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Alyn-Weiss and Associates Blog

Keep up with our blog to learn the latest news in marketing for lawyers.

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Some firms surprised to learn they do not own their Web sites

Many law firms upgrading their Web sites are surprised to learn they do not own their online assets. They are forced to pay their original designer and hosting company substantial additional (often nonnegotiable) fees when they want to make a change in who hosts, designs and optimizes a new Web site. The expensive alternative for many has been to start over from scratch with only their content salvageable from their original site. Law firms are not alone in discovering this. Friends of ours in construction, accounting and other professional services firms have run into this problem. In each case, the firms had decided to use new designers to replace sites functioning passively as online brochures (so-called Web 1.0 sites.) The new sites are to generate leads and compete for viewership on the Internet (so-called Web 2.0 sites). In short, you want to make sure your firm owns all of its digital assets. This helps you manage costs and gives you maximum control of your law firm marketing. You want to have a site with programming code that is "open source", not custom, one supported by a large, active and public development community. This allows you to hire anyone you want to work on the site-- not just your original designer and programmer. Examples of open source are Drupal and Joomla. Here's a great article listing the questions to ask anyone you are hiring to create a Web site, and give details of why you should. The shift away traditional media and advertising is inexorable (and is confirmed by our latest national marketing effectiveness survey of law firms). As firms make ever larger investments of time and money in their digital assets the proper handling these transactions is increasingly critical.

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posted by Bob Weiss at 1:25 PM

Friday, February 5, 2010

Most firms report getting cases through their Web sites

Another surprising statistic has appeared as we analyze the results of our latest bi-annual survey of law firm marketing effectiveness-- 77% of the 120 corporate, transactional and defense firms reporting to us say they have received work directly through their Web site. The consumer bar-- PI, bankruptcy, whistleblower and family-- years ago figured out the Web could be a source of desirable cases. It appears the remainder of the bar is now embracing and seeing results from their online marketing. Online marketing strategy and tactics are an integral part of every law firm marketing plan. What we need to learn next is how many of these firms have gone beyond implementing basic technical search engine optimization to garner their cases.

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posted by Bob Weiss at 2:12 PM

Sunday, January 24, 2010

New Survey Shows Value of SEO and Online Marketing

We're compiling the results from our latest bi-annual National Marketing Effectiveness Survey of Corporate, Transactional and Defense Firms. As trends emerge from the data, we'll be issuing alerts. Here's our first: Nearly half of all firms-- a dramatic increase from two years ago-- report they are using formal search engine optimization (SEO) in an attempt to generate cases directly and by referral. And, 24% percent of the firms using SEO say they are getting desirable cases from their SEO. Online marketing, long ago effectively adopted and today considered a must by most all personal injury, consumer bankruptcy and family law practices, is now proven to be an effective tactic for business lawyers and commerical litigators, as well. SEO must be considered for the mix of tactics when writing or evaluating any law firm marketing plan.

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posted by Bob Weiss at 2:51 PM

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

How to get a new Web site quickly and within budget

We recently completed a fully-optimized entirely new Web site for a client in just 5.5 months, a record time for our team. This is particularly gratifying because we have clients and know of firms that have struggled for up to two years on their sites, and when done have been dissatisfied with both the process and the results. Here's some reason why this project went quickly and smoothly. First, the firm entrusted a small working group-- four people-- to make the design, copy and site navigation decisions. This group confirmed with it executive committee the objectives for the site before development began-- those outside the working group could ask all the questions they wanted, but were not allowed to interrupt/stop the process (participate in working group meetings). This eliminated the many mid-project discussions we've seen where lawyers not fully-engaged or on the periphery ask: "Why don't we try this?, or "Why are we doing that?". Reassessment of the strategy, revisiting design decisions dramatically delays the process and often makes the final product disjointed. When new copy was written, a memo was created for the editors. It explained that writing for the Web is not legal writing, that Web site copy is organized and must read differently to be effective. This must be clearly understood. A few people outside the working group were asked to to edit because of their expertise in a particular area. (Call me if you'd like to discuss what is in this memo.) The working groups and development team created a clear time schedule for each phase of the project. The working group and our team had regular, at least monthly, sometimes twice monthly, online meetings to review progress. We agreed, and largely held to, making the big decisions-- home page layout, navigation, images, copy-- in no more than one week. The ethics officer was kept informed and turned his reviews around quickly. Finally, we assembled engaged third-party designers and SEO experts we knew were well organized and who had experience with legal services. Yes, there were tight moments as there always are on such complicated projects. But, we got it done on time and on budget. As with any major construction project we have a punch list, but it's shrinking. In just a few weeks we have seen a solid drop in the site's bounce rate. An initial indicator we have a more functional Web presence.

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posted by Bob Weiss at 8:08 AM

Monday, December 7, 2009

140-character limit on Linked In is no limit at all

Here are some examples of perfect Updates on Linked In by lawyers from around the country: "...is preparing to defend an employer against an unfair labor practice charge before the National Labor Relations Board", "... is working on a SLAPP motion filed in a prescriptive easement lawsuit", "... is responding to wage & hour audits from the U.S. Department of Labor. The threat of employer audits from the govt. have come to fruition..." and "just completed a private placement for an alternative energy company." They're perfect because they are discrete and discreet. (Ha, have you ever ever used those two words in a single sentence?) They show the power of the Updates you can post on Linked In. Now that's new media.

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posted by Bob Weiss at 7:42 PM

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Law Firm Newsletters: custom content is best, avoid a canned service

I was asked today about law firm newsletters-- if there are any good pre-printed providers for consumer-direct or business/defense firms. We do custom news alerts, electronic and printed, that create Web traffic and referrals for our clients. They create frequency-recency and top-of-mind awareness. We can track calls, email inquiries, Web site visits and cases from to them. Canned content and stock layouts look cheap and, well, canned-- and they convey (from our research) that a firm employs a cookie-cutter, less personalized approach to handling cases. We don't recommend you use such a service, no matter what your practice may be. Think about the recipients. What affects their day-to-day lives or business practices. That's the information you put in your law firm newsletter. Your goal is to "alert or alarm." The basic sales tenet at work here is that people are motivated to buy (to retain or refer) only when they feel fear or see an opportunity.

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posted by Bob Weiss at 3:34 PM

Friday, November 20, 2009

Law Firm Holidays Cards: Mistakes and Best Practices

I received three Thanksgiving cards yesterday from three different firms-- one was a custom design that made an extremely positive impression, the other two were the SAME stock card that looked mechanized and devalued the repute of the recipients. I have addressed best practices to ensure holiday cards contribute to lawyer personal business development and where they fit in a law firm marketing plan in a prior article published by the ABA. These cards bring up additional concerns I have not previously addressed. First, you don't want to convey that you treat clients in a cookie-cutter fashion. You run the risk of this buying a standardized card from a stock printer. Second, skip the mass signing absent at least one signatory writing something personal to the recipient. One of the cards I received is signed by seven people, none of whom I recognize. It does have the firm name on it. I looked it up on the Internet and do not recognize the firm. Bad mailing list! The good card? It had pictures of firm members as they worked on various pro bono and charity projects over the past year. On the back, it explained each event. Classy. These people think about what they are doing, they preapre. Perfect messaging. I read the summaries, spent five minutes with the card, and feel more positive about the firm than I did before. Other holiday greeting card approaches that work year-after-year-- one of our clients has holidays scenes painted by its lawyers, another shows art created by spouses or commissioned. These always get a great response. Pictures of your people also get consistently high marks-- yes, high marks. Firms that invest in the holiday greeting card process get positive feedback. In the end, our recommendation is to a better (custom) card, preferably mailed, to a controlled (small) mailing list. Treating it as a mass mailing just does not get the job done, and may wind up being a negative.

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posted by Bob Weiss at 9:09 AM