Marketing a Law Firm | Video for Your Website?

I want to apologize for not posting on here the last couple of weeks, to myself, if nothing else. This is a complete excuse, but we recently moved into ahttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif new office, and the move and design of it has sidetracked me big time. Here's a post I've had in the hopper for a couple of weeks, and I plan on posting regularly going forward.

If you know me, then you know I am constantly looking for new ways to market my law firm. Some of them are out of the box, some of them are more traditional, and some them are simply variations on a theme. Today I want to talk about something that is a variation on a theme - video for your website.

If you check out my website, you'll see that I don't have any video on there, yet. But I think that will be changing very shortly. And the reason is simple, video allows you to make a connection with someone that text and pictures simply can't. I can talk directly to potential clients with video, I can answer their questions, and I can show them I am good at what I do (and include some marketing fundamentals that help make the whole thing pop).

What you get from most law firm videos is what you would expect a law firm to make - boring, predictable, almost like they were reading from the text of their website. Does that do any good? It can't hurt. But your law firm website video can be so much more than that (and I'm trying to make mine just that).

I'm no law firm marketing genius - I'm just a lawyer who opened his own firm and wants it to be successful, but I've tried to learn from people who are, and this is what I've come up with for a recipe for success:

1. Don't be afraid to tell people what to do - when my video is put on the blog it's going to have with it a big sign that says "Click to Watch." Leave out the sign, you'll leave out viewers.

2. Include some production value. RJon, as a big proponent of videos, probably won't really agree with me on this one, but I think the video that's going to be on the front of your website and is meant to get people to call should have some production value. By that I mean it shouldn't look like you made it in your basement or probably even in your office.

3. Include as much proof as you can. There are two types of proof here you want to include - real and social. The real proof includes your training and experience. Member of a special group? Let em know. Publish an article somewhere? Let em know. Social proof is how you've helped others. Tell one of your more compelling client related stories.

4. Tell your prospective client what you can do for them. This is where you hit them with the time, reputation, money benefits. Let them know you can help. Tell them about your process and why you are different from everyone else.

5. End with a bang. Let them know what they should do next. "Call us" is a good start. And, it might be creative to let them know who shouldn't call. "If you are just looking for x, then we might not be right for you." The thing is, though, if you are going to use this qualifier, it should be something that will actually exclude people, not one of those "what's your greatest weaknesses turned into a positive" things.

I'm putting together my script right now. Once it's all put together I'll post it up here and let you take a look.

Hope all is well and you are on your way to starting a successful law firm!

Oh, and one last thing. June 1 was the two year anniversary of my firm. The people at the bank that are now trying to get me to take out a loan with them tell me the first two years are the toughest. I'm looking forward to moving out of survival mode and into growth mode in the coming years. You should join me!

Marketing a Law Firm | Paid Leads

If you go back and read my posts you'll see a pretty common theme with me. Every six months or so someone will talk me into paying to advertise with them. Typically it's in the form of some type of paid "leads." Well, it's about that time again, so I bought in.

As time has gone by I've become more and more reluctant to buy into these things, but when I see something that has some promise (and a relatively low price tag) I can't help but give it a shot. If it works that's great. If it doesn't I can move on. That's what marketing a law firm is all about - testing testing testing.

I've already talked about adwords and using yodle. I've talked about Nolo, but this is something new. Sadly for you, if it works, it's field specific.

The idea behind the the service is that when people go to this particular site looking for help I can give them I am exclusively listed as an attorney to call. If it sounds like a lot of the other things people are selling you're right, it is. I pay a flat fee (there was an option to pay for each lead) each month to be the main person on this site.

You're probably wondering what made this site different from all the other sites trying to sell the same thing. For me, the difference was exposure. Whenever people try to sell me something on the internet, the first thing I do is go check out their exposure - what kind of a presence they actually have on the internet. The better the presence the more people will be visiting the site and the more potential clients I get exposure to.

For example, let's look at Nolo. I'm a DUI attorney. We all know this. If you search DUI attorney it might take you 5 pages before any Nolo sites pop up (I didn't check this, but I know they aren't on page 1 - not even close). Because of this lack of exposure they don't get many people to their site that are actually qualified prospective clients.

This new service I've signed up with offers that exposure. They know http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifwhat they are doing with SEO and I've seen them moving up the rankings for the past 6 months or so. For me that is a good sign that they are interested in staying put, in actually providing me a service, and are trying to produce what they are promising.

When you are thinking about marketing your law firm, remember these things:

1. Everything is negotiable.

2. Don't lock yourself in long term - make them prove they're reliable.

3. If it sounds too good to be true, it is.

4. Don't just throw your money away, measure results to see if it's worth it.

5. Think about how clients will get to you through this service. If it takes more than 4 mouse clicks it's too hard.

Have a great weekend!

Starting a Law Firm | Follow Up on Technology

Last week I posted about law firm technology, namely, what I use in my office to do work on a daily basis. You all gave some great comments and I got a couple of emails about it, so I wanted to follow up on that a bit.

Before I get too far, though, I want to point out that it's important not to lose the forest for the trees. Having a perfect technology set up from the beginning isn't going to ensure success when starting a law firm. It can't hurt, but it won't be a deciding factor. And the great thing about starting out is you are small, agile, and can make changes quickly. Get a system set up and try it out. If it doesn't work, change it. It's really that simple.

First, I want to talk about using gmail and google apps for your law firm. When I wrote last I mentioned that the one major hangup with using Google was that I couldn't get all of my contacts to share between my assistant and I. Well, Barry Hammond solved all those problems with one email. He pointed me to this site, which is a private company that's made an application for google apps. As long as you stay small the application is free. I've already signed up and am using it, and it's great. Thanks!

Second, I got an email from someone who asked the following questions:

1. How do I combine Highrise and Gmail Calendar?

2. How do I perform conflict checks?

3. What do I use for accounting? How do I keep track of invoices?

4. Why do I use blogger for my blog? (she doesn't like it)

Here are your answers.

How do I combine Highrise and google calendar in my law firm?

The short answer is that for the most part I don't. All I use the calendar for in gmail is for court dates, meetings, birthdays, etc. I don't use it for tasks. I use Highrise for tasks and to note all of the other things I mentioned (it's always a good idea to keep track of important dates in two places, just trust me on this).

Highrise is great because it can keep track of all of your cases and what is going on with those cases. When you start a case with Highrise it creates a specific email address for that account. Simply add it to your gmail contacts and every time you send and email related to that case blind copy highrise and it will be logged in, in chronological order. Second, whenever you want to assign a task to another person, it will send them an email alerting them to the assignment. And you can check to see if the task has been completed (checked off).

If that didn't answer your question let me know specifically and I'll see what I can do.

How do I perform conflict checks?

Thankfully, in my line of work, I don't need a very comprehensive conflict check. In most of my cases the only witness is a police officer. So long as I haven't represented them before in some matter I'm usually safe. If there are other witnesses it's usually pretty easy for me to know if I've represented them before. I can just search through my old case files.

One thing you might be able to do on Highrise is make sure to attach all the interested parties to the case (witnesses, counsel, etc.). When you get a new case, simply search Highrise for that potential conflict's name and if it pops up check it out.

What do I use for accounting? How do I keep track of invoices?

I use quickbooks for accounting. And I don't do invoices very often. My fee agreements are flat fee. If anyone pays on a payment plan we typically lay that out in the fee agreement and they write me a specific number of checks that I cash each month on a date they have agreed to. I typically don't invoice them for that since it's already "invoiced" in the fee agreement.

Why do I use blogger?

I use blogger because I like it. It's free, it's easy to use, and it's fairly simple to navigate. The stuff you hear about having your own URL for SEO purposes is not that accurate. It might help a little bit, but it's not going to make or break you (I think this blog is a perfect example of that). Bottom line is I like it, it's what I've using for years, and I don't have any reason to switch.

That's it for this post. I owe myself another, so I might get to another today (if there's time).

As always, love to hear what you think. And if you have questions, please let me know.