Take your LinkedIn marketing webinar and shove it

March 6, 2014 by
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Enough already!

Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest. . . it never stops. Every day I am inundated with invitations and solicitations to webinars, courses, videos, books, reports, plug-ins, consulting offers. I don’t even have time to read the emails or web pages, let alone watch the videos or read the pdfs, let alone buy anything, let alone implement any of the stuff I bought.

And I’m in the marketing business. How on earth are you supposed to keep up with this stuff and still have time to practice law?

(Do I get an amen?)

Look, I love the Internet. I must love it. I spend all day in front of it. I can’t begin to enumerate the ways it has enhanced my life and I would never want to go back to the days before you could carry the world in your pocket. But there are times when you have to step away, take a breath, and put things in perspective.

You know you cannot ignore Internet marketing (even if it’s not your favorite thing), but you can’t keep up with everything everyone tells you is a “must do”. To maintain your sanity (is that an oxymoron–I’m talking to lawyers, right?) you have to be selective.

You need your own website. Not a page on your firm’s site or on M-H or a legal directory, your own hosted website that you control. Yourname.com

You can put it up yourself (it’s not difficult) or you can hire someone to set it up for you and show you how to update it yourself. I suggest a self-hosted wordpress site (not wordpress.com). You could set this up in about an hour, and that includes watching a couple of youtube videos that show you how.

You need some content that shows visitors what you do and why they should choose you. Add some articles you’ve written, a list of your practice areas, and an “about” page.

And that’s it. You can start with that. This is the most important part.

Now, you have something to show people who want to know about what you do.

Traffic? Don’t worry about it right now. There are lots of ways to get it. You can start by contacting your clients and everyone you know and tell them to “come see my new website!” Okay, you can leave out the exclamation point. They’ll come, they’ll read, they’ll share.

What about social media? What about it? It’ll drive you crazy, if you let it. Don’t let it. Set up accounts with the majors (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and G+), tell your clients and contacts, and when you post new content on your site, post a link to that content on your accounts.

That’s pretty much all I do, when I’m not deleting emails about the latest Facebook or LinkedIn marketing webinar.

Okay, that’s enough marketing for the day. Get back to work.

Make the Phone Ring is the Internet marketing bible for attorneys. Check it out here.

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Filed Under: Marketing legal services, Online Marketing, Social media, Social media marketing

How clients evaluate lawyers before they hire them

March 3, 2014 by
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According to a recent study, prospective clients evaluate lawyers (and other professionals) before they hire them in a few common ways.

81% go to your website. (Do you have an effective website? Does it show what you do? Does it tell visitors why they should hire you instead of any other lawyer? Does it invite them to take the next step (i.e., call for an appointment or to ask questions? Does it capture their email address so that if they’re not ready to take the next step you can stay in touch with them?)

63% google you. (Is your website and/or blog optimized so that they can find you? Will they find favorable ratings and comments about you on sites like Yelp and Avvo? Will they find articles or guest posts by you on reputable blogs? Will they find interviews of you and articles about you? Will they see that you have received awards or been mentioned for your achievements?)

62% ask friends or colleagues if they’re heard of you. (If someone knows you or your reputation, will they say good things about you? Will they say you work hard and care about your clients? Will they say you provide added value beyond your core services? Will they say you are good at what you do? Will they say you are fair and honest? Are you asking your satisfied clients to rate you on these sites?)

60% use social media to research you, and 70% use LinkedIn. (Do you have a complete LinkedIn profile? Do you have a presence of any kind on other social media platforms? Do your social media accounts invite people to visit your website? Are you asking your clients to Like your page and share your content?)

So, you need an effective website and a decent LinkedIn profile. (Your profile will show up in search results, so don’t dismiss it’s importance if you have a consumer practice.) And, you need to do a good job for your clients so they will say nice things about you.

What do you think? Marketing isn’t really that difficult, is it?

How to build an effective website

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Filed Under: Marketing legal services, Online Marketing Tagged With:

How to write a blog without writing a blog

February 26, 2014 by
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I get it. You don’t have a lot of time to write a blog. Even once a week seems daunting. But you know that having content online is a great way to highlight your capabilities and draw traffic, and you’d like to find a way to make it work.

One way to do this is to let others do the writing for you.

You could have your partners, associates, and staff do some or all of it. You could hire a ghost writer. (They’re not expensive.) Or, you could let other professionals write guest posts. Let’s talk about this one, shall we?

One way to do this is have five or ten other lawyers, consultants, experts, accountants, and so on, who each contribute a post every other month. They get exposure for their practice or business, you get content.

Some of those other professionals will undoubtedly notify their clients, subscribers, and readers about their new post on your site, and provide a link to it, which gives you exposure to their contacts. Of course you can offer to provide guest posts on their blogs, too, if and when you have the time.

If you don’t have enough other professionals who want in on this deal, no problem. You can easily find professionals online who would love to get exposure to your readers. Reaching out this way is a great way of networking with potential referral sources.

One thing you might want to do is add your comments before, during (by interlineation), or after the guest post. In other words, you introduce the guest blogger and his or her post and add your thoughts about how the post applies to your practice area or clients. This should take you very little time and will add value and context to a post that might otherwise seem a bit off topic.

First, make sure you flesh out your blog with ten or twenty substantive posts, written by you, about your practice area. Why? Because it’s your blog and you want to show visitors what you know and do. Also, you’ll be able to link to this content in your comments to guest posts. For example, if you handle employment law and have a guest post by a psychologist writing about how to handle a difficult employee, in your addendum to that post, you can link to your article about the legal implications of what employers might say or do.

Okay, one more idea. Ask one of your guest-post team if you can interview them. Have them give you five or ten questions to ask them, in advance. Record and transcribe the interview and post it on your blog. Easy content.

Of course it’s just as easy to have them interview you for their blog.

For more ideas on how to write a blog, get this.

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Filed Under: Blogging, Marketing legal services, Networking, Newsletters, Online Marketing, Web traffic, Writing

When prospective clients interview you for the job

February 24, 2014 by
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I once had a client interview me before hiring me. It only happened once in my career, probably because 99% of my clients came from referrals. (She didn’t hire me. I never found out why. It was thirty years ago. I’m over it, now.)

Today, many clients find lawyers through the Internet and other means, and because there are so many articles and blog posts educating them about what to ask a lawyer before they hire them, if you haven’t been interviewed for the job, there’s a good chance you will.

Will you be ready?

One way to get ready is to post content on your website that addresses the questions prospective clients typically ask. The process of writing that content will also prepare you to answer those questions in the event someone bypasses your website. It also helps you codify your philosophies, policies, and procedures, forcing you to examine what you do so you can make improvements.

I read an article recently, for employers interviewing job candidates, that presented “killer questions” to ask to eliminate the duds. I thought the first question was applicable to clients hiring lawyers:

‘Tell me about a work achievement you are most proud of?’

Clients may not ask this per se, but isn’t this something lawyers should be prepared to answer?

Take 30 minutes this week and write three paragraphs about something in your career that you are especially proud of. What was your most gratifying or challenging case? If you were writing your obituary or eulogy, what would you like to be said about your work.

Post this on your website. When prospective clients interview you for the job, or a reporter or blogger interviews you for an article, you’ll be ready.

Did you know, Make The Phone Ring shows you how to create great content for your website? Check it out on this page.

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Filed Under: Blogging, Client relations, Closing the sale, Marketing legal services, Online Marketing, Writing

Attorney marketing plan: time vs. money

February 20, 2014 by
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I talked to an attorney yesterday who wanted to drive more traffic to his website. A plan to get more traffic to your website, like any attorney marketing plan, comes down to a choice between time and money.

Here is a list of the more common (and acceptable) marketing options for attorneys who want to get more traffic:

MONEY

  • Advertising (PPC, display, offline, direct mail, radio, etc.)
  • Hire a PR firm to get you coverage, interviews
  • Self-hosted seminars
  • Hire people to ghost write content or assist you in writing content

TIME

  • Writing a blog
  • Guest posts and comments on other people’s blogs
  • Writing articles for article directories, offline publications
  • Webinars/teleconferences
  • Public speaking, seminars
  • Write reports, ebooks, articles, audios, courses
  • Build an email list
  • Staying in touch with former clients
  • Social media networking
  • Youtube videos
  • Networking
  • Marketing joint ventures
  • Podcasts/webcasts/hangouts/interviewing experts
  • Interviews, panel discussions

Most attorneys can’t or don’t want to advertise. Or, they don’t have a big enough budget to compete with some of the bigger advertisers.

The problem is, most attorneys have even less time than money. At least that’s what they tell themselves. They could invest more time in marketing. They often don’t because (a) they don’t know how and/or (b) they don’t think they’ll see a return on their investment.

What if I could prove that one hour invested in marketing (the right way) would bring a three-fold return? In other words, if you’re time is worth $300 an hour, and I proved to you that investing one hour in writing a blog post would bring you $900 in revenue, would you invest that hour?

Of course you would. Yo mama didn’t raise no fool.

But here’s the thing. That blog post might bring you a three-fold return this month, and then again next month. And every month. There will always be new people searching for your content and your solutions.

No guarantees, of course. Your results may vary.

My point is that many time-oriented marketing activities have a long tail, whereas advertising generally doesn’t.

Your website content can bring you traffic and new clients for months or years to come. Networking and building relationships with new referral sources and joint venture partners can do the same. Building lists and staying in touch with people can provide you with a long term source of new business.

When you look at it this way, instead of worrying about how much time marketing is “costing” you, you’ll realize that every hour you AREN’T marketing is costing you.

As Wayne Dyer puts it, “When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”

If you want more traffic to your website, get my Internet marketing course for attorneys

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Filed Under: Advertising, Blogging, Marketing legal services, Marketing Plan, Online Marketing, Time Management, Web traffic, Writing Tagged With:

Social media marketing for lawyers: the truth shall set you free

February 13, 2014 by
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Uh oh, Facebook changed security settings again. Twitter has a new design. LinkedIn has a group you haven’t joined.

Does all the fuss and bother about social media drive you nuts? Me too.

You’ve got to update your page (again), you’ve got to hire a team, you’ve got to buy this tool and that course and have a master plan.

No, you don’t. You don’t have to do anything on social media if you don’t want to. So relax. Don’t buy all the hype. Or any software, courses, or services.

Let’s think this through.

There are three things you can do with social media: Network with prospective (existing, former) clients, Network with prospective (existing, former) referral sources, and advertising.

ADVERTISING

Let’s start with the easiest one: advertising. Either you do it or you don’t. If you don’t do it, move on. Nothing to see here. If you do advertise, or want to, hire a firm to design ads, make media buys, and manage your campaigns. Educate yourself, as time permits, so you know how to work with the pros. Nuff said.

NETWORKING WITH CLIENTS

If you have a consumer oriented practice, the odds are you’re not inclined to network with prospective clients. And let’s face it, most clients don’t want to network with you. Attorneys are, in their minds, a necessary evil, not bff’s. When and if they need us, they will either go to a search engine or ask their contacts for recommendations or referrals.

If you have a business oriented practice, networking with prospective clients is more likely to bear fruit. In this case, you would add prospective clients in your target market, promote their business interests, and share your content with them. This may or may not be worth the effort on your part. Your call.

If it’s all too much for you, if you’re worried about the implications of networking with your best client’s competition, or you simply don’t want to spend your valuable time online, don’t. The marketing gods absolve you. There are lots of other ways to bring in business.

NETWORKING WITH REFERRAL SOURCES

If you’re going to do anything with social media, this is your best bet. You can use social media to find professionals and other centers of influence (e.g., bloggers, etc.), and approach them, the same way you would offline.

But you don’t need much on your end to do this. A simple profile, so they can check you out. Go find their profile and start a conversation.

No matter what you decide to do with social media, make sure you have accounts with the major platforms so you can push out links to your content and so visitors to your website can share that content with their connections. But that’s a one time thing. Set it and forget it.

Social media marketing for lawyers can either be a big pain in the briefcase or something you never think about. If it’s the latter, if it’s not part of your marketing in a major way, just think about all the time you’ll save skipping over the countless daily articles and blog posts reminding you about the latest and greatest “must do’s” you’re not doing.

Internet marketing for attorneys that won’t drive you nuts: click here.

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Filed Under: Marketing legal services, Online Marketing, Social media, Social media marketing

How to get more search engine traffic

February 6, 2014 by
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Would you like to get more search engine traffic from prospective clients who are looking for a lawyer who does what you do? I thought you might. Okay, let’s write a blog post together and make that happen.

The title of your post is, “What to ask a _______ lawyer”. (Fill in the blank with words that describe one of your practice areas.)

Why this title? Because every day, prospective clients type the following words into a search engine: “What to ask a ________ lawyer?”

Are you with me? You’re going to write a post that uses the exact keywords that your prospective clients are searching for. Put those keywords in your title and again in the body of your post.

Later, you can write variations on this original post with similar keywords they may use in their query, i.e., “What questions to ask. . .,” “What do I need to know about. . .,” “What information should I find out about. . .”, and so on.

Now, write five to ten questions prospective clients should ask a lawyer in your field. Start by jotting down the questions prospective clients typically ask you. Add some questions they don’t ask, but should.

Here are some ideas to help you get started:

Background/experience: Years in practice, practice areas, certification/specialty, awards, jury verdicts, etc.

Doing business: Fees/payment plans, free consultation, satisfaction guarantee, etc.

Procedural: How long, what happens first, what happens after that, what if X happens?

Law/advice: Why do I need to do X? or  When would you recommend x instead of y?

Why you: Why should I hire you instead of any other lawyer in your field? or What do you do/offer that other attorneys don’t do/offer?

Personal/philosophy: What do you like best about your practice?or Why do you do what you do?

Once you have the questions, answer them. Obviously, you should have a good answer to these questions yourself.

Many, if not all of these questions, should already be answered on your website, on a FAQ page, your “About” page, and in articles or posts. Then, in this new post, link to those other pages or posts so the reader can get more information.

And, that’s all there is to it.

Now, when someone searches for “What to ask a _______ lawyer?” in your market, there’s a good chance your post will come up at or near the top of the search results. When the reader clicks through and reads your post, they’re going to find exactly what they have been searching for and see that you have some really good answers to those questions.

Targeted traffic made simple.

Want more ways to get more search engine traffic? Click here.

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Filed Under: Blogging, Marketing legal services, Online Marketing, Web traffic Tagged With: , ,

Quick and painless blogging for lawyers

February 4, 2014 by
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One of the reasons lawyers often cite for not writing a blog is that it takes too much time. But it doesn’t have to.

This morning, I was reading, 12 Most Tedious Blogging Tasks You Can Outsource, and thought, “great topic for lawyers.” But as I went through the list of tasks, I thought, “I don’t do that”. In fact, I don’t do many of the things on the list, and the ones I do take me very little time.

Here’s the list of tasks, and what I do:

  1. Editing. I do my own. If I’m unsure about something, I run it by my wife.
  2. Finding photos. I used to add photos but I rarely do now, primarily because it takes too much time to find the right one and make sure I have the right to use it.
  3. Resizing and retitling photos. See above.
  4. Formatting. This takes seconds. I paste my text into the WordPress composition window, add bold or bullets or numbering, and done.
  5. Writing social media updates to promote the post. I paste the url of the post into Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+. If my title is well written, that’s usually enough. I could do more here, I admit, but social media isn’t a major focus for me, so I don’t.
  6. Posting multiple updates once the post is live. I don’t do this either, but if I did, I’d automate it, as the author suggests.
  7. Social media mentions for anyone referenced in the post. If I want to reach out to someone I’ve written about, I’ll send them an email, and this doesn’t happen too often.
  8. Monitoring blog comments. I don’t get a lot of comments (lawyers are busy, yo), so not a problem. If I did, and it took too much time, I would consider outsourcing this. Or, just turn off comments.
  9. Monitoring social media activity. Again, I don’t do much with social media, so I don’t have much to monitor.
  10. Handling guest contributions. To date, I have one guest post on my blog. If I was doing this regularly, I would turn this over to an assistant.
  11. Managing audio and video files and slideshows. Nope.
  12. Writing. I like to write and make time for it. If I was still practicing, I would probably post once or twice a week, instead of daily as I do now. If I still didn’t have enough time, I’d have an assistant help with ideas, research, rough drafts, editing, polishing, and so on.

Blogging for lawyers doesn’t have to be tedious, time consuming, or painful. For one thing, as I wrote in a previous post, having a blog doesn’t make you a blogger.

I see writing a blog as, (a) a strategy for generating traffic, mostly from search engines, and build my list, and (b) a way to show website visitors what I know and what I can do to help them. This doesn’t (have to) take a lot of time. You could write a weekly blog post in an hour or less.

I don’t do much with social media. Many experts say that blogging and social media are inexorably intertwined. That may be true for (some? most?) bloggers but not for me. If you’re not writing a blog because you don’t have time for social media, or don’t like social media, you could do what I do. Or you could get some help.

I wrote a course on getting traffic (and clients) online. Click here.

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Filed Under: Blogging, Marketing legal services, Online Marketing, Social media, Social media marketing, Writing

What to do when a potential client says no

January 17, 2014 by
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You meet with a prospective client, diagnose their problem, propose a solution, and quote a fee. They need your help, but tell you they want to think about it. They don’t call.

What should you do? How can you get them to hire you?

Sorry, bub. It’s probably too late. “I want to think about it” usually means no. It’s an excuse for some other objection.

They aren’t convinced they need a lawyer’s help. They aren’t convinced you’re the one they should choose. They don’t have the money. Or they need some else’s permission.

By and large, these objections should be dealt with before the client calls for an appointment or before they meet you.

You post information on your website, so they know why they need a lawyer and why they should choose you. You post detailed answers to FAQ’s, about your area of the law and the available options you offer.

You don’t quote fees online (or on the phone), but provide guidelines, so people have a general idea of how much they can expect to pay and what payment options you offer. They know they can’t hire you for $1,000 but it won’t cost them $100,000. They know they don’t need to pay 100% up front but they know they have to pay something.

Do this and when they call, they will already know that they need a lawyer and that you’re the one they want. They’ll know they will probably be able to afford your fees.

When they call to make an appointment, you make sure they bring their spouse or partner or other decision maker, or that they otherwise have the authority to hire you.

Now, when they’re in the office and you diagnose their problem, propose a solution, and quote a fee, you have eliminated most or all of their reasons to say no. If there are any remaining objections, you find out about them and deal them when they’re sitting in your office.

This way, they don’t have to think about it.

You deal with objections before they arise. You eliminate reasons to say no before they are said. After the fact, there’s not a lot you can do.

When a potential client says no, or I want to think about, or otherwise does not hire you, don’t blame them, and don’t chase them. Put them on your mailing list and stay in touch with them because they may hire you some day or refer business some day. But probably not today.

Learn what to put on your website to eliminate objections before they arise. Click here.

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Filed Under: Closing the sale, Communication, Handling objections, Online Marketing, Salesmanship

The second best source of new clients

January 14, 2014 by
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According to a study of online marketing metrics, the best source of new clients (customers) is through generic search engine traffic. Nothing else comes close.

You probably knew that.

What you may find surprising is what’s number two. According to the study, it’s email, which is 40 times more effective than Facebook and Twitter.

So, if you aren’t leveraging generic search engine traffic by creating and posting quality content online, you’re missing out big time. Prospective clients go to search engines looking for information about their legal situation, the available solutions, and for lawyers who can help them. Post information that answers their questions and provides those solutions and they will find you.

You don’t need to hire a team of experts. You don’t need to spend a lot of time. Once a week or so, write 300 to 500 words about something prospective clients want to know and might go looking for and post it.

Make sure you use keywords in the title and body of your post and follow a few other best practice to tell Uncle Google and his cousins what your post is about. Remember, search engines want to help their customers find what they’re looking for. Write and post that content and they’ll help you find prospective clients.

Now, not everyone who finds your website and reads your content is ready to hire you right away. In fact, you have to assume that most visitors to your website aren’t ready. In a few days or a few months, or perhaps a few years, when they are ready (or know someone who is), they probably won’t remember you. There’s a good chance they’ll wind up on some other lawyer’s website.

Unless. . . you stay in touch with them . . through email. . . the second best source of new clients online.

Your website needs to collect visitor’s email addresses. If it does not, you’re losing business. Probably a lot of business. Even if you practice in an area where most people make a hiring decision quickly like personal injury or criminal defense, because some clients wait and some clients are unhappy with the first attorney they hire.

Offer your visitors something free as an incentive to sign up for your email list. A report, checklist, form, or ebook. Add a form to your site to make it easy for them to opt in. Use an autoresponder to collect emails and automate much or all of the “staying in touch”.

Marketing online is not difficult and does not take a lot of time. Create search engine friendly content and build an email list. They are the number one and number two best source of new clients online so if you do it, you won’t have to do much of anything else.

Need help? Get my course on Internet marketing for attorneys.

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Filed Under: List building, Marketing legal services, Online Marketing, Web traffic Tagged With: , , , , ,
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