Authentic Law Marketing Blog : Legal Marketing and Law Firm Branding : Collaborative Lawyer Marketing, Family Law Marketing : Elizabeth Ferris : Ferris Consulting

One of the best ways to reinforce your brand is through consistent education programs to your targeted referral sources and professional network. By consistently educating your professional network on relevant topics that solve their client's most important problems, you are positioning yourself as a credible thought leader in your area of expertise.

Many law firms ask, what is the return on investment for educational seminars? Will the seminar result in new clients? Will the right professionals attend the seminar?

The answer to the “return on investment” question is based on the planning and preparation you do in advance of the seminar. What are your goals? What results will define success?

A prominent  family law firm recently gave a high profile educational seminar to their local community on the topic of Domestic Violence in Upscale Communities. The seminar resulted in strengthening existing professional relationship and forming new relationships with community leaders. The key factors contributing to the successful outcome included:

• Passion: The lawyers and judges who were on the panel were passionate on the topic of combating Domestic Violence.
  
  
• Authenticity: The purpose of the seminar was to educate the community on an issue of high importance to the community.
   
• Expertise: The firm has a high level of expertise on the topic. A senior partner in the firm worked with the legal and legislative communities for the past 25 years to shape the Illinois Domestic Violence Act.
   
• Community Interest: Domestic violence in affluent families is a grave and epidemic issue and is one of the underlying factors for murder cases in the community.
   
• Follow up: The firm created an educational press release and included a YouTube video on segments of the seminar.

Most importantly, the quality presentation, relevant topic and reputation of the prestigious panel positioned the firm as a thought leader in Family Law.

What strategies have you found useful for reinforcing your brand and positioning your firm as a thought leader? Do you think face to face education programs are still a valuable marketing strategy for law firms?

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In my last blog post, I wrote about maximizing your law firm marketing ROI, in this post I would like to share an example on how to put these strategies into action.

Yesterday a family law firm called me because they wanted an ad for a LGBT magazine featuring families in the upcoming fall publication. They were on a tight time-line and needed the ad by the end of the week. The original plan was to do a one-time ad in the special feature on Families for the publication.

Before moving forward with the one-time ad, I wanted to learn more about the firm’s bigger picture goals. One of the goals for the firm was to be recognized as a family law firm knowledgeable about the important family law issues facing the LGBT market. Instead of putting an expensive one-time ad in the publication, limiting the firms return on investment, we created an integrated and targeted campaign to position the firm as a thought leader on family law for LGBT families. The campaign included the following strategies:

• Write and submit an informational press release to the  editorial staff. Focus the release on a single topic relevant to the target audience and provide helpful, practical and valuable information. Note: Substantive and current information on gay marriage and divorce is a strong hook for the media given the recent change in gay marriage laws.
   
• Develop a series of 3 advertisements targeted towards the interests of the magazine’s readers. Maintain a consistent ad for 6-12 months.
   
• Include a call to action in each advertisement.
   
• Create a relationship with the publication as an expert in family law issues related to the LGBT community.
   
• Identify social media opportunities to leverage the campaign including re-purposing the press release for a blog post and putting the blog post on Face book, LinkedIn and Twitter.
   
• Leverage LinkedIn groups to spread the word to the local LGBT community. Include a link on LinkedIn to the editorial article in the LGBT publication.
   
• Update web site to include a section on LGBT partnership agreements.
   
• Promote the firms focus on Collaborative Law as a beneficial option for gay marriage and divorce.

In summary, a one-time project with questionable “ROI” value was transformed into a targeted marketing strategy positioning the firm as a thought leader in the LGBT community. Your firm can increase your marketing ROI by executing the following key elements:

• Align all marketing activities with the firm’s most important goals.
   
• Implement an integrated marketing strategy to reinforce your message.
   
• Avoid a generic “all thing to all people” approach and target your message to a specific audience.
   
• Provide relevant content that makes a contribution to your intended audience.
   
• Focus press releases, blog posts and articles on current, substantive, newsworthy topics verses self promotion, announcement-oriented content. 

If you have questions on how to maximize your marketing investment, email me at eferris@ferrisconsult.com  

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Many lawyers are frustrated with law firm marketing activities. Often I hear lawyers complain about the time and cost of marketing and the uncertainty on the return on investment (ROI) for these activities. So where do you start AND what activities will afford you the highest return on the time and money you invest in law firm marketing?

The following are four strategies designed to give you direction when deciding “where to start” and how to maximize your marketing ROI.

1.       Before embarking on any marketing activities, define your goal- what do you want to achieve? Clarify how the activity is in alignment with advancing your firm in the right direction (firm’s vision). This will require time, however, the effort you put into this step will be repaid later.

2.       Whenever possible, never do a marketing activity in isolation, i.e. a onetime advertisement in a publication or magazine. Instead focus on an integrated plan that leverages your effort, i.e. article and repeat advertisements in a publication intended to target your ideal market.

3.       Always maximize the effort you invest in marketing activities. Consistently repurpose your marketing activities, including the article you wrote or the speech you gave. Your article can be repurposed into a blog post or an article for your firm newsletter or local community magazine. Your speech or seminar can be given to multiple markets. Reinforce your brand by writing quality content describing your firm’s unique differentiator on your web site home page. Repeat this message on all your press releases, announcements and social media biographies.

4.       Effectively utilize social media to create a viral buzz about your area of expertise. Listen to the conversation going on in your LinkedIn groups, twitter followers and industry blogs. Make a contribution to the conversation by commenting on a topic and adding a link to your blog post or article. Write about the solutions for the most relevant problems your social media groups talk about.

In summary, to maximize the effort you put towards marketing, always start with a plan that answers the question… what is our goal and how will this activity advance our firm in the direction we want to go?

Marketing with a purpose will help you to focus your marketing activities and maximize your marketing investment.

For more information on how to maximize your marketing efforts, email me at eferris@ferrisconsult.com

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