Legal Practice Pro» Legal Marketing

7 Ways To Promote Your Legal Podcasting Efforts

Jay Fleischman — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 09:00:45 +0000

You’ve decided that you’re going to incorporate podcasting into your legal marketing efforts. You’ve got some simple podcasting equipment, have cleared your throat, and are ready to roll. How the hell do you get word out about your legal podcasting efforts?

Unfortunately, the podcasting world isn’t quite as well-organized as the legal blogging universe. There aren’t that many law-related podcasts around at all; in fact, there are more lawyers on Twitter than there are legal podcasters. Given the fact that podcasting has been around for far longer, that’s an oddity to me.

Luckily, a podcast is nothing more than an audio blog with a few technological bells and whistles thrown in for good measure. So we can use our ideas of blog promotion when trying to get a handle on legal podcasting promotion. Here are my 7 tips for getting the word out.

Submit Your Legal Podcast To Podcasting Directories: When it comes to blogging, directories are of minimal value. For SEO purposes the links aren’t worth much, and most people don’t find blogs through directories either. For podcasts, however, the story is slightly different. Podcasting directories don’t give much search engine optimization juice, but far more people use directories as a means of podcast discovery than is the case for blogs. Stalwarts such as iTunes and Podcast Alley are the big players, but they are by no means the only games in town. Check out this comprehensive list of podcasting directories and begin your submission journey.

Interview Celebrities In Your Field: Back in 2005 I had a chance to interview a superstar in the field of consumer finance on my podcast, and it sent my subscriber numbers through the roof. Surely there’s someone in your field who would be interesting to your potential listeners. Why not take a chance and see if they’d be willing to sit down and talk with you for a few minutes?

Connect With Colleagues: Your colleagues are probably dipping their toes into the world of blogging as a legal marketing tool. By connecting with them you may be in a position to reach their readers, and your readers may be interested in knowing about them as well. Remember that collaboration is the surest road to mutual success.

Tell Your Clients: When I began a podcast about debt and credit one of the first things I did was send out a letter to every current and former client to let them know what I was doing. Many become listeners, and still others told their family members and friends about this wonderful new resource. I’m sure it didn’t hurt that I was also playing some cool music on my shows.

Leverage Blog Commenting: Commenting on other blogs is a well-known tactic for getting some additional traffic to your blog, so engaging in the same activities for podcasts should be a no-brainer. When you comment and use your podcast URL in the identification area (please, don’t put a link in the body of the comment) you’re going to gain even more attention. People click those links expecting another blog or website on the other end; when they find a podcast they’ll be more curious and, therefore, more likely to hang around.

Share On Social Networks: Sending out a tweet or a Facebook status update letting people know about your newest blog post is a given. But when you’re telling the world about your legal podcasting efforts, remember to note in the update that it’s a podcast episode and not an ordinary blog post. Once again, the curiosity factor will prevail and result in more traffic to your legal podcast.

Put It On Paper: You’ve got business cards and letterhead. You put your website information, phone and fax – right? Why not put a notation in the footer area of your letterhead and on the back of your business card that you’re a podcaster, too? Don’t be ashamed. Remember that you’re looking for more ways to connect with clients; your legal podcast offers such an avenue.

Remember that the more promotion you put behind your legal podcast, the more listeners you’ll get. With podcasting taking off in a big way as a law firm marketing tool, your efforts now will have a huge payoff in a pretty short time.

Image credit: visual.dichotomy (Flickr)

How Vulnerable Are Your Online Legal Marketing Efforts?

Jay Fleischman — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 15:00:01 +0000

Even if you’re at the top of the search engines, you’re vulnerable to new competition. Go to sleep at #1, wake up at #4. Is this a risk you’re willing to take when marketing your law firm online?

A few days ago, I was semi–involved in a debate that was raging on an e-mail discussion list in which I am a member. One person asked a question about marketing your law firm online with a blog, and a lawyer started touting the fact that his website ranked at the top of the organic search engine results for his chosen search term. The lawyer in question does no blogging whatsoever, and essentially stated that blogging was worthless to his efforts at marketing his law firm online.

Of course, this being a marketing discussion group, chaos ensued fairly rapidly. The resident legal marketing professionals jumped all over this poor guy, and basically proclaimed him to be full of shit.

But here’s where it gets interesting. Not only does the lawyer in question do no blogging, he produces no content on any of its websites. They’re all extremely thin, and none of them stand out whatsoever. They’re all filled with the same trite, empty language that is so pervasive on law firm websites. To him, marketing his law firm online didn’t require any content production strategy. And his results were, to his mind, proof that his theories worked.

If I were to hazard a guess I would say that the attorney has ensured his high rankings based on off–page search engine optimization. By that I’m talking about massive numbers of back links to his site from other sites, with appropriate anchor text tied to his chosen search term.

Assuming this to be the case, and further assuming that there is no funny business or “black hat” tactics being employed, then I applaud this attorney for his efforts. Undoubtedly, he gets a tremendous amount of traffic and, I would assume, quite a bit of business as a result of his efforts to market his law firm online.

So, you see, this stands as proof of the fact that you need not blog in order to attain a high search engine ranking for a single term. I would go so far as to say that you don’t need to blog in order to do well for any term whatsoever.

The fact, however, doesn’t mean a thing. We all know that Google and the other search engines reward websites with more content over those that are thin. We also know that people who visit your website are more inclined to hire you after seeing the depth of your expertise reflected in your blog posts.

So even if this attorney ranks very well for a narrowly-defined search term (which may or may not get enough traffic to sustain him), it’s unlikely that he’s able to capture a tremendous percentage of those site visitors and convert them into paying clients. People are searching for information, and won’t stop looking for answers until they find them. If they happen to find them on the top–ranked site that matches their query, then they will go no further. However, if their first click does not result in an informative answer to their question then they are likely to move to the next site presented by the search engines.

I’m sure that my colleague does very well now, but his attitude with respect to his efforts to market his law firm online makes him an easy target. If one of his local competitors establishes a new website and continually adds content that is relevant, in formative, and optimize for the search engines as well as for human visitors then the likelihood is that this new site will quickly rise to the top of search engine rankings with very little effort.

How about you? Are you willing to take on this sort of risk when marketing your law firm online?

Image credit: mlhradio (Flickr)

Why You Need To Ignore The Competition When Marketing Your Law Firm

Jay Fleischman — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 14:00:12 +0000

When I decided to open my own law firm, I did so with the firm belief that I could not fail. I figured that if I put up a Yellow Pages ad people would find me.

Did I mention I was 24 years old and working Manhattan?

Yeah, not so smart.

It didn’t take me too long before I realized I had no earthly clue about law firm marketing.

If this happened today I would just jump online, find myself some cool legal marketing blogs (that’s a gratuitous link to my free 5-part course, by the way) and start jotting down notes. There are lots of places to learn this stuff.

As it so happens, the Interwebs weren’t quite so well established back in 1995. So I cracked open the phone book and the newspapers to see what everyone else was doing. I watched endless amounts of television and listened to the radio (all in the name of market research, I assure you) so I could see what the competition was doing.

In the end, I fell flat on my face. Spent an obscene amount of money just to make a go of it.

I followed my instincts. And, it turns out, I would do the same thing if I were a newbie lawyer now (unless I read this post).

But now I’m going to issue you a warning – one you really want to take to heart.

You Must Ignore Your Law Firm Marketing Instincts If You Want To Succeed

Stop following the competition.

They got there first, and have more money to spend than you do.

They are well-established.

Every other firm in town is copying them.

This means that every law firm sounds, acts and looks alike.

Yellow Pages ads with a stern photo in front of a row of (unread) law library books.

Ads touting a free consultation.

The same old, same old.

Successful Law Firm Marketing Says Something Remarkable In Your Own Voice

Don’t be afraid to use you own words to communicate with the people you want to have as clients.

Don’t hide behind your credentials.

Don’t use the royal “we” if you’re a solo practitioner.

Tell your story in human terms.

Are you willing to step out of the shadows of your competition? Do you want to learn how to do it, and to make the connection that enables you to be a market of one?

Do you dare?

Photo credit: horizontal.integration (flickr)

Online Legal Marketing Secret Revealed – Why No Web Content?

Jay Fleischman — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 15:00:09 +0000

We’ve all been there. Some smart ass comes along and tells us we need to start a blog for our law firm, and how terrific it is for our online legal marketing. How Google loves fresh web content, how people flock to blogs, and how it’s pretty much the best thing since the cool side of the pillow. But there’s something that stops you, isn’t there?

The reason you don’t start creating web content isn’t because you don’t believe in the raw marketing power. It’s not that you think the bloggers are full of crap.

Maybe you hide behind the veneer of “it’s too technical,” but let’s get real with one another – you and I both know the learning curve isn’t that steep. You can hire someone to set up a WordPress blog for you (heck, dozens of people have hired me to do an installation for them). You can get a graphic designer to make it pretty.

Nope, this isn’t a matter of technical skill or lack of proof that web content drives online legal marketing.

You think you’ve got nothing to say.

Let me ask you something. Think about the answer before you answer.

In the past week, has someone asked you a question?

Have you answered it?

Guess what? You’ve got a blog post right there. Just begging for you to release it to the world.

I know, there’s the whole matter of search engine optimization and making sure your legal blog shows up high in the rankings. I’m working on something to help with that, so no worries.

But put the SEO stuff aside for a moment. If someone asked you a question, don’t you think they would have asked Google first? Or maybe after they got your answer?

The only way to get over your insecurities about web content and online legal marketing is to look around.

We have a wealth of knowledge and information at our disposal, things the non-lawyers find useful and interesting. Our war stories are instructional and entertaining to those who have the problems we solve, and they serve a purpose.

The stories enlighten. They clarify. They entertain. They humanize us, and make people more comfortable using our services. Because people hire people they like and trust.

Web content gives you that opportunity to be liked and trusted. Ir provides information. it is the ultimate form of online legal marketing.

Do you want your potential clients to get the answers from you, or from some other lawyer? Even worse, do you want them to get their legal advice from a non-lawyer and inadvertently make their situation more difficult to untangle?

5 Ways To Capture Ideas For Your Legal Marketing Efforts

Jay Fleischman — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 15:00:01 +0000

Ever have a great idea about something while doing some random chore or activity? Try as you might to remember it later, it eludes you. Frustrating, no?

We’ve talked about how important content creation is in your legal marketing efforts. We agree that inspiration can come from a variety of sources, and that you should always be on the lookout for legal marketing ideas. How you promote your law firm’s offerings can come from the subtle way that a waitress gets you to order a second piece of pie, or a headline in an ad that convinces you to buy that doo-dad.

My head is always running in a million directions. How to help my clients, an observation about how someone is doing business the right (or wrong) way, or a random thought. One minute it’s gone, the next … poof.

I tell you, it pisses me off to no end. It’s like in the old days (before the Interwebs) when you’d hear a line of a song and obsess for days over the name of the song. Yeah, I’m that kind of person – I get hung up on this sort of thing.

So anyway, lots of great ideas come to me when I’m walking down the street and minding my own business. That gold used to get lost, but no more. Here are my top 3 ideas for on-the-go content creation.

WordPress App For Android and iPhone. WordPress, my blogging tool of choice, has a handy little app that lets me add content to my blogs whenever I’ve got my phone in my hand. You can save posts locally on your phone so if you’re 35,000 feet in the air and on an airline that doesn’t offer in-flight wi-fi, you’re still good to go.
Posterous and Tumblr. These “blogging lite” web applications (Posterous powers one of my personal sites) allow you to send an email to a specific address and – just like that! – it’s turned into a blog post. Now that Posterous has added some great features recently, this has become a better option for bloggers than was even previously the case.
Email yourself. Yup, I send myself messages all the time. I have a filter set up that if I receive an email with a specific word in the subject line (no, I’m not telling) it goes into a special folder with ideas.
Moleskine. These handy little notebooks come in a variety of sizes, but I use an unlined pocket-sized one that I can keep in my pocket. It’s a mess, covered with random words and thoughts that make their way into my blog posts.
Voicemail To Self. Just like email messages, I send myself voicemails all the time. Case updates, thoughts on emails I’ve seen from others, whatever – scraps of my knowledge and information.

The bottom line is that legal marketing doesn’t begin or end at any particular moment. Stuff – good stuff, bad stuff – hits you when and where it chooses. Your goal is to capture those ideas and sources of inspiration, to think about them, and to integrate them into your legal marketing efforts.

What do you use to capture ideas?

How A Real Lawyer Uses Social Media

Jay Fleischman — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 16:44:27 +0000

Can a real, live lawyer use social media for real, live business?

Social media for lawyers – specifically Twitter, Facebook, and Linkedin – has been getting a ton of coverage in the past few days on the heels of this article in Mashable. And it seems to have ignited a bit of a debate on Twitter because there are a few attorneys who question whether the experts quoted are able to speak from experience.

I don’t think there is such a thing as a social media expert. I do believe that there are people who are well-qualified to discuss how to build trust, relationships and communities for business purposes. These are the experts, the ones who teach us how to be more human in the way we conduct business. When these people talk about using the platforms at our disposal, I listen and take notes.

Social media is an all-encompassing term that speaks to platforms, and how they are used to accomplish a particular goal. Those platforms currently include legal blogs, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Tumblr, Posterous, Foursquare, Gowalla, and the list goes on and on. But bear in mind that these are platforms only, and are subject to change without notice. A few years ago it was Friendster. A decade ago it was Usenet. And on and on.

To say that you’re an expert in Twitter means that you know how to set up an account and use the tool. It doesn’t mean you know how to connect with people or businesses who may have some use for your service. When Twitter goes away or, more likely, evolves in ways we can’t currently imagine, the “Twitter expert” will be as useful as a “mimeograph expert”.

The person who’s skilled in the broader skillset of creating and maintaining relationships will continue to thrive. Because that’s not just good marketing, it’s good for life.

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, I thought it would be useful to outline how I use the various social media platforms to achieve my goals. Those goals, by the way, are fluid. Sometimes I’m looking for help with something. Other times I’m promoting my expertise as a bankruptcy and consumer protection lawyer, or as a guy who knows a thing or two about marketing a law firm. Maybe I’m going to be a new place and need some recommendations for a good place to have dinner. In all cases, the song remains the same overall (hat tip to Robert Plant and Jimmy Page).

Content Distribution And Promotion

Every time I create content on this or any other platform, I promote it on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Doing so exposes my work to people who find the subject matter compelling, and cements my standing as someone who knows about the fields in which I spend my time.

Information Sharing

I’m a newshound, and read hundreds of blogs each day. When I find something that catches my eye, I share it with people. More information is a good thing, no?

Connecting With Interesting People

Here’s where people say Twitter is a waste of time, right? I mean, why would I spend time typing out 140 character messages to strangers? Well, why would you spend an evening at a networking event filled with a diverse group of people? To meet them, get to know them better, and establish a relationship. Maybe that plumber I meet will never have need of my legal services, but I’m betting that he knows of someone who will eventually need me. The stronger my relationship with Mr. Plumber, the more likely I am to be the name and number (OK, email address) that he passes along to his friend who’s going into foreclosure and needs help.

What if Mr. Plumber is in Oklahoma, far from my state of admission (which is New York)? No worries – I can send the referral to one of my colleagues in Oklahoma. I’ve connected with some of them on Twitter, others on Facebook and some on “old school” listservs. Send a referral to a trusted colleague and I get good karma in return. It’s happened so often I’ve lost count, and it increases the chance that I get a referral in return. Karma’s like that, you know.

Strengthening Bonds Established Elsewhere

Let’s say you meet someone offline – a networking event, a social event, whatever the case may be. You connect with them on Facebook, or LinkedIn, or Twitter or whatever platform you choose. Now you’re exposed to them on a regular basis, and they to you. Share information, keep up with one another, and allow your humanity to continue to unfold before one another. It takes a causal meeting with a total stranger and allows you to make something more of it.

Now you want me to prove that it works, right? Here are a few of the things I’ve accomplished by using the platforms available to me:

coverage in print and broadcast television (Twitter and LinkedIn);
paying clients (more than I can count from Facebook in particular, Twitter less so);
quotes and attendant backlinks from highly-regarded online sources, which has increased the ranking of my own site and resulted in more clients (primarily Twitter, but Facebook and LinkedIn to a certain extent); and
referrals from other lawyers as well as from non-lawyers who deal in consumer finance issues (Twitter).

Of course, none of this speaks to the business my firm has received over the years as a result of a never-ending commitment to content creation through our blog and elsewhere.

Is this list comprehensive? Does it take into account all of the nuances of how a real lawyer can use social media to help his or her practice? No, but it does give you the high notes and prove to you that this isn’t just another time suck.

What do you think?

4 Easy Steps To Syndicating Content On JDSupra

Jay Fleischman — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 17:57:20 +0000

Online legal marketing involves content creation andcontent distribution; doing so enables us to showcase our knowledge and establish trust with our prospective clients.

One of the best content distribution sites for lawyers is JDSupra, run by a team of awesome and smart people who want nothing more than to give you the widest possible exposure for your content. JDSupra is not only highly-trafficked and well-indexed, but the service provides a number of feature-rich Facebook pages and widgets to pump content out far more effectively than would otherwise be possible.

In the interests of full disclosure, I had the chance to meet with the JDSupra team while in California last month for the annual National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys convention. Aviva Cuyler bought me a turkey sandwich and a Diet Coke while I was hanging around with Adrian Lurssen (I think she was worried I’d pass out from hunger because I’d been talking with Adrian for so long). That might be something warranting FTC disclosure, though I did offer to pay her for lunch.

In fact, this graph from compete.com shows that JDSupra has grown by 226% in the past 12 months alone. Pretty impressive, no?

But using JDSupra as a distribution mechanism is still new to lots of lawyers, so I thought I’d share how I use it as part of my online legal marketing efforts.

4 steps, that’s all it takes. Ready? OK, here we go (and by the way – if you click the pictures they will open up full-size so you don’t have to squint):

Step One: Choose “Post A Document”

Step Two: Choose “Legal Article/Newsletter,” upload the PDF document, add the title of the document (which should be the title of the blog post), and add the “Document Date” (which will be the date on which you are uploading the content.

Step Three: Scroll down and choose your category. My stuff is usually related to either bankruptcy or legal marketing, so those are my go-to categories. Then, for document summary, enter the first 1,000 characters of the content.

Step Four: Click “Continue,” then “Submit.” (or “Submit & Post Another Doc” as the case may be).

That entire process should take you about 3 minutes. Greater distribution for your content marketing, better results from your online legal marketing efforts, and the basic level of service is entirely free.

So are you using JDSupra?

Online Legal Marketing Demands A Reason, Not Just A Plan

Jay Fleischman — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 22:22:17 +0000

It drives me crazy to listen to all of these legal marketing folks talking about getting together a plan. Not because they’re wrong – in fact, I think they are all very right – but because the notion of an online legal marketing plan conjures up visions of this step-by-step routine that you’ve got to follow in order to make it all happen. My experience is that it just doesn’t work that way for the solo and small firm lawyer.

I call this technique the “marketing diet.” You’ve got to start blogging, engage on social networks, get into video marketing (which means you need to understand how to use that video camera), podcast, on and on and on down the line. Exposure! Fame! Fortune!

Of course, it all comes with price tags attached. You get a kick-ass blog designed, a killer email marketing campaign, and even a customized Twitter background. Why? Because you’ve got to be there. If you’re not, you’re falling behind.

So you cut those big checks and go your merry way. The blog goes live, you submit to the “training session” (which goes by so fast you can’t pay attention), hook up Tweetdeck or some other Twitter client du jour, and are sent to meet your success.

You chug along dutifully for a few weeks, bouncing around in the dark with that blog and that stream of tweets. But when your coffers don’t fill up in that time period you get seriously bummed out and burned out. ”Why avoid that cheesecake if I’m not going to drop 20 pounds in time for my brother’s wedding next month?” seems to be the same thinking that creeps into your life right around that time.

Online legal marketing is clearly a fraud. You’re not hitting the top of the search engines. Twittering masses aren’t hanging on your every word. That blog isn’t getting any traffic.

You fail slowly at first, then really quickly because you never ask for a reason.

At first it’s a missed blog post. Maybe a day away from Twitter or Facebook. A Craigslist post doesn’t get put up because you’re too busy. But whatever it is, there’s a small hiccup in your online legal marketing plan. Sort of like an extra piece of cake after dinner. It feels bad, like you’ve done something wrong. Down deep you’re guilty. But there’s another voice in your head telling you it’s OK because this stuff doesn’t work that well in the first place.

If you’re like me, you just stop doing anything at all. When I first got online I was podcasting, blogging and (trying to be) active in a variety of places. At first it was fun. But it wasn’t feeding my business in a way that made it compelling, so when I stopped there wasn’t a reason to go back to “the grind.”

Until I took a look at my goals, and how my online legal marketing plans fit into them. Remember, I was doing this to feed my practice and my family – not as a cool experiment in futility.

I’d been sold on the bright shiny object of the platform rather than on the ways in which a particular one fit into how I wanted to market my law firm.

Sound familiar at all?

When you turn the notion of an online legal marketing plan on its head and focus instead on your business goals, your strategy becomes clearer.

You need to ask yourself, “Why should I engage in this legal marketing medium? Why should I spend my time here on this platform?”

Look at your goals and objectives. Then do your homework to learn how you’re going to get found on a particular platform by the people most likely to have need of your services. Doing so will lead you to the platforms that will work best for your online legal marketing efforts rather than the other way around.

Best of all, it will help you understand the importance of engaging on a particular platform and save you money and time on wasted efforts in the wrong places.

Save money, use your time wisely, get the results you’re looking for.

So here are my questions: why do you use a specific tool for your online legal marketing efforts? What is the defined goal for that particular tool? And how exactly is it working in your favor?