, classified advertising, craigslist, lawyer advertising on craigslist

One year ago I. . . and today. . .

July 30, 2013 by David M. Ward

Let’s try a little exercise. I want you to think back to one year ago. Look at your calendar to remind yourself where you were and what you were doing. Sort your notes by date. Read your diary.

What did you do or change one year ago that has positively affected your life today?Â It doesn’t have to be exactly one year ago. Close enough is close enough.

Write it down.

“One year ago, I. . .” and then describe how your law practice or personal life has improved as a result. Something like this:

One year ago. . .

“. . .I started. . . and today, I. . .”.

“. . .I improved. . . and today, I. . .”.

“. . .I changed. . . and today, I. . .”.

“. . .I updated. . . and today, I. . .”.

“. . .I stopped. . . and today, I . . .”.

You might find it easier to work backwards, that is, to think about something positive in your life right now and see if you can relate it back to something you did last year. For example, if you are seeing an increase in new clients today, you might realize that last year at this time, you began reading my blog or you purchased one of my courses. (Smiley face with big grin goes here.)

Anyway, if you can find something you did last year that has benefited you this year, it should be noted and reflected upon. How did you come to make that change? What precipitated it? What has been the best part? What might you have done differently or better?

Now, think about the future. How can you amplify what you did last year to make it even better this year? What should you continue doing and what should you consider changing? What should you do more of and what might you cut back on?

By now, you have probably figured out that the point of this exercise isn’t really to get you to look back so much as it is to get you to look forward.

What could you do today so that one year from now, you can look back at this date and see how you effected a positive outcome?

Go on, give it some thought and write down your answers. What could you start, improve, change, update, or stop doing today?

Send me an email next year and let me know how it worked out.

The Attorney Marketing Formula includes a simple marketing plan. Check it out here.

Filed Under: Law office management, Marketing legal services, Marketing Plan, Personal development, success

How to “trick” people into staying for your entire presentation

July 29, 2013 by David M. Ward

As a speaker, there’s nothing worse than seeing someone walk out of the room before the end of your presentation. It is distracting. It hurts your ego. And it means there is one less person in the room to buy whatever it is you’re selling.

Not that it’s ever happened to me.

Your presentation might need work. More interesting content. Better stories. A more energetic delivery.

Keep the audience glued to your every word and they’ll stay glued to their seats.

Or, you can trick them into staying in their seats.

Here’s what you do.

At the beginning of the presentation, you or the host tells the audience that you have a gift for them at the end of the presentation. It’s a surprise. It’s something they will want. It’s valuable. “. . so at the end of the presentation, make sure you are in your seats so you can get your free gift.”

You can have fun with it, too. “Confess” that it is a bribe to keep them in their seats because the last time you gave this talk, “we had to lock the doors”. Or whatever.

Now, the gift can be anything. A copy of your book, a CD with several reports or checklists or forms, a DVD with a video of another presentation. Something your audience will like and appreciate. Something that will make them glad they stayed in their seats to get. And something you probably want them to have anyway because it validates you and the services you offer.

Years ago, I was in a business where I did a lot of presentations to the public who were invited off of newspaper ads. At the beginning of the presentation, we told them we had a surprise for them at the end of the presentation, it was really cool, and they should stay in their seats.

They stayed in their seats.

When the presentation ended, we revealed the surprise. We said that before they came into the room, we had randomly taped lottery tickets to the bottom of ten chairs and they should look under their chair to see if they had one. This was shortly after the lottery had been legalized in California and getting a ticket was new and exciting.

For ten bucks, we made sure we had a full house from start to finish. Of course my presentation was brilliant and they would have stayed anyway, but hey, a little insurance never hurts.

People love gifts and they love surprises. If you want them to stay seated (or stay on your webinar or teleconference) until the end of your presentation, promise them a gift at the end. Or, you could just tell better jokes.

Marketing is simple. Lawyers are complicated. If you want to make the phone ring, here’s help.

Filed Under: Marketing legal services, Presentations

3 ways to turn boring legal topics into interesting articles and posts

July 26, 2013 by David M. Ward

If you write a newsletter or blog (and if you don’t, make sure you see me after class), you may struggle with finding interesting topics to write about. The law can be incredibly dry and arcane. Why would clients and prospective clients ever want to read about boring legal topics?

It’s a fair question. After all, if people don’t read your articles, they won’t act on them and, well, what’s the point?

Here are three ways to turn boring legal topics into something people want to read:

1. Write something else.

You don’t always have to write about legal issues and, frankly, you shouldn’t. In my posts, I often write about topics that aren’t overtly about marketing legal services. I’ll write about my wife’s dealings with various vendors, our cat, or anything else that catches my attention. It makes things interesting and provides a never-ending source of topics.

I do tie things together with some reference to marketing legal services, however, because that’s what you pay me for.

You can either start with a legal issue and look for something in your everyday life or outside interests to illustrate or contrast that issue. Or, you can do the opposite, that is, write about your dry cleaner, a movie, or something in the news, and relate it to a legal issue. Or neither. You don’t always have to write about the law.

2. Write about people.

Talk about your clients or other lawyers or judges. Talk about people in the news or in history. Tell stories about how people and the law intersect, how their lives were affected, or will be.

People are always more interesting than a code section or appellate decision. Stories are interesting because they have conflict in them and people want to know “what happened?”

Write about people. Tell their stories. Put most of the “legal stuff” in another article and link to it for those who want to know.

3. Write it anyway.

Boring legal topics are not boring to someone who is facing those issues. Write for those people.

When someone goes to a search engine, they are seeking information about their problem or objective. They want to read about the law, procedure, options, and risks. They want the details, even if most of your other readers (currently) do not.

Write for the person who wants to know.

Your other readers may skip over those articles, waiting for your next post about your cat’s antics or your crazy next door neighbor. They’ll stick around while you help someone with a pressing legal issue. They probably won’t read your posts that are pure legal content, but they’ll be glad to know that if and when they need that kind of information, they know where to find it.

Now, if you can just figure out a way to write a legal analysis post and illustrate it with a story about your cat using your Twitter account to send naked selfies to your neighbor’s puppy. . .

For hundreds of ideas for articles and posts, seeÂ Make the Phone Ring.

Filed Under: Communication, Marketing legal services, Newsletters, Online Marketing, Presentations, Web traffic, Writing

Email marketing for lawyers

July 25, 2013 by David M. Ward

I talked to a lawyer yesterday who told me looks forward to reading my emails every day. I hear that a lot.

There’s a lesson in this.

When you deliver value–information, ideas, stories, tips–you can email your list often. Even daily.

Your readers will look forward to getting your emails and they will read them.

The ones who don’t, the ones who either don’t read your email or unsubscribe from you list, would probably never hire you anyway and you can safely let them go.

The ones who like your emails:

Know you. They know your name and what you do.
Like you. They like hearing your “voice” and reading your advice and stories.
Trust you. They see that you are consistent, dependable. They see that you are continually solving legal problems for other clients and believe you could do the same for them.

So. . .

When they need your services, they’ll almost always call you instead of any other lawyer
When they know someone who needs your services, they’ll refer them to you instead of any other lawyer
When you ask them to “Like” your page, share your article, or invite their friends and contacts to register for your seminar, there’s a good chance they will

Compare this to lawyers who don’t have a list. They have no way to stay in touch with prospective clients so none of the above can occur.

And compare this to lawyers who do have a list but either don’t send value or don’t email often enough:

When they do email, it goes into spam or is not recognized, so it is not opened and read
Or, it’s been so long since they have heard from the lawyer, they don’t really know, like, and trust him, and thus, won’t hire him (or refer)
Or, the email is opened and read but it’s been so long since they heard from the lawyer, they’ve already hired someone

You don’t have to mail every day. Once a week is fine. But do mail often and do deliver value.

Your emails can be short and sweet. A tip, a quick story, a reminder. If you write an article or blog post, send that. If you find an interesting article or video on someone else’s site, send them a link. If you have an interesting case or client, tell them about it.

Email marketing for lawyers is simple. Build a list and build a relationship with the people on that list.

You know you’re doing it right when your subscribers tell you they look forward to getting your emails.

Want to know how to build a list and what to send them? ThisÂ shows you what to do.

Filed Under: Communication, Email, List building, Marketing legal services, Newsletters, Online Marketing, Relationship marketing Tagged With: email marketing for law firms, email marketing for lawyers

How to stop procrastinating

July 23, 2013 by David M. Ward

I wonder how many people each day search on the term, “how to stop procrastinating”.

Eh, I’ll look it up later.

If you’re like me, and most of humanity, you have experienced and perhaps struggled with procrastination. You know there are things you need to do but you don’t want to do them. (If you wanted to do them, you would do them.)

You are feeling resistance because the task is too big, too unpleasant, or too difficult. You may not know what to do or where to begin. The task may be too risky and you are afraid of making a mistake.

So, you tell yourself you don’t really need to do it now, it can wait. Or you elevate the importance or urgency of other tasks and do them instead.

You may have become very clever at finding excuses for not doing the things you need to do. And you may feel guilty about that and look for ways to overcome your affliction.

But you shouldn’t. Your subconscious mind has created this resistance and you shouldn’t fight it, you should give in to it.

Your subconscious self wants you to be safe and happy so it makes you feel negative emotions when you think about tasks you don’t want to do.

Don’t ignore those feelings. Don’t try to overcome them. Let them stop you.

I’m not saying you can shirk your responsibilities. You can’t simply blow off anything you don’t want to do. What I am saying is that instead of bulldozing through the wall of resistance in front of you, find a way around it.

One way to do that is the “salami technique”. Take a big project and cut it into thin, manageable slices.

If you are procrastinating about starting or revising your website, for example, find some aspect of that project where there is little or no resistance. Something small and easy.

You might bookmark some sites you like, or collect articles to read later. You might open a new file and make a few notes or a list of questions.

Easy to do. And if you do any of them, you will have begun the project. Now, look for something else that’s easy to do and do that.

Yes, there are times when you have to suck it up and do things you simply don’t want to do. You have to “feel the fear and do it anyway.” But if you continually break things down into smaller and easier tasks, you can almost always find a way to get started, and that is always better than doing nothing.

Want to know how to stop procrastinating? Stop trying to stop. When you come up to a wall, turn left or turn right and keep walking.

If you need to start or revise your website, thisÂ is all you need.

Filed Under: Personal development, Productivity Tagged With: getting things done, how to stop procrastinating, how to stop procrastination, salami technique