Integrity Marketing

Keeping Up with Social Media

Is everyone working hard these days? I think so. One thing that's been good about the recession, I think the level of service in retail establishments (especially restaurants) has skyrocketed. Eating out is once again a pleasure rather than a drudgery. In fact, most savvy businesses have greatly improved their customer service. I know we are working at providing better service every day.

 

The other thing I've noticed is that creative people are getting really creative! I am sometimes just blown away at the great thinking I am seeing out there among business and marketing executives. Companies that I had long written off as "out of touch" are showing they can still think! What was it your mother used to say? Necessity is the mother of invention!

 

However, amid all of this working, there's also a social-media revolution going on around us. On the internet. At Facebook. Twitter. LinkedIn. In the blogosphere. Google Alerts. Google Adwords. Google AdSense. MySpace. Mobile. Twitter Alerts. Facebook Fans. Arghhh!!!

 

How are you keeping up? Every day, I devote about an hour to "social networking." I am amazed when I see other marketing execs who have already posted thoughtfully to their blogs, sent several "tweets," written on facebook walls, and invited me to their webinar or afternoon speaking engagement. How do they do it? How do you do it? Do you do it?

 

Like you, I have to actually do what I call work-work. The kind that is on the clock, paid by the hour. No one writes me a check for tweeting or friending people.

 

Today, one of my colleagues "tweeted" that Twitter Search is essential for lawyers and law firm marketing. ESSENTIAL. That's what he said. Did you know that Twitter had a search function? Do you even know what Twitter is yet? Or, are you a Twitter Guru?

 

I'd like to know how you are using social media in your business marketing (not just keeping up with grandkids across the country) AND how you find time to work these media on a consistent basis?

If You Fail to Establish Trust, You Will Fail

I stumbled across an article today about Trust, written by blogger Donal Daly on the Sales 2.0 Network. Because I work with trusts and estates attorneys, I was intrigued. Attorneys say that time is their stock in trade, but in reality it is trust. If an attorney cannot establish trust, he will not have a successful practice. It really is that simple.

Marketing a trusts and estates or elder law practice is not about explaining federal estate taxes, how a revocable living trust works, or the intricacies of a Grantor Retained Annuity Trust. It's about establishing trust and building relationships.

As Daly wrote: In these difficult times (which unfortunately will be with us for quite a while yet), progression in business demands uncommon levels of trust. My recent observations would suggest that buyers are more nervous than ever before. 

From my own observations, I concur. Buyers today are looking for the red flag of warning. They don't want to be duped by another "trusted advisor." Daly describes it this way:

Many consultants and business advisors ... extol the virtues of becoming a ‘trusted advisor’ to your customer.  The value of the Trusted Advisor has itself become questioned.  What happens if your trusted advisor is called Bernie Madoff?  You end up asking yourself “How did that happen?”  “What other trusted relationships do I have that I should question?”

As a marketing strategist consulting with attorney clients, my focus is primarily on marketing communications. Here are five things that I think every marketing communication must have in order, not only to build trust, but to avoid undermining it and sending out "red flags" to clients and prospective clients:

• Client-Focus: Marketing communications should focus on client needs, not attorney expertise, capabilities, or services. And certainly not on legal documents.

• Relevancy: This is a corollary to client-focus. Messages should be targeted and relevant to the intended audience. In today's digital world, there is no excuse for sending "blanket" messages that don't connect with your audience.
• Honesty: Consumers today have a very high level of sophistication, especially when it comes to marketing. Avoid puffery or trickery. Most people know that if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Your marketing messages should ring true with sincerity and honesty, leave the huckstering to late-night infomercials.
• Professionalism: All of your marketing materials should carefully and tastefully designed to enhance your professional image. Technology makes it possible to easily and cheaply create a lot of very bad marketing materials. Worse yet, you can easily and cheaply deliver them to thousands of people at once. "Cheap and easy" are not words you want people to use when describing you, your practice or your website.
• Consistency: Consistency is one of the hallmarks of trustworthiness. We know we can trust people who are consistent. You can display consistency in your marketing messages. Your messages should be visually consistent (think branding), they should be editorially consistent, and they should be consistently delivered. For example, if you want clients to be focused on your value rather than your fees, then offering a $200 discount coupon is inconsistent with your brand. If you want to distinguish your firm as providing excellence in estate planning, then a slap-dash website design is inconsistent. And, if you say you are sending out a monthly newsletter, but it only arrives twice a year ... or if your monthly newsletter suddenly stops arriving at all ... your marketing messages are inconsistent. These kinds of marketing mistakes undermine trust.

As Daly concluded: If you fail to establish trust you will fail. Put yourself on the line. Remember, action is the only language of trust. Deliver more than you expect to receive.  You might be surprised at the return.

Getting the Highest ROI on Email Marketing

Email marketing continues to grow, both in importance and frustration. In a recent report, "US Email Marketing Forecast, 2009- 2014," released by Forrester Research this month, strong growth in email marketing is expected to continue through 2014, spurred primarily by the decline in use of US Postal services. Advertising Age this week predicted that digital marketing will grow from about 12% of overall advertising spending to about 21% in the next five years.

Professional marketers now know that digital marketing -- both online and email -- is no longer experimental. It is proven effective, especially in terms of ROI. In fact, even the Direct Marketing Association (primarily direct-mail) credits email marketing with an ROI of $43.52 (per $1 invested). Other researchers, however, place it even higher at approximately $130 (per $1 invested).

At the same time, though, spam is a constant frustation for professional marketers. A recent study revealed that spam accounted for 90.4% of all email traffic scanned in June of this year. Everybody hates spam and no one wants their email to be considered "spam" by their recipients.

How can you implement an effective email marketing campaign for your law practice? One that does not get your firm "black-listed" as a spammer, one that does not annoy your clients, but rather is seen as a valuable resource? One that drives new business and generates a decent ROI?

Here are some tips:

• Make sure you know your cilents well, and create highly relevant emails

• Practice good list hygiene and make sure your email marketing system is CAN-SPAM compliant

• Email with enough frequency to maintain client awareness, but do not bombard your clients either.

• Utilize the "from" line to identify yourself, emails from known senders are more likely to get opened, and even if they aren't opened, you have made another impression for your brand.

• Always maintain a professional appearance in design, delivery and message. Remember, your message leaves a lasting impression on everyone who sees it, even those who do not respond. Make sure that impression is a good one!

• Be honest and compelling in your subject line. Never use "trickery" to fool people into opening your email. Make sure your email delivers on the subject line promise. Also, avoid puffery and other "spammy" tactics ... including FREE! DISCOUNT! LAST CHANCE and ALL CAPS w/ EXCLAMATION POINTS!

One effort we have made to boost the ROI for our clients' email marketing is to host a unique, animated e-newsletter on their website. Whether recipients click-through on their email or not, the online newsletter adds keyword-rich content to their website. The animated presentation is interactive, easily forwarded to a friend, printable and best-of-all -- searchable. Not only by the user, but also automatically indexed by search engines. This way, we provide a WOW! factor to the site, an interactive experience for their readers, and boost their search engine rankings with new, keyword-rich content every month.

As professional marketers, we have to keep looking for every penny we can help our clients squeeze out of their marketing investment.

How to Sabotage Your Marketing

I had an experience this weekend while riding horses that reminded me of marketing ... well, actually, it reminded me of marketing failures. Here is a lesson in how to sabotage your marketing efforts.

It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon, and I decided to go for a ride with my big horse: 17 hands and 1,500 lbs of temperament. (For purposes of our lesson, let's liken this to a seemingly profitable marketing opportunity, such as a hosted client appreciation workshop with 50 of your top referral source's best clients. Considering the potential up and down sides of this opportunity, I think it likens very well to 17 hands and 1,500 lbs of temperament!)

The first thing I did was try to tack and saddle two horses at the same time, so my fiance could ride, too. (Read: juggling too many things at once, not giving the 1,500-lb temperamental opportunity my full attention!) Then, I tried to turn a third horse out of the barn, and in so doing, I managed to knock the barn gate off its hinges, whilst having the reins of the 17-hand, temperamental horse in my hand. This startled the temperamental horse. (This is not unlike arriving late to the client appreciation workshop, not terribly late, but late enough that your top referral source now has sweaty palms.)

I helped my fiance get onto the steady-eddie horse and sent them off across the field. Then, I climbed up on the step ladder (remember, this horse is 17-hands tall!), slipped my left foot into the stirrup and ... the saddle slid a bit. I recalled that this temperamental horse is also a professional bloater, and realized (too late) that he had been holding his breath while I cinched the girth. I swung my leg up and over his back and settled into the saddle ... sort of cock-eyed, if you will. (To continue our marketing analogy, this is the part where the overhead projector fails to light up.) Seated way-up-there, I thought to myself, "This is not good."

(Okay, isn't this just what you think when the overhead projector fails to light up?)

So, I decided to dis-mount and start over. I put my weight back onto my left foot, swung my right foot out of the stirrup and ... the saddle slid again. This time, down the side of my 17-hand, 1,500-lb temperamental horse. I fell off. Into the step ladder. Which crashed into the 17-hand, 1,500 lb temperamental horse.

Who began to buck.

Across the field.

With a saddle (and stirrups) dangling from his belly.

I had visions of hooves stuck into stirrups and my BELOVED 17-hand, 1,500 lb temperamental horse breaking his beautiful neck. (Arghhh!)

"Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!" I cried.

My  horse ran into a fence. He bucked 20 more feet. He snorted. He screamed. He stopped.

Finally. He stood stock-still, saddle dangling from his belly. No broken neck, no tangled hooves, no harm done.

I crawled up underneath my beloved 17-hand, 1,500 lb temperamental horse and removed the offending saddle. Whew!

In the world of horses, we call this a good day, because

• There is nothing wrong with the saddle. 

• There also is nothing with the horse. He was fine standing there while I got on. He was fine until I got off. His hysterical bucking reaction was "normal" for a horse that just got slammed into by a step ladder and with a saddle hanging from his belly. Right?

• The horse calmed down. (Yay! Horse!) He stood calmly while I crawled underneath him to remove the saddle. (Again, Yay! Horse!)

• Everyone is still alive and (relatively) unscathed.

What does this mean for marketing?

FOCUS on the important stuff

That's it. Just FOCUS on what's important. When you have a 17-hand, 1,500-lb, temperamental marketing opportunity, recognize that and give it the time and attention it deserves. And if, for some reason, everything falls apart and the opportunity goes bucking off across the field, dragging a saddle from its belly ... don't blame the opportunity. And ... don't just stand there. Holler WHOA! Crawl under the danged thing and FIX it!

Live to ride another day.

Get Personal!

My name is James Campbell, I am the VP of Practice Development for Integrity Marketing Solutions. Working with attorneys on a daily basis I have developed a real feel for whats going on "in the trenches", what's working ... what isn't. I will be posting here to inform you of what I'm hearing and seeing in the realm of marketing for the Estate Planning and Elder Law attorney.

I just received an email from one of my clients that really intrigued me. I could tell this was an email that was sent to her "email list" but it had a very personal feel to it. In her email she invited me to think about my personal financial situation and challenged me to take steps toward securing my financial future. She got me thinking, not just about estate planning, but about my life and how I handle my money. This email was not "salesy" and nowhere did it mention a "free consultation" but what it did do was make me appreciate the fact that I knew this attorney. I can imagine the impact it would have had on me had I actually been a client! I could tell that she actually wrote this email and that she put a lot of thought into what she was saying.

As a trusted advisor people expect you to know the law and be able to help them with their estate plan. What can set you apart from the rest of the pack is establishing a relationship with your clients. Get personal. Let your clients and referral sources know who you are and what you and your practice represent. Don't be afraid to let them see the human side of you. During these economic times people need to TRUST you more than ever, what better way to do that than to let them know who you really are.

Re: Social Media -- From One Dinosaur to Another, "I feel ya!"

I took a college course in Public Relations while I was in journalism school at the University of Missouri -- circa 1978. I interned in the PR office of a private college and my first "real job" was as the PR Director at another private college. Holy cow, that was more than 30 years ago!

Since then, I went on to become the managing editor of a daily newspaper, then PR & Marketing director for a major health care system, then a trust marketing officer for a bank holding company, practice manager for a law firm and finally (in 1995) co-founder of Integrity Marketing Solutions, providing marketing services and consulting to estate and elder law attorneys.

PR and Marketing has changed tremendously since I first studied it back at MU! I was thinking that I could have become one of those stodgy, veteran "PR Professionals" who resist change, champion the old, formal ways of relating to the public (isn't that what public relations is all about?), and smugly ignore the online revolution of Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Blogs, interactive websites and RSS feeds. To be perfectly honest, that sounds a lot easier, more comfortable and less time-consuming.

Unfortunately, the easy way is seldom the most profitable!

I am currently reading "The New Rules of Marketing & PR" by David Meerman Scott. Interestingly, the new rules are not entirely unlike the old rules, they are just applied differently. Using different technologies, different media. I find this a comforting thought. As an old dinosaur, I can wrap my mind around the concept of the new online social media as just another medium through which we develop meaningful, lasting relationships.

If I could transition from hot type through phototypesetting to Quark, from "the pit" in the belly of the newspaper office through the composing room to digital pagination at my laptop ... surely I can navigate my way around Technorati, Twitter, and Feedburner.

And I am not alone. According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, 73 percent of American adults say they use the internet. The internet and online social media have, as Scott says, "liberated" us to reach our target audiences directly. Instead of cultivating a few coveted relationships with key journalists and hoping for "publicity" in the mass media, we can now go directly to our audience(s) and cultivate mutually beneficial relationships. We can relate. With the public.

If you are an estate or elder law attorney who longs for the "good old days" when hanging a shingle was all you needed to bring clients in the door, (to quote the young kids) "I feel ya." I really do. If you wish social media would leave you alone, that birds were still the only ones twittering, and that telephones were still connected to the wall, "I feel ya."

But friends, it's a brave new world out there (yes, that phrase dates me as well). The new rules of marketing and public relations strike down the old rules. To coin Southwest Airlines, you are now free to move about the country!

And the best thing about the new rules? Your competitors probably don't know about them yet!

Pssst: You don't have to restrict your marketing to developing referral relationships with financial advisors who can send you clients. You can now deploy your website and social media to attract clients online, and you can do so without commiting "direct solicitation" violations!

Organize Your Website Around Your Passions

Everyone wants their website to land on the first page of Google when prospective clients go searching. But the marketer's question is, "Searching for what?" Do you know what your prospective clients are searching for when you hope they are searching for you?

Optimizing your website for keywords is a fundamental marketing task. A little research will show which key words and phrases are most popular, drive the most traffic. 

But optimizing your website is not just about choosing popular keywords. Website optimization begins with visualizing your ideal practice and defining your ideal client. What type of work drives your passion? What types of clients bring you the most satisfying work?

Organize your website around your passions. Do you prefer to work with middle-class retired couples? Entrepreneurial business owners? Youthful, energetic families or does your passion lie more with serving the elderly? Start thinking of your website in terms of your ideal practice, then create relevant, compelling content that appeals to your ideal client. The keywords will flow from that content.

Optimizing your website should result, not in page one rankings on Google, but in a satisfying and rewarding estate or elder law practice -- one that is both profitable and enjoyable.

Web Content Drives Traffic, Engages Visitors

We have had tremendous positive feedback on our new website Content Modules! Deploy these powerful, topic-specific modules on your estate or elder law website to drive traffic and differentiate your firm online. Not only will they add a real Wow! factor to your site, but they also give you keyword-rich, topic-specific content, automatically indexed by all the major search engines.

You already know that search engines love content. These content-rich modules are just the ticket to drive focused traffic to your site -- choose from 11 titles, including Elder Law 101, Business Owners, Estate Administration, Charitable Planning, even Pet Trusts ... and more!

Once you get visitors to your site, the next vital step is to keep them with engaging content. Your website visitors will love the interactive features, including page-turning, zoom in or out, and email to a friend. They also can print any or all pages directly from within the document. Additionally, hyperlinks within the document are all active, so your readers can click-through your document directly to any page on your site.

Click Here to View A Sample:
http://www.dpub.us/IMS/Elder-Law-101.html

Pricing for one title is just $299, which includes personalization, publishing, hosting and licensing for a full year. Volume discounts also apply.

For more information, visit our website at http://www.estateplanningpartners.com/IMS_Content_Modules.htm

or call James at 1-877-352-2021, ext. 0.

Can Twitter Help Build Your Law Practice?

What are some good strategies for deploying social media to boost your practice? I think the most important, and effective, is to use social media very similarly to the way you would use personal networking. Think of social media as the gateway to massive, ongoing personal networking opportunities ... leveraging your time and talent by reaching more people, more quickly, and by "archiving" your most poignant comments for all to read (unlike the time you made a great point in a conversation with one person at the local bar association lunch-n-learn).

 

If you are skeptical about the usefulness of social media, consider this demographic data about Twitter users, just in from Anderson Analytics (reported in Advertising Age today):

Twitterers
This is the super-user group. Twitterers are more interested than the others in many subjects but skew particularly high in all news categories, restaurants, sports, politics, personal finance and religion. They also especially like pop culture, with music, movies, TV and reading, ranking higher than average. And their buying habits mirror that. They're more likely to buy books, movies, shoes and cosmetics online than the other groups.

Twitterers are also entrepreneurial. They are more likely than others to use the service to promote their blogs or businesses. How do they keep going? Coffee, apparently. Some 31% buy coffee online, far above the average 21% of other social networkers.

The added emphasis is mine -- Twitterers are interested in personal finance, and they tend to be entrepreneurial. Sounds like a target-rich environment.

A Caveat About Social Media: You won't get very far with just a few 140-character "tweets" or a facebook page. You will need a compelling, impressing, engaging and relevant website, optimized to attract and convert your "friends and followers" into clients and referral sources. Then, you'll need an off-line strategy to build those contacts into profitable, win-win-win relationships.

Here is the link to the Advertising Age article: What Your Favorite Social Network Says About You (July 8, 2009) http://www.relk.info/db7a12

Recession Means Opportunity for Savvy Marketers

Your estate or elder law practice can survive a bit of benign neglect during good times, but the current economy places greater demands on your marketing skills. A recession is nothing if not unforgiving. Mistakes today are not easily overcome. Now is not the time to lose your focus. Remember, the economy WILL recover. But relationships that you allow to fall away now may never be recovered, or only at great cost. Maintaining relationships with your clients and key referral sources and building your brand integrity in the marketplace is imperative to a swift recovery.

In This Environment of Change, Build Client Relationships
The best-kept secret about the recession? It is rife with opportunity. Did you know that more fortunes were made during the Great Depression than at any other time in our history? Those who keep their heads and invest wisely can see great results today, too.

Don't let budget worries now undermine your practice development efforts. If money is tight, give us a call and let us brainstorm with you about ways to stretch your budget. We have many options that can relieve your current budget constraints, while still maintaining your valuable relationships and building your brand today for a quick recovery later. This way, you'll not only stay profitable now, but you will be ready to “hit the ground running” when times are better.

The three biggest opportunities you have right now, are:

1. Build trust-based relationships with your clients, many of whom came to you through a financial advisor relationship that they may have since abandoned. As clients are switching advisor relationships, you have an opportunity to step in as the trusted advisor to keep. This can help you build relationships (and referrals) with their new advisors, AND protect you from having your clients stolen away by these same new advisors who might otherwise be less friendly toward you.
   
   Strategy: Build client relationships with your newsletter. If you cannot afford to mail monthly to all of your clients, then implement a blended approach. Mail quarterly, email monthly. Or mail monthly to your top clients. Let your clients choose whether they want email or snail mail. Court your clients now. Do NOT let those relationships turn cold. Using your SELECT newsletter, you can minimize your time investment, and yet maximize your personalization. Include your own articles, write directly to your clients. Make it really WORK for you.

2. Go directly to niche markets and target consumers, bypassing the financial advisor relationship altogether. Witness the marketing campaign recently launched by Charles Schwab. Schwab is capitalizing on the fact that many people are dissatisfied with their financial advisors, encouraging to "take the reins" on their own investments. Times of change, uncertainty and transition are OPPORTUNITIES that you did not have before. Step in NOW to take advantage of these “loose prospects” in the marketplace!
   
   Strategy: Implement a consumer marketing strategy. Identify your niche markets and optimize your website to attract them. Utilize keywords to improve your search engine ranking. Add valuable and compelling content to keep visitors on your site. Include interactive components that allow you to capture leads and then drip-market to them. An e-newsletter is a MUST. Targeted web content, webinars, even recorded teleconferences and white papers are all good ways to start capturing leads and turning your website into a marketing workhorse. Remember that your website must attract visitors, retain visitors, and capture lead (contact) information.  Then you must have a method in place to drip-market to your leads and convert them into clients.
   
   Caveat: Don't be the last to adapt to recession-induced changes in consumer behavior! Be aware that consumer habits that are changing now, likely will NOT go back to the way they were before. Folks who are dumping their financial advisors and going online to do their own research, or working with discount brokers like Charles Schwab are highly unlikely to EVER go back to their financial advisor relationship. Once bitten, twice shy. You need to position yourself NOW to market directly to consumers.
    

3. Team-up with quality financial advisors. Even the best financial advisors are challenged right now by the melt-down in the financial services industry. This is a great time to build (or re-build) quality relationships, bring new marketing ideas, and help your best referral sources thrive.
   
   Strategy: Focus on select referral relationships. There are always a few stand-outs in any industry, and you likely know which financial advisors qualify. Focus on them. Send them your newsletter (preferably to their home) and your e-newsletter (to their office). Bring fresh ideas to them. Keep them close. Use your SELECT customization options to write directly to them. Add content to your website that will help them sell estate planning concepts. Have us build a webinar on your website, give your top financial advisors a password and let them use your webinar in their offices to sell your services.

There are many marketing strategies to help you do this, even with a constrained budget. For as little as $299 a year, you can add topic-specific, engaging content to your website that will drive traffic to your site, improve your search engine rankings, and help you reach your target markets.

Here is an example: http://www.estateplanningpartners.com/IMS_Content_Modules.htm

To learn more about website content modules, or other recession-savvy, budget-friendly marketing strategies, call us at 1-877-352-2021. Ask for James. We are more than happy to brainstorm with you and come up with the best marketing solutions for YOUR practice NOW.