The Top 10 Ways That Firms Squander Precious Marketing Resources

John Remsen, Jr in the Managing Partner Forum

So here we go – the “Top Ten Ways To Waste Money Marketing Your Practice,” in David Lettermanesque ascending order of wastefulness.

#10 – Random Acts of Golf and Lunch

Golf and lunch are fine marketing activities, very conducive to relationship building. But playing golf with an endless array of acquaintances who don’t have the ability to hire or refer you is hardly an effective use of your marketing time. Nor is that monthly “skins” match with your brother-in-law and his drinking buddies. The profession’s top rainmakers have a plan — even if only in their heads — when they go on their boondoggles… er, I mean, marketing ventures. They have determined who they want to get to know better and, from there, they develop a systematic plan to go about building and enhancing relationships with them. The key word is plan.

#9 – The “Really Big Show”

Reminiscent of Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland deciding to “put on a show,” your firm decides to present the mother of all seminars. Over 300 people spend a half-day listening to you and your partners talk about the latest changes in state law. It was great. Problem is, there was very little follow up. When it comes to seminars and similar events, we suggest that you consider smaller, less formal and more interactive sessions. Think about a seminar series, focused on a particular industry, where participants get together repeatedly. This way, the follow-up is builtin. Wasted Time and Money.

#8 – Other One-Shot Wonders

Come to think of it, forget about any marketing activity that does not include follow-up. All the marketing events that your firm sponsors — seminars, open houses, holiday parties, and the like — should be looked upon as relationship building platforms. And personal follow is the key to making them work. All participating attorneys should follow up with at least two or three people at each event, focusing on folks who can help them achieve their objectives.

#7 – Brochures and Newsletters That Cure Insomnia

Good brochures and newsletters have their place among effective marketing tools. But who wants to read mindnumbing tomes about the history of your firm and its 14 practice areas? Not me, and not your prospective clients either. Keep the copy concise and easy-to-read. Use bullet points whenever possible. Hire a talented graphic designer who will produce sharp, attention-grabbing marketing material.

#6 – Invisible Advertising

No doubt, print and broadcast advertising works for attorneys with consumer-oriented practices (like family and personal injury law) and I’d recommend an ad in the Yellow Pages in a heartbeat. But things like traditional “tombstone” ads and “one-time” ads in a newspaper or magazine are practically worthless. Studies show that it takes 7-11 impressions before somebody will recall seeing your ad. Consistency and frequency are essential. Here again, hire a good graphic designer and stay light on copy to make sure your ads are noticed. If you want to advertise, do it right.

#5 – Holiday Chochkes

Ahhh, the holidays. Talk about getting lost in the shuffle! Effective marketing strategies get noticed and stand apart from the crowd. The holidays are far too busy a time for your cards, parties, and gifts to be fully appreciated. However, if you must send holiday cards, by all means, sign them personally!

#4 – Directories, Directories and More Directories!

Over the past ten years, law firm directories have sprouted like cattails in the Everglades. Unfortunately, most have little marketing value. Decision-makers simply don’t use them very much. In fact, our friends on the listserv think that only a few directories, such as LawOffice.com, Martindale-Hubbell and Best’s (for insurance defense counsel), are worth the money. Bottom line….hold on to your cash.

#3 – Vanity Letterhead

We’re talking about the kind that features every lawyer’s name on the masthead. Every letter becomes two-pages long, and each time a lawyer joins or leaves the firm the old supply gets chucked and a new supply is ordered. Often, the new letterhead is out of date even before it comes back from the printer! Most firms have abandoned this practice and yours should, too. Consider adding a snappy firm logo and/or a splash of color. Don’t worry, it’s OK.

#2 – PPPPs (Powerful Partner’s Pet Projects)

Our #2 money waster was sent in by Bev Davis, chief operating officer for a well-known Oregon law firm….and you know exactly what she’s talking about! The firm’s $5,000 contribution for a table at the “Belles of the Confederacy” Dinner Dance, for example. Powerful Partner Jim thinks it’s a great idea. (So happens his wife is on the Board of Directors.) PPPPs are rarely budgeted and are hardly ever consistent with firm-wide marketing objectives. They tend to consume vast quantities of money and staff time. A firm-wide marketing plan goes a long way toward reducing the number of PPPPs. Show Jim the plan and just say no!

#1 – Consultants Who Don’t Know **** About Law Firms

Law firms are a different kind of beast — big egos, lots of democracy, convoluted compensation systems and, in many cases, a disdain toward marketing. Yet, I see it happen time and time again. “We hired Sally because we liked the work she did for our big banking client. But she never could manage to implement much of anything around here.” When it comes to building consensus for a new idea or getting people to focus on non-billable activities, there is nothing quite like a law firm. It takes someone who’s been there to make it happen. If you decide to hire a consultant, hire somebody who has a successful track record working with law firms like yours.

Here are five things to remember when considering your website optimization:

1. SEO takes time

You cannot optimize your website today and expect results tomorrow or next week. Search engine optimization takes time. Search engines have to find your new optimized pages, they have to find the new links to your website, they have to update the index, etc.  Many times it takes weeks before the search engine spiders will visit your website for re-indexing.

2. You must change your web pages

If you want to get high rankings for certain keywords, then these keywords must appear on your web pages. It is only possible to get high rankings for a keyword that is not listed on your website if lots of other websites link to your website with that keyword. That’s the exception, though.  The best practice is that if you want rankings for – lets say toledo injury lawyer – you need to make sure you have a page of content related to that set of keywords.

3. You need links and you need the right links

Good backlinks are the key to high rankings on Google. Automatically created backlinks usually won’t help your rankings and they even might get you banned from Google’s index.  These kind of links are typically offered by very low cost optimization company that even take the great leap of guaranteeing rankings.

As a general rule, the easier it is to get a link, the less is its influence on the position of your website on Google. The links to your website should be from related websites and they should contain your keywords in the link text.

4. It’s crucial to choose the right keywords

If are a Cleveland criminal attorney, than you might think that it would be cool if their site was found for the keyword “cleveland drug laws”. That might be cool but it does not necessarily make sense.

People searching for “cleveland drug laws” can be interested in anything: a law student working on a paper, another attorney researching a case, etc. If these people come to your website, they are not likely to result in a new client.

Optimize your website for keywords that attract the right kind of people. For example “charged with a drug crime in cleveland” or “dui lawyer in cleveland“.

5. You must be realistic

If you have a website with just a few pages and your competitors have large websites with forums, communities, blogs, etc. then you must improve your website if you want to compete. Search engines want to show the best sites on the result pages.

If you absolutely want to get high rankings for a term such as “cleveland bankruptcy attorney”, start with less competitive keywords and then proceed to the more competitive terms. Search engines must trust your website before they give you high rankings for very competitive keywords.

Some content inspired by Axandra Search Engine Facts July 6 2010 – Issue #428

So the natural conclusion is to look for as many linking opportunities as possible.  In a recent announcement regarding links, Google’s anti-spam engineer Matt Cutts, reminds us to proceed with caution especially when it comes to paid links.  The official Google policy on paid links is as follows:

“Buying or selling links that pass PageRank is in violation of Google’s webmaster guidelines and can negatively impact a site’s ranking in search results.”

It now appears that Google has been working on new algorithms and tools to be able to detect paid links.  So although these types of instant rankings boosters may be temporarily beneficial, ultimately they could result in devastating consequences for your website. Once paid links are found going to your website, Google will completely remove your website from search results as soon as they are discovered.  Google also allows for the reporting of link violations, something that your competitors may also be on the watch for.  So between the algorithm itself and vengeful competitors, it’s not about if but more like when you will be discovered.

The better alternative is to build credible in-bound links from websites that do not engage in any link selling.  Although this takes more time, you avoid the risk of having your website disappear all together.  This type of consistent, gradual increasing of the value of your website will show the search engines that your website’s position is warranted and not stolen.

As the old adage says “you get what you pay for” and this definitely applies when building a website.  There are many factors to building a good website and building an effective Internet marketing presence.  When you consider the shear volume of people who are using the Internet to hire an attorney, these “cheap” websites can be a very expensive mistake.

Here are a few questions that you should keep in mind:

Does the website developer understand Search Engine Optimization?

A website that is properly built with basic search engines optimization best practices can make the difference between an effective site and a site that might as well be a billboard in the desert.  Unfortunately I regularly analyze beautiful websites, some even with award winning designs, that have no presence on keyword based search results.  An innovative, cutting-edge website design is great, but it must be coupled with an effective optimization strategy that is in place both during and after the website build is complete. In some cases, it is better to have a basic website design if it means more time and money can be spent after the build is complete on optimization.

Does the website developer understand what your customer is looking for?

The potential customers that are on your website have very specific questions that they need answered before they decide to contact you for more information.  If you don’t address those questions, they will leave your website and search for another that does.  From the content that written to the image it conveys, speaking to the right customer with the right message is essential in making sure your website is contributing to your bottom line.

Will your website developer be around next week?

In basements all across America you will find home-based website builders.  Nothing against these noble entrepreneurs, but a reputable company that has website development as a focus of their business is far more likely to be around when you need to change or update your website.  These ongoing changes to your website are critical for helping your website gain and maintain rankings on the search engines.  Far too many businesses are held captive to a website that can’t be updated because the developer is M.I.A.

In a recent video that is posted on my You-Tube page, I talk about why an effective internet marketing strategy is essential to the success of law firms.  Until recently, lawyers relied on yellow pages advertising to generate new client leads.  Far too many of them spent tens of thousands of dollars every month to ensure that their ad was seen.  However, across the county, attorneys are starting to notice that these ads are not generating the same return on their investment that they have come to expect.

So what’s next?  Enter the dapper attorney wearing the cape of an effective website and internet marketing strategy.

I won’t give away all the secrets… you will just have to watch the video

When looking at organic search rankings, which is where about 75-80% of searchers go first, you must focus your attention on the short tail searches.  The job of search engine optimization is to increase the value of your website. These short tail keyword groups are highly searched and also highly competitive.  Therefore requiring the website to be highly valued in order to obtain rankings.  But in doing so, we tend to see ranking for many other keyword groups beyond the ones targeted.  So for example, you would focus your optimization efforts on getting rankings for michigan bankruptcy which is very competitive and highly searched.  Once the value and rankings are obtained, typically rankings for terms like home foreclosure prevention in michigan which is much less searched and far less competitive as long as there is good content regarding that also on the website.

Now pay per click advertising is a completely different strategy.  Because of the nature of the searchers who click on a PPC ad (and because your money is on the line), conversion is everything.  Several studies found out that long tail keywords have a much higher conversion rate on paid ads than single word or double word keyword groups.  The more detailed search is evidence of a sophisticated searcher who knows exactly what they are looking for… and ultimately more likely to take the next step of either picking up the phone or contacting the advertiser.

So the “long and short” of it is (wink)… they are both important keyword groups that must be incorporated into your internet marketing strategy.