Integrity Marketing

Strategic Planning: Does it Really Make Any Difference?

Sunset at Legacy Ranch. What will you take away from your Strategic Planning Retreat?

Day Three and your Strategic Planning Retreat is winding down. You have taken three days out of your busy schedule to disengage from the workaday treadmill, retreat, relax and recharge. You have explored the why's behind almost everything you do in your practice. You have defined a strategy, set goals and made plans to achieve them. You may have discovered your own story and recorded the foundation shots for your brand story video.

Chances are, you're pretty tired -- mentally, emotionally and physically -- as you cruise into the afternoon. 

That's okay because most of your work is done now. It's time to relax in the sunroom or on the back deck with a cold drink (or two). Reflect on what you've learned, discovered, and planned.

Here at the Ranch you may decide to hop in the ATV and ride the fence line just to clear your head. Or hang out with the horses. We can offer a meditative activity we call the Horse Wisdom Circle if you'd like to participate. It's just a wonderful way to bring your thoughts together and breathe into a comfortable place with all these new plans.

We will present your Strategic Planning Brief, a summary document memorializing your decisions, strategy and action plans developed over the past three days. We will ask you to commit to an accountability plan, with follow up at 30, 60 and 90 days to make sure you either stay on track or are intentional and strategic about any changes.

Does It Really Make a Difference?

When it's all over, will your retreat really make a difference for your law firm? Will these days spent at Legacy Ranch have a lasting impact? What will be our legacy in your life?

You may know Vinnie Bonazzoli, founder of The Client Care Academy and an estate planning attorney in Massachusetts. He and his team have joined us for two retreats. In his video below he says, "I can't thank you guys enough. This is something we have been looking for for years."

Vincent Bonazzoli Testimonial from Integrity Marketing Solutions on Vimeo.

Frank Campbell, who practices in Annapolis, MD, has been a member of our client family since 2010. His strategic planning retreat focused primarily on marketing, including video, and work flow. 

"My practice is a busy one, so if marketing is successful, it will affect work flow. I wanted to make sure that the plan we put together ultimately results in the same quality of work that we're doing for our clients ... and I just didn't feel that I could do that over a phone call or in between all of the other client commitments that I have at the office."

He describes his retreat experience in this short video: 

Strategic Planning Retreat from Integrity Marketing Solutions on Vimeo.

Whether it's your first retreat or time to come back again, call James now to learn more and schedule time to catapult your firm ahead next year. If you want next year to be your break-out year, you will have to make a big change. If you don't, you know 2018 will just be a rerun of 2017, and all the years before. Maybe a little better, maybe a little worse. It's up to you.

If you want to break out, we want to help!

We have limited availability for private retreats, but we do have a few openings left for first quarter planning. Call James at 1-877-352-2021. It's a new year, let's make it the best one yet!

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Brand Story Video: Because Your Story is Your Greatest Legacy

Integrity Marketing: Strategic Planning Retreats at Legacy Ranch: A Very Personal Experience

What Makes a Great Brand Story Video?

Storytelling, and particularly brand story video, is perhaps the single most powerful innovation in legal marketing. Brand story video brings the best of video technology together with the best of creative storytelling to ignite compelling, emotional connections.

Sometimes it’s hard for attorneys to change their mind-set from educational videos – explaining the need for and brilliance of various legal strategies – to storytelling for impact.

A few weeks ago, my real estate agent here in Colorado Springs shared her newly-minted brand story video. As I watched, I saw Holly was not talking about how many houses she had sold in the past year, or the average square footage of the homes she lists, or even the specialty niche she has built among military families. No, Holly was just telling her story. Sharing what motivates her, what she believes is her purpose. And I realized it is her personal sense of purpose that makes Holly such a great agent.

I started looking for real estate in Colorado Springs last summer. We had decided that the next move for Integrity Marketing was to build a ranch where we could bring attorneys from around the country to retreat, work on strategy, build their teams and grow their law firms.

Legacy Ranch at sunset.

I was fortunate to find Holly through an online search.

Readers who know me won’t be surprised to learn that I had a very specific list of things I was looking for in a property, to include of course, space for the horses. Holly showed me every property I requested to see. On trip after trip, I became increasingly discouraged. Not a single piece of property checked all of my boxes.

But, while I was becoming discouraged, Holly was just listening and asking questions. She was gathering the information she needed to help us find the perfect property.

I remember the moment when she finally got me talking about my vision for the Ranch. I never mentioned the number of stalls, acres, or bedrooms. I talked about bringing attorneys to a place where they could relax their defenses, work with horses, learn more about themselves and rediscover their dreams. I talked about our clients, their challenges as entrepreneurs, and the good work they do for families.

When I finally paused for a breath, she said, “This world needs more people like you.”

That was a statement I had not expected to hear from my real estate agent!

She went on to share how my vision had inspired her, and then … she thought she might know of the perfect property. When she brought me to see the Ranch, it was not to show me a place with 43 acres, six bedrooms, seven bathrooms, and a stables.

Holly brought me to see the place where my vision for Legacy Ranch could become reality.

I share Holly’s video to give you an idea of how brand story works, how it diverges dramatically from statistics, diagrams or charts. Holly’s video tells a simple, but powerfully authentic story. If you are searching for a property that is more than just a piece of real estate, if you are searching for a place to build your dreams – whether that dream is to create a home, nurture a family, or even build a retreat for lawyers – Holly may be your perfect fit. And you will know this from watching her video.

 

Lawyer Videos Pack a Punch for Estate Planning Law Firms

Legal services marketing seeks to engage prospects when they are most apt to select an attorney or a law firm to solve a problem. For the estate planning law firm, it is usually when individuals and families have already taken a few steps along the client journey. They realize there is a problem, have identified the solution and have begun looking for an attorney or a law firm who can help solve the problem.

That search for a solution might be immediate—going online and scanning a number of estate planning and Elder Law firm websites, filling out forms and passively waiting to see who responds—or it may be a slow process—talking with friends and family members, scanning the local newspapers, leisurely looking at law firm websites and speaking with other trusted professionals, like a CPA or financial advisor.

How do you get to be the one they choose, whether they are on the fast track to retain or have time to spare? Today, you need to assertively engage the legal consumer with a variety of tools and techniques. We have seen the success of lawyer videos in helping practices stand out from others in their marketplace. It’s a powerful way to deliver a personal message.

Engaging with prospects is not easy. The field of messages is quite crowded, and online is not the only media clamoring for their attention. Most communities have at least one weekly or monthly publication geared to seniors. There are advertisements in most local daily newspapers for workshops and dinner seminars from other estate planning law firms, some more aggressive than others. There are attorneys who seem to be everywhere, attending community events, serving on highly visible not-for-profits and being quoted as sources in the news.

The professionally produced lawyer videos that IMS creates for our clients does more than inspire prospects. A call to action (CTA) is built into every video that we produce. The beautiful drone footage that we incorporate into the videos, the compelling personal stories of the estate planning attorneys and the clearly defined messages are accompanied by a very clear bit of direction: call us today. The message is not crass nor is it overly repeated. We’re more subtle than that. But we also know that clients who are watching your video, drawn into your narrative and hearing your targeted messages are at a perfect place to take the next step: contacting your firm for an appointment. If you don’t have a lawyer video on your website, call James at 877-352-2021 ext. 80 and learn how video can boost your firm’s engagement.

A Brand Story Video You Gotta See!

We just wrapped up our latest Brand Story Video for a client named Mike Mastry in St. Petersburg FL. Mike wanted to find a way to show the value of a persons legacy. He wanted his clients, referral sources, friends and family to think about how they will be remembered. Mike also wanted to solidify how HE wanted to be remembered as well. This formed the basis for his Brand Story script, shot plan and music.

This was the first shoot we were able to use some of our new gadgets as well. We made use of 4 different lenses on our Cannon 4D camera and drone for some of those amazing daytime ocean shots. We utilized our Phantom 4 Drone and a brand new slider system for some truly cinematic shots. We couldn't be more proud of how Mike's video turned out and to say the client was "happy" would be a severe understatement.  I hope you take a couple of minutes to watch his video to the end and think about the impact you and your story could have on the success of your practice.

 

  (see the video on his website here www.MastryLaw.com)

If you have a desire to tell your brand story let me encourage you to do it. Nothing in your marketing will build trust and have a bigger impact than a fantastic brand story video. If you are curious about the process and want to hear directly from Mike himself you can watch his brief testimonial video below.

 

 

Lawyer Videos and Why Your Firm Should Have at Least One on Your Website

A law firm website without at least one professionally produced lawyer video is like a website without an About the Attorneys page. Today’s visitors to estate planning and Elder Law firm websites are looking for a connection and reassurances on an emotional and intellectual level. Lawyer videos make that connection happen faster than pure text.

But I have outstanding credentials, so why do I need a lawyer video? If you have outstanding credentials, great reviews on Avvo and Martindale, Super Lawyer and Chambers, congratulations—these lawyer accolades are not given out to every attorney and they do have an impact. But… remember the quality and caliber of your peers. If you are a Preeminent 5.0 out of 5.0 attorney, you are competing for clients with other Preeminent 5.0 out of 5.0 attorneys. If the difference is that they are reaching clients at the heart, while your website is an unemotional sleigh ride of facts, you may be losing clients without even knowing it.

We’re all a little slow around this time of year. Not true. IMS clients who have embraced lawyer videos, automated their intake processes and incorporated powerful E2-CRM are busy year round. If you are concerned about a seasonal slowdown, may we recommend using your free time productively to schedule a strategic planning retreat? And yes, that would be the perfect time to start preparing your lawyer videos.

My website doesn’t get as much traffic as I want, so why would I add a video to it? It is possible that a lack of a video may be WHY your website is not getting as much traffic as you want. Remember Google buying YouTube? Google spent $1.65 billion to purchase the video sharing website. Sounds expensive, but the revenues from YouTube have more than paid for itself already. People love videos. They expect to see videos on all websites, from a shoe retailer showing someone walking in shoes to live streams of conferences. Adding a video makes a difference, especially where sensitive legal topics that combine money and emotions—that would be estate planning—are concerned.

I’m as busy as ever, so maybe I don’t need a lawyer video. Well, you might be busy now, but remember that the playing field is changing rapidly. Your competition is not just the colleague a few miles away. Millennials who are more comfortable filling out a form and having an interaction with a seamless app are migrating to the online legal services providers. We’re not going to mention them by name; they have a strong enough SEO platform and don’t need any help from us. But you know who they are, and they are not going away any time soon.

I’m still not convinced. Remember that we work with and speak with attorneys at estate planning law firms across the country. We rely on hard data, not anecdotal evidence, so that we can make the best recommendations for our clients. And we fully believe in the power of lawyer videos!

If you’ve got questions about lawyer videos or any IMS services and how they can boost your profitability, call James at 877-352-2021 ext. 80.

Connecting via Webinars with Clients and Prospects

If you’ve picked up some CLE credits in the last year, chances are good you’ve done so through a webinar. You may have also participated in an IMS webinar. But could your estate planning and Elder Law firm be the source of a webinar for your clients? When it comes to law firm marketing, the more tools you use, the better.

The overall goal is to give your prospects and clients another way to get to know you, to demonstrate your knowledge and make it easy for them to connect with you.

Webinars don’t require a massive infusion of technology. Many offices use GotoWebinar, from GotoMeeting. Your IT person should be able to make a few recommendations, and if you have questions, submit a client support ticket for more information.

For a webinar, you’ll need a microphone and your computer. That, and a PowerPoint presentation, will do the trick. Just remember that doing a webinar for clients and prospects is different than presenting before your peers at a bar association meeting. Use everyday English, rather than complex legal terms.

Tailor your presentation to two audiences: the one that is listening live and the ones that will listen to the webinar when you post it on your website. Don’t forget to record it so that you can use it more than once!

Use a good microphone to make sure the sound quality is good.

Include a lot of images in your presentation. If you have an attorney video, you may want to include a snippet of that in your webinar.

Ask the people who have signed up for the webinar to send you questions in advance. This gives you questions to start the Q&A period and also gives you a gauge of the kind of people who will be listening to the webinar. If no one submits any questions, no need to create them.

Be mindful of “dead air.” If you stop talking for more than ten seconds, the sound can be deafening. Keep talking, unless you are taking questions.

Run at least one test before you do the webinar. Do one test with people in your office, so that you can get comfortable with all of the nuances of the webinar software. Then, do a test with either colleagues or friends from their offices to make sure that everything is working. Record the test so that you know how that function works as well.

Is the End Near for Human Lawyers?

A recent article in The Washington Post discusses how one of the largest law firms in the country has announced the use of a robot, actually an AI machine with IBM’s Watson technology that is now part of the firm’s bankruptcy practice. Dubbed “Ross,” the AI machine will be used to conduct legal research, reviewing cases to support matters being handled by the attorneys.

So if you thought online legal services or the estate planning law firm on the other side of town were threatening your practice, here’s something else to keep you up at night.

Are the machines coming for your job? Well, yes, they are. What are you going to do about it?

One of many important things that distinguishes you from “Ross” is that you are a human, but human estate planning attorneys now must prospect for, convert and serve their clients at an unprecedented level in order to maintain their practices.

How can you distinguish yourself from a robot?

If you don’t have a lawyer video on your website already, the existence of “Ross” should be enough incentive to get started. No matter how well Ross or any other AI program can conduct legal research, it cannot match the concern and warmth of a caring professional. One of the best ways to convert prospects from visitors to your website to warm leads is to let them meet you via video.

Even wonderfully brilliant programs like Watson cannot draw on their own personal experiences to relate to human clients. If you came to estate planning or Elder Law because your parents or grandparents had a good experience with a caring attorney—or a bad experience with senior or health services—only another human with a similar narrative can provide the understanding of their situation.

For now, very few mid-sized or boutique law firms have the resources to access such powerful computing systems. It’s going to be a while before Watson or Ross are available on a smaller scale. This means that you have time to maximize your own use of technology so that your humanness is an asset, and not a liability.

IMS offers E2 CRM and CLIP^SM that automate a large part of your client intake and client relationship data. They will not replace you but they will give you more time to spend with clients and in practicing law.

What human clients don’t want are inefficient systems that waste their time, feel like they are being forced to do repetitive tasks or spin their wheels. In this particular Human vs. Machine story, the attorneys who thrive will be the ones who incorporate the useful parts of technology, while giving their human clients an emotionally satisfying experience.

Competition Pressures Got You? Lawyer Marketing Videos Can Help

Creating a video that accurately portrays an estate planning attorney as a credible, kind and yet authoritative figure requires all of the elements of an Oscar-worthy movie. There needs to be a central figure that the audience cares about, a narrative that serves to move the audience’s emotions and a closing that motivates the individual viewer to pick up the phone or fill out a form and engage with the attorney.

It takes an experienced video production crew, a strong script, state-of-the-art equipment, lighting, and post-production editing. You know the difference—you’ve seen it online. You’ve also seen videos that are made by professionals designed to deliberately look like they were made by non-professionals. They may work for a brand targeting tweens but they are not appropriate for estate planning attorneys.

IMS has made significant investments in video production. We know that IMS clients with videos on their websites have a completely different level of traffic than those without. The engagement times and SEO rankings are better.

Why does a lawyer video need drone footage from high above? We made the commitment to adding a Phantom drone and asking Michael Campbell to get FCC certified to add another dimension to lawyer videos and—this is key—give you a way to set yourself apart from your competitors.

Competition is what this is all about, isn’t it?

If you want to know the difference between a quality lawyer video and a low-quality lawyer video, it’s not hard to find the gaffes, from men with plants growing out of their heads to women who look like they’ve got a diploma digging into their shoulders. It’s the same mentality that leads people to take a selfie for their LinkedIn profile and think it works fine. It doesn’t.

IMS is proud of the quality of production that comes with our videos. Clients who were initially nervous are directed through a well-mapped out process so that by the time we get them in front of the camera, they are more comfortable than they ever thought possible. They are carefully prepped, from a script that they have been an active contributor in creating to being directed as to how to sit, where to put their hands, etc. Nothing is left to chance.

If you do not have a video on your firm’s website and are feeling the pinch of competition, call James at 877-352-2021 ext. 80 to start a conversation about your lawyer video.

Digital Marketing Trends for Estate Planning Law Firms

If you thought it was challenging to own an estate planning practice in an age of fierce competition from other law firms and the increasing popularity of online legal services, try walking a mile in our shoes. The pace of change in digital marketing is beyond exponential. IMS has made a commitment to staying on trend so that your practice can flourish but we need you to be an active participant.

Your clients are part of your digital marketing strategy. Reviews on lawyer websites like Avvo, or on Google or Yelp, whether you want them or not, are searched and read by anyone considering working with you and your practice. The reviews can’t be ignored. If you don’t already have a Google alert set up for yourself, your firm and—don’t leave this part out—every person who works at your law firm, set them up. Right now. And if something shows up that isn’t flattering, you’ll need to address it. Best practices for a bad review? Glowing reviews by raving fans.

More social media channels are coming and they will be even faster. Maybe you thought Snapchat was too fast, giving users a means of sending videos that disappear in a matter of seconds. In digital marketing time, Snapchat is ancient history. Soon, Instagram and Pinterest may feel too slow for members of Generation Z. What we know for sure: video remains one of the single most powerful ways to engage prospects, regardless of what channel it appears on.

Digital marketing today must work across different devices: Your website visitors are looking at your site from smart phones and tablets. There was a time when most of your visitors were on desktops, but for most estate planning law firms, that’s not the case anymore. Go into Google Analytics (GA), look under Audience, and then look at Technology to see what devices are being used by visitors. If your site is not mobile friendly and most of your visitors are using smart phones or tablets, you are losing ground.

Maybe you can’t go it alone. We know that you are busy practicing law and running a business. If you are not able to keep your eyes on the marketing part of your practice, talk to us about making more of your marketing automatic. That includes our E2 CRM and CLIP^sm. If you need more help, talk to us and we can help you make some strategic decisions to ensure that your marketing continues to move forward.

Digital marketing needs to coordinate with everything else you do. Look at your biggest competitor’s social media feed. We bet their Facebook posts include photos of speaking engagements, charitable activities, leadership roles in the community, published articles and maybe even quotes from consumer media. And if it’s not on their Facebook feed, take a look at their LinkedIn page. A robust social media campaign needs to be coordinated with all of your other marketing efforts. Content is still king, but take it to the next level and leverage your content with everything the firm does.

Getting Law Firms Comfortable with Google Analytics

The entire Google platform in general and Analytics more specifically has become so robust that a lot of law firm leaders find it too labor intensive to dig into the data. For that reason, IMS provides clients with the ability to review the data that we feel is most valuable through your Essential 1.0 Dashboard. The key information about your firm’s website and your marketing data is gathered in a way that is convenient and, we think, sensibly organized.

Should you venture into the world of Google Analytics? If you have the time and inclination, yes. There is a world of information in GA that will give you insights into how well your website is performing, where people go once they get to your website, how long they visit your pages, and that key question, what page is the most frequent one to send them away from your website.

Your IMS marketing team devotes a lot to your GA so that we have an in-depth understanding of your website’s performance metrics and what, if any, changes should be made to your website. If you are using the E2 CRM, that provides us with even more information, and we can make recommendations based on a bigger data set.

It should be noted that we do have a number of clients who enjoy—yes, they really do—the process of digging into screen after screen of information from GA and discerning for themselves the health and well-being of their website. The challenge is that GA is a lot like Aladdin’s cave—there’s so much gold, it’s hard to know what to grab first.

We asked IMS team members what they think matters most in terms of website performance, and they were ready with responses:

Traffic is important, but be careful to look at the numbers in a meaningful time frame. If they just look at one month, or one quarter, it’s too little information to get a complete picture. Comparing year-over-year will give more insight.

How many people are looking at their videos? If they don’t have videos, then maybe this is the time to consider what they are missing. If we look at the performance of websites with videos compared to websites without videos, the reason for videos becomes clear.

Looking at bounce rates for the site overall and for specific pages will tell you where the site or the particular pages are falling short. If so many people are reading your “About the Attorney” page and leaving very soon, then you are not connecting with them. Maybe your content is out of date, or your photo is out of date, but they are not feeling the emotional connection and trust that this page needs to create.

How many Contact Us forms get filled out on a daily, weekly or monthly basis? If that is not set up to be a conversion, then ask an IMS team member to get it set up that way. You’ll want to know how many of those forms get filled out, and if you are not getting a lot of conversions or if the number of conversion is declining instead of increasing, let’s dig in and find out why.

Have questions about GA? Submit a support ticket and we’ll help you gain a better understanding.