Larry Bodine Law Marketing Blog : Law firm marketing, legal editor, legal marketing, attorney marketing, business development, marketing consultant, legal consultant, business development

At our LegalTech New York 2013 panel — "Taming the Wild West of Social Media: The Secrets of Social Media Success in the Legal Profession" — moderator Steve Mann, chief marketing officer of the Research & Litigation Solutions business at LexisNexis, pointed out that roughly one-half of all law firms are now using blogs as a way to reach potential clients. He asked our expert panelists to weigh in on how firms can assess whether blogging is a good marketing strategy for them.

"If you're going to get started in social media, a blog should be one of the cornerstones of your marketing efforts," said Larry Bodine, Esq., editor in chief of Lawyers.comSM and martindale.com®.

You can view a five-minute video segment of this piece of the panel discussion. Stay tuned next week for more details from the session.

NEW PROVIDENCE, N.J. (May 30, 2013) – Doctor. Lawyer. Astronaut. As graduation season kicks off, parents are anticipating where their children’s education will take them. A new survey from Lawyers.com – a top-cited online legal resource – reveals that nearly two-thirds of parents are hoping their children will choose legal careers.

According to the survey:

Parents are receptive to the idea of their children becoming a lawyer, but are slightly more mixed on their child marrying one:

• 64% of survey respondents with children in the household want their child to become a lawyer.

• Moms (55%) are more likely to be interested in having a lawyer as a son- or daughter-in-law than dads (38%).

Survey results conveyed the aspirations of lower income parents:

• 80% of parents with household incomes of less than $25,000 per year said they’d like their child to become a lawyer, vs. 54% of those with household incomes over $75,000.

“Being a lawyer means being a respected professional, and that’s something that parents want for their children. Despite the tough economy facing the next generation, it’s exciting to note that nearly two-thirds of parents would be happy with a law degree in their child’s future,” said Larry Bodine, Esq., Editor in Chief of Lawyers.com.

For more information, please visit www.Lawyers.com.

Methodology

A total of 1,001 interviews were conducted from April 4-8, 2013, collected from the Ipsos telephone Omnibus survey, TeleNation. TeleNation is a nationally representative study, including both landline and cell phone interviews; interviews were conducted in both English and Spanish. Qualified respondents were U.S. adults age 18 and over. Data were weighted to reflect Current Population Study statistics on age within gender, Census Region, market size, education, and race/ethnicity.

About Lawyers.com

Today's post is part of an article written by Philip Livingston, CEO of Marketing and Business Solutions at LexisNexis.  He explains the importance of achieving an AV Preeminent^® rating.  

Each year thousands of attorneys achieve an AV Preeminent^® rating. If you too are among the elite, you should showcase your rating to the fullest and enjoy all the benefits of this honor.

• Martindale-Hubbell actively promotes your rating so others readily understand your accomplishment. An exclusive agreement with ALM Media Properties, LLC will put AV Preeminent rated lawyers in front of more than 500,000 legal professionals across 30 different publications in 2013. An agreement with Fortune magazine and ALM highlights U.S. law firms with the highest percentages of AV Preeminent rated lawyers in its December "Investor's Guide."

• We also display your ratings on martindale.com^® and Lawyers.com^SM . Lawyers.com alone makes your rating available to 34 million unique visitors annually. To locate the best of the best, visitors can fine-tune their search by rated lawyers only.

• I strongly encourage you to proactively promote your AV Preeminent rating too. Display your rating in locations where clients, prospective clients and referring lawyers can find you: your website, your social media profiles (LinkedIn^®, Facebook^®, etc.), your business cards, at your office and elsewhere. Our associates at American Registry create elegant plaques, lapel pins, acknowledgements, ratings video and other recognition products, all designed to showcase your rating. You can find more information at http://www.mhur.com/.

• Take the time to draw attention to your two favorite ratings' verbatim feedback by promoting it to the top of your ratings display on Lawyers.com and martindale.com. You also should take advantage of the one-time opportunity to comment on each peer feedback to give clients and prospects a better understanding of you and your practice. All of this can be easily accomplished in the Martindale-Hubbell Client Service Center.

For more than 140 years, Martindale-Hubbell has proudly facilitated the ratings process to highlight lawyers who are at the pinnacle of the legal profession. If you have questions about Martindale-Hubbell Peer Review Ratings or Martindale-Hubbell Client Review Ratings, visit www.martindale.com/ratings, email ratings@martindale.com or call 800-526-4902, option 4. 

If there is any doubt about the power of a big brand, check out Graphic Design USA’s recent listing of the favorite logos of the past half century.  Even those that are abstract symbols are easily recognized by millions across the globe.  These brands have gained popularity over many years and consumers choose these companies’ products because they believe in the brand - a strong brand can generate fierce customer loyalty.

When someone needs the services of an attorney, the company brand will heavily influence their final choice.   People are used to making choices based on branding – they are bombarded by brands every waking minute of their day, from adverts and product packaging, to television and the ubiquitous internet.   So when seeking legal representation they will automatically assess law firms’ brands and will be attracted to the brand which appears to match their specific needs.

If a law office brand doesn’t send out the right message to the prospective client right from the very first viewing, quite simply its attorneys won’t be hired.  When branding your law office, follow these guidelines to ensure that you have a big brand that will bring you plenty of business:

Use a Professional Branding Company:  This critical step can’t be over emphasized.  A brand is far more than an eye catching logo; a powerful company brand summarizes everything you offer and how you deliver it.  By working with seasoned professionals you can develop a strong branding strategy that reflects your professionalism, your ethics, your experience and expertise.  A big brand will form a firm foundation for all your promotional activities.

Define your Target Market:  A full and complete understanding of your target market is necessary for your brand to be effective.  It must appeal to your audience and make them sit up and take notice.

Define your Unique Selling Point:  Be clear on what makes you different from your competitors.  Maybe you have a great track record in winning your cases.  Whatever it is, make sure it is highly evident in all of your promotional materials.

Choose an Appropriate Company Name:  Partner names can be used but only in moderation, and are far more effective when combined with the area of legal specialization.  ‘Dale & Docherty Family Law’ definitely works.  However ‘Smith, Lewis, Docherty & Slopecki Criminal & Family Lawyers’ is starting to push any reader’s attention span to its limit and is far from memorable.  More creative names are also acceptable so long as they reflect the services on offer.

According to new research, there are three places online that are most likely to influence a consumer to make a purchase:

• "Retail" websites like Lawyers.com^SM
• "Brand" websites, like a law firm's site
• Blogs

Also topping the list were Facebook, and online forums and groups like Ask a Lawyer. The new findings in theTechnorati Media 2013 Digital Influence Report confirm that the best way for lawyers to attract new clients online is to market around the way that consumers behave.

Technorati is an Internet search engine for searching blogs. It surveyed 6,000 "influencers" (bloggers), 1,200 consumers and 150 top brand marketers. "Brand managers report an expected increase in budgets for digital marketing in the upcoming year," Technorati reported.

Retail websites

Consumers love to go to retail websites like Amazon.com or Zappos.com - online shopping centers where people can find many brands. In this sense, Lawyers.com, which gets more than 6 million page views per month, is a "retail" site - where consumers can find tens of thousands of lawyer profiles.

On Lawyers.com, consumers can easily find out many lawyers' expertise, website and contact information, and can compare attorneys by peer and client ranking. Online reviews can be a great source of new clients. Lawyers.com andmartindale.com® are the top online directories used by consumers who sought an attorney in the past year, according to the Attorney Selection Research Study by The Research Intelligence Group (TRiG).

Brand websites

In contrast, a "brand" website displays information about one kind of product or service, like Microsoft or Google. A brand website is an online store, the digital equivalent of an Apple store at a shopping mall.

"Today's consumers are increasingly comfortable going online to find answers for all kinds of issues, including legal ones," says Samantha Miller, vice president of product, Web Visibility Solutions, LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell. "Law firm websites need to capture consumers' attention and engage them, while serving as part of a larger marketing campaign."

There's no doubt that attorney websites still matter. More than one in three potential consumers of legal services turn to law firm websites to find a lawyer, and 26 percent have checked out a firm's website in order to validate an attorney, according to the TRiG research.

Lawyer blogs

It's clear to see why blogs also influence people to make a purchase. Consumers begin their search for a lawyer by researching their legal issue. The ideal place for them to learn a particular aspect of the law is on an attorney blog. And once a consumer has read a good blog post, who better to call than the lawyer who wrote it?

To learn more about what we can do for you and get a free Website Evaluation and Consultation, contact a LexisNexis Law Firm Marketing Specialist.

When creating and updating your firm's website, do you consider what practices match the journalists who you are pitching your expertise and services?  If not, start now. 

TEKGROUP International recently released the 2013 Online Newsroom Survey Report.  It covers how editors, reporters, producers, correspondents and bloggers work with online newsrooms, digital audio and video, press release distribution services and PR professionals in general. 

This survey will help you determine in which areas your website and newsroom need improvement.  Here are some highlights:

•  97% of journalists find an online newsroom important.
• Two key areas saw dramatic increases in expectations of journalists - social and mobile.
• 90% of journalists like to receive targeted email alerts with relevant news for them.
• Does your online newsroom have a landing page for access to all your social media links? Over 50% or those surveyed found a landing page for social media important.
• 2013 shows a 33% increase in visits to corporate Facebook pages.
• Journalists agree that access to biographies for your company/firm's executives is very important.

Click here to download the survey results.

About TEKGROUP International

TEKGROUP International, Inc. is an award winning Internet software and services company that  develops social media online newsrooms and e-business software solutions. Our website can be found at http://www.tekgroup.com and you can also follow our Online Newsroom Twitter account at http://www.twitter.com/onlinenewsroom.