The Attorney Marketing Center--Earn More. Work Less

The number one reason your practice isn’t growing (and how to fix it)

August 7, 2025 by David M. Ward

If your practice isn’t growing, there’s a very simple reason. It’s not growing because you’re not growing.

You’re the same lawyer today as you were yesterday. You know more and can probably do more, but you don’t, and you won’t unless you change your philosophies and activities—what you think about and what you do.

Your practice is a reflection of the decisions you have made in the past and the decisions you are making today. To get better results, you have to make better decisions, and to do that, you need better information.

You have to read the books, take the classes, and seek the advice of experts. You have to use different strategies than you usually use, and do them in different ways. You have to take more risks with your marketing, learn from your mistakes, and double down on your successes.

Because marketing is a process, not an event. You have to work at it. And do something most attorneys don’t want to do—stand out.

Most attorneys choose to blend in and be just like most of their competitors. They offer the same types of services, offer similar promises, and charge similar fees. They go out of their way to avoid being different and effectively become invisible.

If you want to be more successful, you can’t do that. You have to stand out.

That means doing things that are different and uniquely valuable. Something your competition doesn’t do.

Most attorneys don’t, which is why most attorneys never enjoy the level of success enjoyed by the few who do.

It’s a profession, yes, but it’s also a business. If you want your business to grow, you need to grow. Or it won’t.

Filed Under: Marketing legal services, Personal development

Why your content isn’t working

August 5, 2025 by David M. Ward

You work hard on your blog or newsletter, recording videos or podcasts, or posting tips on social media. It’s good content, your target market is seeing it, but you’re not getting new clients.

Why?

It’s likely that while your market is seeing your content, they’re not reading or watching it. They’re busy, and you’re asking for too much of their time, so they “save” your article for later and forget about it.

Could it be that simple? Yes. And the solution is just as simple. Create content that’s easier to consume.

Shorter articles and posts. A few hundred words, not a few thousand. Once a week, not 3 times a day. And while you’re at it, make it interesting, not academic. Tell stories, don’t lecture.

There’s a time and place for more comprehensive material, but when most of your material looks like “work,” you’re making it less likely anyone will want to consume it.

And hey, don’t push so hard.

Yes, you’re in the business of selling your services, and your readers and clients need your services and benefit from them. Asking them to call you to discuss their situation and explore their options might be precisely what they need, but if they feel like you’re chasing them, don’t be surprised if they run in the other direction.

That doesn’t mean you should be passive. You’re a professional, an advocate, and not merely in the information delivery business. Tell your readers what they need to know, tell them what to do, and why, and tell them what might happen if they don’t.

And then invite them to contact you to take the next step or learn more.

Content marketing isn’t difficult, but it’s still marketing.

Filed Under: Content creation, Marketing legal services

Marketing legal services requires just 3 things

July 31, 2025 by David M. Ward

At its core, marketing your services is simple. You don’t need to follow a checklist with 27 steps or account for a multitude of elements. You just need to do 3 things.

First, you need to get the attention of the right people. That means identifying and appealing to the self-interest of people who need or want something you can give them.

Target people with a legal problem you can solve or a desire you can fulfill.

Second, you need to stimulate them to take action. That means motivating them to call or click, read something or do something, by telling them the benefits for doing that—what they will get or avoid, how they will be better off—and not leaving this up to them to figure out.

Tell them what to do and why they should do it.

The third step is to get them to take that action immediately. Now, while their need or desire and interest are highest.

You don’t want them to hear another attorney’s message or become distracted by their phone or an appointment. You want them to take action now, not later, because (you must assume), later will never come.

And that’s it. 3 steps. Attention, benefit, urgency.

But as simple as this is, many attorneys’ marketing messages miss one or more of these elements. They don’t tell prospective clients what to do, don’t motivate them to do it, and/or don’t provide enough urgency to do it immediately.

And it cost them a fortune.

But not you. Because you know what to do, and why, and because it is simple, you won’t forget to do it.

Filed Under: Marketing legal services

Your 5-second introduction

July 17, 2025 by David M. Ward

“Hi, I’m Joe. I’m a business attorney here in Small Town.” Within seconds, most people won’t remember what Joe said.

Joe’s introduction is accurate but forgettable. It tells people who he is, not what he does, for whom, or why it matters.

We can do better.

It’s as simple as showing new contacts a picture. Something they can see in their mind’s eye, and immediately appreciate your value—the reason clients hire and trust you.

It doesn’t need to be clever. Five seconds isn’t enough time for cleverness. Not enough time to get into detail or tell any stories. That can come later, if there is more time, or you’re on a stage.

For now, tell them what you do, for whom, and why it matters.

What problems do you solve? What benefits do you deliver? What kind of clients do you help?

That’s all you have time for, but it’s enough. Enough to get your new contact to see your value and remember you. Because if they have or have had the problem you mention, or are close to someone who has, your message, however brief, is going to resonate and stick with them and open the door to hearing more.

Which is all you can hope for in a 5-second introduction.

Filed Under: Marketing legal services, Networking

I thought about you this morning

July 15, 2025 by David M. Ward

I just got back from my daily walk. I usually listen to podcasts when I walk, and today, I listened to the aptly named “Walking is Fitness” podcast, which provides information and inspiration that helps people get started on their fitness journey and make it a habit.

That’s when I thought about you.

No, I didn’t think about your fitness level, or lack thereof. I thought about how a podcast might be a great way for you to get more clients and increase your income.

Hold on. I know I’ve mentioned podcasting before, and as I mention it now, I can hear you say, “I don’t have time for that,” but hear me out. Perhaps you do.

The walking podcast is just ten minutes. The man who does it records it on his phone while he is walking. Ten minutes out in nature, talking about what he does and knows and recommends.

Do you have ten minutes’ worth of information you can share about your work? Could you explain the law, share a war story or two, and encourage listeners to go to your blog or read your article and contact you to talk about their case?

If you don’t have ten minutes’ worth of information, how about 5?

You can script your message and read your script. Or jot down some bullet points and just talk. It really doesn’t matter. What matters is that you have something valuable and helpful to share, and share it. All you need is something to say and an app to record your voice. Add the recording to one of the many free podcasting platforms and post a link on your website and on social media.

Sounds good, you say, but how often do you have to do this? That’s up to you. You can post once or twice a week, once or twice a month, or once in a while.

One more question. Yes, you, in the back…“Most people listen to podcasts while doing other activities, like walking or driving or at the gym. How do you get listeners from your podcast to your website?”

The answer is to give them a reason to visit—more information, a free consultation or another limited-time offer, a helpful form or checklist to download — and a shorter and easier to remember version of the URL to your website.

But don’t worry about all of this, or any of it. As long as people are hearing your message and your name, you’re building awareness for your “brand” that will eventually lead to more traffic, more leads, and more business.

Filed Under: Content creation, Marketing legal services

Do you really need a blog?

July 10, 2025 by David M. Ward

No matter what your practice areas or type of practice, if you don’t have a blog, or you only post occasionally, you should reconsider your strategy and in this post, I’ll tell you why.

I’ll start by telling you that, according to many studies, businesses with blogs get 55% more web traffic and generate 67% more leads than those without blogs.

I’ll also point out that clients resist hiring attorneys if they don’t know who they are and they often need to interact with a lawyer or firm seven times (the rule of 7) before they consider hiring that lawyer.

In addition

A blog allows you to demonstrate your expertise and start a conversation with potential clients. Your posts allow visitors to “hear” your voice and get to know you. They see that you’re a real person, someone they would be comfortable hiring.
Consistently posting about the law and your work and illustrating your posts with examples from your practice builds trust in your abilities and your commitment to your clients.
A blog will bring you leads and inquires. Visitors to your site read your blog, see what you do, and want to learn more. You get more calls and appointments, and these are higher quality because they come from visitors who came looking for an attorney and read your posts.
A blog can bring you more referrals from visitors who share your posts with their contacts or link to them on social media.
A blog is one of the best and simplest ways to build an email list. Not everyone who visits your site is ready to take the next step. Adding an email sign-up form for your newsletter allows them to get more information and allows you to stay in touch with them over time, and a blog shows them why they should.
A blog is a very low cost marketing strategy, especially compared to paid ads
It takes less time to maintain a blog compared to seminars, networking, speaking, and other marketing strategies

Your blog is can also be a resource for your clients and referral sources. Your blog shows them reasons to hire a lawyer (you) they might not have considered. This is better than a simple FAQ page, which rarely includes stories and the context of blog posts.

Couldn’t you simply write ten or twenty articles and post these on your site instead of setting up a blog? You could and, compared to having no educational content on your site, you should. But the more you write about your practice area(s) and services, the more search engines will associate you with your niche and you will show up higher on search results pages.

Convinced? Where do you start? With a simple blog post, welcoming visitors to your blog, telling them what to expect, and inviting them to post questions or contact you.

This can help

Filed Under: Blogging, Online Marketing

Repurposing content

July 8, 2025 by David M. Ward

One of the best ways to build your law practice is to create content about your field and what you do to help your clients.

Writing articles and blog posts, posting on social media, recording videos and podcasts, and the like, are a simple and effective way to boost engagement with prospects and clients and professional contacts, establish your authority, generate traffic to your website, build trust, generate more leads, and “close” more of the leads you generate.

If you don’t create much content, no doubt the time required is a major factor.

You can reduce that time, and get a better return on your investment, by reusing or repurposing your content.

You can

Update a previously published blog post with additional thoughts, comments you received (and your replies to those comments), questions you were asked when you posted it (and your answers), additional examples from recent cases, and anything else that adds value to the original post
Expand a short post into a longer version
Convert a post or article for a different niche
Use the post as an outline for a new post for a different practice area
Cut up a long post into smaller posts
Compile several posts into a report and use it as a lead magnet for your newsletter, or for prospects who make an appointment or sign up for your webinar, or as bonus content for your new client welcome package
Add several posts to your email autoresponder for future opt-ins
Translate your articles into other languages
Write additional posts or articles on the same subject but with a different angle
Repost your article on sites like Medium or Quora or Substack

You can also

Convert an article into a blog post or a blog post into an article
Convert an article into a video or podcast episode
Convert the transcript of a presentation or interview into an article or post
Create an autoresponder e-course from a series of posts
Post your LinkedIn post on Facebook or vice versa
Compile articles into an ebook and publish it on Amazon
Use a series of posts as the basis for a webinar
Create an infographic highlighting key points in your article or presentation
Record your speech or presentation and post it on YouTube
Record a video speaking about the subject of your article and embed the video in the original post
Create PowerPoint slides and record yourself doing a summary of your article(s)

Need help? Ask your favorite ai for suggestions for ways to repurpose your content for your existing niche or repurposing it for different niches.

The easiest thing to do? Send it or post it again to your existing list because most of your subscribers didn’t see it six months ago, won’t remember it, or didn’t appreciate your message because they didn’t have the problem you speak about, but now they do.

I’ve used several of these strategies to repurpose and reuse content and recommend them. It’s a great way to get more bang for your content buck.

Filed Under: Content creation, Leverage, List building, Marketing legal services

Marketing for lazy lawyers

July 1, 2025 by David M. Ward

A little clickbait-y? Sorry. I know you’re not lazy. You’re busy and don’t have a lot of time for marketing.

Or you’re just not into it like some lawyers.

No problem. You don’t have to invest hours (or spend a fortune) to build your practice. What you need to do is leverage the time you do have doing small things that have the potential for a big return.

To wit:

If you can’t commit to writing a regular blog or newsletter, you can do guest posts on blogs or occasional articles in publications read by your target market. “Borrow” their audience, authority, and list.

You’re not big on social media? Identify a handful of non-competitive lawyers or other professionals in your market who are very active on social and comment on their posts.

You do a seminar in your conference room but haven’t had time to promote it? Hire high school kids to go door-to-door and pass out flyers or put them on windshields.

You’re not ready to do your own seminars or events or to do a lot of networking? Find existing events and meetings and get yourself invited as a guest speaker or to sit on a panel. Similarly, find podcasts and channels with an appropriate audience and offer to appear as a guest. They need smart people like you with something to say.

No budget for advertising? Invest $500 a month improving your website SEO, navigation, and content, and get more traffic. Don’t forget to add an opt-in form or landing page and collect names (by offering a report) and start building a list you can connect with when you’re ready.

Not getting as many referrals as you’d like? Talk to your clients, former clients, prospective clients, business contacts, and personal friends. “If you know anyone…. I’d appreciate the referral” is simple and effective and takes no time or money.

Don’t forget lawyers in other fields, or even in your field. Tell them to keep you in mind when they have something they don’t handle, a conflict, or a case that’s too small or too big for them. I got my practice started that way and it was very effective.

In short, there is a middle ground between “all in” in your marketing and doing nothing and that middle ground can bring you a lot of new business.

Filed Under: Leverage, Marketing legal services

No discounts (but…)

June 26, 2025 by David M. Ward

Have you ever been asked to lower your fee? (Silly question.) Have you ever seen lawyers offering discounts or promotions and thought you might lose business by holding firm on your fees?

Have you ever been tempted to discount your fees for any reason? (C’mon, admit it.)

We live in a commercial world where discounts and bonuses and freebies abound. Competition demands it and everyone routinely shops for the best deal.

Why should the legal realm be different?

Because we don’t sell products, we sell services and those services are an extension of ourself. Our value to the world is measured by our time, our intellectual property, and our reputation, and reducing our fees or running anything akin to a “sale” is an anathema to that value.

It’s also cheesy and sets a dangerous precedent. Reduce your fee this time and clients will expect you to reduce it next time.

Don’t do it. No discounts. Your fee is your fee. That’s what you’re worth, and that’s what you charge.

On the other hand, there might be some exceptions.

Maybe there’s a client who has a lot of legal work and you can justify a lower rate because of the “economies of scale”. Or you’re willing to earn a bit less because, overall, you’ll earn a lot more.

Maybe you have a client who has been with you for a long time and you want to reduce your fee (or waive it) on a few of their cases, or not increase your fees for them when you increase them for new clients, to show your appreciation for their patronage.

Maybe you’re entering a very tough market and offering a lower fee to a particular well-known client will allow you to build your reputation in that market and thus attract a lot of other clients.

Or maybe you have a contingency fee case with a client who won’t settle and cutting your fee can get the deal done.

There could be good reasons for lowering your fees in some situations. It’s okay to consider it.

But be careful.

If you do lower your fee, do it quietly. Don’t advertise it, promote it, or mention it in advance.

Make sure it’s your idea, not the client’s.

Make sure nobody else knows. Ask the client to keep it between the two of you.

It’s better to reduce a flat fee, or offer a lower fee for a bundle of services, or a lower fee for a monthly retainer, than to reduce your hourly rate.

Reasons. So don’t be absolute about no discounts.

But whatever you do, make them rare. The exception, not the rule.

Filed Under: Fees and Billing

Are you giving away too much free information?

June 24, 2025 by David M. Ward

Education-based “content” marketing is a long-established method for showing prospective clients you have the knowledge and experience to help them. Writing blog posts and articles, doing seminars and presentations, writing books, creating videos, posting tips on social, and so on, allow you to attract prospective clients and show them why they should hire you.

You don’t have to convince anyone. Your content does that for you.

Some lawyers don’t use content marketing, or not much of it. They say they don’t want to give away their knowledge and advice, they should get paid for it. They don’t want to train their audience to expect “free” and not see the need to hire them.

Other lawyers give away too much information and regret it for that very reason.

There is a middle ground. A way to use content marketing appropriately by showing clients the wisdom of hiring you and paying top dollar to do it.

Here are some content marketing best practices:

Use content marketing to educate your market about “why”. Why they have a problem or need, why what they’re doing isn’t working, why they need a lawyer’s help, and why that lawyer should be you. Show them what’s at stake, what might happen if they do nothing, and why they could make things worse if they try to “fix” their problem on their own.
Use content marketing to show the “big picture,” not the complete step-by-step. Show them what needs to be done, not how to do it. Show them that solving their problem is hard work, there are many moving parts and deadlines and details, and that it won’t be easy. But also show them the rainbow after the storm, that all the work will be worth it.
Use content to show how you are different from other attorneys. How you are better and faster, you are ready to go to work, and that you are worth more because you deliver more.
Use content to let them hear your voice—your personality, your philosophies, your stye, and what it is like to work with you.
Use content to show that you understand them and truly care about helping them. Use stories to show empathy and how you have helped many others in the same situation.

Information is cheap. Clients can get it in many places. Let them get it from you.

Give information generously. If you give too little, it looks you’re holding back. But don’t give too much or, true or not, they may believe they don’t need you.

Use content marketing to teach the why, hint at the how, and sell the need for your services.

Filed Under: Content creation