Blawg In A Box

What’s wrong with lawyer marketing these days? Plenty! But it can all generally be reduced to one simple exhortation: It’s the CLIENTS, stupid. (No, I don’t really think you’re stupid. Neither are your clients, though … read on.)

The Flashier, The Better? Not So Fast …

Take a look at most law firm sites. The ones that have all that pretty Flash flyout animation, picturing gorgeously appointed offices. What do you see? By and large, you’ll find some variation on puffery - the inflated sales talk that focuses on the lawyer - the one providing the services. (Or in the case of BigLaw, on the firm.)

The problem is that this approach is exactly backwards. These firms and lawyers have missed a huge evolution in the way clients look for lawyers - and it has to do with the Internet revolution.

Why (And How) The Internet Changed Everything for Lawyer Marketing

When the ‘Net went live and began its ascent into ubiquity, something else happened. All of us became info junkies. It was about the same time that the 24-hour news cycle was born. The availability of information exploded, and we got accustomed to finding any answer we needed immediately, whenever the need arose, regardless of how complex (or inane) the question.

So the old days when lawyers could rely on the fact that they were perceived as the old caste priests, keepers of sacred, secret knowledge? Yeah, they’re over. Nowadays, consumers have available to them a vast array of legal information with which to educate themselves. Sure, some of it’s bogus, and a lot of it’s mistaken. But it’s there, and they (the consumers) know it.

Yet a lot of lawyers act like nothing’s changed. They sell themselves, or try to, by trumpeting their education, experience, and expertise. This used to fly. But it doesn’t anymore, because the world changed. We just weren’t looking at the time.

What A Client Wants …

Now, those same potential clients (PCs) are looking, not usually for a lawyer, but for information, first and foremost. And the information you provide becomes your main selling point.

As I wrote in an earlier column I regularly contribute to my state’s solo practice section newsletter, the old saw amongst sales pros is “it takes 7 contacts to sway a prospect and close the deal.” Seven contacts! (And yes, I think it does hold true for “selling” legal services, perhaps not 7 exactly, but definitely more than one.) Clearly, PCs are looking for something more than just a pretty Flash animation and some 2-paragraph bio that makes the attorney sound like the second coming of Clarence Darrow.

… And What a Lawyer Needs to Do to Win Them

The lawyer who gets the PCs and turns them into “Cs” in this day and age is the lawyer who:

• Knows the PC inside and out. All about ‘em. Who they are, their education level, their background, where they live, where they shop, what they eat, who they hang out with, other professional service providers they see or hire, and most of all - their fears, needs, and questions.
• Provides the PC with the FREE answers to as many of those of questions as possible in a web-friendly format (or an autoresponder email setup, or both, with a double opt-in system setup because “permission marketing” is expected, and because it works).
• Understands how PCs look for lawyers, understands the basics of SEO (search engine optimization), is savvy about where to spend money (and where not to bother) to reach those PCs, and implements it all in a comprehensive marketing plan that aims to make the lawyer “slightly famous” (in the words of one excellent book on the subject) in her practice area - a mini-celebrity, if you will.

The Six Essential Tools In the Lawyer’s Marketing Toolbox

So, in my not so humble opinion, a lawyer needs these things:

• A blog, first and foremost, either as the website, or attached to it, or separate from the static site but regardless - prominent, well-maintained, and properly set up for maximum exposure.
• An attitude of SERVICE to the PC. This, I’ve found, is exactly backwards to the way many lawyers do it - they look upon themselves as doing a favor to the client by deigning to take their case. SO wrong. Humble yourself and look for ways you can help.
• An account with AWeber, or some other autoresponder service (AWeber’s by far the best known and most responsive, in my book), and a plan for how to use it to allow PCs to sign up for information directly from your website/blog.
• A scheduled “drip” of posts and longer articles through the autoresponder to the PCs who ask for more information, which always end w/ a call to action (either visit the website again, subscribe to the blog, or call us for an appointment, whatever your plan calls for).
• A commitment to marketing that expresses itself in consistent daily actions.
• Plus an ability to form relationships with referral sources and colleagues (relationships, not networking).

There’s more, of course - small discrete projects that expand the blog’s scope and audience, such as reaching out to journalists and boosting web traffic, sending handwritten notes to a certain number of colleagues every week (old school, but it works SO well), etc. But these are the building blocks, in my view, and they work. That’s what I try to do for my clients who want blogs, though candidly not all of them “get it” yet. I keep trying.

Which makes me think of the Blues Brothers … “I’ve got a hard drive full of WordPress themes, a carton of plugins, and an AWeber account, and I’m on a mission from God.” OK, maybe the Almighty has better things to do with His time.

Now if you’ll turn in your hymnals to page 321, and let’s sing “Shall We Gather At the Google…”

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Yaro Starak, the mastermind behind the Blog Mastermind course I took recently, sent me this video with his permission to share it freely with my readers. This is definitely something you want to take a look at, if you want to build your traffic to your blawg.

Yaro’s teachings are pretty generic to all blogs, whether you’re selling affiliate products and services, relying on AdSense (never a good idea, but that’s another blog entirely), or selling your services, as we talk about here on Blawg In A Box. One part of Yaro’s training that most of us found incredibly helpful was the “case study” video process. Yaro took one to three blogs per video, and went through the blog point by point offering his thoughts about what the blogger was doing right, and what the blogger could do better. The one he did for The Inspired Solo for me was incredibly helpful.

In this video, Yaro looks at Peter Cunningham’s Aquarists Online blog, and offers some constructive “food for thought” in terms of Peter’s stated goals of increasing subscriptions. Peter does a couple of things that might translate well to a blawg. First, I notice that he uses landing pages for e-books he’s written about his chosen subject of aquariums. I think a lawyer could quite easily do the same thing by focusing on the ideal client, and writing a short e-book to offer information about a particular area. This kind of book could be sold for some small amount, or even given away for free (talk about creating value!).

Second, he promotes his feed. I do the same here, with a larger-than-usual RSS button (that big orange and white thing you see in the sidebar there). This was one of the first pieces of advice Yaro gave out in the Blog Mastermind lessons, and he’s so right about this. RSS isn’t as heavily used as it ought to be, it seems, but part of that is the responsibility of the blogger, to promote it and explain it properly. So, use those RSS buttons, increase the size to make them prominently, and do what I haven’t done yet - provide an explanation about RSS and how to use it.

If you’re ready for a formal blog training program and you’re not able to wait for Blawg In A Box’s upcoming direct training and membership course (set to debut in mid-February 2008), give Yaro’s program a try (click here for a sample lesson for free, or if you know you’re ready, go here to sign up) - but you’re going to need to hurry. Yaro’s shutting down subscriptions as of this Monday in order to change over his subscription management system, and you’ll have to wait until it’s all done before signing up afterwards. So, check out the video - if you think Yaro has something to teach you (and I can guarantee you, he does), give it a try for a month and see what you think. I believe you’ll find, as I did, that Yaro’s principles really do help you build your traffic and make the most out of your blog.

Why You Need To Track Your Stats

Stats — statistics on your blawg’s traffic and readership — are critical to your blawg’s  success. While there’s no end of options to tracking blawg stats, especially for the WordPress self-hosted blawgger, not all stats packages are created equal and some are, in fact, more equal than others (apologies to Orwell).  

In this post, we’re going to take a look at some of the options, and I’ll wrap up with a recommendation.

PlugIns vs. Standalone Products

If you’re looking for a stats solution, the first decision you’ll likely look at is “plugin or standalone product?” Each, of course, has benefits and disadvantages.  Most of the robust standalone products are web-based, and so each will require web access, although you can and should keep offline copies of key stats for your use and review in blawg management tasks.

As a practical matter, while I used to favor plugins, I have done a complete reversal on this issue and now prefer standalone products. The reason why is simple. Although plugins have the benefit of being self-contained in your blog dashboard, thus minimizing the need to navigate to other sites and keeping your information right there where it’s handy, in my experience this benefit is diminished somewhat by the sometimes extensive setup and optimization efforts that might be required. Many require tinkering with code, and for many blawggers that’s an off-putting proposition.

WordPress Stats Plugins

That being said, if the appeal of an in-blawg solution is too great to resist, then here are some of your top options:

1. StatTraq – this plugin wreaked havoc with the blog I tried it on but once it was finally set up with some expert assistance, it was quite a robust result.    
2. SlimStat – no longer in development but very popular. I had trouble with this one, and eventually gave up on it.
3. WP Slimstat-Ex-Plugin – based on SlimStat but with expanded functionality
4. WP-SlimFunctions – I haven’t personally tried this one, but it is recognized by many for its light demand on your database and ease of use. If anyone gives this a try, please let me know what your experience is like!
5. WP-Stats 2.20 – another one I haven’t given a try yet. Let me know if you do and how you like it. 
6. Live – a new one to me, but it looks pretty amazing. See your stats in real time. 

Bear in mind this tiny list is but a fraction of what’s available for your experimentation and use; there are over 80 plugins listed at wp-plugins.net.  

Tips for Managing Stats Plugins

If you want to try some of the plugins mentioned here, or any others, you’ll need two things: patience, and a critical eye.

Make sure that what you’ve installed and are looking at gives you the information you want to keep track of. At a minimum, you should be able to keep track of referral links — other sites that send you traffic — so that you can review those sites and thank the referring blogger properly, as well as keep track of the conversation on those pages.

Likewise, you’ll want to know what keywords people are using to find your site. If you haven’t maximized the appropriate keywords, you’ll need to do some tweaking. And if they are using the keywords you’ve optimized on your site, you’ll want to know that, too, in order to keep doing what works. 

Finally, don’t rush your decision. Give each plugin at least a day or two; I’d recommend more — a week is ideal, as it will allow for a more consistent comparison (due to daily fluctuations in traffic). Make note of how easy the results are to comprehend and navigate; how thorough the results are; and your overall impressions. Then, when you find one that works, stick with it. It’s far more important to have something up than to keep looking for “the perfect plugin.” 

Google Analytics

The tools provided by Google Analytics are pretty impressive, especially for a free standalone product. (But we expect that from Google now, don’t we? Look at Gmail, or Google Groups, or its suite of applications for office use — all free, all pretty impressive, though far from perfect.)

 Is Google Analytics perfect? Far from it. It’s not (no matter what it says about itself) a “high-end enterprise” solution.  But it is relatively simple to set up (just insert a bit of code in your HTML) and its point and click approach encourages exploration. This is a good thing.

The Blawg Coach Recommends: Clicky

As I said earlier, I recommend a standalone product. I’ve only been using this particular one for a few days. It was recommended to me by Nathan Parikh, who did some major work for my Inspired Solo blog recently, and its ease of use and thoroughness have completely won me over in just a few days.

The site is Clicky, and the basic user account is free. However, I recommend one of the premium accounts in order to maximize your results.

Yes, the premium accounts are a paid service, while plugins are free (as is Google Analytics). However, the old saying “you get what you pay for” is definitely true here. For a personal blog, or a creative project, I’d say the free plugins and Analytics are plenty. But this is your law practice, and if you’re doing it correctly, the blawg is a major tool in your marketing toolbox. Don’t skimp on the measurement of how well that tool is performing!  

Clicky provides a great deal more functionality over other solutions, including Google Analytics. You can see this graphically represented at this comparison chart on the Clicky website.  Some of the key functions I find useful are centered around the individual user — tracking links that each user clicks, learning what each reader does and in what order and for how long … these things are useful pieces of information to have for a blogger!

Accounts range from free to $17/month (discount pricing for yearly payment is available); for more information on the various accounts, see this chart.

Bottom Line: Do SOMETHING

Don’t just sit there — put something up on your site! While there’s no need to go crazy and obsess over your stats, information in this case truly is power. The more you know, the more you can tweak your blawg to result in a higher rate of conversion and more accurate TR appeal. And that, after all, is the bottom line.