Integrity Marketing

Great Content is Key

One of the most challenging aspects of social media marketing is coming up with great content. To get the most from your social media efforts, you need to post frequently, which compounds your challenge. Be great, and be great often!

Before you start posting (or Tweeting), start with a plan. Remember, you are trying to build relationships through genuine, engaging communication. So think of your own goals -- what do you want to communicate? But also think of your readers. What do they WANT to read? Communication is a two-way street, in this case requiring both a writer and a (willing) reader.

Remember also to include those all-important key words so your posts can be found by people interested in your topic. No time to be coy or clever here. If you are talking about a revocable living trust, use those words and not some euphemism, such as "comprehensive planning," which could refer just as easily to vacation planning as estate planning!

So how do you come up with great content? It's entirely unlike the estate planning process, as attorney and IMS President Kyle Krull described in his blog posting, "Begin with the End in Mind."

Here are some ideas from social media guru Christine Yee:

1. Start with a communications plan
2. Brainstorm on ways to communicate your ideas
3. Focus your brainstorming to your blog or Twitter
4. Practice! or as Nike said, Just do it!

For more guidance, read her entire post, "How to Come Up with Great Content Ideas for Social Media."

NAELA Wrap-Up: Great Work for Elder Law and Special Needs

I'm back in the office today after a week in Orlando at the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys (NAELA) Annual Elder Law & Special Needs Planning meeting. Great meeting, and kudos to Casey Anderson for all of her terrific organizational work!

We spent Saturday evening at the home of Trish McLelland, of InterActive Legal Systems (www.interactivelegal.com). She and husband, Mike, offered us wonderful hospitality -- plus a GREAT dinner! Thank you.

For those of you who are not familiar with InterActive Legal, they are the premier provider of legal practice systems and document drafting for estate planning and elder law attorneys. Their organization and product systems are built with the highest integrity and the most respected authors in the profession, from Jonathan Blattmachr and Michael Graham as authors to Tom Begley, Andy Hook and Steve Silverberg on the elder law editorial team to their entire advisory board.

Our friendship with Jonathan, Mike, Trish and Interactive Legal is a long and enduring one, and I am both pleased and proud that InterActive Legal chose our firm to provide marketing and practice development support to their subscribers. It is a trust we respect and cherish.

If you are an InterActive Legal subscriber, please take a moment to visit the Practice Development Center we have built for you online -- or give us a call toll-free at 1-877-352-2021, ask for James and find out more about the practice development system we have designed to help ensure your success.

Time, Contact and Case Management Solutions

It's Friday, the last day of the NAELA annual Elder Law &Special Needs meeting in Orlando. I think everyone is ready to head outside for some sunshine!

Yesterday I visited (again) with Tom Caffrey of Premier Software. Tom is a TimeMatters specialist, with customized case and contact management solutions for estate planning and elder law attorneys. He also is a benefit partner with NAELA.

If you haven't settled on that "perfect" case and contact management solution for your practice, I'd recommend contacting Tom. Attend some of his online training sessions, spend some time visiting with him about your practice management challenges and see if he has a solution to fit your needs.

Expertise, Marketing, Processes

Dave Zumpano of MPS Success (http://www.mpssuccess.com) spoke briefly at the NAELA luncheon today. Briefly, but powerfully.

His goal was to have an impact on the lives of the people in the audience, and I believe that, even in the 10 short minutes he had to speak, he definitely achieved that goal.

One of the concepts Dave stressed was that most NAELA members excel in the area of expertise. But, frequently they struggle with the business aspect of their law practice -- especially in terms of marketing and practice processes.

The three pillars of any successful law practice, Zumpano said, are expertise, marketing nand efficient processes. I couldn't agree more.

We focus on the marketing aspect, helping clients define their practice development goals, develop integrated marketing plans, and then implement the strategies to achieve those goals.

We also do this in a way that I think comports with Zumpano's advice to manage expenses. In other words, I believe we provide the best value for your marketing investment -- with personalized, branded solutions that take advantage of our more than 15 years of systems-development. In other words, we don't have to re-invent the wheel for every client, nor charge for that process! Instead, you gain the cost advantage of utilizing time-proven systems to build your practice!

Expensive Marketing -- Is it REALLY Smart?

Enjoyed the opening reception at NAELA last  night. Great idea to move out to the Marina, after everyone spent the day inside. The weather was perfect, too.

Overheard an interesting conversation between two members discussing their marketing. Of course, I deny eavesdropping, but discussions about marketing and practice development are too enticing to pass up. Apparently, there is a marketing agency whose fees are so high that some people view it as "prestigious" to be working with them! I found this a bit confounding.

Marketing is an expense. Why would you want to unnecessarily increase it?

Marketing should help LOWER your client acquisition costs, Excellent marketing helps you build a sustainable practice that eventually runs itself -- with a steady stream of well-qualified referrals that result from the quality relationships you build over time.

Marketing is not an end in itself. There is no prestige to over-paying for ANYthing, least of all your marketing.

To those attorneys who are more focused on making money (rather than spending it foolishly), give us a call. We offer marketing solutions that WORK, solutions that make sense ... and we won't charge you so much that your ability to pay (or not pay ) our fees becomes cocktail conversation!

Save that for the day you buy your wife a Lexus for cash ... like one of our clients did recently!

NAELA - The Amalgam

Had a great conversation with Craig Reeves during the afternoon break. Craig is a KC-area attorney, and past president of NAELA. Our conversation drifted toward our mutual observations about the "difference" we observe among NAELA members. I think Craig put it best when he said that NAELA members are an amalgam of legal / technical experts and true client-advocates. I find them to be sincere, gracious and friendly. Craig says they are "human." Okay, I go along with that, too!

Maintaining a Blog -- Live from NAELA

I'm blogging this week from the NAELA annual meeting in Orlando. One of the questions that came up during this morning's break was about blogging, specifically whether blogging is worth the effort, since blogs are "so hard to maintain."

First, let me answer that question, is blogging worth the effort? Yes! That's my unequivocal answer. Properly integrated and managed, blogging is proven to drive traffic to your website and leads to your office. The more frequently you blog, the more leads your blog (and website) will generate. The more keyword-rich content you generate (and if all is set up properly for keyword indexing), the higher your website will rank for targeted searches fby qualified prospects.

Second -- are blogs hard to maintain? Yes. They certainly can be. They can be difficult to set up, complex to integrate and index, and nerve-racking to maintain. That's why you need us to help. Outsource the difficult part -- the set up, integration and indexing to professionals. Then, we help you with "blog support" -- a steady steam of ready-to-use ideas and hyperlinks to keep you posting, live technical support, and monthly coaching / training to ensure your blog success.

Right now, I am blogging from our booth at the NAELA conference. It's easy!

On the Road Again at the NAELA Annual Meeting

The trip down to Orlando was relatively un-eventful ... except for the part when I boarded the plan in KC and the rest of the crew were still nowhere in sight! Thankfully, everyone did make it before take-off!

The venue is very nice, we finally got our booth set-up (why does it always take so long?) and are now relaxing in our rooms. The weather is perfect.

We visited with Stephen Silverberg briefly this afternoon. He is finishing up his tenure as President. Steve is a great guy, always ready with a story and a few good laughs. We also were happy to lend a hand to MPS (http://www.mpssuccess.com/) as they were putting their booth together.

We had only one glitch with our booth -- our slick lighted banner did not arrive. But, no worries, really. We are here to visit with members, not compete with our colleagues about who has the best-lit booth! The laptops are working, the monitors are working, and so are we!

Our main focus this week is to stress the importance of an integrated marketing solution. A website, no matter how many bells-and-whistles it may have, is not a marketing strategy. A blog is not a marketing strategy. A newsletter is not a marketing strategy. These are all tools that can be used, if wel-integrated, to excecute your marketing strategy.

I believe this is where Integrity Marketing really offers the comparative advantage over our competitors. We have developed time-tested systems that work, and we help our clients implement comprehensive stratgies to meet their practice development goals.

I Will Be Speaking to the Michigan Forum on June 4

Just confirmed, I will be speaking on June 4th to the Michigan Estate Planning Forum in Lansing. The topic will be Marketing Fundamentals for Estate Planning and Elder Law Attorneys. For more information about this event, contact Dan Marsh [email protected].

Top 5 Reasons to Use Social Media

I spent the past few days complaining about social media and all things mobile. Despite my frustrations with and complaints about these new technologies, I do see their value, their potential, and compelling reasons to embrace them.

Before I wax too laudatory of social media, one more caveat: social media marketing is one valuable component of a comprehensive marketing and communications plan. It is not a silver bullet, a panacea, nor the greatest thing since sliced bread. However, used properly and strategically, social media marketing makes good sense for estate planning and elder law attorneys.

Here are my top 5 reasons for using social media marketing:

1. Social Media is proven effective -- When we look at B2C companies (business-to-consumer, which includes professional services) 57% of companies that have a company blog report having acquired new customers directly from their blog; 51% from Twitter and 68% from Facebook. These are not staggering numbers, but they are good numbers. Used strategically, social media marketing can clearly boost your bottom line.
   
2. SEO - Integrated Social Media dramatically improves website ranking on the major search engines, and directly impacts the number of leads generated from your website. Companies that blog have more than 400% more content pages indexed on Google than companies that don't ... and the more pages indexed on Google, the more leads your website will generate. In fact, sites with 176 to 310 indexed content pages generate, on average, 22 leads per month; sites with more than 300 indexed content pages generate, on average, 74 leads per month. How do you get that many indexed content pages? Blogging. I have been blogging with pretty fair consistency for the past several years, and we now have a few hundred indexed content pages ... our website ranks on page one for Google, Yahoo and Bing (for our targeted search strings). In fact, our website generates enough leads through organic search alone that we were able to drop our Google AdWords budget completely.
   
3. Social Media Builds Relationships -- Marketing for the estate planning and elder law attorney is all about building relationships. Social media helps you build relationships -- you are able to get your "personality" and your "voice" out into the marketplace through your blog postings in ways that you simply cannot accomplish through any other media. When people read your less-formal writings, they begin to feel as though they know you, they can start to connect with you ... and thus the trust process begins.
   
4. Social Media Builds Market Prominence -- Let's face it.The movers-and-shakers in the business world are following social media. They read blogs, they are on Twitter and Facebook. By "movers and shakers," I mean journalists for both professional and consumer media, and the thought-leaders of the business world. People who are in the forefront realize they cannot afford to ignore social media. You can get noticed if you are blogging, tweeting, and building a fan base on Facebook. We frequently are invited to speak to and write for legal groups and publications by people who read this blog. We are seeing the same trend with our clients.
   
   
5. Social Media is Traditional and Personal -- only the technology has changed. Once upon a time, traditional, personal marketing meant attending Little League baseball games, serving on the local school board, volunteering for charitable events and staying active in your local bar association. These are all ways for you to connect with people, to become part of your community. Social media, used properly, does the same thing. Even though it is less personal, social media does expand your ability to connect with people. And that's what marketing is really all about. Connecting.

Those are the reasons why I like social media -- despite all of the reasons that I don't!

Stay tuned. Next up? How to use specific channels (blogging, Twitter, Facebook) to enhance your marketing and practice development efforts.