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Why Blogging is So Dang Important for Law Firms

You’re a busy legal professional. You’ve got clients to manage, court appearances, research and research and research. Who has time to blog?

Well, you might not want to hear this, but you need to make the time. Blogs are number one for driving traffic to your site, establishing trust and authority,  and landing leads. However, if you don’t want to make the time, there are some great options (ahem, like us) for outsourcing all your marketing needs

You’re just not going to escape the need for blogs in your law firm. They’re just that important.

One of the great things is that you probably already have a massive amount of content just sitting in your legal documents, your client emails and in-house communications that can readily be turned into blogs. So, look at the bright side. All that finger strain and knowledge poured out can fuel future blogs and a strategic marketing campaign.

Now, let’s get into the nitty gritty. We can push you to blog all day, but you need to know why it’s so important for your law firm. Here’s why…

Trust and authority

In the legal field, your clients need to know that they can count on your knowledge, skills and expertise. You can talk up your practice all you want but the proof is in the pudding. Think of it from your client’s perspective. If they came to your website and just saw you tooting your own horn with no content to back it up, they wouldn’t establish the kind of trust they need to reach out to you. Show them that you’re an expert, that you understand your legal field inside and out and that you understand their needs. Share stories that they can relate to – and how you would solve or approach the issue at hand. This can provide a level of solace to a potential client that makes converting that lead and done deal. Yes, you can accomplish all this and more through blogs.

Not only are trust and authority important to your clients, but they’re important to Google’s crawlers as well. SEO is about way more than regurgitating keywords. Google actually has algorithms to examine your authority and credibility. Write great blogs with relevant and informative content and boost your SEO. Speaking of SEO…

SEO

Hands down the best way to get yourself on the first page of search engines is through content. And for most law firms blogging is the best form of content to accomplish this. 96% of people are using search engines to find attorneys. 75% of people never look past the first page. Writing blogs that target the key questions that your potential clients are searching for will put you on their radar and drive all that traffic home.

Foster relationships, expand your reach

Consumers just don’t want to be “sold” anymore. They are savvier than ever and know when they’re getting a sales pitch. These days the best way to attract clients and build a brand is through relationships. You build relationships through content. This means providing content that speaks to your audience’s needs and wants, that meets them where they are and answers the questions that are on their minds. Do this and you foster relationships. Relationships lead to trusting and satisfied clients.

A cost-effective marketing strategy

The bottom line is always heavy on the mind of any business owner. Your law firm is no different. One of the best things about blogging is that it’s extremely cost-effective compared to other forms of marketing and offers one of the best ROIs of any marketing strategy. Valuable blogs also pay for themselves year after year. If you wrote about a particularly sticky issue that your clients are needing help on, you could see return traffic to this blog for months and years, helping you rank on search engines and building your authority.

Feed the content machine

With an effective content marketing strategy, it’s imperative to look at the big picture. Blogs are great, of course, you’ll never hear otherwise from us. But without an overarching campaign and strategy, you won’t utilize your blogs to their full effectiveness. Blogs can (and should) work in tandem with social media, newsletters, video content and any other piece of your overall marketing plan.

Are we blog-biased? Of course! But for good reason. Blogs are one of the best forms of content to drive quality traffic to your site, establish authority, and easily convert leads, not to mention they’re so dang cost-effective.

Bottom line. You need to blog. Hope we made that clear. Now, let’s talk content marketing strategy to give your blogs the best shot.

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How to Save Money and Market Your Law Firm without Spending Big Bucks on Ads

More business. More notoriety. More growth.

For most law firms, the business goals always seem to revolve around the concept of more. But we’d like to introduce a different perspective: less.

Less spending, less moving parts, less confusion.

When it comes to marketing, we are big believers that less is more. It can be difficult for many law firms to develop a solid marketing strategy for a number of reasons, but most of the time it’s because there is a lot of conflicting advice out there as to how to grow or market your law firm in today’s online economy.

If your firm is burning through your marketing budget faster than you’d like, then it’s time to re-evaluate your strategy. Many firms heavily rely on ad campaigns, both online and out-of-home (read: billboards), to drive leads and build brand recognition.

While ads can have a valuable impact, there’s a time and a place. And often, those are secondary to a strong content marketing campaign.  Here’s a quick breakdown of steps you can take now to lessen your budget and increase your marketing impact.  

Content, content, content

We harp on content a lot, and for very good reason. Content is one the most cost-effective ways to market your law firm and it’s one of the best forms of marketing overall. Content marketing is the number one way to grow your reputation, build trust quickly, and boost your SEO while increasing traffic to your site.

Content marketing provides informative, engaging and valuable content to your potential clients. The three best things for a firm to focus on when it comes to content marketing? Blogs, blogs, and email. And maybe some more blogs, just for good measure. Don’t believe us – get in touch and we can cite seriously cool case studies to show you the impact of blogging on a law firm.

Review management

Clients look to reviews more than ever when choosing their attorneys. Your reputation is everything! So, make sure you’re getting online to manage your reviews. Respond to every review, positive or negative. But give special care to the negative reviews and see what you can do to address the client’s issues. This will show potential clients that you want your customers to feel heard and appreciated. The more you engage the more you show that you’re an approachable and caring law practice.

Local listings and legal directories

One of the easiest ways to market your firm and make yourself visible is simply by making sure your local listings are updated and accurate. Scan across the board, Google My Business, Facebook, Avvo, Yelp, FindLaw, etc. Make sure your contact information is correct and all relevant details are supplied.

Legal directories are also a great low-cost or no-cost way to put your name out there. You might have to take a close look at which directories are best for your particular practice and which make the most sense for your budget, but do not skip this simple marketing tool.

Outsource

Believe it or not (you should definitely believe it) outsourcing your marketing is huge for law firms in savings of both time and money. If you’re trying to wear every hat or keep all of your operations in-house, you could be shooting yourself in the foot. You and your legal team have specialties. This is what you should focus your time and energy on. When you step out of your area of expertise you waste valuable time and you’re not producing the best work. Hand your marketing needs over to an agency that knows their stuff. You will take so much off your plate and find yourself able to focus on what you do best, as well as growing your business.

We just happen to be one of those marketing agencies that knows their stuff. We keep our finger on the pulse of the latest marketing trends, SEO strategies, content marketing strategies, social media and data analysis. By letting us do what we do best you get to do what you do best. You get great marketing, your clients get your undivided attention and you can focus on goring your practice.

Reach out to talk marketing strategies for your law firm.

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Marketing Your Law Firm: 3 Things You Should Know

You’ve seen the billboards across town with the lawyer pointing a finger or folding their arms in confidence.

They read:

So-and-so, the Strongarm will fight for your rights!

Accident? Injured? Someone should pay!

“Just because you did it doesn’t mean you’re guilty!” (That’s an actual billboard!)

Do these tactics have a big impact? Most importantly, will they work for your law firm?

There might be some law practices where these campaigns do work, and work well, but the majority of law firms are headed in a different direction, and your clients are looking for savvier marketing as well. 

Here are 3 things your law firm needs to know about marketing within the legal field.

Build your brand from credibility, authority and capability

Building the brand for your law firm is more than fancy cards and spiffy letterheads. You need to communicate what makes your firm unique and why people should listen to you, trust you and hire you. What will make you stand out from the herd is your trustworthiness, expertise and your proven track record.

Highlight awards you’ve won. Solicit great reviews from your clients and showcase them. Demonstrate your track record with case studies, where applicable. Prove your capability in your practice areas. All of this will build your authority and tell potential clients that you’re a law firm they can trust and rely on.

Establish your online presence

Online is where the majority of your clients are going to find you, not billboards or late night infomercials. You better believe you need a good website, but your online presence doesn’t stop there. Law firms also need to establish themselves on all the industry-specific platforms where leads might find them. State and local bar listings, Avvo, Yelp, Google My Business, YP.com, Apple Maps, and Justia, just to name a few free platforms. Build your profile and make sure the information is correct and the branding is professional. The more funnels that can bring your clients to you, the better. And don’t forget about SEO…

And social media matters to law firms as much as it does for any other business. You need to establish a social media presence on the platforms where your clients are. This could mean LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, all together, or an effective combo. If your clients are hanging out on these platforms you need to join them and provide insightful, relevant content.

Get in the content marketing game

Most lawyers, legal assistants and paralegals know a thing or two about writing a sentence. And most are writing page after page of content every day. Might as well turn that writing and that expertise into a form of marketing. Content marketing is all about providing value to your clients. When done properly, it doesn’t feel like a marketing ploy. It’s communicating authentically and building trust along the way. And people do business with people they trust.

Developing a content marketing strategy is one of our top recommendations to just about every business, but law firms can especially benefit from providing easily accessible, informative, and digestible content to people who desperately need their pressing questions answered. This can (and should) involve a strategy that combines blogging, newsletters, social media, landing pages and great website content. It all adds up to a fantastic ROI that keeps on coming in, plus this is by far the best way to boost your rankings on Google and establish your authority in your field.

We’ve worked with attorneys and law firms across a number of practice areas. And we know how to translate your practice into a strategic marketing campaign.

You do the law. We do the marketing. Match made in heaven.

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The Benefits of an Outsourced Marketing Agency

Whatever your business does, regardless of industry, product or service, you need marketing. You need to let people know what you do and you need to convert them into customers and clients.

But how many lawyers are marketing gurus as well? How many HVAC companies happen to be SEO experts? How many tech startups know how to write a blog for their readership?

What ends up happening for too many small businesses startups is that marketing gets put into the hands of someone who’s not necessarily a marketing expert. Or it gets divvied up and put into the hands of team members who are already swamped with their own specialized work, and then they must perform marketing tasks that are way out of their wheelhouse.

The bottom line is that your business benefits – in ROI, employee retention and satisfaction, and in growth – by outsourcing your marketing.

Here are some of the benefits of outsourcing your strategic marketing plan to a marketing agency.

Insights, innovation and expertise

Are you a marketing expert? Do you keep your fingers on the pulse of the latest social media trends and most up-to-date marketing tactics? Can you expertly analyze your data? Chances are high that your skillset, while it might include marketing skills, is not as well-versed as a marketing agency that focuses solely on the latest, greatest and most effective marketing strategies.

Do what you do best, let someone else do the rest

How much bandwidth do you have? The more you disperse your energy into every avenue, putting every fire out and solving every problem, the less effective you are overall. Most business owners got into their particular field because they have an expertise in one arena. Very few startup owners and entrepreneurs are true polymaths. The more you can hone-in on what you do best and what you love, while leaving the stuff you’re not an expert in to the experts, the more you stand to succeed (not to mention saving yourself from the gray hairs and ulcers!).

Grow and scale

If you are looking for accelerated growth or the ability to scale you’re going to need all hands on deck. But if everyone on your team is focused on a big marketing push, how many other tasks and projects will suffer as a result? With the right outsourced marketing agency, you can target your efforts more effectively, while saving your team for the push to growth and scale that will ensure your business’s success.

The most bang for your buck

Reduce overhead, skip the expenses that come with onboarding and providing benefits packages. Cut back on ad and software expenses. For most businesses it just isn’t feasible to have an in-house marketing team. Hiring all the employees that you’d need to maintain the level of expertise that a marketing agency already has could potentially cost you hundreds of thousands. For much less than you’d pay even one marketing team member, you get a whole team of marketing experts devoted solely to your marketing plan.

Get time back

As a business owner, when’s the last time you had extra time on your hands?

How much time has marketing been costing you or your team members? So many startups think they’re saving money by doing everything in-house, but time is actually your most valuable resource. If you spend hours a day managing your social media, writing blogs, reviewing analytics, and managing marketing campaigns, you’re losing time to build your business in other ways. By hiring someone else to do all the marketing heavy lifting, you can buy yourself invaluable time to be put back into operations and growth.

We have worked with dozens of clients across a wide array of industries to help them strategize their marketing plan and produce a better ROI than they would have ever seen if they kept the marketing in-house.

SEO, brand development and design, content marketing, social media marketing, data analysis and more. We’ve got the skills, experience and expertise to help bring your business to the next level. Contact us today if you’re ready to put your marketing in the hands of a hardworking team, ready to amplify your business and your marketing efforts.  

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What’s a Gig-apreneur and Why You Should Be Wary Of Them

We’re going to start this one off with a big old disclaimer.

While we by no means intend to disparage the gig-apreneur or the gig economy, we do want to give small businesses an accurate picture of the pros and cons of hiring gig workers. Unfortunately, we have found that there are more cons than pros as a whole. But in those smaller instances finding the right gig worker can be a huge boon for your company. It’s just that most businesses have to go through many, many bad experiences before they finally find the right gig-apreneur.

OK, we’ll stop disclaiming and generalizing now and get specific. Starting with a definition…

A gig worker by any other name…

The gig-apreneur can go by many names – gig entrepreneur, gig worker, freelancer, temporary worker, contract worker, independent contractor. In essence this is a person who possesses a skill and wants to go the independent route, working with businesses directly rather than working through an agency or as a traditional W-2 employee. The gig-apreneur is a 1099 employee, which labels them as an independent contractor in the eyes of the IRS.

The pros and cons of the gig economy

The gig economy may be a hot buzzword these days but there is nothing new about it. The gig economy has been around for as long as there have been gigs. What is new in the last decade are the vast number of intermediary companies popping up to connect gig-apreneurs with business (think Uber, Fiverr, Upwork and many, many more).

In general, the pros of the gig economy are simple and twofold. First, hiring a gig worker can save your company money because it essentially cuts out the middleman (though this is not entirely true, as we’ll discuss). And secondly, it puts more money directly into the pockets of these gig workers. In theory this can be a great model for all parties involved. In practice, it’s not as pretty of a picture.

The downsides of the gig economy are many. One is that millions of people with varying levels of skill can claim expertise on any task or “gig” that you need help with. The gig economy can mean that small businesses actually pay more for “good help” and jeopardize their own growth. It can also erode traditional relationships between workers, businesses and clients.

Let’s look at the cons in more detail.

Consistency and reliability

If you like your jobs to get done on time and have a sense of dependability on your workers, the right gig-apreneur is going to be hard to find. It’s not that gig workers are inherently unreliable, it’s just that they may not have the same commitment level to your company as a traditional employee. Basically, there’s less on the line for them.

Couple this with the fact that many gig workers are working multiple jobs and have multiple projects going on at the same time and you don’t have the best recipe for consistency and reliability. Again, you can always find that diamond in the rough, but it’s going to be rough for a while before you find that diamond.

Quality of work

Let’s say you need some blogs written. You could hop on Upwork.com post your gig and then sort through dozens of applications. You can review profiles, read samples and research all of these applicants (which is going to take you a lot of time) and then choose the best of the lot. But this isn’t necessarily going to guarantee you a high quality of work. and if the work is not up to par, you have to go through the process all over again.

The problem is that the gig economy is worldwide. While this might be considered a pro for some it’s generally a con for your business. As many workers in developing nations compete with workers in developed countries, the competition gets fierce. One person in Sri Lanka will be able to charge much, much less than a person in the U.S. performing the same task because the cost of living is much less. This creates a system where freelancers are forced to charge less and the quality of work is like throwing a dart at a board blindfolded. What this also does is raises the prices of the “qualified” high-end freelancers. They can charge more because they are actually worth the money but the idea of saving money for small businesses is out the window.

The “contractor” loophole

One of the biggest drawbacks of the gig economy is actually for the gig workers. Whether they chose the independent contractor path or it was forced on them by economic circumstances they have no job security, no benefits and no stability. While small businesses might save money by not having to shell out these typical worker compensations, the end result is a gig-aprenuer that is increasingly desperate.

This is not best environment to foster quality work, consistency or great relationships. Some might say (all right, we’re going to say it) that the gig economy is fertile ground for increased wage gaps, economic and social disparity and workers being taken advantage of.

Cutting out the middleman?

Whether you consider the middleman as the IRS, an agency or something else, the idea of cutting out this entity is inaccurate, if not completely false. Occasionally you will find a gig worker without an intermediary but that’s becoming increasingly uncommon.

Every intermediary (SimplyHired, Upwork, Behance, We Work Remotely and on and on) will charge a service fee for connecting you. In some cases your business will pay this fee, in others, it will be the contacted worker that pays. Either way, you’re still paying for it. Contractors have to raise their fees to cover this cost, as well as covering the huge tax hit they’ll receive as a 1099 worker.

What it all means to your business

We realize that we’ve made it sound like the gig economy and gig workers are eroding the very fabric of small businesses but we want to reiterate that this is not the case. The gig economy offers opportunities to millions of people that could never have been achieved any other way. It can put food on the tables for families that are struggling to find job opportunities and it can sometimes save businesses money.

But too often small businesses have to go through 2, 3, 20 gig-apreneurs before they finally find the right fit. We’re not going to tell you that you shouldn’t try the gig economy, but we are telling you that there are intrinsic risks involved. In the end, only you can decide what’s best for your business.

Need help making that decision? That’s what we’re here for.

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Are You Seeking the Right ROI?

How understanding ROI and setting correct expectations can play a critical role in your return on investment

Return on investment (ROI) is the measurement for the success of any investment that your business takes on – in marketing, training, software, hardware, even staples and paper, etc. It’s the benchmark for your bottom line. It tells you whether your investment was successful and how you might make future ventures in your business.

It’s great to be ambitious and continue to raise the bar in your business. Stagnation is the swamp that eventually swallows businesses whole. So, it’s appropriate to seek a high ROI.

But on the other hand, it’s critical that you set yourself up with realistic goals. Sure, everyone wants to increase their revenue by 10,000% but in the real business world – with real human customers and real-life constraints – this is not credible for most companies.

We all want our dollars turn into more dollars. How do we maintain that determined business drive while also creating realistic expectation on our ROI? And how do these expectations play a role in a successful marketing campaign?

Know thy self (and thy business)

To correctly gage ROI and to accurately predict the expected ROI you need to know how your business has historically performed. This takes detailed data over a substantial period of time and a correct analysis of this data (Blog: When Was The Last Time You Looked at Your Data?). You then take this data and decide where your marketing dollars are best spent.

For instance, if your business has seen a great ROI from email marketing campaigns but social media campaigns flopped, it’s not realistic to expect a 5x ROI from a social media campaign that has historically underperformed. You’ll either need to try a different approach or consider a different marketing avenue.

In a nutshell, you need to know your business and your goals in order to set a realistic expectation for your ROI.

Crunch the numbers

The standard ROI formula goes like this: Net return ÷ cost of investment x 100.

Seems straightforward enough but this formula is incomplete. Calculating ROI for marketing is notoriously difficult for a number of reasons. Huge corporations actually have customized complex formulas and algorithms that factor in any number of variables to accurately assess their marketing ROI.

You might think your ROI on a Google ad campaign is a simple formula but it can sometimes take months to see the full fruit of your marketing labors. Additionally some ROIs must take into consideration your business’s gross margin target, overhead expenses, cost-per-lead, and so much more.

The lesson is this: It’s never a good idea to invest blindly in anything. So, review your data, crunch the numbers and do your due diligence before setting goals.

Lifetime value

There’s another factor to consider in your ROI known as lifetime value. This is the value a customer brings to your business over their entire lifetime as your loyal supporter. It’s important not to get too fixated on that single transaction because a great business builds loyalty and trust, which leads to repeat business.

Let’s say you ran a marketing campaign that brought this hypothetical customer (let’s call her Kay) in through a pay-per-click ad. Kay factored into your ROI on that campaign, but she’s now a lifelong customer who will continue to invest in your business. Perhaps on the that first PPC ad the business only achieved a 2x ROI. Well, that’s not a great investment. But when you factor in the repeat purchases that Kay has made (and many more people like her), that ROI starts to grow to a 6x dividend as the months and years go by.

Give me the ROI numbers, already!

All right, all right. We know you’ve been waiting for a direct answer to ROI expectations but we wanted to make sure that the full scope of ROI calculations was understood first.

Here are the real numbers you can expect from a good marketing campaign.

You’re basically looking for a 3-5x ROI as a standard for a successful investment. So if you put in $1,000, you could expect $3-5,000 back.

This is a ballpark estimate because it really does vary by industry and it depends on the type of investment, each individual businesses’ benchmarks, bottom line and long-term business plan, in addition to any number of specific targets.

2x ROI is so-so, but for some businesses this can be a success depending on long and short-term goals. 10x ROI is fantastic and every would-be marketing guru wants to claim they can deliver this but it is rarely realistic.

Are you ready to see your best ROI? We can help you assess your business’s bottom line and create a campaign that can see an obtainable and valuable return on investment.