Effective, Ethical Marketing For Attorneys
Allocating Your Most Important Lawyer Marketing Resources - Your Time and Money
Category: Marketing Advice
Many lawyer marketing experts will talk about what marketing tools you should be using, but you hardly ever hear about how to allocate your two most important resources - your time and money.
As an attorney, it can be difficult understanding where to start, when it comes to allocating these precious resources. If you are limited on the amount of time and money you can spend with your attorney marketing efforts, here are some tips for you:
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Common Misconceptions Lawyers Have About Their Practices
Category: Success Mindset
When you went to law school you were most likely quoted the notorious line, "the law is a jealous mistress." You graduated with the mentality that your time would be consumed with your legal practice. As you have continued through your legal career, you may have developed the belief that you have to make yourself available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. In addition, you may feel like you have to take every case, even the little ones.
As far as making yourself available 24/7 so you don't miss cases, here is some news for you - you are already missing cases. Are you getting all of the cases in your location right now? Probably not. By making yourself always available, you could be sending the wrong impression. For example, if you needed non-emergency heart surgery, would you rather see the surgeon who is not able to see you for six weeks or one who says, "I'm not busy, let's go ahead with the operation today." Do you understand my point?
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Find Out Why Your Yellow Pages Ad May Not Be Effective
Category: Marketing Advice
You have spent thousands of dollars on your Yellow Pages ad and are probably scratching your head wondering why you have not gotten the kind of calls you expected. After all, you had a giant ad with color.
If you have ever flipped through your Yellow Pages then you probably noticed that there were anywhere from five to 70 pages of ads. The headlines were mainly generic and the only offers made to consumers were free consultations or "no fee unless we win." The names of the law firms could easily be swapped in these ads and not much would change.
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People Search for Attorneys in Two Places
Category: Marketing Advice
When someone is hurt in a car accident, getting divorced or considering filing for bankruptcy, if he or she doesn't already know a lawyer, there are two places where this person is going to search to find one - the Internet or Yellow Pages. For the most part, the majority of your prospects are actually focusing their search online.
People do not look for attorneys the same way they shop for goods and other services. That is why traditional marketing doesn't work to adequately attract new clients. Someone is not going to sit down one Friday night and watch all of the lawyer ads that were recorded on the DVR. This person is instead going to head to the computer to start searching for a lawyer to help with his or her legal issues. In some areas, this search will be done using the Yellow Pages.
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If You Are Not on Page One of Google, You're Invisible
The realm of attorney marketing has shifted. In the past, if your law firm wasn't listed in the Yellow Pages, you basically didn't exist, as far as your prospects were concerned. Nowadays, if you aren't on page one of Google, no one is going to find you.
Think about when you search for a subject, service or product on Google. Do you scroll through pages and pages of search results? If you are like most people, then the answer is, no. The majority of prospects searching for legal services online will only read the websites listed on the first page of Google or whatever search engine. Many of them won't get past the websites listed at the top. In order for more of your potential clients to find you, not only should you be on page one, you also need to be at the top.
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Top 4 Components of a Successful Attorney Website
Category: Marketing Advice
Many of your potential clients will be searching on the Internet for answers to their questions. Just because you have a website doesn't mean it will provide a high client conversion rate.
You may have been told that having your firm's name, phone number and practice areas on a website is enough, but that is absolutely not true. To have a successful attorney website, it must incorporate four important elements, which are listed below:
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How to Stand Out from All the Other Lawyer Marketing Ads
Category: Marketing Advice
If you are spending thousands of dollars on your advertising and getting little return, there is a reason. When you have an ad that says the same thing as every other law firm, such as "free consultation" or "we care," then you are not optimizing your lawyer marketing dollars. In fact, you are throwing good money away.
The marketing vultures that sell you expensive advertising space are going to tell you that you just need to buy a bigger ad or add color to your attorney advertisement to get a better return on investment. Then you will stand out for sure, right? The answer is no. If your ads and website send the same message as all the other lawyers in town, it is like having potential clients throw darts at a dartboard to pick an attorney. How will they know whom to call?
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Use This Lawyer Marketing Tool to Get More Cases
Category: Marketing Advice
What is your process after a potential client contacts you? The actions you take following the initial contact are crucial when it comes to conversion.
You need to let your prospects know that you have the solutions they are looking for. It is very difficult to put a lot of information into a Yellow Pages ad or other form of advertisement. Instead, you should design a package that you can mail that provides multiple educational materials. If you were to include the same information that you can potentially incorporate into your mailing package, in a Yellow Pages ad, it would cost millions of dollars.
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Keep Your Lawyer Ads and Website Focused
Category: Marketing Advice
You don't have to list your years of experience, where you went to school and the number of cases you have handled to let your prospects know that you are a specialist. It is possible to let potential clients know you are a specialist without ever having to say it.
Before I go into how to create effective ads that send the right message, it is important to talk about what you shouldn't do. Many attorneys make the error of listing too many practice areas in one ad. Open up the Yellow Pages and you will see some ads that list up to 25 different specialties. This type of lawyer ad is giving the impression that the law firm is just an average firm. The industry is fiercely competitive, which is why you have to find a way to stand out from the crowd.
Why Offering Something for Free Improves Your Client Conversion Rate
Category: Marketing Advice
People love getting something for free, which is a fact that you need to keep in mind as you work on your legal marketing strategy. You can develop an irresistible offer that will get someone to think that he or she would be a fool not to take you up on it.
It is important to understand that a free consultation is not an irresistible offer. Just about every law firm in town will be saying the same thing in their ads, so it will not set you apart from your competitors or even give a potential client a reason to pick up the phone and call you.
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It's Official - JumpStart 2010 is Sold Out!
Category: Looking Outside the Box
Great Legal Marketing's JumpStart 2010 Conference Has Officially Sold Out!
A Waiting List is Forming Now.
I'm excited to share some big news with you today. With a final surge in registrations just after the holidays, JumpStart 2010 is now sold out. This marks the fifth consecutive GLM conference event to sell out (and the earliest).
The GLM conferences have proven to be the best on the planet for lawyers who are success-minded and self-reliant and who are committed to building thriving practices.
If you missed your chance to register, I do want to let you know that all hope may not be lost. In the past we've sometimes ended up with a few last-minute cancellations due to an unexpected emergency or a change in a trial schedule, so we've gone ahead and set up a waiting list.
If you would like to be placed on the waiting list or check to see if there have been any cancellations, please contact Nicole at Nicole@NicoleTully.com or by calling 717-824-6553.
For additional information about JumpStart 2010, please go to GLMJumpStart2010.com.
Ben Glass
A Compelling Headline is a Must in Any Lawyer Ad or Website
Category: Marketing Advice
Whether you are working on your attorney website or creating some other type of advertisement, you need to take the time to create an attractive headline. News reporters pay careful attention to the headline, as they know it is how they will attract readers.
The headline for your legal advertisement or website needs to give people a reason to continue reading. Think about your habits when reading the newspaper or magazine. You choose an article based on the title. Your prospective clients will do the same thing.
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Common Mistakes Made in Lawyer Advertisements
Category: Marketing Advice
"Free Consultation!" "Need an Attorney?" "We Care For You!"
Do you have these types of statements in your lawyer advertisements? If so, you are not the only attorney to make this common lawyer marketing mistake.
Too often, lawyers waste money on ineffective ads. They market in the Yellow Pages and on the Internet with ads that look like everyone else. Some attorneys will waste valuable ad space with comments that are similar to those above that really don't differentiate them from the law firms down the street.
When you open the Yellow Pages, it is common to see pages and pages of lawyer ads. Law firms spend thousands of dollars to advertise in the Yellow Pages and online and get little return on investment. There are many possible explanations, including the following:
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Ben Glass's Marketing Conference Near Sellout
Category: Marketing Advice
Legal marketing expert and Virginia personal injury and medical malpractice attorney Ben Glass has announced the official agenda for the upcoming JumpStart 2010 Conference hosted by Great Legal Marketing.
Nationally-recognized attorney and legal marketing expert Ben Glass announces the official agenda for the popular (and nearly sold out) "Great Legal Marketing" JumpStart 2010 Conference, to be held January 15-16, 2010, in the Washington, D.C. area.
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Great Legal Marketing Conference Agenda Set
Category: Looking Outside the Box
Legal marketing expert and Virginia personal injury and medical malpractice attorney Ben Glass has announced the official agenda for the upcoming JumpStart 2010 Conference hosted by Great Legal Marketing.
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It's Not About Tiger Woods..
Unlike news about Tiger, this will have a huge impact on your practice in 2010
Time is Running Out to Reserve Your Spot at Great Legal Marketing's JumpStart 2010 Conference
I know you've got tons of stuff going on right now. We all do. But, if you're serious about building a hugely successful practice in 2010 and beyond, you owe it to yourself and your family to read this email and take a few moments to sign up for our next conference.
Here's Why:
For starters, JumpStart 2010 is nearly sold out. Each year, we end up turning away lawyers in the last couple of weeks prior to the event who waited too long. Don't be one of them.
More importantly, though, here's just a taste of what you'll miss if you're not here:
Stephen Fairley says "Be the Center of Influence"
Category: Looking Outside the Box
The Rainmaker Institute's Stephen Fairley and I recently chatted on a coaching call. One BIG point Stephen made was that you need to be (and, I would argue, its easy to be) the "Center of Influence" in your community.
Here are some notes from that part of the interview.
Attorney Marketing Webinar December 16, 2009
My team and I will be presenting a free marketing webinar on December 16
The ad was perfect: It had the right message. It looked sharp. It was in the right media. It even generated calls to the firm. But then what? Silence. No new cases.
Welcome to the world of traditional (i.e. ineffective) lawyer marketing.
The bottom line is that marketing is about much more than advertising. In fact, advertising (while the most obvious and public piece of a marketing program) is really just the tip of the iceberg. The "REAL" marketing happens further along in the process.
When you understand how this CRITICAL AND VITAL part of the marketing process works, your ROI (Return on Investment) begins to increase dramatically. Ben Glass and his Great Legal Marketing team of experts have perfected this system and are going to share it all in a special webinar December 16 at 1:00 P.M. EST.
Be sure to have your pen and paper ready or your laptop open when you attend this webinar because you will be taking notes for a solid hour. Find out how the very best lawyers are choosing the cases they want.
This is a webinar you don't want to miss.
South Carolina Ethics Monitors Wastes Money, Time
Category: Ethics and Regulation
There's a remarkable new opinion out of the South Carolina Supreme Court that slams the Office of Bar Counsel position on a lawyers TV ad. The amount of effort the bar put into this ill-advised effort, coupled with their total illogic,is scary.
Basically, this was lawyer advertising enforcement gone wild, this time, courtesy of the legal advertising ethics folks in South Carolina. Only problem, the Court didn't go far enough...the Court should have ordered the Office of Disciplinary Counsel to apologize for wasting everyone's time and money.
You can read more of the story of the South Carolina Office of Bar Ethics Counsel's failed effort to shut down this lawyer's TV ad here.
Interview with Stephen Fairley-Rainmaker Institute
Category: Marketing Advice
I recently interviewed Stephen Fairley of the Rainmaker Institute for one of my monthly coaching calls. These calls are conducted twice a month for members of the Great Legal Marketing coaching program.
I thought that the subject matters were so important that I wrote a couple of short articles to share with everyone.
Here's an article where Stephen Fairely and I were talking about the use of client satisfaction surveys.
We also had a really cool discussion about educating your clients on what makes a good referral.
New Newsletter Service For Solo and Small Law Firms Launched
Category: Marketing Advice
Ben Glass and Great Legal Marketing announce the launch of a "done for you" law firm newsletter service. After months of testing with a handful of private clients, Great Legal Marketing is now making the service available nationwide.
"After my law license and my internet site, the next thing that I would never let anyone wrestle from me is my popular monthly newsletter. I write my newsletter myself but I realize that not every lawyer has the time nor the interest to do so. This is why I have added a law firm newsletter service to our box of marketing tools" says Ben Glass, personal injury attorney and founder of Great Legal Marketing.
You can read more information about the "Ben Glass style" law firm marketing newsletter here.
Success Mindset is the Key
Category: Success Mindset
I've said for many years that one of the most critical elements to successful marketing is having the proper mindset. In fact, you could make the argument that mindset is the critical element. While many lawyers are struggling this year, there's a whole bunch who simply decided to not take part in the recession during 2009. Not only that, many of them are having their best year ever.
It's not a matter of simply hoping things will turn out well. If it was that easy, you could just rub that lucky rabbit's foot and wait for the cases to come in. No, it takes discipline. It means setting your goals, and more importantly, writing them down and referring to them regularly. It means tuning out the drivel that dominates the evening news. It means hanging out with people who are doing things bigger, better, faster than you are. It means studying successful people in all industries (not just other lawyers) and applying what you learn to your practice. It means building a mastermind group with people who bring positive energy and help offer solutions not just complaints.
It means reading every chance you get...about successful entrepreneurs, companies and ideas. Your shelves should be crowded with books like Napoleon Hill's Think and Grow Rich, Michael Gerber's E-Myth series, and any and everything by Dan Kennedy. You can literally train your mind to expect success.
To rub elbows with some of the most successful and progressive attorney marketers in the country while learning a well-defined "game plan" for your practice, consider attending the Great Legal Marketing JumpStart 2010 Conference this January 15 & 16, 2010.
New Virginia Medical Malpractice Information Blog Launched
Category: Press Releases
Virginia attorney Ben Glass announces the launch of a new medical malpractice blog designed to bring news to Virginia's consumers. In addition to general information about medical malpractice this blog will bring updated information from the Virginia Board of medicine regarding physician suspensions and revocations of licenses.
The Virginia Medical Malpractice News blog is here.
The E-Myth Attorney, Michael Gerber and Robert Armstrong
Category: Great Example of Law Firms Who "Get It"
We've just heard that entrepreneur expert Michael Gerber has teamed up with estate planning guru Robert Armstrong to pen The E-Myth Attorney. The book is due out next year. More information about Michael Gerber's latest book is here. We'll keep you posted with new developments.
This sounds like a very exciting project that will be beneficial to those entrepreneurial attorneys who "get it."
Connecticut to Total Bankruptcy Participants: "Felony"
Category: Ethics and Regulation
We will be digesting this complaint as soon as we can. You can read the complaint filed by the Connecticut lawyer ethics grievance committee regarding Total Bankruptcy here.
This will undoubtedly embolden other states, such as Virginia, who have been more or less sitting on the sideline. Of course, this will be in litigation for years.... hope the Connecticut bar members are willing to pay the attorney fees!