Integrity Marketing

Posting From Within Word 2007

I am writing this blog post on my desktop, in Word 2007. I have registered my TypePad account in Word, and established my default sharing settings. I also was able to select categories for this blog post. If all goes as intended, our Essentials clients will be able to make their edits inside Word and simply hit the PUBLISH button to publish their blog posts to their accounts.

Integrity Marketing Solutions

Consumers Seek Estate Planning Guidance Online

New market research out of the UK shows that an increasing number of consumers are turning to the internet for guidance on estate planning issues. Some 48 per cent of those included in a Standard Life study reported that they have used the internet in order to learn more about this area.

What does this mean to you?

In the past, you probably focused your marketing efforts on developing strong relationships with allied professionals, and helping them educate their clients on estate planning issues. You should still do that. That is still a strong marketing strategy. However, you are remiss if you ignore the fact that an increasing number of consumers are turning to the internet for the same types of information they used to seek from financial professionals.

Does your website have the kind of relevant, compelling content that would lead a visitor to contact you? A mere bullet-point listing of your practice areas is no longer enough! Nor should your website become the repository for lengthy treatises suitable for publicaton in the legal review.

Writing compelling, relevant content for your website -- that is also legally accurate -- is a fine art. When we visit with prospective clients we often find that this is the stage where their website-development efforts have stalled. The design may be beautiful, but if you are required to provide the content ... well ... we find several recurring problems with that approach:

1. It simply does not happen, and the website never launches. The attorney always has more pressing matters to attend to, and the website then languishes unfinished.
2. After a very long wait, the website finally launches with barebones content. At some point, someone decides the website launch has been postponed long enough -- they sit down on a Sunday night and get something hastily written... or
3. The website is unintelligible by the average visitor. We run website content through a readability grader. Oftentimes we find that client-written content comes in at a post-graduate reading level, well beyond the comprehension of most website visitors.

The Essential Solution solves these problems with professionally-written, licensed legal content. Our two top writers both have undergraduate degrees in journalism, and combined nearly 50 years of experience writing compelling legal copy. Every word that we publish is either written or edited by an AV-rated attorney, our company President Kyle Krull.

Education-based marketing remains the mainstay of estate planning and elder law practice development. The new twist today is not in the strategy, but in the delivery. Think of your website as another allied professional -- pre-qualifying, educating and preparing referrals for your practice. Give her plenty of rich, fresh, compelling content and you will be well-rewarded.

Just What is The Right Amount of Wrong?

Marketing is an oft-misunderstood art. I frequently ask attorneys about their mission and vision for their practice. I ask these questions because their marketing will become their public image, and I want that public image to accurately reflect who they are. The best thing you can do with your marketing is ensure it is genuine -- and genuinely you. Why? Because you want to attract people who will relate to you, who will like you, and so eventually become clients and perhaps even referral sources.

It's okay to put yourself out there. Some people will be drawn to you. Others will not. Let them go. They will not be good clients for you anyway.

If you follow me on Facebook, you know that I spent four days in Las Vegas last week -- and you know that I did not enjoy the city. I was homesick. I missed my horses, my husband and my farm. But - I travel a lot, and seldom feel this incredible longing to get back home FAST.

What was going on?

Las Vegas does a great job of marketing. They tout themselves as "Sin City." I saw a billboard that read, "Just the Right Amount of Wrong."

That struck me. What is the "right amount" of Wrong?

I didn't think it was funny or cute -- because I don't really think there is a "right amount" of Wrong.

But at least they are honest. If you think think there is a right amount of Wrong, and Sin City sounds like fun to you -- then Las Vegas is your town!

Clearly, I am not their target market. I only went there beause I had to, I was on business. And I have bad-mouthed and complained about the place ever since.

This can happen to you as well. Have you ever had clients you simply could not satisfy? No matter what you did, they just did not seem happy with you, your office, or your work? This may not be a reflection on you or your work at all -- it may be the result of poorly-targeted marketing. Marketing that does not convey who you truly are may attract people who just.don't.like.you.

I challenge you to review your marketing through this lens: does it genuinely convey who you are, how you approach your practice, and how you treat people?

If not, now might be a good time for you to give us a call. We follow a personalized process to build an estate planning / elder law marketing system that works for you, beginning with a personal marketing consultation, DiSC Profile analysis, and your Personal Account Manager. We call it The Essential Solution®.

Who knows? It may be the Right Amount of Right for you!

Elder Law Website Design: Is Your Website Just an Idle Engine?

James and I just returned from a great week at the NAELA (National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys) Annual Meeting in Las Vegas, where we had the high privilege of visitng with members about elder law marketing and practice development. During those discussions, we often turned to this graphic to show how an integrated marketing system should work.

Properly deployed, your website is an extremely powerful marketing tool. It should attract qualified prospects, establish rapport, build trust, and begin the process of converting visitors into new clients. With these jobs in mind, it should be designed to be user-friendly, welcoming and engaging. It should be properly optimized for key search terms that are relevant to your prospective clients. And it should lead the visitor into an ongoing relationship, whether through a newsletter subscription, a visit to your blog your Facebook profile, a workshop registration, etc. Remember, the longer your visitors linger on your website, the more likely they are to become new clients.

But, no matter how well-designed your website, it simply cannot stand alone. If you have a "solitary" website, you already know this. Many of those who came to visit with us last week were looking for something they could "add" to their website that would make it start working. They said things like, "I already have a website that I sorta like, but it doesn't bring us any business." They wonder whether adding a newsletter or an e-newsletter would jolt their website to life.

The truth is, effective marketing begins with the end in sight. A website designed to stand alone cannot be magically transformed into the hub of a strategically integrated system. It would be like trying to put a turbo-charged engine into a Ford Focus. Oh, it might fit under the hood (and then again, it might not), but there is more to it than just shoving a new engine under the hood. And even if you could get the engine to run, the body of the Focus is not built for speed. The best you could hope for is one hot mess!

If you want to reach your destination, why not stop shopping for an engine? You will get there much faster if you just buy the whole car.

James recorded a short video that may tell the story better:

 

Google Knocked My Website Off Page One -- What Do I Do Now?

Google's new algorithm, called Panda, knocked a lot of former page-one-websites off the map. And I do mean, off the map. If your estate planning or elder law firm website is one of them, here are my Top Ten things to do now, plus three things to NOT do:

1. Don't Panic. It seems like Google is still a bit unstable in applying the rules right now. It's possible your site will spontaneously resurrect. I've seen it happen. On the other hand ...
2. Don't Be Complacent. Ranking well on Google is important. It is not the end-all and be-all of estate planning marketing, but it is important. Just yesterday Kyle got a new client who said they found him through a "Google search."
3. Don't Be Dependent. The great truth about Google is that she is a fickle ally. Please do not -- ever -- put all of your marketing eggs into her basket. It is not a question of if, but WHEN, she is going to empty that basket and send your eggs tumbling! Make SURE you have other marketing channels working for you, including social media, your blog, e-newsletters, direct mail, personal networking, and even workshops. If all other aspects of your marketing are working well, Google's roller coaster ride will not send you reeling.

Now, if you've got all of your "do not do's" in order, here is where to start rebuilding your Google rank:

1. Check your code. Either do this yourself or enlist an expert. Google is fed up with outdated, noncompliant code and she is now giving the boot to websites for mistakes she previously overlooked. Here is a free online code checker: http://validator.w3.org/ Sometimes, previously-compliant pages will become non-compliant after you make a few "updates," especially if you are not a professional webmaster. These small mistakes can cause big problems. On the other hand, some compliancy errors are worse than others. But if your site is showing up with lots of errors and warnings, you're probably going to need professional help to fix it.
2. Broken links. Do you have any broken links on your site -- either internal or external? For example, did you change your site structure, but forget to go back and update all of your internal links? Or, are you linking to an outside "resource" that has moved, or no longer exists? These need to be fixed right away.
3. Submit a new sitemap. How long has it been since you submitted a new sitemap for your website? If you have added any new content since your last submission, create a new sitemap and submit it Google. This will let them know that you've refreshed your site and they should crawl (and index) it again.
4. Add fresh content. Google Panda loves content. Lots of fresh, highly relevant content. If you previously had one paragaph about Special Needs Planning, now is the time to write a more comprehensive article, optimize it, and then publish and link it to your Special Needs Planning landing page. And then submit a new sitemap.
5. Blog. This is one of the most important things you can do to boost your website's SEO, IF your blog is properly structured so your blog pages are indexed as part of your website. Adding fresh, relevant, optimized content to your blog daily -- if those posts are indexed with your website -- will systematically boost your Google rank.
6. Google Places -- are you verified? If you have not claimed and verified your local listing in the Google Places directory (formerly known as Google local business), doing so will help your site's rank. It also could get you on page one of the search results page, in the Google Places (maps) listings that often show up for local searches. This would help at least until you can get your website's organic search rank improved.
7. Claim your Online Profiles and Link to Your Website. Claim and update your profiles online -- including Linked In, AVVO, Martindale, or any membership organizations that list your profile. These profile back-links to your website can improve your rank, and drive traffic to your site.
8. Check Your Bounce Rate. Are people visiting your site but then 'bouncing off" quickly? Google calls this your "bounce rate." A high bounce rate for your key search strings will eventually get you kicked off of Google's Page One -- you see, Google figures that if people are bouncing off your site, they do so because they did not find what they were looking for. If your bounce rate is high, especially for key pages, take a look at those pages and try to make them more engaging. The longer you keep visitors on your site, the better your chances of converting them to new clients -- and the better Google will like you, too.
9. Add Video. Yes, Google loves SEO-enabled video, and so do visitors. Video will not only help your search rank, but it will also help keep visitors on your site longer -- thereby reducing your bounce rate and improving your conversion rate. As I said before, the longer you keep someone on your website, the better your chances of converting them to new clients. Video has been shown to increase conversion rates substantially. Video may be your next best bet for lots of reasons!
10. Objectively Monitor Your Rank. Google will sometimes fool you. She does this to me all the time. Google wants to give you what you are looking for, so if she determines that you are looking for a specific site, she will sometimes just decide to serve it up to you -- and I mean you and you alone! Yes, when you search online Google may give you your own website because she is trying to please you -- but when others search, you are still quarantined in Oblivion. We use a proprietary web ranking software to constantly monitor our Essentials clients' web rank. This objective program gives us the "real" results. It can be frustrating to speak to attorneys who are looking at their monitors and seeing their websites on Page One, when our program shows them on Page 12 ... but please don't shoot the messenger! Google can be a tricksy one!

If all of this seems like too much for you, then give us a call. You may be ready for The Essential Solution.

How Expensive is YOUR Website?

A little story about Rex, who saved money on his website ... but missed out on the opportunity to grow his estate planning practice.

How expensive is your website?

  

NAELA Annual Meeting -- How Do You Define Elder Law?

James and I are packing our bags and heading off to Las Vegas today! No, it's not to feed a gambling addiction ... running a small business today is enough risk-taking for me, thank you! We are heading off to the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys' (NAELA) Elder Law & Special Needs Annual Conference.

Integrity Marketing is a big supporter of NAELA, which we observe is one of the finest supportive organizations in the legal field. Their annual meeting provides Elder and Special Needs Law professionals an unparalleled opportunity to learn, network, and engage with leaders within the field. The focus this year is on current legislation, changes in tax code, and updates in health care reform and case law.

Many of our clients are NAELA members. When I meet with a new client, I always ask them about elder law -- and the answers I get back are quite varied. It seems "elder law" means something slightly different to nearly everyone. Some see "elder law" as primarily crisis Medicaid planning. Others see it with almost a social-work mentality -- helping families choose care providers, sift through housing options, obtain health care powers and guardianship if necessary.

I spoke to a new client a few weeks ago, though, who provided the answer that I liked best. She said, "I don't consider Elder Law and Estate Planning distinct areas." She went on to explain how, in her view, comprehensive estate planning will encompass elder law and Medicaid planning ... and elder law cannot be practiced properly without an eye toward estate planning. I liked that, and repeated it to another new client who said he did not "do Elder Law."

He said his main practice focus was traditional estate planning -- wills and trusts. But he said his "ideal client" is typically age 55 to 60, and often comes to him initially because of issues relating to their aging parents. "What prompts them to call me is usually something that has happened with their parents. They need to protect a family farm or business interest from Dad's nursing home expenses."

So, I said, you do practice Elder Law. In fact, it's a big part of your marketing and practice development, because it's issues of elder law that are motivating new clients to call.

He just had never looked at it from that perspective.

As our population ages, issues of elder law are pervasive. They affect each of us in our own lives, and are a necessary component of any responsible estate planning.

If you have not yet, I encourage you to look into joining NAELA. It's a great organization, you can learn a lot -- and of course, you'll get out of it only as much as you put it into it. So, don't just join. Get involved. Chances are you are practicing "elder law" on some level -- NAELA can help you do it better!

SEO: Sometimes it Takes a Hat Trick

Search engine optimization for estate planning and elder law firms is heating up. As more firms realize the value of a Page One listing on Google, they are working hard to get those listings. I've always said that SEO is a bit like a game of King of the Hill. There are only ten listings on Google's Page One. If you get one of them, you will get it by knocking someone else off. Once you're there, you have a big target on your back, too. Everyone else will be trying to knock you off.

The more competitive your market area, the more difficult it is to get those page one results from organic search. In competitive metro markets, absolutely every little detail has to be perfect in order to get ranked.

Here is a case-inpoint of an attorney whose on-site SEO coding looks perfect, but he's still not getting ranked in his competitive market. Let's call him Rex, and take a look at some of the problems / hurdles Rex is facing:

1. Rex seldom blogs. He has a nice blog site, but he only has a total of 24 blog posts. A quick check this morning showed his last blog posting dated Sept. 10, 2010.
   
   
2. No Newsletters. When I click on the "newsletter" link on his site, I see a smattering of links to outdated PDF files. There is no publication schedule, and no subscribe link. These are not "newsletters." They don't fit the definition of a newsletter -- which would have subscribers, a distribution process, and a publication frequency that is not "every now and then."
   
   
3. Unclaimed Google Places Listing. If I search very long and very hard, I can find Rex's Places Page on Google maps, but it is not owner verified. This is killing him,  because Google does not give him much "authority" for being real when his local listing has not been verified. Google's Places Directory (formerly called Local Business Directory) is extremely important to your LOCAL search success. First, you must claim your listing. Then, you must create your business profile PROPERLY. Doing it wrong can mean you still won't show up on that nice little map Google is showing for local search.

Now, let's talk about how these things impact Rex's SEO

1. Site Crawling -- Rex's site is not being crawled frequently because he does not add fresh content regularly. If you don't add fresh content to your site, and submit a new site map telling Google you did so, your website will not get crawled and re-indexed as often. Adding fresh content and submitting new site maps gets the site "looked at" more frequently by Google, and can boost your rank. (This is one reason why we put e-newsletters up for our Essentials clients every month, and index them on the site. When we do this, we add the content, and we make and submit a new sitemap. This helps a lot.)
   
   
2. Indexed Pages. This is where Rex is getting clobbered in his market. All things being equal, the more indexed pages you have on your website, the higher it will rank. Rex's website has 89 indexed pages -- this includes every page of his website and each page of his blog. The firm that is ranking #1 on Google's Page One in his market? They have 1,440 indexed pages! Most of them from the firm's blog! Rex cannot compete against them with 89 indexed pages. The most talented SEO wizard on earth cannot complete against them with 89 indexed pages. Don't whine about whether your Twitter account is connected to your Facebook Page, or whether you need to choose new key words. Until Rex gets more pages indexed on Google, his website is going to fall into oblivion in his competitive market.

So -- how do we get more indexed pages? There are several ways to do this, but here are two of the ways we solve this problem for our Essentials clients:

1. Properly Deployed eNewsletters. Essentials clients get a big boost every month with their e-newsletter program. Every month, we provide four new, optimized pages of content that reside right on the website. We update the index and archives pages. We also create and submit a new sitemap every month. This all works in the background, automatically and Rex need never worry about it.
   
   
2. Properly Deployed Blog -- If your blog is set up properly, posting to it every week day will add an average of 20 indexed pages to the website monthly. This may seem like a huge task, but we provide our Essentials clients with the content they need for daily weekday blogs. We even teach them, or someone on their staff, to pre-schedule these blogs, edit them for their own practice, and get them posted with a minimum amount of effort. Most of our Essentials clients spend about an hour a week on their blogs.
   

I have one more suggestion to help Rex leap-frog over the competition and land on Google's Page One quickly -- video.

We are having tremendous success with SEO-enabled video. We are able to break through to Google's Page One when we add optimized, indexed video to our client's websites. Rex's top competitor has more than 1,000 indexed pages, and he is so far behind in that race, that even our best efforts are unlikely to overtake the competition soon.

In this case, I suggest SEO-enabled video to even the score. Why? Because Rex's top competitor does not have a SINGLE indexed video on their site! Not one. If Rex deployed a strategic, properly seo-enabled video to his website, he could probably zoom right to page one. There are no guarantees here, but based on past experience, I strongly suspect that is the result he would get.

We have been getting these kinds of results -- and clients are now flying in to Kansas City for a one-day video shoot to get these done. Here is how it works -- client flies into MCI airport in the morning. We pick them up and take them to the Marriott next to the airport, where we have set up a video studio. We work with the client on the script ahead of time, and our videographers coach the client through the shoot. It takes approximately one to two hours -- depending on how many videos we shoot. Then, we take the client back to the airport and they fly home. If they can't catch a late flight, they can stay at the Marriott overnight and take the shuttle back to the airport.

Some people say they will find a local firm to shoot their video -- but so far, we have not seen this pan out. Most people just drop the ball and they never get it done. They say they will, but they just won't. They can book a flight, but they cannot research and find a videographer, negotiate fees, set an appointment, write a script, storyboard the video, follow-up to get the editing done and then send us the file. That is just too much for them. So, if they can book a round-trip flight, we will do the rest.

This is how I would approach Rex's website-in-oblivion dilemma. I would fix everything that's broken, get systems in place to optimize his Google indexing opportunities, and then I would try to pull a rabbit out of my hat with strategically deployed video.

Market Like a Marketing Company

 We are shooting videos tomorrow. We blocked off the whole day, even pulled Kyle out of his law practice and James out of his office. Just to shoot video.

Then, our videography staff will spend several days editing those videos and our web design staff will spend a few more optimizing, publishing and distributing them.

Last week, we storyboarded a new video commercial that we plan to take to the NAELA conference later this week.

One June 1st our videography staff & studio will move into new, dedicated office space -- breaking our nearly ten-year tradition of virtual officing.

Why? Why would we invest so heavily of our time and money into this new technology?

Because it works.

If you know Kyle and me, you know that we are both a couple of oldsters who grew up at a time when Print was King. Heck, when I went to journalism school, we still had to memorize the letter positions in the California Job Case!

We moved fairly easily into the internet world ... we were among the first to launch an interactive estate planning listserv, way back in 1998! (Does this make our listserve the longset continuously running listerv for estate planning marketing?) We adapted to incorporate basic websites in our marketing tool box. We winced a bit with the dawn of e-newsletters, but we gamely hung in there.

Then came blogging ... and social media. Kyle is the first to admit that he was a reluctant adopter. With each new technology, we paused to evaluate the impact before trying it out for ourselves ... and eventually passing our experience on to our clients.

So here comes video. Ack! Really? Video? You mean you're going to record ME? With all my years of ... ahh ... experience showing up right there on my face -- in the form of crow's feet, wrinkles, and ... well ... the ravages of gravity?? Really?

Yes, really.

This just in from comScore:

RESTON, VA, April 12, 2011 – comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today released data from the comScore Video Metrix service showing that 174 million U.S. Internet users watched online video content in March for an average of 14.8 hours per viewer. The total U.S. Internet audience engaged in more than 5.7 billion viewing sessions during the course of the month.

Let's take one more tidbit from comScore's recent numbers:

• 83.5 percent of the U.S. Internet audience viewed online video.

Okay, so people love online video. 174 million American people last month alone. That's a big number.

But, friends, here is what really persuaded us to invest in video --

1. We put a short video on our website about a year ago. When people called to talk to us about marketing, they mentioned watching the video. They said it made them feel like they already knew us.
2. Based on that tiny success, we took another step and started creating video proposals. The feedback was enormously positive ... and our conversion rate from inquiries to new clients skyrocketed.
3. Then Google decided to love SEO-enabled video. We found we could get page one results with properly optimized and strategically deployed video. And, we saw Google was indexing our properly-deployed videos almost instantly ... oftentimes the same day we launched them.

So, we are shooting video tomorrow.

Are you?

Marketing Estate Planning Services to Business Owners

So far this week we have focused on target marketing estate planning services to blended families, baby boomers, and women.Today we focus on one of the most important niche markets for your estate planning marketing: small business owners.

Why is this niche so important to you? Because wealthy households own businesses.

"What is surprising is the composition of asset holdings among the rich. Most of their wealth is in the form of unincorporated business. They are owners of small businesses or professional practices. Stocks, bonds and other financial assets represent less than one-third of their assets." -- The Rich & the Poor: Demographics of the U.S. Wealth Distribution

Additionally, the business is consistently the single most important portfolio asset among the wealthy. Oftentimes, the business IS the estate. And this presents unique estate planning challenges, especially at the retirement, disability or death of the primary business owner.

Those challenges will include:

• Providing support for a surviving spouse
• Determining business continuation within the family
• Equalizing an inheritance among children who are not all active in the business
• Providing for key non-family employees
• Providing liquidity (cash) for business debts and taxes

Here are some tips for marketing estate planning services to business owners:

• Business owners are easily identified through a variety of list compilation services, and you can easily narrow your focus to specific sizes and types of businesses within almost any market area.
• Business owners typically work with professional advisers in a number of areas, including accounting and property/casualty/liability insurance.
• Business owners are used to consulting experts and professionals, and may be less intimidated about seeking legal advice than non-business owners.
• A portion (or all) of your services may be considered a business expense, payable with a business check -- which is easier to write than a personal check.
• Note that business owners may be very busy, bottom-lined oriented, and fast-paced. They may expect you to meet them on their own turf, make doing business with you very convenient for them, and you may be surprised (at times) by the abruptness with which they can interrupt and ask for a bottom-line cost-benefit analysis. In other words, you may have to flex your style to meet their demands, but the payoff could be substantial because ...
• Business owners tend to network extensively with other business owners. They are highly inclined to make referrals, and to seek referrals from their trusted colleagues. Becoming a trusted adviser to one business owner can open up a world of ongoing opportunity.

Of course, your website, blog, e-newsletter, personal networking, direct mail and social media are all important marketing channels for reaching business owners. Our Essentials clients benefit from compelling, relevant content and strategies to reach business owners, fundamental throughout The Essential Solution®. In addition, you may want to consider incorporated our targeted workshop entitled, "Saving the Family Business," which outlines the fundamental steps necessary to plan for the survival of the family business.