There are two somewhat related media consumption patterns happening right now that most law firms haven’t given much thought to yet – mobility and distraction. You can use these developments to your advantage by building modular content that can be sliced and diced in a variety of ways to help you get more mileage out of your lawyers’ substantive writing and create a more unique online presence for your firm. Let me explain. . .

The first pattern is the ongoing shift to consuming content on mobile devices – by which I mean phones and tablets (and by all that . . . [more]

After lawyers’ profiles, some of the most frequently visited parts of law firm websites are the Frequently Asked Questions section and Case Studies. Which two website sections are the most difficult to get lawyers to contribute? FAQs and Case Studies.

It shouldn’t be difficult to figure out why FAQs and Case Studies are so popular. When we have a question nowadays, we don’t go to an encyclopedia, we hit the Search button on our electronic device of choice and enter a search term. If your website comes up in a client’s search for the meaning of some arcane term in . . . [more]

One of the biggest mistakes law firms make in their marketing is abdicating all of their responsibility for marketing to a marketing professional and taking the lawyers entirely out of the equation. While marketing professionals certainly have their place in law firm marketing, some marketing and business development tasks are best tackled by the lawyers themselves.

Marketing professionals can help lawyers and law firms create professional marketing pieces, develop ads, generate marketing and editorial calendars, do the initial set up of newsletters, websites, social media accounts and blogs, create designs and themes, find images for posts, handle the technical aspects . . . [more]

It happens all the time in organizations, people get so busy doing their own work they stop hearing what other people in the company are working on. Although understandable to some extent, there are two really big issues that can arise because of it – both of which affect your clients.

We are all trying to get more revenue out of the clients we already have. Unfortunately we know that too many people only focus on the work they do for a client and we fail to learn as much as we can about the client. This has been discussed . . . [more]

You have 20 years of practice and a single paragraph biography? Really? You’re not making this easy for me.

I heard your name at a recent meeting and thought we could use your expertise to resolve an issue we’re struggling with. I found your firm website, but didn’t learn enough about you or your services to take the next step and contact you. I’ll dig a little further and see what I can find online about you. Oh, wait. There’s someone else who can help us … they know our business and have listed some of their experience. Perfect. I’ll . . . [more]

How many times have you heard…“Don’t get too excited… You don’t want to be disappointed.” I bet, a lot!

When is it time to get excited about a new case or new project? When the client says they’re moving forward or when they sign the engagement letter or when you receive the check? In my book… all of the above!

The other day I was coaching a client and he shared with me that his client said they would be moving forward on the project. My client said cautiously that he always waits to see the check before he believes . . . [more]

Some firms have taken the approach that they no longer wish to spend money on exposure. They believe that through healthy partnerships, they will be able to increase revenues with current clients and through the referral process continue to grow their business. Is that possible, quite likely but are there possible problems, absolutely.

By exposure I’m referring to everything from advertising to sponsorship to community events. There are so many different ways to spend money and countless people hoping you will spend it with them but there is only so much that can go around. How do you decide how . . . [more]

A journalist recently asked me whether I agreed with the trend to single names for law firms, “given the traditional importance assigned to becoming a named partner.” My reaction was two-fold:

1. There’s not much point in agreeing or disagreeing with a trend: the question is whether or not you’re going to follow it.
2. I’ve yet to meet an associate whose ambition was to see his or her name plastered over the reception desk.

I ended up commenting on why I think the trend exists. That set me thinking about names as an aspect of marketing.

Back when Toronto’s Hospital for . . . [more]

Email newsletters are a marketing tool that can help you to stay in regular contact with current and former clients and strategic alliances, and to create relationships with potential clients. But in order to be effective, your email newsletter needs to provide value to your readers, not just serve as a promotional vehicle for your practice.

In the January 2015 issue of Entrepreneur magazine, content marketing expert Ann Handley, in her article, “Before you hit ‘send’: 13 steps to emails that don’t suck,” says, “[E]mail is the Rube Goldberg machine of online marketing: There are multiple moving parts in what . . . [more]

Podcasting has become something of a recurring joke around my office this year.

One of my colleagues has recently become intrigued by the medium, and is eager to find suitable client or in-house projects where our agency can work in this arena. I’ve been helpfully proposing that every project we discuss is a nail for which this newfangled podcasting hammer would be the perfect tool and teasing her about the cutting edge nature of this technology, which has had native support within iTunes since 2005, and is really but a short technological hop from old-fashioned radio serials that have been . . . [more]

Request for proposal. Those three words are usually the start of a slow churning stomach ache that burns until the moment your response is sent and received. And confirmed three times over. This is especially true, I have found many times over, if the request is lobbed into your office by a current client.

The potential to lose the work, and, I suppose, to lose face among both clients and colleagues, can be stressful.

Proposal responses do not require a law degree or legal drafting. In fact, they usually require plain language, practical responses and succinct promises. I often . . . [more]

Each year, we at fSquared Marketing reach out to our friends and colleagues around the world who are experts in various areas of legal marketing. We ask them to describe what they are seeing in the market, ask them where our clients should be focusing, and what predictions they have for the coming year.

This year, as always, we received great insights and tips to share. I’ve included some excerpts below so you know what to consider in your marketing and business development plan (and budget!) for the coming year.

CONTENT MARKETING:

Several trends that we have seen emerge and . . . [more]