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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The ABA Blogging CLE: No Known Bloggers?

I read with some skepticism the invite in my email inbox some time ago, trumpeting the ABA’s entry into the “phenomenon” of blogging with an hour-or-so long teleseminar. The faculty selected for the panel omitted solos completely, and - frankly - didn’t include a single blogger I’d ever read. Not that I know them all, but it’s my business to know blawgs, and I have to stop and ask some hard questions if an ABA-sponsored event isn’t being headed by well-known bloggers.

The seminar triggered this article, the link to which was just emailed to me in the weekly “YourABA” email alert. Tim Stanley from Justia is quoted in this article as advocating “personal” blogs - from the article:

Stanley shared a tip on creating a successful blog. Those that are more personal in nature - where a sense of the blogger’s personality comes through - tend to do well, advised Stanley.

I really doubt that’s what Stanley meant, but I’m afraid the wording of this cite is going to confuse some folks, so let me share my thoughts on this subject.

Personality? An unqualified YES.

Personal? An equally unqualified NO.

Here’s the difference, and why I feel so strongly about this.

The Difference Between Personal and Personality

Personality: writing authentically; not putting on “airs;” being comfortable in your skin; writing from the “center” of yourself; referring to your own experiences; self-referential; writing like you talk; writing informally (but well - good grammar, proper spellings, etc.).

Personally: writing about your family, your dog, your weekend, your vacation, your political beliefs, your candidates of choice, your bank account, the guy who cut you off in traffic this morning, the woman applying mascara in the drop-off lane at your kid’s school, the funny commercial you saw this morning, the awesome episode of Heroes last night, the supremacy of Batman to Superman, your colon “issues,” the last time you saw your doctor, the idiot who made the waitress cry at the restaurant you went to last night - anything, in short, other than your blogging topic.

Caveat: you can, of course, write about some of these things in connection to your blogging topic. But never about your colon “issues.” Some things - just - no. Never.

Why is it so important? Read on.

Read More…

I didn’t come up with the concept - that was the cluetrain manifesto - but as Liz Strauss’s guest blogger “Vern The Idea Dude” points out at her Successful Blog, blogs are “catalysts for engagement.” And that engagement begins with a very personal connection between blogger and reader, just like a table set for two.

It might seem odd at first to think of blogging in this way. After all, you’ve been conditioned to seek massive amounts of traffic - lots of traffic. Many readers, all eyes on your page - it’s an image that leads dangerously to another image, of you at the lectern in the biggest lecture hall imaginable. And it’s an image that’s anathema to your success, because it’s impersonal, detached, the very opposite of immediate and compelling. And that’s what you want your blog posts to provoke in your readers - a sense of immediacy and a provocation to act.

That’s not just true at personal blogs, or true for big Internet dudes like Seth Godin - in fact, it’s especially true for you, the inspired solo lawyer whose blawg is the foundation of his or her marketing plan.

How do we as lawyers start that intimate conversation with our potential clients? Like any good conversationalist, we start it by first being interested in what the other person is interested in. Think about it. In every single self-help book aimed at helping people overcome their fear of small talk or networking events, there will appear some variation on the following advice: “Show interest in the other person and their ideas/interests/problems/lives.”

Ask yourself these questions:

• Who are you speaking to?
• What does that person need?
• Why is that need paramount in that person’s life, above all others?
• What do you have that can help meet that need?

Forget questions of why you’re the best person for the job - forget trying to sell the prospect on your services. Those things don’t come across well in an intimate conversation, do they? Focus on your reader - your dinner partner, if you will. The rest will come.

Note: This post was originally published on The Inspired Solo, and is reprinted here for your convenience.

Prior to my teleconference/interview with Nader Anise today, he emailed me to ask if I was all ready for the call. I wrote back and said I was, and added, a little tongue in cheek, “Any advice from the pro?” See, Nader does this sort of thing all the time. He regularly conducts terrific teleconference calls for his clients and for lawyers in general in which he discusses, either by himself or with others in the field, various aspects of lawyer marketing. I’ve participated in a few of these and listened to the audio recordings of others, and I can say, without equivocation, that Nader is definitely “the pro” when it comes to both lawyer marketing, and to communicating his wisdom on calls like this.

So Nader wrote back and said, among other tips, to treat it like a conversation - “just you and me talking about blogging.” My enthusiasm and passion for the subject is well known, so this was absolutely the right thing to say to a slightly jittery guest! And he was right - it was exactly like a conversation with Nader - OK, one in which dozens of others were listening in! But still - a great conversation.

And that, above all else, is what the best blawgs are - a great conversation, between blawgger and reader, lawyer and potential client (or referral sources, depending on your approach). I hope I communicated that fact to those who listened in, and I hope those of you who were able to join in found something of value. I only wish there had been more time! As Nader said, maybe we can schedule “part two” soon. There is definitely a lot more to say on the subject of blawgging!

So, my deepest thanks to Nader for getting me started on the Blawg In A Box road, and for hosting the call. If and when we can schedule a follow-up, you’ll read about it here and in the Inspired Blawggers newsletter!