Integrity Marketing

Let’s Get Personal: The Emotional Side of Law Firm Marketing

We love it when estate planning lawyers and their team members come to Kansas for IMS Strategic Planning Retreats because we get to dig into their personalities, dreams and aspirations and help them boost their firms to the next level. We connect with each other on a personal level, even though it’s all business. Can you say the same for your law firm marketing?

Providing peace of mind is hard when chaos is in the air. When you arrive at a spa for a massage, there’s a definite sense of calm that is deliberately created. What happens when clients walk into your office? They should feel like they are walking into a professional, polished space where everything is under control. If the phone or intercom is constantly interrupting your meeting, or if there’s clutter on the table, they are not going to feel calm.

Balance sharing your story with theirs. You may want to bond with clients over their challenges and concerns by sharing your own personal stories, but don’t over share. Remember the focus is on the client and their situation.

Be open to surprises. If your intake system is automated, and we hope it is, you’ll already have a lot of information about your prospective client and their particular situation. But what’s on paper isn’t always the same as the people who walk in the door. Don’t be surprised if the way you imagined a couple or an individual is completely different than the folks who actually walk in the door.

 Remember, today it’s all about the visuals. We are used to seeing videos for everything, from sneakers dancing across the screen for a major national shoe store to play-by-play descriptions of how to build a retaining wall. Clients will engage more readily when they have seen videos of you speaking about how you approach estate planning. They will certainly find it easier to locate your office if we’ve shot some drone video footage that shows the exterior of your building as seen from a distance and as one gets closer to the entrance.

Making clients comfortable by engaging emotional responses is a carefully choreographed path. At our strategic planning retreat, we’ll deconstruct and reconstruct that path to make it straighter and get rid of the bumps and detours so that you and clients reach your ultimate destination.

Talking Back to the Internet: Opportunities and Pitfalls

Interacting with other people on social media platforms–responding to comments, posting on forums, etc.–takes social media campaigns to the next level. The direct feedback and personal interaction with clients and consumers is powerful. But for attorneys in general and estate planning attorneys in particular, it’s a bit trickier. So what can the progressive estate planning attorney do to engage with the online world, without crossing any ethical boundaries?

Share your knowledge without providing specific advice. General information, rather than advice to a specific situation, is valuable to your audience and to Google searches. The goal is to make the information useful and relevant, but not so detailed. Leave your visitors wanting more, and include a call to action to discuss their family’s situation.

Know your state’s rules on lawyer advertising. In some states, social media posts are considered attorney advertising. And these rules are updated often, as bar associations work to keep up with a changing landscape.

Don’t make misleading statements. A car salesman can say they have the best prices in town. You can’t. Bragging about getting results for clients that are flagrantly untrue, or overstating a victory of some kind will mislead people reading your statements and could land you in hot water with the local bar association.

Remember you are never an expert or a specialist. Never use the words “expert,” specialist” or say that you have a “specialty.” This is a basic rule of legal marketing that has been around for years, and it remains with social media today.

Respect privileged information. When a prospect shares their personal information with you, even if they do not become a client, respect their privacy and do not use them as an example of what happens when things go wrong –even if they retain another firm and things do go wrong. Client information is completely off-limits. Testimonials are fine and a great way to show off your skills while letting other people talk about you.

Write articles and share those that are published. Just be sure that you retain copyright ownership so that there won’t be an issue with the articles appearing in other places. This engages people in your community and boosts your SEO. You might also write an e-book or white paper that users can download from your website.

The Fully Engaged Estate Planning Attorney: Strategic Marketing

How engaged are you with the strategic marketing of your practice? Really engaged? By now, most attorneys know they need to do more than simply practice law. What often happens is they go to a handful of networking meetings, host a workshop or two and then wait for the calls to come. It’s not enough.

Competition and disruption have taken down many mid-sized and solo practices. Ramping up marketing efforts to full engagement is not a luxury—it’s a necessity. Find the time by refusing to get bogged down with repetitive tasks. This is a relatively easy problem to solve today. Automating client intake process and as many marketing processes as possible (E2-CRM takes care of both of these issues), and having a stellar staff gives the estate planning attorney the time to become fully engaged with client development.

A few activities that can’t be automated:

Take one idea and fly with it. Pick a topic that you feel passionate about. Or find one that no one else has considered, yet is emerging in your practice as an important issue. Write articles for the local or state bar association. Add your published article to your website. Translate those legal articles into articles for local media, and pitch the issue to the local personal finance or senior living reporter. Blog about the issue, your published article(s) and media appearances on your social media platforms. Speak at local community groups to educate consumers on the issue.

Do this once a month or once a quarter, and your profile in the community and among your peers and your online visibility will take a major leap forward.

You don’t have to run workshops or seminars to speak. Chances are good that there are affiliated professionals throughout your community who are already holding events. If they are people you know, offer to speak and work with them on a topic that highlights your expertise and supports their event. Don’t steal the show—respect their investment—but by appearing as a “special speaker,” you will have the benefit of a personal appearance, with less of the grunt work.

Don’t eat alone. Well, sometimes you have to, but one entire theory of networking was built around the simple concept that everyone stops for breakfast, lunch or dinner, and every meal is an opportunity to connect with other professionals, leaders in the community or other influentials. Pick up the tab. Every meal with another professional or referral source is an investment and worth the cost of a meal.

When It’s the Right Fit, You Know: Community Involvement and Your Personal Brand

Being actively engaged with your community can make a huge difference in how you are perceived. If you are already involved, kudos to you and your colleagues. You already know how making a difference in your community can make a difference to your practice. Sitting down with a table of seniors at the local senior center to talk about their concerns or running a food drive is far less glamorous than attending a gala, but it’s where the real giving happens.

If you’ve been “too busy” to set some time aside to become part of your community, here are some tips on how to make this work for you.

Senior Law Day. Most bar associations hold Senior Law Day. This is a good place for your firm, but it’s also a good place for every other estate planning firm in the area. Your absence may be noted: if appropriate, consider sending an associate to let them get the experience and represent the firm.

Faith-based organizations. Many practices reap the rewards of being involved with their own church, synagogue or mosque. If you are actively engaged with your personal place of worship, as a board member or lay leader, that can be productive. Be mindful of the personalities and politics that sometimes emerge, as they do in any group.

Not-for-Profits. A local chapter of a national organization may be the best bet for growing your network and building visibility. Do your homework before becoming involved with a local not-for-profit organization. Look up the organization’s 1099 forms at the Foundation Center website (www.foundationcenter.org). Who is on the board of directors and have there been any noteworthy problems in the past? Where does the funding come from? Your reputation is everything: make sure the organization has impeccable credentials.

Use community activities to expand your network and raise your visibility Community groups today know that their sponsors and supporters expect to see their names in newsletters, social media posts and in local newspapers. The same goes for people who donate their time and efforts.

When it aligns with your personal branding and values, community involvement is an excellent way to let others know the kind of person you are: dedicated to excellence in the law, and aware of the importance of service to clients and your community.

How Estate Planning Attorneys Market Their Personal Brand

If there’s one thing that sets you apart from any other estate planning attorney, it’s you: your history, your personality, your interests and even your quirks, which all contribute to making you different. Capitalize on your uniqueness to further your personal brand.

Do some strategic thinking. Your overall goal is to inspire confidence and help prospects, clients and colleagues to feel that they can trust you. You also want to be someone that others can relate to. Remember that this goes beyond technical competence. It is expected that you are legally talented. But the connection is made between people, and that is what personal branding is all about.

Define what makes you different. There are hundreds of attorneys practicing in your target market (not to mention online competition). What makes you a better choice than any other practitioner? The conscious decision to work with you may seem to be a rational choice, but the process begins on an emotional level.

Provide the “clues” so that prospects can see the reasons they should work with you. Don’t hold back on sharing your story in your attorney profile. If there was a turning moment that spurred you to law school (for younger practitioners), then share that in your bio. If you went to an excellent law school or made Law Review, share that also. Service to the community, published articles in legal journals and a strong network of professional colleagues are also clues that clients look for when evaluating estate planning attorneys.

Personal appearance counts. Not every attorney wears a suit and tie to the office, and in some communities that’s fine. Know what your clients will accept. Here’s a clue: if prospects who come to your office for a first in-person meeting do not retain you, it may be time for a closer look. Is your dress or demeanor too casual? Too formal? Are you overdue for a new hairstyle or a visit to the orthodontist? We like to think we judge people on their character and skills, but personal appearances matter.

 Does your personal brand align with your personal life? We are known by the company we keep, and that includes our personal and professional social circles. If your personal brand includes hanging out with a group of CPAs and attorneys who ride motorcycles on weekends, that’s great. But if you live in a small community where everyone spends their time at the lake, sailing or fishing, and you are the outlier, it’s going to be hard for many people to connect with you.

 

Consistency Counts for Law Firm Marketing Metrics Too

Extremes are the enemies of effectiveness when it comes to tracking marketing data. Looking at metrics without any consistency can present a distorted picture that leaves marketing efforts vulnerable to decisions based on data that, while technically correct, suffers the influence of a flawed perspective. Consistency over time provides insight and overcomes micro-thinking.

A larger question: is this something that the law firm managing partner should be doing, or can it be assigned? If you have tasked someone on the team to devote some billable time to marketing, they should be presenting you with regular updates of the overall activity. A monthly basis is fine if your marketing tools are in order and humming along.

If, however, there are still some bumps and bits being fixed in your marketing machine, you may want to consider devoting your own time to making sure things are working, until the system is up to speed. That may call for more frequent reports, perhaps weekly.

Measure every aspect of the marketing process. That means everything from website visits to phone calls from the web to referrals from other professionals. How many times a week did you post a blog, add to a social media page or sponsor a community event? In other words, measure everything.

What are you measuring? If you have the E2 CRM, you have access to a wealth of information about contacts, prospects and conversions. You know what sources are working, and where people are becoming clients or, equally importantly, when they are not.

Simple but essential—appointments. What does the firm’s calendar look like? If there are too many blank spaces, you have a problem that requires more than someone looking into Google Analytics.

Website traffic and page views. This matters for SEO and conversion data. Look at year-over-year numbers to get a sense of whether your firm is keeping up or losing ground to competitors. Does your practice have any kind of seasonality to it? Or is there a time of the month when people call you—possibly after certain banking transactions take place? Don’t get too granular, or you risk getting lost in a too-small worldview.

Are you prepared to respond? Having the data is one thing; doing something with it is another. If your team reveals a significant shift in website traffic one month, and then a second month is even worse, what’s the action plan? Don’t expect change to occur without making changes. Is it time to update your website, or add lawyer videos?

The Estate Planning Attorney’s Swiss Army Knife: Blogs

To rise above the competitive noise on the web, law firm marketing must constantly create a strong presence. To do that, you need fresh content, regularly refreshed content, relevant content, keywords and topics that matter to your prospects and that demonstrate authority to the algorithms that measure for quality, relevance and frequency. That’s what regularly scheduled blog posts do: they are the Swiss Army Knife of online law firm marketing.

Let’s get down to basics about blogging by estate planning lawyers:

Yes, they are important. IMS invests in sourcing and editing blogs specific to the estate planning practice area and delivers blogs to your inbox every single week because we know how important they are.

People read them and learn. You know all about wills and what havoc occurs when someone dies without a will, but the average person does not. The same is true of the importance of the beneficiary designation, as it supersedes directions in a will. This is second nature for the estate planning attorney, but not for the general public. Blogs educate consumers, thereby enhancing your authority as a knowledgeable source of important information.

Algorithms want to see “proof of life” on a website. Web pages with fresh content, and that includes blogs that are updated frequently –and by frequently, we mean three to four times a week—resonate with the bots crawling around the web looking for fresh content.

IMS makes this easy as pie. If for some reason you are unsure what to do with the blogs that are delivered to you weekly, or if someone in your office has been tasked with posting the blogs and they’re not sure, just submit a support ticket and we’ll guide you through the process.

Fresh content inspires return visitors. If you read a great book and the author wrote another book, wouldn’t you be more inclined to read that second book, rather than a completely unknown author? It only takes one spot-on post to convince a prospect that your practice will understand their issue and be able to solve their unique problem.

Your competitors are blogging. If all of the above isn’t reason enough for you to start blogging on a regular basis, visit the websites of the top five estate planning law firms in your market area. If they are blogging, with regularly updated posts on new developments in estate planning, their own speaking engagements, community activities, etc., and you are not, what message are you sending to prospects?

Consistency Builds Trust, Even Among Robots: Name, Address, Phone Number

Law firm marketing for estate planning practices is all about building trust. People come to estate planning attorneys to solve problems, alleviate worries, and map out the most personal parts of their lives: their family, financial assets and possessions. How law firms are presented online must generate trust and confidence, with no incongruities or conflicts. One place where firms frequently fail to hit the mark: Name, Address and Phone number, known as “NAP.”

Trust, Confidence and Credibility. Humans require trust before they put their lives into your hands. Search engines require trust also, only their robot-minded trust comes from precision. That means consistency everywhere—and that means everywhere. If you set up an ad with a local directory five years ago when your firm had a different address, the bots that search the internet will find that directory and the disparity will be mathematically noted against you.

More Mistakes = Less Trust. The more disparate information is out there, the bigger the impact on your quality score and rankings. Do online searches for yourself, your firm and estate planning law firms in your market on a regular basis. Know what is out there, so you know what the bots are finding.

What If the Firm Moved or Changed Its Name? Assign the task or do it yourself, but this is important. Visit the sites where the incorrect or out-of-date information shows up and do what you can to fix it.

What if the Firm Doesn’t Have any Local Citations?  Join the local Better Business Bureau, Chamber of Commerce or any local organization that offers a directory of local businesses. Check your Martindale listings, using the customer service platform to update data on your firm, yourself and associates.

PC or P.C. –Yes, This Matters too. Consistency in the use of the firm’s name matters, and that includes the initials that follow the firm’s name. If you are a PC and don’t use periods, but the firm name appears both with and without periods after the letters, the algorithms will take this into account. Don’t let something so simple get in the way of your otherwise robust SEO.

Use more than Google to check NAP. Try Bing, Yelp, Facebook, Yellow Pages and Yahoo when conducting NAP research. They may not be as widely used as Google, but they are still being used. We see it all the time: sites show up on Bing and Yahoo that may never make the front page of Google—but they are still searchable and found by Google bots on the web.

 

 

Emmys and Oscars and Golden Globes, Oh My! Lessons for Law Firm Marketing

From the big movies screen to the mobile phone, movies and television shows must work on screens that are dramatically different in size, shape and resolution. The same screen-to-screen consistency is also necessary for law firm websites, which have to look and feel the same on every screen, from a mobile phone to a tablet to a desktop. And with more people using smart TVs, the sites have to work on the big HD screens also.

Take a test drive. Open your site on your phone, tablet and desktop. Check to see the uniformity in performance and appearance. Navigate around the site.

Speed matters. If your site has not been optimized for mobile with responsive design, or if it is a traditional (read dated) website that was just tweaked to squeak through as a mobile site, it may be slow by comparison to your competition’s sites. Ask prospects to wait for a site to load, and they’re already gone to another firm.

Look at competing law firms Do the same test drive with your direct competitor’s websites, again on three platforms: mobile, tablet and desktop. Look for speed and performance.

Design elements need to work across platforms. Firm logo, color palette, use of negative space, typefaces, proportion, contrast and organization are just a few of the elements that IMS designers use when building a responsive design website that looks as good as it performs.

Speak with one voice. If a law firm website’s home page is emotionally engaging but the interior pages feel cold and technical, the user is left wondering if they somehow ended up on another law firm’s website. Choose a singular “voice” and be consistent in content on the website, blog and social media.

Website design has changed. Screen resolution is a key factor in web designs. Today IMS designs websites based on resolution and not the actual physical shape or size of the screen. There are simply too many variants. If the resolution is correct, the site will work everywhere.

Device use is changing fast. Are your prospects finding you on desktops when they are at work or on their tablets when they are relaxing at home? Every market is different, but it is safe to say that the majority of people searching for estate planning law firms are transitioning to mobile. If you aren’t changing with the times, you may be losing market share.

Law Firm Marketing: Make Your Branding Better

Consistent branding is where your estate planning law firm either grabs a competitive edge or falls by the wayside. Law firm marketing requires consistency across all platforms: website, print materials, social media, even your front door. Here are some tips to boost your branding consistency:

A flock of birds considering where to land? Think of prospects as birds considering whether or not it’s safe to land on your website. They scan the landscape to see if there are any dangers present. Certain signs – a dark shadow, the silhouette of a cat – are instant signals to veer away. Humans do the exact same thing. If there are discordant images, misspellings, poor grammar, out-of-date design elements, they will not land. Trust is built through an emotional feeling of safety and engagement.

Rational vs. emotional. You have less than three seconds to grab a website visitor by the heartstrings. That’s where emotionally responsive video, infographics and visuals are power players. Images register instantly in the emotional parts of the brain. By the time you engage the human rational side, whoosh, your prospect is gone. Those images need to be consistent and complementary.

Nothing like a new blank canvas to get your dormant artistic self excited, right? Experimenting with a new design every time a new blank surface presents itself only creates disharmony. Give your promotional product vendors your logo and let them make the item, coffee cup or pen, as gorgeous as possible. And don’t settle for so-so design. If you don’t love it, ask them to try again until you do.

Don’t make your prospects work to get your message. If your client base is 60 and older, consider their visual and/or physical status in branding. Is there enough contrast in your logo and design for older eyes? Have you added widgets to your website so they can easily make text larger? This goes double for mobile websites.

Out-of-date? Just as you advise clients to update their wills, we advise you to review your logo and overall branding. Chances are you don’t need an overhaul, but you may need a tweak to keep it fresh. Aren’t convinced this matters? Check out your biggest competitor. If you aren’t the dominating force in your market, it matters.

Consistency means harmony. Disharmony means confusion, cognitive dissonance—whatever you call it, if images and graphics are not visually consistent, new clients and prospects will become uncomfortable. This may not occur on a conscious level, but it will create an uneasy feeling.

 Consistency also means professionalism. Law firms are not expected to be on the bleeding edge of design, but they are expected to have a polished, consistent and professional appearance. It starts with the website and extends all the way to your #10 envelopes.