Good Law Firm Marketing Includes Speaking Engagements
Law firm marketing is most effective when you can establish credibility and differentiate your firm in the minds of many people at one time. This is called marketing leverage and public speaking is one of the best examples of it.
You can speak at a convention or trade show, in front of a large or small group, locally or internationally. The venue is less important than the audience. Your audience should include the same people you target with your law firm marketing plan. In other words, it should include your ideal client. Select your speaking engagements based upon WHO will be in the room and not necessarily WHERE you will be speaking.
Once you have the right people in the room it is incumbent upon you to engage them. You need to be interesting, entertaining and leave them wanting more. Once they feel this way you must capitalize on that feeling. Doing that is how you leverage speaking as a marketing tool.
Here are five ways to use speaking engagements in your law firm marketing plan:
Get contact information from attendees. The goal of a speech is not to get a client. It is to get contact information. Few people will jump up during a talk and rush to the stage to hire you. Don’t sell anything. Do not give the audience “twenty one reasons to hire the Jones law firm”.
In your talk you are selling the audience on trusting you. Earn that trust during your speech. Show some vulnerability. Give them good information. Be the kind of person they want to know more about.
Always make an offer in your speech. Give away something in return for collecting contact information. At the end of every speech you should make the audience an offer to get a free report containing more information about the topic you covered. They can get this by filling out a form and providing their contact information. This gives you permission to follow up with them after the event. If your information is valuable, a significant portion of the audience will respond and this is a solid law firm marketing practice.
Numbers tell but stories sell. You talk must include both facts and stories. You want to both entertain the audience and inform them. Many times when an attorney gives a talk it is loaded with so many facts and so much case law that it makes watching Congress seem exciting. Give your audience facts but also tell stories. Pull them into the talk much like a good book will pull in the reader.
Tell them what to do but not how to do it. This is one of the key rules of law firm marketing. You can’t change someone’s life during a speech but you can generate interest. Few people will run out of your talk and try to handle their own legal matter. When you tell people what to do you pique their interest. Give them enough information to select a good lawyer.
End on a high note. At the end of your speech people must feel good about you. People will never remember what you have said but they will remember how you made them feel. Finish your speech with a humorous story or a story that makes people feel good about themselves. That’s what they will remember about you.
If you like to speak in public, getting up in front of a room full of people is a great way to differentiate yourself and your law firm. Add public speaking into your law firm marketing plan. It will help you develop relationships with many potential clients at one time and it provides a boost to your credibility.
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EmailWhat Your Car Says About You
The other day I gave a client a ride to a meeting we were both attending. The client, let’s call him George, got into my car and made a remark about how it seemed like a practical car.I drive a five year old Honda Pilot and at any given time it has baby toys in the back seat, a copy of the Florida Bar Journal, a Copy of the Wall Street Journal and crumbs from the last snack my 15 month old son ate.
When my client made this comment, I smiled.
You see George came to me as a client over three years ago. His book of business was a hair shy of $150,000 and he was having trouble making ends meet. A couple of the first months we worked together, I had to charge his credit card in two increments during the month because I could not get approval for the full amount. The reason I smiled when George made this comment was because even during those tough times, George drove a fancy car. Back then it was a leased Porsche (with a $900+ payment per month).
Now George is bringing in over $650,000 a year and he has moved on to a Mercedes S500. Which he is leasing for North of $1,200 a month.
Personally, I’ve never spent a lot of money on a car. To me it has always been transportation. And I’m fine with you judging me based upon what I drive. My car says I care about my family. Everyone fits in it – including my mother-in-law and my nieces (they often travel with us). It is constantly cluttered with things I focus my energy on, reading material for work, toys for my son, and groceries.
Many people say image is important. They say that people will think less of me because of what I drive. That may be the case. But the person who bases their hiring decision upon what I drive is probably not my ideal client. After all, who wouldn’t want to work with a practical guy who cares about his family?
The Next Big Thing In Attorney Marketing
My philosophy on attorney marketing is simple. Marketing is communication that educates, informs and develops relationships with clients and potential clients. The person who provides this educational information is perceived as an expert. People gravitate toward this person when they have a problem they feel he can solve.
Technology helps enable attorney marketing. Many attorneys are becoming recognized experts by publishing articles regularly on their websites. The tool that makes this possible is called a blog (short for weblog). A blog is simply a website that can be updated frequently. While less than 20% of the attorney population is blogging, those that do write and post new articles to their website a few times each month are reaping the benefits. Clients love new, fresh, interesting content. This is the fastest way to be perceived as an expert.
To put the power of blogging into perspective, imagine that the editor of a newspaper in your town came to you and offered you the opportunity to write a weekly column. Let’s say he told you that you could write it on any topic you wanted. How would you feel about that? Would that enhance your credibility? Would that be valuable?
Blogging provides you with that kind of platform.
Now let’s imagine that someone came to you and offered you the opportunity to host your own daily TV show. You can talk about anything you want as long as it is under five minutes in length. You can send this show to as many people as you’d like, as often as you’d like and they can view it whenever they feel like it. You can essentially become the Oprah or Larry King of your area of interest.
That platform exists and few attorneys are taking advantage of it.
In case you have not noticed, YouTube videos are the next big thing in marketing and they will be the next big thing in attorney marketing. People love to watch videos and they love to watch them on the Internet.
Here are some interesting facts: In 2009 12.2 billion videos per month were viewed on YouTube. According to Nielsen Media Research, the average American internet user watches 182 on-line videos per month. While there are some “power users” who watch hundreds of videos, over 82% of all Americans watch at least one video per month on-line.
What this should say to you is that it just became easier to develop relationships with your clients. Video is an intimate form of media. We all feel as though we have a personal relationship with people we see in a video. It is a psychological phenomenon. You can speak directly to your audience, in your own words, as often as you’d like.
You may be thinking that you do not have access to production studios and you don’t have time to rehearse and you can’t edit video yourself. Well, fancy production is not what this form of media is all about. It is about direct, authentic communication between you and people who are interested in what you have to say.
This means no makeup. It means no slick production. It means no fancy editing. It is you having a conversation with your audience. You can purchase one of a dozen cameras that come with built-in software and you can get started in minutes.
The next big thing in attorney marketing is here. You can start developing deeper relationships with your clients today.
If you’d like to see how I am taking advantage of this opportunity, watch my daily YouTube show. It is updated each morning at: http://www.LegalMarketingForLawyers.com
The Truth About Aggressive Marketing for Law Firms
There are many misconceptions about marketing for law firms. Not the least of which is the notion that it is unsavory and something that good lawyers don’t do. But rather than discuss what it is NOT, I thought it would be valuable to share with you what true, aggressive marketing for law firms is all about.
Below is a marketing plan recently implemented by one of my clients. It is not among the most aggressive I have seen but it is above average. I have left out some of the details to protect what I believe is the client’s competitive advantage.
The marketing tactics used by this three person law firm include:
Daily Blog Posts
This attorney updates his blog every day. The leads he gets through search engine optimization (which his blog directly influences) are some of his highest quality leads. He dedicates his time to this because the return on that investment is high.
Weekly Email Updates
Each week, this attorney picks one blog article and he sends it to his database via email. This is effective because many of his current clients don’t read the blog but they will read the email. This also gives him an opportunity to keep his name in front of the folks who refer him business.
Monthly Print Newsletters
Each month the attorney’s assistant compiles four blog articles and formats them into a newsletter. This newsletter is then sent to a printer and formatted and sent off via the US mail. It turns out that most of his mailing list has not seen any of this information before and they love his newsletter.
Media Campaign to Pitch the Attorney for Expert Commentary
My client has assembled a great package to pitch himself to the media. Each week his assistant targets about fifteen media outlets and sends out a media kit and follows up with phone calls. This usually results in 3 to 5 calls into the office for expert commentary each month.
Quarterly Educational Events
Every month my client’s law firm hosts an educational event for clients and prospective clients. These events focus on topics of interest to the attorney’s client base. The turnout is regularly between 25 and 50 people and this process has yielded over 60 clients for the attorney in the last few years.
Speaking at Industry Conventions
My client loves to speak in front of an audience. He speaks at least one per month at industry events. This enhances his standing as an expert in his legal niche and it also helps him develop leads. Since many of his referrals come from other attorneys, he will also speak at functions for local and national bar associations.
Membership in a Networking Group
The attorney is a member of an almost cult-like referral organization. Although many people complain about belong to these groups because they meet early in the morning, this particular group is worth over $70,000 in annual business for my client. He doesn’t mind getting up early at all.
Mealtime Marketing
Each week my client has lunch with one referral source and one prospective or current client. These lunches keep him focused on what these folks need in the way of legal services. While this certainly has resulted in direct business, the lunches serve as a way to deepen relationships and not as sales calls.
Weekly You Tube Video
Each week this attorney breaks out a little Flip Camera and shoots a 3 to 4 minute video. This video is on a topic in his area of expertise. He then posts this video to his You Tube page and sends a link to his clients. They love it. The video helps keep the educational material flowing to his clients and this provides them with extra value.
Involvement in a Local Charitable Organization
My client is also the president of a local charitable foundation. This is a time consuming role but he feels it is important to give back to the community. In giving, he will often receive much, much more in new business in return. He considers this a bonus benefit to the emotional reward he receives for his involvement.
These are ten tactics that this attorney employs as part of his overall marketing. He has set up systems to keep each of these initiatives moving forward while he focuses on his legal work. He averages about 21 new prospects per month and he converts over 60 percent of them.
This is moderately aggressive marketing. If your law firm is not doing at least half of these things (or any 5 things) to try to attract clients, you are not truly making an effort.
Aggressive marketing for law firms is not about television ads. It is not about billboards or even the Yellow Pages. Marketing for law firms is about doing things right consistently over time.
Get started today.
Hey Big Law Firms: Marketing is About Relationships
I work with very few big law firms on marketing. This is by design. Most big law firms have significant overhead and even more significant egos and both are a hindrance to profitability. Give me a guy in a two room office who is hungry, tired and broke with a law degree from a state school and I’ll help him double his profit inside of a year. A big law firm guy would need a tutorial to understand the hungry guy’s financial statement.
My biggest beef with big law firms is their marketing. Brochures, event sponsorships and congratulatory ads in the local business paper are what pass for good marketing at most big law firms. Forget the fact that nobody has ever hired a lawyer because his firm sponsored a tennis tournament; explain to me how you measure the effectiveness of this kind of marketing.
Now let’s say the kick ass brochure pulls in a client. What is the first thing the partner at the big law firm does? He estimates how many hours he can bill them. Yes, he listens to the problem. Sure he comes up with a legal solution. And ultimately the client’s company will benefit from that solution. But not before the partner bills 20 hours to the client’s account and his associate bills 15 hours to it and the paralegal bills 36 hours to it etc. etc.
My clients have learned the art of stealing business from big law firms by charging flat fees or value based fees to clients who have been beaten up by big law firms for years. They build relationships with their clients BEFORE they become clients. They deepen those relationships with the work they do for them. They charge them a fair price that the client agrees to in advance.
Suffice it to say that attorneys at big law firms should be required to wear a mask and hold a gun when walking into the office of a client. Hourly billing is horrible. Clients hate it. It destroys relationships with clients. But for the big law firms, marketing and billing are not about relationships.
Big law firms could use their size to their advantage. They could conduct seminars that educate potential clients. They could follow up with attendees by sending them a monthly newsletter on the very topic covered in the seminar. They could offer legal audits for clients by the preeminent attorneys in specific areas of the law…FOR FREE. They could do hundreds of things the small firms don’t do with their marketing. If they did, the small guys would have trouble competing.
But I guess the big law firms don’t get it. Maybe they never will. My clients get it. Their clients get it. Before you know it, the big firms may just become small enough to try it.
The Reason You Don’t Get Hired
A Real Estate broker called me recently. She wanted me to recommend her to my clients when they needed office space. I was reluctant to take the call as I already know several excellent people in this field and I don’t make recommendations on office space all that often.
Since the broker was referred to me by a client I decided to take the call (she originally wanted a face-to-face meeting). In advance of the call, I asked for an email detailing why her firm was different than all the others.
What I received back was an email with seven points that were all about her firm. Nothing about how the client would benefit. Nothing about how the client would save money by using her firm, make more money by securing a better location, save time because her firm does thorough due diligence, etc. I didn’t see any of that. All I saw as chest thumping, me, me, me.
This is the number one reason why clients don’t select you as their lawyer. Until you tell the client how you can help them, they will not care where you went to law school or which judge you clerked for or who you know in the local government.
Legal marketing should be all about the client. Show him how you can solve his problem. Help him understand his options. Show him you know how he feels (empathize).
Put the client first in your marketing, just like you do in your legal work.
Why Is It So Easy To Hire You?
Every so often I will point out things I think are worth reading for people interested in law firm marketing. This week I came across a post by Seth Godin on open buying and open selling. Seth is talking about the ease of getting something and its true value to the end user. This is a concept that is near and dear to me. If something is easy to get, how much could it be worth?
Let’s say you need to see a heart surgeon. It’s not an emergency but your doctor has detected an irregular heartbeat. The doctor doesn’t give you a referral (he doesn’t believe in them). So you are forced to find a heart surgeon on your own.
You go to the Internet and you call the heart surgeon who comes up on top in a Google search. You call the office at 9AM and get an appointment for 11AM. After a FREE consultation, you shake the doctor’s hand and he agrees to operate on you at 1PM.
What do you think? Is that guy most likely a good doctor or a bad doctor?
I know that sounds ludicrous but that’s what happens with many lawyers.
You can pick up the phone at 9AM, make an appointment for today at 11, go to the office for a FREE consultation and have an attorney retained by 1PM.
And the attorneys who operate this way wonder why they have so many clients who shop around.
It is not easy to hire a good lawyer. Good lawyers are selective in the clients they accept. Good lawyers are always busy…too busy to handle same day appointments or walk-ins…too busy to offer FREE consultations.
If you want quality clients you need to have a process in place to select them. If you want clients to listen to your advice they must perceive it as valuable. Law firm marketing helps influence that perception but commonsense must also have a role.
Clients get what they pay for…and they know it.
