2016 Solo & Small Firm Summit

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Bernard Henderson
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1 2016 Solo & Small Firm Summit September 29 October 1, 2016 The Westin Cincinnati Cincinnati, OH Law Firm Toolkit: 30+ Tools to Ethically Grow Your Firm September 30, :00 a.m. 12:00 p.m.

2 Law Firm Marketing Toolkit: Tools to Manage, Promote and Grow Your Firm Speaker: Tim Baran ABA GPSolo 2016 Solo and Small Firm Summit Cincinnati, OH September 29 October 1, 2016

3 Introduction The greatest challenge identified by small firms (with fewer than 30 lawyers) in a new survey conducted by Thomson Reuters Solo and Small Law Firm group was acquiring new client business. One of the primary methods of acquiring new clients is having an effective marketing strategy. Whether you re a solo or small- firm attorney handling the marketing for your practice, or a law firm professional managing a marketing team, you need the right tools to get the job done effectively, day in and day out. In the presentation we ll look at a month in the life of a solo, small firm attorney, or even large firms marketing professional and the tools and best practices they use or should be using. Why a month? Because you need at least that much time to write content, create a campaign, and analyze the results. The following materials contain a discussion of marketing tools, resources and best practices from the Legal Productivity blog ( of which I m the managing editor. The a month in the life presentation will include many of the tools discussed here along with a few others not listed.

4 Top Law Firm Marketing Tools Law firm marketing efforts include blogging, social media, website management, campaigns, landing pages, and more. It can seem burdensome and overwhelming. But there are tools to help ease the burden. Here are some of the top tools for law firms of all sizes to help test, optimize, automate, and measure marketing efforts and performance. Buffer App Challenge: I don t have the time to log in to Twitter, Facebook, and other social media channels at regular intervals during the day to consistently post useful links for my followers. Solution: Set up a daily posting schedule. Then, whenever you come across a link you d like to share, save it to Buffer and it will send out an update to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Google+ at the pre- defined intervals. Firm size: Solo, Small Cost: Low Hootsuite Challenge: I have more than one person handling social media and need one platform the team can use to coordinate strategy and execution. Solution: Trusted by 29 of the top 50 AmLaw firms for their social media initiatives, Hootsuite provides a platform for your

5 team of any size to handle unlimited social profiles and provides advanced analytics and scheduling. Firm size: Small, Medium, Large Cost: Low Marketo Challenge: We ve built awesome blogs, websites, landing pages, and other useful content but don t know which is more effective and how to improve on those that aren t. Solution: The standard for marketing automation for firms of any size, Marketo lets you easily create, automate, and track engaging campaigns and marketing workflows across all your marketing channels. It s a complicated system to learn and implement but worth the effort. Firm size: Medium, Large Cost: High Salesforce Challenge: We ve gotten over our aversion to the the term sales and established a team, call center, and workflows, but it s becoming very complex and we need a way to manage and track our efforts. Solution: Dynamic CRM to gather more leads and increase customer loyalty, retention, and satisfaction. Firm size: Large

6 Cost: High WordPress Challenge: I want to swap the one- page static website that an intern put together for us eons ago for a site that s dynamic and easy to update. Oh, and affordable. Solution: It doesn t get any more dynamic, malleable, and affordable than WordPress. You can build a multi- page website or blog, or both on the same site. It s easy to set up and easy to update. Firm size: Solo, Small, Medium, Large Cost: Low Google Analytics Challenge: We d like to get some insight into who s viewing our blog posts and web pages and which are getting the most traffic so we can improve our messaging to fit our clients and potential clients needs. Solution: Hook up your blogs and websites, free of charge, to Google Analytics to see how your content is doing and who s reading it. A premium version offers additional insight. Firm size: Solo, Small, Medium, Large Cost: Low MailChimp

7 Challenge: We keep hearing about the power and benefits of having an marketing strategy but don t think our Outlook can handle it. Solution: Gmail, Yahoo, and Outlook are used for personal and work , not for sending marketing campaigns. There are many good choices out there in addition to MailChimp, including Constant Contact, MadMimi, and icontact. Do some research to see which best fits your needs. Firm size: Solo, Small, Medium, Large Cost: Low to medium Lucky Orange Challenge: Our website is not effective at converting visitors to leads. How do I know what s working on each page and how to improve? Solution: Watch recordings and heatmaps of visitors to your website and see how they moved across the pages and why they did not convert. Firm size: Solo, Small, Medium, Large Feedly Challenge: We ve bookmarked favorite sites that consistently produce useful information to digest and share but need a better way to monitor those sites.

8 Solution: RSS feed aggregators such as Feedly bring the contents of your favorite sites to you. Set up a free account and add your the URLs of your favorite blogs and websites and never miss another piece of content. Firm size: Solo, Small, Medium, Large Cost: Low HubSpot Challenge: We re new to the whole marketing funnel concept and committed to creating useful content but need a way to coordinate and track our efforts. Solution: Bring together your content marketing efforts, including campaigns, in one dashboard. Firm size: Medium, Large Cost: Medium to high ClearView Social Challenge: We re expanding our social media outreach to involve the entire firm but it s been difficult getting our lawyers to post updates. Solution: The firm s marketing team sends an to attorneys and other members of the firm at regular intervals with recommended content to share, and with a click it can be shared to all of the firm s social media channels. Firm size: Medium, Large

9 Cost: Low to medium depending on firm size Manzama Challenge: We need to keep up to date with our clients and what s going on in the legal profession, thought leaders, and the industries we serve. How do we cut through the noise to find the information that s most valuable to us? Solution: This tool searches, analyzes, and classifies the information you requested then personalizes and delivers key client, competitor, industry, and topical trends and developments to your desktop or mobile device. Firm size: Medium, Large Cost: No pricing information. You ll need to request a demo.

10 Online Marketing Checklists for Law Firms Two things to keep in mind when crafting your firm s online marketing efforts: 1) get the optimization basics down and don t get overwhelmed with bottomless lists of tips and technical jargon, and 2) memorialize repeatable processes so you don t miss a step. In other words, create your own set of checklists as you fine tune your process. Checklists reduce errors and help you to be more consistent and complete in carrying out tasks and avoiding mistakes. Use the checklists below as a guide for SEO, Newsletters, Blogging, and Lead Generation to inform your marketing team at the firm of the steps you need to take each and every time you start a related activity. Blogging Checklist þ Shoot for a minimum of 300 words. 700 is a sweet spot. þ Keep title to 7-9 words. þ Introduce the post with a question or solution. How to posts or those with numbers in their titles are popular. þ Include at least one image in the blog post. Make it a socialmedia-sharing-friendly size. þ Incorporate one or two of your SEO keywords in the copy and title of your blog post. þ Keyword should appear in alt text of all images and graphics. þ The post should include links to any to other relevant pages and/or blog posts on your website. þ Meta description should include detailed or expressive text. þ A call to action should appear at the end of your post. þ Distribute each blog post via social media, i.e. LinkedIn, Facebook, & Twitter.

11 SEO Checklist þ Conduct keyword research to determine most searched words with as little competition as possible. þ Select a target keyword for every page of your website. þ Build inbound links to your website with your desired keywords in your link text. þ Title of each page should be 70 characters long or less and include your target keyword. þ Each page should have a meta description 156 characters or less and include your target keyword. þ Target keyword should be included in H tags, image alt attributes, and occur naturally in your text for each page. þ Each section of the web page or blog post should have a subheader which is usually an H2. þ Website URL structure shouldn t be cryptic but should support readable keywords. þ Establish anchor listing in the major social media platforms including LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ þ Establish a complete profile on Google Business. This anchors your law firm to local search and enables potential clients to see your contact information and reviews. þ Include both an HTML and XML site map and a robot.txt file. Newsletter Checklist þ Distribute a firm newsletter once a month to all of your contacts. þ Draw people back to your website with new, interesting content or offers. þ Make sure you track statistics for each send, including open rates, which links get clicked, and your website traffic. þ Never send newsletters on a Friday: Mid-week is typically best between 10am and 12pm

12 þ Research optimal send days and times to make sure your newsletter reaches the largest possible audience. þ Use tools like SubjectLine.com to ensure that your has the best chance of being read. þ Use very sparse text. Summarize articles and initiatives and lure people back to your website to find out more. þ Make sure that people can easily sign up for your newsletter on your website. Lead Generation Checklist þ Build dedicated website landing pages for specific lead generation opportunities. þ Website home page should have a lead generation call to action above the fold on the right side of the page. þ Set up automated lead nurturing campaigns so that visitors who fill out opt-in forms receive automated s at regular intervals. þ Calls to action should include actionable language or clearly express a value proposition. þ Calls to action should be obviously clickable, highly contrasting buttons. þ Forms should have more elements if you want more qualified but less leads, and less elements if you want more but less qualified leads. þ Construct a thank you page for your forms that showcases more of your services. þ Make sure visitors can view your site easily and fill out your forms on a smartphone. þ Optimize your landing page for mobile as many conversions today take place on mobile devices

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