Legal Marketing 2.0 Podcast

Consultant and former Big Law partner, Judy Selby, offers keen insights, strategies and best practices for using LinkedIn for business development and building relationships based on her years of successfully using the platform. The discussion is particularly useful if you’re looking to further your career or go down a new career path. Full shownotes at Good2bSocial.com

Lawyer and legal techie, Ivy Grey, joins us to talk about using social media and content to build relationships. We discuss how to figure out what to be on the social channels, how content plays a role in engaging and building meaningful relationships, and informal mentoring in the space. Advice for lawyers or legal techies wanting to get started? Give first. Mention other people first. “Like” other people first. Share their content first. Promote other people first. Listen first. When you give first and give freely, then you’re more likely to create deeper, lasting relationships. Full shownotes available at Good2bSocial.com

As a lawyer or legal marketer, how do you get the right content to the right people at the right time? Our very own Guy Alvarez, founder of Good2bSocial, joins us on the Legal Marketing 2.0 podcast to discuss the buyers’ journey in the search for legal services and how marketing automation helps you to pinpoint where your buyer or target audience is in that journey so you can serve up the most useful content to them exactly when they need it. Full shownotes at Good2bSocial.com

Content marketing is ultimately thought leadership marketing in which you are sharing your knowledge and expertise through content.  Lawyers and law firms need to have a goal and a structure behind their thought leadership content marketing strategy. If it’s just people writing stuff, it tends to be more scattered and is less likely to get accomplished consistently. It takes a collaborative effort and people need to keep goals in mind for each piece of content produced. This includes an understanding of SEO concepts which encourages them to write longer pieces that go deeper into topics. You have to begin with the end in mind. Consider who you want your audience to be and then cater the topics you write about to these clients and prospects. Start by thinking about what people are asking you, considering the geographic region you’re targeting, or writing for the audience within your industry. Also, remember that it’s more important to have the right people reading your content rather than a lot of the wrong people.

In this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 podcast we chat about attorney bios, typically, the highest trafficked pages on a law firm’s website. Mary Trice of Winston & Strawn, shares her experience about the process of identifying the problem, getting everyone at the firm on board, what makes an effective bio, and optimizing each bio for search engines. Full shownotes available at Good2bSocial.com.

Testimonials are important to promote authenticity and passion around you as an attorney or your law firm as a whole and therefore they are one of the most powerful marketing tools. Can you just write the testimonial and I’ll sign off on it? Anyone who’s asked for a testimonial has heard this response. In today’s episode I chat with Vikram Rajan co-founder of phoneBlogger.net about why and how lawyers can get authentic testimonials from passionate clients. Full shownotes at Good2bSocial.

Is social media the new public relations? I posed this question to Ryan King the ‎Director of Communications at the law firm of ‎Ogletree Deakins. Ryan goes on to discuss the relationship between law firm public relations, social media, and content. Among the takeaways: If you pursue social and/or PR as a marketing strategy, do one thing well and build from there. Even if you are really mature in this area, it’s still like drinking from a fire hose because there is simply so much out there in terms of helpful content, channels, publications, influencers, and the like. Full shownotes at Good2bSocial.

At the beginning of each year Good2bSocial’s founder, Guy Alvarez, shares his thoughts in a blog post on digital marketing trends in the legal space for the year ahead. This year, practicing what he preaches, Guy uses a hot trending marketing format-podcasting-to share his thoughts. Among the top digital marketing trends for law firms in 2018 are Paid Social, Facebook Live, Podcasting, Marketing Automation, and Semantic SEO. Full shownotes at Good2bSocial.com

Good2bSocial’s founder Guy Alvarez welcomes software engineer and legal marketer Jaron Rubenstein to the podcast. They discuss five questions legal marketers should ask in 2018. Jaron touches on content marketing, engaging with your firm’s target audience, the potential of artificial intelligence in marketing, getting the most out of your content management system, and much more. The running theme throughout the conversation is strategy and technology. This episode is conversation as tutorial. Check out the full shownotes at https://good2bsocial.com/

In this episode, we chat with attorneys Kristin Tyler and Michael Brunet of LAWCLERK™ an online marketplace connecting small firms with freelance lawyers. We discuss the emergence of legal marketplaces, including a discussion of LAWCLERK™ and the opportunities, including personal branding, for today’s lawyers. Full shownotes at Good2bSocial.com.

In the rapidly evolving practice of law, traditional ways of law school and law firm training are not in sync with what lawyers need. It’s misaligned with the efficiency that the market now demands. It’s not good for the lawyers and it’s not good for clients. In this episode we talk about the new model for developing lawyers, including the emergence of design thinking and creativity thinking principles, using networks for problem solving, and teaching law students to work in teams to innovate. Full shownotes at Good2bSocial.com

We’re operating in a digital world where clients have so many ways to engage, which is why marketing teams needs somebody to manage the technology that’s available. In this episode Jacqueline Madarang, senior marketing technology manager at Bradley, an Am Law 200 firm, provides insight and offers tips on marketing technology for law firms. See expanded shownotes at Good2bSocial.com

Collaboration is more important today than it was yesterday and will be more important tomorrow than it is today.   Harvard Law's Dr. Heidi Gardner joins Good2bSocial's CEO Guy Alvarez to discuss smart collaboration in the legal industry backed up by data and research: The link between collaboration and business development Client development benefits Collaboration technology The biggest obstacles that law firms face in smart collaboration Additional shownotes: https://good2bsocial.com/category/podcast/

Molly Porter, Director of Marketing at Seyfarth Shaw, chats with Guy Alvarez, about putting together a strategic law firm marketing team by covering the 3 C’s: creative, content, and channels. Molly goes into some depth on the creative aspect, and also talks about becoming a student of the business of law as marketers, and making your own precedent.  See full shownotes at https://good2bsocial.com/ 

Baker McKenzie’s Will White, Global Director of Marketing & Communications, and Erin Nixon, Head of Digital Marketing join us on the Legal Marketing 2.0 podcast, and encourage legal marketers to: “Don’t be afraid to fail!” Baker McKenzie is one of the world’s leading law firms, with 77 offices in 47 countries, and took the top Facebook spot in Good2bSocial's 2017 Social Law Firm Index. Erin and Will talk about the content sharing checklist they shared with us, and offer insight into how social and digital media should fit into your overall marketing and communications efforts, along with their approach to analytics.  For more, see shownotes at: https://good2bsocial.com/category/podcast/ 

In this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 podcast, we chat with DLA Piper’s Juliet McNulty, Senior Digital Communications Manager, and Josh Epstein, Director of Communications. DLA Piper has been ranked the top firm in the Social Law Firm Index year after year including in 2017. Juliet and Josh shares insights into how the firm maintains high quality content consistently, collaborating across offices in more than 40 countries, and working with partners and members of the firm on their marketing campaigns.

In this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 podcast, Good2bSocial’s founder Guy Alvarez chats with Breichen Madej, Director of Digital Communications at Orrick. Breichen comes from Big Pharma and shares her experience about bringing lessons learned there to the legal industry, including how to change behavior with the right message on the right mediums and platforms, KPIs, and metrics.  Shownotes The switch from pharma to legal When moving from the pharmaceutical industry to the legal industry, there’s an obvious shift from selling goods to selling services. However, the way each industry approaches clients is significantly different. In pharma, customers are viewed in a more holistic way and marketing strategies remain similar. While in the legal industry, lawyers work with a variety of clients throughout a range of industries, making a holistic approach more difficult to implement. In some ways marketing in legal is easier than in the pharmaceutical industry, simply due to less regulations and quicker turnaround times for campaigns. The key to a successful marketing strategy is to understand the basic concepts and fundamentals of marketing that transcends industries. How does campaign development vary between industries? A lot of marketing discipline goes into campaign development. In Pharma, there is always a strategy and a brand planning process that aims to change consumer behavior. The best way to do this is to market in the best place at the best time by considering the messaging and medium appropriate for each step of the client journey. Unfortunately, legal marketers often don’t create content with this in mind which means they miss out on leads and opportune marketing moments. What can legal marketers learn from pharma? Writing in a consumer friendly way is crucial.  All humans are consumers and clear and concise communication goes a long way. Ask: What value does a piece of content bring? Is there a call to action? How does it fit into our firm’s strategy? What is our overarching goal? Law firms should focus on developing an integrated marketing strategy. Every lawyer and all content produced across the firm needs to be cohesive in order to fulfill the firm’s overarching goal. The message should be prioritized first and then the medium second. Once you know what you want to say, consider how it can be shared in a consistent manner across channels. How can you put marketing ideas into action? Legal marketers should assess existing marketing campaigns, and then understand where the gaps are.  By measuring and evaluating useful KPIs and metrics you can create strategies to improve your firm’s successes. The challenge of moving from pharma to legal The breadth of activity and the number of areas in which law firms are involved can be the biggest challenge when marketing in the legal profession. If you must strategize globally and across industries, it can be more of a challenge to implement a cohesive marketing plan for the firm. Tips on shifting into legal marketing The first step is brushing up on core marketing fundamentals. By understanding your clients’ needs and their journey, you will have the insights that allow you to best reach your target market with the right messaging, at the right time.

In this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 podcast, Good2bSocial’s founder Guy Alvarez chats with K&L Gates CMO Jeff Berardi about their top thought leadership position in the 2017 Social Law Firm Index. Jeff shares insights on marketing, business development and client development, how to get lawyers at the firm involved in initiatives, how to use analytics to make decisions, and his philosophy on generating client-centric thought-leadership content. It’s clear that clients are asking law firms to provide more value. Some law firms work hard to get clients on board, but do very little to add value through insights. But how can they provide value? An easy way is to create thoughtful, relevant content. With an understanding of what expertise you can give and the type of audience you want to share it with, law firms can build content based on what will resonate the most with clients.

The Evolution of The Social Law Firm Index The first Social Law Firm index was published in 2014 in partnership with Above the Law. The goal was to review and rank top law firms’ social media efforts. Through the years the report expanded from ranking the Am Law 50 firms to the Am Law 100 and the 2017 Social Law Firm Index expanded to include all AmLaw 200 firms for the first time. Our annual report not only doubled in size this year, but also added an SEO category in addition to the social media and thought leadership rankings. Social media is just one of the channels where your clients can search and find your content, search engines are also a major source which is why this year’s report includes this category. As the digital marketing landscape is constantly evolving, so is The Social Law Firm Index. Each year the algorithm is adjusted to reflect changes in social media, marketing technologies, and overall best practices. The Methodology Upon reading the result of the report some firms wonder why their ranking fell from the previous year or why they didn’t rank well at all. In general, other firms are trying just as hard and a poor ranking doesn’t mean you’re doing something wrong, other firms are just doing better. We collect data and measure analytics March through June which means this report is a snapshot rather than a full year analysis. A variety of measurement tools along with Good2bSocial’s proprietary algorithm generates the scores which we then rank. Thought Leadership: You can’t have a successful social media or SEO strategy without content. In the Thought Leadership category we rank firms based on whether or not they are creating client-centric, engaging content on a consistent basis. Client-centric content is not self promotional, but instead anticipates what your target audience is interested in and provides relevant, educational insights. A lot of firms are already providing this in the form of blogs, but some are in PDF format or buried deep within their site. Other firms rely solely on client alerts to share their content, meaning it doesn’t reach potential clients. Firms that topped this category make a commitment to a variety of quality content that is easily consumed and accessed. LinkedIn When looking at law firms’ LinkedIn profiles we measured the frequency of thought leadership content and use of best practices. We took the number of followers into consideration, but just as importantly, we looked at engaging visuals, curated content, and showcase pages to highlight firm practice areas. Twitter In the Twitter category we measured ratios such as tweets to retweets, tweets to likes, and followers to following, We also looked for best practices like use of hashtags, content curation, and frequency of original tweets. Facebook Facebook is the largest social network, but some firms don’t focus on it. For corporate firms the platform is best used as a recruiting tool or a channel to demonstrate corporate culture and community involvements. In The Social Law Firm Index we analyzed how firms were using Facebook and if they used features like groups and Facebook Live which can increase engagement. SEO SEO was a new category for the 2017 report. To rank law firms on their SEO efforts, we looked at off-page optimization and domain authority. In the future, The Social Law Firm Index aims to include a more in depth SEO analysis. How Can a Firm Improve? After downloading this year’s report, you may question how your law firm can improve their digital marketing efforts. A digital audit can help firms evaluate their social media and SEO practices. Reviewing top firms digital marketing strategies can help you understand how they ranked and how you can implement similar best practices. Download the 2017 Social Law Firm Index

Lawyer, author, and ClearView Social founder, Adrian Dayton, joins to talk about evaluating data so lawyers and marketers can make more informed decision when it comes to social media strategy. And, we do a deep dive on  LinkedIn, which is gradually becoming more social, opening up opportunities for lawyers to build their networks and share content.

Legal tech is a rapidly changing field with a growing number of legal technology startups offering innovative products and services. Lawyers that see problems or gaps in tech are starting their own companies leading to a new democratization of web technology. Law firms can now choose to work with a large variety of viable products from both big and small tech companies. How are firms responding and adapting to new marketing technologies? Firms are beginning to understand the power of data in marketing. To quote Peter Druker, “What gets measure, gets managed.” Even though legal marketing has been traditionally relationship driven, a lot of marketing is also based on instinct which is why firms are starting to evolve their marketing strategies as new technology becomes available. This is true for solo and small firms as well as large firms.  Marketing analytics can help law firms be more efficient with their marketing budget and yield more meaningful results. We’re seeing more services like Lex Machina which provide legal analytics and competitive intelligence for firms for any number of reasons including legal marketing, making analysis and decision-making more fact based and data driven. Marketing advice for new companies that provide legal services and products Knowing your audience and listening to your audience is the key for legal tech startups. Just because you think you have a good idea, doesn’t mean it’s going to be one that has practical implications. The most successful startups are the ones where the executives talk to people all the time. It’s essential to go to legal tech or bar conferences whether you exhibit or not. Relationships still matter in the legal industry. Speaking with your audience isn’t just for networking opportunities; you’ll be able to ask what your audience wants and tailor your products to their needs. How can lawyers maintain an energy and passion for consistent blogging? Perfect is the enemy of good. Blogs don’t need to be overworked, they just need to be posted. The two hardest parts about blogging are coming up with the ideas and finding time to write them down.  Establish a writing routine. Track topics and favorites sites on RSS aggregators like Feedly. Keeping up to date with industry news can help you generate your own blog topics. On lawyers using social media Be yourself on social media and figure out how you want to use it. Lawyers should make social part of their daily routines and get comfortable with it. As with blogging and creating podcasts, it’s important for lawyers to develop their own voice through social media.

Google has placed a focus on connecting visitors to pages with the meaning they’re looking for rather than just exact phrases and keywords to help provide users with the best possible results. For marketers, this means thinking about the broader topics around the keywords you’re trying to rank for. Targeting topics instead of keywords only Ask yourself: how many different ways will people search for a topic? By creating series of pages answering their questions in multiple ways, Google will value the meaning your content is providing and you may then rank higher for multiple types of keywords. Tip: Use Google’s search engine suggestions to discover related keywords and phrases you can use to create content. Voice search Search is evolving as more people turn to their phones and connected internet devices to ask questions verbally. For SEO, this means that optimizing around long tail keywords and natural language is key. Tip: In order to accommodate for voice search, blog posts should now reach 1,500 words instead of just 500-1,000 to truly be search engine optimized. Think relationships instead of link spam Off-page SEO relates to the authority of your site which is mainly measured by links. The more links your website has, the higher your authority. However in the past, black hat SEO tactics often involved link farms. Now, Google is disavowing and penalizing these types of links. Google wants the highest value result for their users and therefore is not supportive of artificial link building. To develop links, you first must develop relationships with people in your industry and write content for their websites that will link back to your site. Tip: Subscribe, retweet, and engage with influencers through social media with the goal of creating meaningful relationships with industry leaders. Make your content topical and interactive You don’t increase SEO or domain authority from social media backlinks. Social media does, however, have an impact through user interaction signals. If you link to a blog post that creates high engagement on social, Google will see that it has high value. If users visit the blog on your website and the blog post has good internal links, this will help SEO. People won’t share content or revisit your site if they don’t find the information useful. Find a way to present the topics you’re targeting in a way that people will understand. When you place a focus on content, SEO will almost take care of itself. Tip: Utilizing images, videos, and bullet points makes your content more engaging to users visiting your page.

Ari Kaplan discusses the challenges and importance of accountability partners when it comes to executing marketing plans within law firms. What challenges do law firm marketers face today? There isn’t a lack of good ideas when it comes to marketing, rather marketers can struggle with executing their ideas due to an absence of accountability. Marketers should realize it’s more important to get things done than to get them done perfectly. At the core of both professional and personal development, is taking some calculated action in a positive way. Either you succeed or learn from it and move on. Good marketers find a way to empower their audience through their content and initiatives while effective accountability partners empower marketers and lawyers to do so. How can a law firm marketer build in an accountability partner? Professionals should collaborate with partners within their company in order to hold each other accountable. Law firms should encourage junior professionals to speak with senior professionals so they can learn from them. “Rainmakers work in tandem.” How can marketers overcome lawyers’ resistance to become involved? Marketers can help individual lawyers understand their own ability and how that ability has an impact on the whole. If they can encourage lawyers by reaching out and starting a dialogue, they will most likely be happy to respond. Law firm marketers can help persuade reluctant lawyers to see what’s possible. Then, everyone succeeds. About Ari Kaplan: Ari Kaplan is a lawyer and leading legal industry analyst, keynote speaker, author of over 200 articles, and an inaugural Fastcase 50 honoree featuring the law’s smartest, most courageous innovators, techies, visionaries, & leaders. Ari’s is the author of a few books including Reinventing Professional Services: Building Your Business in the Digital Marketplace. Ari founded Lawcountability, an online marketing and business-development application. Website: Ari Kaplan Advisors | Twitter: @AriKaplan

Small law firms face a different set of challenges than big law. However, they are able to take more risks on creative marketing strategies. In small firms, staffing and budget resources are limited, but this can lead to opportunities to utilize outside business partners in areas like writing, design, or SEO. Big law can lead to legal marketers being stretched thin, whereas small law can allow marketers to dive deep into content marketing tactics. Owned Media vs. Earned Media Earned: When another party produces content about your firm. Owned: What your firm publishes themselves which can include client alerts, social media posts, and blogs. Maximizing owned media can be important for small law firms who find it challenging to gain earned media attention. Tips for Creating a Content Strategy Suited for your Firm - Focused content. More volume does not equal high quality content. It’s important to focus on core initiatives rather than struggle to promote every practice area. - Know your audience. Use analytics to understand where your readers - are coming from and which platform they use to access your content. - Create Once, Publish Everywhere. Small firms with less resources can do a lot by repurposing content in ways that encourage their audience to see it in different ways. Highlight different key points and vary the platforms where you share it. - Utilize employee advocacy. Encourage employees and lawyers to share the content your firm creates with others through their own social networks. How Smaller Law Firms Can Do the Same with Less - Creating and then repurposing your own content. - Training lawyers on social technologies and getting them involved in your content strategy. - Taking advantage of tools like Canva that can make graphic design more accessible. - Finding strong business partners and utilizing consultants.

Law firms and companies trying to target a B2B (business to business) audience are starting to recognize the value of paid LinkedIn advertising. Paid advertising on LinkedIn is a great way to not only expand your reach, but provides you with incredible targeting opportunities. Budgets for LinkedIn Advertising Like Google Adwords, you can set up your own budget. However, the difference between Google Adwords and paid social, and in particular, paid LinkedIn, is that LinkedIn is much cheaper – as much as half the cost of pay-per-click. Some clients spend $200-$250 per month and are seeing great results. You can set your own budget and based on the results, choose to spend more or less. What is “Matched Audiences”? Matched Audiences is LinkedIn’s retargeting platform and lets you serve an advertisement for a piece of content to someone that’s already familiar with your brand. Studies have shown that people are much more likely to engage or purchase from a brand they’re already familiar with. Matched Audiences options Retarget people that have already visited your website. You do this by adding a script to your website that LinkedIn provides, and then targeting an ad to those people on LinkedIn. Upload your mailing list to LinkedIn. This action matches the email addresses that you have with the email address of LinkedIn users. So, instead of the contacts seeing your content in an email, which they’re used to, they come across it in their LinkedIn stream. Target employees of certain companies. Upload a list of companies to LinkedIn and your campaign will target individuals at that company. Get started by experimenting with tiny budgets and adjust as needed. If you want to go deeper it can get a bit more complicated so you should get some professional help. You can find helpful tips on our Good2bSocial blog.

Podcast Shownotes In episode 18 of the Legal Marketing 2.0 podcast we chat with Jennifer Ellis about using the WordPress platform to build a website for your law firm – from solos to large firms. Jennifer literally wrote the book on WordPress for Lawyers: WordPress in One Hour for Lawyers: How to Create a Website for Your Law Firm (ABA). Jennifer has had an unusual career in the legal profession going from continuing legal education (CLE) professional to practicing lawyer to marketing expert and, in addition to our conversation about WordPress, she shares some “Alt Legal” career tips, so make sure to check out the interview. Here are some of the highlights: What is WordPress and why should lawyers use it? WordPress is a database-drive software that allows you easily publish a website. It’s free and easy to use and update, and lets you quickly design the site, add images, pages, blog posts, and so on. You can create a site using wordpress.com (not recommended) or wordpress.org (recommended). You’ll need to subscribe to a web hosting service for the latter, which you can install with the click of a button. TIP: WordPress is great for solos, small firms, and legal tech companies, but it’s also powerful enough for large law firm websites. You can build a WordPress website without knowing any coding. Just find a theme you like, change a few settings, and you’re good to go. That said, a little HTML knowledge never hurts, especially if you want to customize your site. WordPress Plugins Plugins primarily alters the backend of a website but can make a difference in the front end – what visitors see and how they experience your site. They expand the functionality. Top recommended plugin is Yoast SEO. Akismet is another recommended plugin which controls spam comments on your site. TIP: It’s critically important that you get your plugins from reputable sources and keep them up to date to keep your website secure. Although WordPress comes with basic SEO and design functionality out of the box you need to understand the basics of SEO. Check out Moz blog (and our posts, podcasts, and videos on search engine optimization) to get up to speed. About our guest: Jennifer Ellis is a Pennsylvania legal ethics attorney who is not currently practicing law. Instead, she assists law firms and other businesses to maintain a competitive online presence. She also educates attorneys so they can make certain that their online conduct is ethically appropriate. Previously she practiced law with and managed the online presence of Lowenthal & Abrams, a medium-sized personal injury firm. Jennifer enjoys educating the public on the law by answering questions on sites such as Quora and Avvo, as well as on her own website through her “Ask Jennifer” blog.

Have you built a new website or redesigned your existing one and don’t know what to do next? In this Legal Marketing 2.0 episode, hosts Guy Alvarez and Tim Baran discuss the top three takeaways - content, search engine optimization (SEO), and social media - from our popular blog post: You’ve Built a Website. Now What? It starts with content Without content you can’t have a successful SEO or social media strategy. "You’ve built the Ferrari (website) and now you need the fuel (content) to make it go." But, not typical content - about the firm or the attorney, or practice area description. We’re talking about thought leadership and client-centric content that anticipates the issues and concerns your target audience has. Clients want lawyers who understand their problems, their business, and have the experience to handle their issues, and the best way to demonstrate that is with client-centric content. Instead to starting out with what you do, talk about the problems your target audience face and then show how you can help. TIP: Create content based on success stories with examples of how you’ve been able to help a client overcome a legal challenge. Why do success stories work? Because we all like stories and it’s a great way to demonstrate your legal skills and experience. Always be thinking SEO Create client-centric content that engages your potential clients while having SEO in the back of your mind, such as the keywords and key phrases that your target audience would. Use keywords in the right places and include long tail key phrases. TIP: Use Yoast SEO, a WordPress Plugin that helps you use your keywords properly in the title, body, and meta description, and optimize pages for each keyword. Social Media You can have great client-centric content on your site but if no one’s reading it, what good is it? In addition to SEO, you should use social media to help people find your content. TIP: Use paid social to increase your reach and exposure. You should also curate content and engage on the social channels. Curating content writing by others enhances your position as a thought leader and helps you build relationships with influencers and others. See: A Social Media Strategy Checklist for Law Firms. Additional takeaway Don’t forget to measure everything. Not just web analytics like page views and visitors to your site, but tracking downloads, social media posts, emails, and so on. Make sure you have the tools and KPIs in place to measure what’s working and what isn’t.

Podcast Shownotes What is Google AdWords and how does it work? Google AdWords is an advertising platform that allows advertisers to place ads anywhere they are willing to pay to position them. It enables law firms to gain qualified leads by high placement on the search results page. The platform works on a market principle. In other words, what you pay is based on what the market will allow - more competitive keywords requires higher bids. Google will give you a Quality Score based on an algorithm that looks at the relevance between the keywords you’re bidding on, the ad you wish to show, and the landing page you’re trying to send people to. The lower your Quality Score, the more you pay to rank. If you’re able to increase your Quality Score, your cost per click will be lower. When you start bidding, see where you’re positioned in comparison to others. Then, you can raise your bid incrementally until you’re in the position you want to be in. The key elements of your Google AdWords campaign Ads that reflect your law firm Individual landing pages for each ad Keywords Four types of keyword match: 1. Exact match - searcher must type exact key phrase for ad to show in search 2. Phrase match - searcher must type the entire phrase, but can include additional words 3. Modified broad match - searcher can search any of the part of the key phrase in any any order and the ad will show up 4. Broad match - searcher can type key phrase in any order and google will determine and allow for substitution words What are ad extensions and do they make sense for lawyers? Ad extensions are additional links or information you can include with your ads; this can be hit or miss for lead generation. Whether or not ad extensions are appropriate should be determined on a case by case basis as it may be effective for some law firms and not others. How do you track conversions? Tracking is essential in order to understand what is working for your law firm and what isn’t. AdWords is exceptional at tracking anything with a page via a cookie based tracking code, but lacks in ability when it comes to phone tracking. This is why a combination of AdWords and third party phone tracking services may be best. Takeaway Google AdWords can be a reasonable cost for advertising as it is priced based on the level of competition for your keywords. Unlike other SEO strategies that can take months for significant results to be seen, a firm can tell if AdWords is working after about a week. This is why Alan recommends companies experiment with the bidding and ranking process to see if it proves to be an effective way for your law firm to generate leads. This week's guest, Alan Schneider is the Director of Paid Search at Good2bSocial. He is a 14-year search engine marketing (SEM) veteran and the former co-owner of Mr-SEO.com, Alan manages paid search on the AdWords and Bing Ads platforms for all of Good2bSocial’s clients.

Podcast shownotes The conversation and effort around SEO has been about how to optimize your site, get inbound links and the technical aspects. But increasingly the importance of local SEO has taken center stage. What is local SEO? In a nutshell, local SEO tailors web results to your geographic area. A customization based on where you are in the world. It’s important because typical search isn’t for a specific lawyer, it’s for the type of lawyer you’re looking for or problem you’re trying to solve. Google can take that search data along with your location and give you results that matter to you. If you’re on the East Coast there’s no point in getting results for firms based in San Francisco.  What factors go into optimizing for local SEO? 1. Consistency of information in directories is the most important first step - Name, Address and Phone Number (NAP) should be consistent across the 100+ directories that search engines crawl. Tools such as Yext can help, especially if a firm moves offices or changes phone numbers or other contact information. 2. Reviews - Google and other search engines want to provide the person who’s searching with the best options and having a good review helps.  What are Knowledge Cards in Google search results? Knowledge Cards appear on the right in search results with the firm’s logo, address, phone number, short description of services, and other information. To optimize for Knowledge Cards, you must claim your business so you’re the sole source of information. It’s important to have control over your listing. What about law firms with a national or global presence? When someone discovers a firm with a national presence they probably want to have a meeting in the office closest to them. Local SEO will return results based on location of the office in that person's area. Our guest, Aaron Shepard, is an Account Manager at Good2bSocial. His responsibilities include day-to-day account management, social media, and local SEO for various clients. He got his start in legal marketing as a Social Media Intern with Good2bSocial. He then worked at a top political campaign consulting firm, winning a New York State Assembly race and running several grassroots campaigns. He then returned to Good2bSocial to put his skills to work for the legal industry. Twitter: @AaronG2BS

Law firms are not just about selling legal services but the client’s experience receiving those services. To do that you need to marry good industry insight with vigorous market research with exceptional design. What is the biggest challenge in getting a firm to do brand research? Their knee-jerk reaction is: “We don’t need it. We know our clients. We’ve got it covered. Let’s skip that and go straight to design.” Though law firms may know their clients, it seldom tells the whole story. Most engage with their clients on a specific case or matter. They seldom sit with clients and to find out more about them and their company generally – where they’re at and where they’re going. As a result lawyers get a skewed view of what’s important to the client because they’re only getting the view of what’s important to that matter. Market research can help identify the bigger — and softer — concerns clients and prospects have. Three points of resistance with research: 1. To reiterate, firms think they know everything. They may already know 80% of information gleaned from market research but the devil is in the details. That other 20% can make a brand resonate with the buyer. 2. They don’t want to hear about some of the things they haven’t done as well. 3. The research may reveal fundamental changes needed to their business. How does a law firm marketers convince the decision makers at the firm to do brand research? First, mine your own data. Focus research on one particular issue or sector. Second, do competitor analysis. Elonide provides examples of how brand research made a difference with clients and how it helped a firm expand. Affordable brand research include: - Digging into your analytics to see patterns. - Taking a closer look at financial data. - Doing surveys. Tip: Use a survey tool when sitting at a booth at a trade show. Meaningful insight can be gained by answers to just five questions from the targeted audience. - Email newsletter data such as open rates, click-throughs, A/B testing, etc. Elonide Semmes is the founder and president of Right Hat, a branding agency that focuses on helping companies that have offerings that aren’t always so easy to understand. She is a founding member of the Legal Marketing Association Mid-Atlantic chapter and was inducted into the Legal Marketing Association Hall of Fame. She is passionate about brand design driven by research, not assumptions.

Podcast shownotes What does it take to build a marketing and business development department? You’re responsible for sustaining a vision for how a law firm can improve and what it can become. Also, for inspiring colleagues and partners to embrace the same vision and to work with management on barriers to change. None of this is possible without buy-in and support from management, especially in top-down cultures. The more management can work hand-in-hand with marketing professionals and support and collaborate with them, the more success you will see over time. What’s the difference between being CMO at a law firm vs. being one at a company? You have more flexibility at law firms in terms of how you spend money. With public companies, you have a responsibility to your shareholders and have to be more mindful about spending resources. A company serving the legal industry is more like a strategic partner that helps to advance the industry. Commercial litigation finance is helping to facilitate access to justice — for companies that may have been on the receiving end of bullying behavior by larger entities — and need to have their day in court and get on with their business. What is commercial litigation finance and how can law firm marketers use it as a differentiator when marketing the firm? Commercial litigation finance, like Bentham IMF, provides financial resources to law firms and to litigants who are looking to bring litigation and need outside funding to afford counsel or to be able to continue on with their business while pursuing litigation. For law firms, funding is collateralized by a portfolio of cases rather than by a single case, with a return on investment based on a successful outcome of the case(s). Law firm marketers should know that it’s a resource. It’s something law firms are using in order to be able to get a leg up on the competition. For instance, when responding to RFPs and clients are inquiring about alternative fee arrangements (AFAs). With funding, a law firm can take a case on contingency, where they otherwise may not have been able to or willing to take on that much risk. With funding, the risk is more measured. It helps them to expand their practices and take on more plaintiff side work. With increasing client demand for flexibility, litigation finance provides another option law firms can offer to clients to be able to meet that demand. It can smooth out the law firm’s cash flow, especially for firms that are accustomed to taking cases on contingency where they might be waiting years for a case to reach a successful outcome. How do legal marketers approach marketing for litigators? When you’re a litigator you have to be in the hunt more of the time as opposed to a transactional practice where there is a more reliable stable of clients. A lot more pitching is involved. Client relationships becomes much more important. Content marketing plays a role. When you’re a litigator you need to be constantly visible and part of that is being top of mind. Producing content on a regular basis, writing about cases, the nuances in the law, video commentary, and being visible in the media, can be hugely beneficial. Blogging, LinkedIn, Twitter, creating an editorial calendar, tools to amplify messaging, all play an important role. Gretchen is also a certified executive coach and here’s her encouraging takeaway: Stay curious, stay flexible, continue to be excited about where the legal industry is headed and how you can contribute. Gretchen Lyn Koehler is the Chief Marketing Officer at Bentham IMF, one of the world’s most successful commercial litigation finance firms. Prior to joining Bentham, Gretchen held marketing and business development positions at four leading law firms. She is a New York State admitted attorney, certified professional coach, yoga instructor and energy medicine practitioner.

Podcast Shownotes In this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 podcast, legal marketing leaders with decades of experience in the industry, provide super useful insight and advice on the process of law firm directory submissions. Chambers and Partners and The Legal 500 directories play a prominent role in the discussion. Let’s get the big question out of the way: In today’s world, do you even need a directory listing? To answer the question our esteemed guests provide a list of benefits of the submissions process that go beyond being listed and getting ranked: - Third party affirmation – You get an independent and objective look at your practice and your lawyers as compared to your peers - An opportunity for an internal practice review as you’re putting everything together to see whether or not you’re hitting your benchmarks. - The submissions process is an information hygiene exercise and provides a framework to organize your information and keep it up to date. A big frustration partners have is: a matter may have opened, there is an initial description of what was going on, and then over time, the matter progresses, then closes, and the information wasn’t updated on the firm’s website and other places. The process forces you to have the latest information. - Increased client contact opportunities since you’ll need to reach out to them to use as referees – a great opportunity for partners to keep in touch with their best clients. Clients appreciate spending time with the partner. - During the process you get market intelligence about your practice and where it stands. Firms get to see where the market sees them and how clients perceive them. - Provides a wake-up call. References may not turn out the way you anticipated. Clients you thought would be champions of the firm may provide negative feedback. This provides an opportunity to work on client relationships. - All of the effort that goes into a submission can be repurposed in other ways. The process of awards submissions is like getting on a scale. If you haven’t done all of the exercising and careful eating before you get on the scale, you can’t get mad at the scale for the number that if reflects back up to you. There’s a whole lot of work to be done before you get to the directory submission. Like raising your profile, making sure that you’ve been targeting and developing business so you have the deals and the cases that will impress the researchers, and selecting and preparing your referees. How do Legal 500 and Chambers submissions differ? A big difference is how each engages with the firm. Legal 500 is very proactive about reaching out the marketplace, meeting with the firm’s lawyers and marketers, and gaining information about the firm and practices in a personal way. The researchers generally have longer tenures, bringing with it, a wealth of knowledge about the firm. The tenure of Chambers researchers may be just as long but they tend to rotate their researchers to different practice areas, handling different parts of the book. Chambers does that deliberately to get a fresh take on a particular area of practice. Another difference is Chambers ranks many more individuals than Legal 500 which tends to focus more on teams. About our guests: Yolanda Cartusciello is a business development and marketing consultant to law firms with over 20 years of experience in the legal industry. For the past decade, Richard Pinto had been helping law firms bridge their marketing communications efforts with their Business development activities with directories and awards marketing at the core. Bob Robertson's career has touched nearly every aspect of business development and marketing for nearly every size of firm and practice areas See additional shownotes at www.good2bsocial.com

Podcast Shownotes Evan started out at a big defense firm which represented large insurance companies. He left the firm to become a solo practitioner, and a few years later, joined together with another solo practitioner who was a former colleague, to form a firm with a primary focus on insurance recovery for policyholders. Identifying an underserved area of law Evan identified a law practice niche that was underserved, then went deeper into a sub niche – long term disability claims and litigation, and established a national practice. The firm was formed at a time that particular industry had undergone a significant change and shrunk due to an abundance of claims being filed by professionals like chiropractors and orthopedic surgeons and dentists. In 1996 when the firm opened their doors insurance companies were denying a lot of those claims. His marketing efforts started with a little yellow pages ad for insurance recovery and calls from professionals came pouring in. The sub-niche took off from there. Other types of insurance recovery claims came in through traditional advertising and it became the branding of the firm. The marketing may have changed over the last 20 years but the niche practice remains the same. The niche practice has served him well for 20 years. How do you get known for your niche or even sub-niche? Internet searches have resulted in the acquisition of many clients. In many situations, prospects don’t want to ask their circle for lawyer recommendations and expose their issues. Instead, they turn to the internet to find a lawyer for a private, privileged consultation. Digital marketing such as Pay Per Click works but you need to use all the tools such as social media to increase your profile and recognizability among the people you want to reach. Managing marketing the firm and practicing law Start with legal marketing 101: It’s not optional for you to not spend a significant amount of time on a regular, repeated basis towards growing your book of business and growing your practice. If you’re not doing that, you won’t grow. It needs to be as big a commitment as representing your clients on cases or to handling whatever other facets of your business. Evan has positioned himself to where he can spend up to 65 percent of his working day on things related to marketing origination, and growth and management of the practice. It makes him more valuable to the firm than he was when mired in the day to day activities related to cases. Don’t fear picking a niche It’s very difficult to be profitable and successful as a generalist. There are many rich veins of law that having an area of expertise or specialization – when you focus in on a niche, a core area of practice, or even two core areas of practice, you’re able to hone and focus on what you’re doing, in terms of marketing, as well as the efficiencies of managing the business. For people who are not as socially comfortable with networking in the traditional relationship-building efforts, becoming the expert in a certain field helps by speaking and writing about it. It’s also easier for someone to find you if you practice in a specific area. Clients are looking for people who handle issues similar to theirs on a regular basis. How to get started in your niche? Besides making the time and effort commitment, identify successful rainmakers, talk to them, learn from them. Then decide which of those techniques work for you. Identify your strengths and weaknesses. Other lawyers like to tell you what they know. Be a willing listener. Takeaway There is still no substitute for networking and relationship building. Maintaining good relationships with people who can connect you to clients is important. Also, figure out a strategy to ensure your clients are happy because some of the great promoters you’ll have are former clients. Conversely, some of the biggest damage can be made by having clients out there who aren’t happy with your services.

The beauty of CRM is it can do a thousand things. The problem with CRM is it can do a thousand things. Starting out, most firms should concentrate on only two or three things. The challenge is that those two or three things are different for each firm, groups within the firm, or attorneys. Start with a needs assessment. Understand what you want to get out of CRM before you get the technology. Consider people, processes, and problems first, then the product: - Some firms just want to manage email lists and events which saves tons of time and for law firms, time is money. - Others want to identify and leverage relationships. - Later, you can add client team support, an alumni program, business development tracking, pipelines for opportunities, and other activity tracking. CRM is a fundamental change and improvement in how the firm manages its most important assets: relationships. It’s not a project or initiative that just ends. It’s an ongoing effort. What is the best way to get your attorneys to adopt CRM technology? - Assess your needs up front. - Don’t roll out CRM firm-wide all at once. Do it strategically by group. Find a distinct group where CRM can be a benefit and deploy on a micro level. Chris offers a few law firm examples of successfully implementing CRM. - Training and communication are essential. What about the quality of the law firm’s data? Thirty percent of your data degrades every year – people move, get married, change jobs, get promoted, retire, etc. If you don’t keep up with the changes, within two or three years, your data will be completely degraded. The key to CRM success is clean, complete, and correct data. How clean your data is affects your campaign delivery to the recipients. When bounces come back, someone need to go through them, research them, and update them. Start with a manageable data set, such as the top 50 or 100 clients. Bring that data over first and validate the data. As the market has become competitive it’s tremendously important for law firms to do coordinated business development, and that involves tracking, pitches, RFPs, last step, next step, and have all of the historical information to be able to predict revenue, even hiring and expansion. About our guest: Chris Fritsch is Founder and President of CLIENTSFirst Consulting, a strategic business development technology consulting firm that focuses on CRM, eMarketing and related technologies for leading law and other professional services firms. Chris applies her background in law and more than 15 years of legal marketing, business development and technology experience to help her clients grow and succeed. Chris is a popular speaker on CRM, eMarketing and Competitive Intelligence topics in the professional services arena. Website: ClientsFirst Consulting | Twitter: @CRMSuccess

Think of online behavior as an extension of offline behavior. If activities run afoul of ethics rules offline, don’t do it online. Twenty-seven states have adopted some duty of technology competence requiring lawyers to understand and use technology to provide adequate representation to their clients. It can cause significant stress for solos and small firm attorneys, in particular. On top of representing their clients and maintaining competence in their practice areas, while trying to figure out how to run their businesses which law school doesn’t teach, they have to be up on technology. It can be overwhelming. But it’s important to be on top of changes in technology. If you’re a litigator and don’t understand social media and how it can be used to mine for evidence and research jurors, you may be committing malpractice. Question: How can attorneys make sure they’re complying with ethical obligations regarding social media and technology? Answer: The rule of thumb is to think of your online behavior as an extension of your offline behavior. Consider if you’d be able to do someone offline and apply that to your online activities. So, if you can’t post something in print with language that requires a “this is attorney advertising” disclaimer because it’s blatant advertising and not just educational, don’t do it online. Attorneys are responsible for complying. In other words, don’t outsource your ethics. Sure, legal marketers need to have an understanding of the rules but the ethical obligation lies with the lawyer. It’s the lawyer’s job to inform their legal marketing team of the ethics rules and review copy to make sure it’s compliant. Remember: The online is an extension of the offline and the medium doesn’t change the message. Mining social media data Lawyers are now using social media to represent clients and not just for marketing purposes. They are mining social media for evidence and to research jurors. Anything that is publicly viewable is fair game when mining social media for evidence. What about information behind the privacy wall on social media? Nicole provides some insight into the ethical considerations for disclosure when friending or connecting with someone online for the purpose of mining private data, including differences among jurisdictions. Bonus takeaway Pick one of the main social media platforms you’re not already using that might be relevant to you for marketing purposes or for litigation purposes and create an account and learn the ins and outs of the platform. See good2bsocial.com for links to referenced sources and information on our esteemed guest, Nicole Black.

You’re never in a bad situation if you have a full pipeline. And you can’t build a full pipeline if you’re not doing business development. What’s the biggest myth that needs to be put to bed when working with attorneys on business development? That business development is not sales and that sales is not involved in the legal business development process. We’re all individual walking brands. Lawyers deal with a lot of pointed, data-driven information. Legal marketers need to have a strong game when it comes to selling internal processes to get attorneys and leadership to buy into things. The shift from a firm-driven market to a client-driven market. Companies have gotten a lot smarter about how they do business and are more efficient about how they work with law firms and firms have to respond. They have to differentiate beyond performing legal work to include client service. Demonstrate why your service is better, why your touch points are better, why your team is better, why your firm is better. In other words, engage in sales and marketing. How do marketers at the firm convince an attorney to do business development? - The most valuable thing you can get is a referral. And that includes internally. Use an attorney you’ve trained on business development and who’s had success, as an internal advocate to convert the naysayers. - “I don’t have the time,” is a common refrain. And an attorney’s time is money. You have to convince them that it’s worth the time. Show them the benefits including the return on investment (ROI). That’s where an internal advocate can point to a book of business which resulted from their business development efforts. No matter what your client base looks like, whatever your book of business looks like, you’re never in a bad situation if you have a full pipeline. And you can’t build a full pipeline if you’re not doing business development. Change is constant – be it the market or the direction of corporate counsel, including their decision to cut back on the number of law firms that handle their legal work. You need to be constantly proving your value. You don’t want to be left scrambling when your flagship client goes in another direction. There’s nothing worse in sales and business development than a desperate person. What about thought leadership? Can that be used to increase business development efforts? - Absolutely. It’s an investment. - If you’re doing social media, writing a blog, doing a presentation, or video, or podcast, whatever the medium, it’s out there working for you while you’re doing other things. - Find the channel that’s going to play to your strength. - Putting your voice or image behind your consistent, relevant messaging, instead of just sending out yet another written alert, is one way to separate yourself from the pack. How does an attorney prioritize the many different assets available for business development? - First, identify what, if anything, they’re doing, including accounts that may be dormant. - Ask: “What do you want to be know for?” A great presenter? Podcaster? Writer? - Deconstruct and repurpose content for a higher ROI. - It doesn’t have to be perfect. It has to be real, authentic. - Convey your knowledge with the right dose of personality. - Marketers, don’t say: “Here are all the things you have to do.” Instead say something like: “Let me give you a 15 minute tip that will completely change how you do business development.” Quantify the time ahead of time. - Think about social media as a 15-minute a day fitness routine.

First a little background on Mark Cohen's journey before digging in to how he used writing and social media to develop a thought leadership platform. Mark was a trial lawyer for almost 30 years. He started out as an Assistant U.S. Attorney, became a big law partner, then left to start a national boutique firm where he learned how technology could be used more effectively to manage legal services, After a conversation with Thomas L. Friedman, author of the book, The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century, about whether some what what was in the book would apply to the legal vertical, Mark started Clearspire, a virtual law firm and legal services company that upended the traditional law firm business model, to provide services to clients that wanted it delivered better, faster, cheaper. After closing shop, Mark founded Legal Mosaic, which is where this thought leadership story built around writing and social media, starts: Mark shares some of the lessons he learned along the way: - Mark discovered that Twitter allows you to connect with other like minded people and participate in a global community in a way that’s very helpful for one’s career. - It's all about finding a voice and getting it out there. - It’s important to be patient. One does not create a social media presence and brand overnight. It takes time and thoughtfulness and effort. - Social media is a two-way street. It’s not all about you. You have to participate in the community. Find who has interesting ideas and engage with them and promote them. It becomes reciprocal though not the intention going in. - You don’t need a tremendous amount of content to develop a brand or thought leadership platform. You can become a thoughtful aggregator by summarizing some of the greatest hits articles and giving it a spin of your own with some interesting commentary. - You have to be authentic in what you message is and how you’re getting it across. Don’t put on airs. - Stick with it. Social media is a long-term play. And, some of the results: -Mark's development of a thought leadership platform led to being a columnist on Forbes, publishing a popular blog, and speaking opportunities around the world. - What’s gratifying is not the numbers - followers and likes and connections - but the dialog that the content has generated.

Law firm awards submission insights and tips! The recognition awards provide is meaningful to lawyers and firms who don’t get a lot of accolades for their work. In fact, they get a lot of heat. So when a publication says “good job!” or recognize them as part of an elite group of people, that can be a source of inspiration. Additional benefits: - Awards highlight something positive about the firm. There’s a morale benefit for people at the firm that shouldn’t be discounted. - Awards provide opportunity for networking and career building. They can also serve as a recruiting tool for new lawyers and lateral partners. - Awards tell a story. They provide a benchmark. Something for others to aspire to. But as deadlines approach, law firms marketing and communication professionals can get stressed out. You should know that it’s OK to ask for an extension. But don’t call and try to litigate the rules. Yes, that happens. It will not engender a warm and fuzzy feeling. Not all awards are created equal. Awards all have commercial aspects, for sure, but you can determine the quality of the award by their vetting process. Marketing teams should be selective of where to invest their resources based on the criteria that is being sought by the publication or group that’s putting together the award. David offers a few tips for submitting an award: - This may sound basic, but follow the rules. If they require a Word doc. Submit a Word doc. They prefer a spreadsheet? Submit a spreadsheet. Talk about your big wins, of course. But also share your losses and how you handled them. - Presentation really does matter. Make sure your writing is compelling and clear. It should adhere to the questions that are being asked and shine a light on the reasons you should win. Check out the Legal Writers Bureau which was created to help lawyers better tell their story with people who have a lot of experience working in legal media who have been been involved with a number of the awards programs.

What is Client journey mapping and why is it important for lawyers and law firm marketers? Simply put, a client journey map is a visual of the actual experience a client has in working with any organization. For a law firm, that experience can start even before a prospect becomes a client. Client journey mapping entered the legal lexicon about two years ago and comes from the phrase “customer journey mapping” used by corporations around the world for many years. It started in retail but quickly moved into professional services. When mapping out the client's journey, think individual rather than organization. Law firms tend to think of clients as organizations or companies. It's important to remember that people are hiring you. Focus on the person rather than the organization to understand the experience individuals have when working with a law firm. A person with feelings, attitudes, objects, preferences, and a client journey map helps us better understand how, when we interact with this person, from the beginning to the end of the journey. Don't be overwhelmed, you don't have to create a unique map for every single client of the firm. Create personas around individuals with similarities. Be aware that within one organization or company you may have several clients. And those different clients have different needs. So you need to understand what each client is looking for in order to meet those needs. For instance, in one company you can have an in-house counsel, board director, or procurement officer. They each have different needs when they interact with you at different points during the journey when working on a matter. Think of journey mapping as a piece of plumbing which can fit into a lot of different situations. It’s a very flexible piece and can be retrofitted in any number of ways. Client journey mapping can also be applied to your internal team, it can be applied to how you interact with your vendors, or used as a training tool for associates. How do you get buy in at the firm for client journey mapping? Get acquainted with journey mapping. Check out Bernero & Press. Focus on revenue generation. In other words, start with your end game: increased revenue: what happens when you enhance client relationships and lengthen the stay of the client at the firm. Show how it gives you an opportunity to listen to the clients and then apply the information gathered in a way that helps everyone in your organization contribute to becoming a more client-focused firm. Show how journey mapping can be a differentiation in the request for proposal (RFP) process. Demonstrate how it helps you to discover what delights your clients, including in-house counsel. It’s not about a legal competence problem. That is table stakes. In-house counsel hired you because they know you can do the work. Now, it’s about how you work with them - non-legal issues, like project management, emotional intelligence, communication skills, and so on. There’s a lot more great information on the podcast, including statistics and examples of success to use when trying to make a case for client journey mapping at your firm. Our esteemed guest, Yolanda Cartusciello, is a business development and marketing consultant to law firms. She has over 20 years of experience in senior administrative roles in major law firms, including Cleary and Debevoise. Yolanda develops strategies for practice and industry groups, as well as special initiatives within law firms and she also delivers training and coaching programs, including client journey mapping training.

Are you using analytics to track your website performance and digital marketing efforts? If so, are you using it correctly? In this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 podcast, we discuss - How to collect data - What to do with the data you collect - What are meaningful data insights? - Google and other analytics tools There’s more to analytics than Google Analytics vanity metrics: visitors and page views. There's Digital Marketing Analytics: Not just measuring your website but the entirety of your integrated digital marketing strategy. This includes SEO, email marketing, social media, campaigns, events, and so on. Why is overall, integrated digital marketing analytics important for lawyers and law firm marketers? - To understand the effectives of all aspects of their marketing efforts. - To see how each marketing initiative is performing: social media, blogging, email marketing, online advertising, events, etc. - To get data on what’s working and what's not across platforms, channels, and campaigns, and how to go about optimizing efforts for maximum return. - For insights on target audience and what they’re interested in, What are some of the tools to measure your efforts? We’ve been discussing analytics beyond Google. But all measurements should start with Google Analytics. Thing is, few understand how powerful it is beyond traffic, visitors, and time spent on site. Dig deeper into the journey visitors to your website go on for more meaningful insights. Where are they entering? What content are they looking at? When are they jumping off? Where are they coming from? Beyond Google, look at social media analytics. One tool is Hootsuite to see how your content is performing on the social channels, including engagement, reach, and other, deeper insights. Same thing with email. Many firms look at click-through and open rates, but there’s a lot more insight to gain, which leads to another category of tools: marketing automation. These include Pardot, Marketo, HubSpot, Eloqua, and Infusionsoft, to track the behavior of your target audience, and use segmentation to offer a better experience for your visitors based on their behavior patterns gathered from analytics data. Additional analytics tools covering SEO include Moz, Magestic, Agency Analytics, and DashThis. Finally, we discuss working with your technology person or IT department at the firm to make sense of the data. "Instead of making business decisions based on instinct, make them based on data." Guy recommends The Analytical Marketer: How to Transform Your Marketing Organization by Adele Sweetwood which dives into the relationship between IT and marketing and how to collaborate effectively to analyze data to make a meaningful impact on the firm. More takeaways: Before you start measuring, figure out what your key performance indicators (KPIs) are. Is it 10 more leads a month? 4 more clients? Get more speaking gigs? Figure out your business objectives first then track and tie in the data. On social media, focus on engagement rather than the number of likes or followers. Check out the free online courses on Google Analytics Academy.

Few things cause more confusion or frustration in digital marketing than search engine optimization (SEO). In the latest episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 podcast, we clear up some of the confusion by identifying four techniques: Technical, On Page, Of Page, and Local, with some actionable takeaways. Show notes: Technical SEO – This is how the search engines crawl and index your website and blog. You have to think about SEO when you’re building your website. It’s not enough to make your site look pretty and functional, you need a good back-end or coding structure that the robots crawling your site can recognize and register. Other elements to consider are site speed and responsive design (mobile) to improve your ranking. Tip: Submit your site to Google Search Console, including your sitemap. This allows the search engines to index your website. You will get feedback on errors on your site. On-Page SEO – Are the pages on your website properly optimized for the keywords you’re trying to rank for? This can be a page or blog post. Tip 1: Do your keyword research. Keywords should be client-focused and have enough search volume. Tip 2: Make sure the keyword is in your title, the meta description (which appear in the search results below your title), and repeated a few times on the page. Tip 3: Make sure each page or blog post has at least 300 words and then write for as long as it takes to tell your story. Off Page SEO – This is the authority of your domain which can rank from 1-100. The higher the domain authority, the easier it is to rank for your keywords. Anywhere for 40 and up is good for a law firm website. How do you build your domain authority? By the number of sites that link to your website. Note that not every link is created equally. Tip: Be careful of black hat SEO tactics. Some agencies or vendors will promise to link from dubious sites, trying to trick the system. Even if it works for a short time, Google will catch on to you and your site could incur a severe penalty making it very difficult to be found in search. In other words, don’t try to game the system. Local SEO – This is important for finding firms or businesses within a specific geographic location. Where you’re located impacts Google search results. This is especially important if your practice is local rather than national. Though even for national firms, local SEO is important when people are searching for an office location nearby. Local SEO is all about citations: your firm’s name, address, and phone numbers. The more citations or listings you have, the stronger the signal to Google that you are located in the address you specify. Tip: Make sure your name, address, and phone number (NAP) is consistent across all online directories, of which there are around 70 Google looks at to confirm you NAP. Use yext.com to lock down your NAP so that they’re consistent across all directories.

Ten essential elements to establish a thought leadership platform to build your personal brand, extend your network, and attract more clients.

Hosts Guy Alvarez and Tim Baran of Good2bSocial discuss marketing in the legal profession and why they're launching the Legal Marketing 2.0 podcast.