Law Firm Marketing Consultant : Larry Bodine Law Marketing Blog : Law firm marketing, legal marketing, attorney marketing, business development, sales training, practice development, training, marketing consultant, legal consultant, individual lawyer coaching, business development, client team, practice development, business development, law firm coach

Please join me for a LIVE Twitter discussion on Tuesday, March 16, 2010 (tomorrow) from Noon to 2pm EST.  I'll be joined by and Martindale-Hubbell Connected Community Manager Mike Mintz.

Follow all the action by searching for and using the hash tag #MHVT.  The discussion will focus on the following questions:

• Impact of Virtual Firms on the Large Law Firm model.
• What clients are buying?
• The trend for major (Fortune 500) companies to abandon the AmLaw 100 and 200 firms for the top firm in a second-tier market, like Milwaukee, Omaha or Cleveland.
• Where law firms are putting their marketing dollars in 2010?
• Trend of the legal profession in light of virtual law firms and alternative fee models?

Check out our Event Page for even more information about the upcoming offerings including a webinar with Carolyn Elefant, Stephanie Kimbro and others.  If you are not yet a member of Connected, registration is free and easy.

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Six additional law firms have retained Concep, a leading provider of integrated digital marketing solutions to law firms, representing 10 percent growth for Concep during Q1 2010. Among the new clients are

• Hunton & Williams
• Schulte Roth & Zabel
• Cole Schotz, a mid-sized firm.
• Downs Rachlin Martin, another mid-sized firm.
• Two other AMLaw100 firms.

The company works with professional organizations in the financial, professional and business services sectors, as well as membership organizations and marketing agencies to help them build, manage and deliver digital communication programs. Concep recently partnered with the International Legal Technology Association (ILTA), complementing their existing partnerships with LMA Metro New York, Bay Area and Toronto.

I use Concep myself for digital marketing, and they are superb.

"Concep’s strong start to the year is evidence of the growing demand for email and digital marketing," said Anthony Green, president of Concep. "We have capitalized on the growth better than most companies because we work hard to win and keep new business with unparalleled service, innovative products and a pricing model that drives significant ROI.” 
 
The Concep U.S. office launched three years ago at 11 Harrison Street in New York.  During that time more than 50 law firms and other businesses have retained Concep to handle their B2B marketing.  Concep also has offices in Sydney and London, which recently won two B2B Marketing awards in the categories of ‘best lead nurturing initiative’ and ‘best limited-budget campaign’.

Concep continues to make enhancements to its SaaS email marketing platforms and broaden their offerings as a full service digital marketing firm. For additional information, please visit www.concepglobal.com
 

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Amazing stats like Facebook passing  the 400 million user mark, Twitter hitting 50 million tweets per day, and YouTube viewers watching 1 billion videos per day are impressive on their own, but what if we looked at Internet-related stats collectively?

Jesse Thomas looked at Internet-related stats collectively in his video State of the Internet (see below).

The video highlights some remarkable figures and visually depicts the Internet as we know it today. It’s a must-watch video for anyone trying to wrap their minds around just how immersed web technologies have become in our everyday lives, according to Mashable.com.  For example:

- There are 1.73 billion Internet users worldwide as of September 2009.

- There are 1.4 billion e-mail users worldwide, and on average we collectively send 247 billion e-mails per day. Unfortunately 200 billion of those are spam e-mails.

- As of December 2009, there are 234 million websites.

- Facebook gets 260 billion page views per month, which equals 6 million page views per minute and 37.4 trillion page views in a year.

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Although I love online social media, it turns out that nothing beats a word-of-mouth recommendation to get new business, according to a new study by ARAnet.

Word-of-mouth recommendations from friends or family remain the most influential resource on advice for those looking to purchase products and services, but overall, search engines are also becoming a trusted source.

Young and highly educated consumers say online sources influence their buying decisions at a higher rate compared with the rest of the population, but social media resides down at the bottom of the list, according to a recent survey. Overall, consumers rely less on resources in social sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and MySpace, according to a survey from Opinion Research Co., sponsored by ARAnet.

Scott Severson, president of survey sponsor ARAnet, believes companies need to have more than one way to reach consumers online because not all will want to have contact via email or social sites. Companies will need search engine optimization (SEO) and paid-search campaign strategies, too. In other words, one campaign message will not resonate with all consumers the same way.

For more details, read "Social Media Not Preferred Recommendation Resource."

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Facebook has increasingly become a source of marketing efforts by law firms. For instance, see Facebook Generates More Website Visitors than Google and News Reporters Now Depend on Social Media Sources 

For a list of law firms with Facebook "fan pages" I turned to Dale Tincher, CEO, Consultwebs.com, Inc., 800-872-6590, dtincher@consultwebs.com.

"In addition to Linkedin and other social media and article Websites, we recently started developing Facebook pages for our clients.  We develop them for several reasons including additional exposure and to complement their SEO and overall marketing campaigns.  As you will see, we go far past the normal programming techniques that most Facebook sites utilize.  A few of the Facebook pages we have developed are listed below:

·         Schwartzapfel & Associates- http://www.facebook.com/pages/Schwartzapfel-Truhowsky-Marcus-PC/125133637386?  

·         Ullman & Associates- http://www.facebook.com/pages/Charles-R-Ullman-Associates/147781706904?

·         Belluck & Fox, Mesothelioma Help - http://www.facebook.com/pages/New-York-NY/Mesotheliomahelp/53026818989

·         Rush, Hannula, Harkins & Kyler - http://www.facebook.com/pages/Rush-Hannula-Harkins-Kyler-LLP/112383517805

·         Brian Moskowitz - http://www.facebook.com/pages/Boynton-Beach-FL/Law-Offices-of-Brian-Moskowitz/282800090474?

·         Abelson Law - http://www.facebook.com/pages/Washington-DC/The-Abelson-Law-Firm/123258383596

·         Terry Terry & Stapleton- http://www.facebook.com/pages/Morristown-TN/Terry-Terry-Stapleton/92188938485

·         Gemma Law - http://www.facebook.com/pages/Gemma-Law-Associates-Inc/133645823382

·         Scott Gottlieb - http://www.facebook.com/pages/Scott-C-Gottlieb-Associates-LLP/132967210799

·         David Resnick - http://www.facebook.com/pages/New-York-NY/David-Resnick-Associates-PC/67559988517

·         Tafelksi Law - http://www.facebook.com/pages/Bloomfield-Hills-MI/Paul-J-Tafelski-PC/86153619073

·         Wyly Law Firm - http://www.facebook.com/pages/Wyly-Law-Firm-PC/127085836673

·         Ted Greve & Associates - http://www.facebook.com/pages/Charlotte-NC/Ted-A-Greve-Associates-PA/99209593157

·         Barry & Loewy - http://www.facebook.com/pages/Austin-TX/Barry-Loewy-LLP/118297808977

·         Heselmeyer Zinda - http://www.facebook.com/hzfirm

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Back when Twitter became a sensation in January 2009, the data had shown that Twitter was not yet an effective as a business development tool.  I said if the facts changed, I would change my mind and it's happened: lawyers are getting business via the popular micro-messaging platform.  You can indeed get new clients by using Twitter.

There have been random reports that a lawyer connected with a potential client with a Tweet. But it took blogger and online social networking expert Adrian Dayton to find Fort Lauderdale, FL, lawyer Robert C. White who methodically works Twitter.  White tweeted about an article on mobile advertising and got calls from two different mobile companies as a result.

You can listen to the 30-minute podcast conference call between the two at "Think Twitter’s for Kids? Think Again"

The social media guy

"I’m taken it upon myself to be the social media guy within the firm," said White, aka @soflatechlawyer on Twitter. "I spoke at a recent meeting of our lawyers on social media.  I try to be a leader by example and it doesn’t take a lot of time." White is a shareholder at Gunster, Yoakley & Stewart, P.A., where he practices business, corporate and technology law. Gunster is the oldest commercial law firm in Palm Beach County, with 140 attorneys and 200 staff in eight Florida locations.

"Everyone needs to determine who their clients and referral sources are.  I’m a technology and entrepreneurial attorney, so my  clients use Twitter. For other areas of law, Twitter might not be as efficient. Very few of my clients are active Twitter users, but from a branding standpoint Twitter can be useful for referral sources. They key is to touch people so they can touch other people with you and mind," he said.

For the rest of the story, visit the LawMarketing Portal at http://bit.ly/cqk3R1

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A national survey conducted by Cision and Don Bates of George Washington University found that an overwhelming majority of reporters and editors now depend on social media sources when researching their stories. Among the journalists surveyed:

• 89% said they turn to blogs for story research
• 65% to social media sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn
• 52% to microblogging services such as Twitter
• 61% use Wikipedia, the popular online encyclopedia.

While the results demonstrate the fast growth of social media as a well-used source of information for mainstream journalists, the survey also made it clear that reporters and editors are acutely aware of the need to verify information they get from social media. Eighty-four percent said social media sources were “slightly less” or “much less” reliable than traditional media, with 49% saying social media suffers from “lack of fact checking, verification and reporting standards.

“Mainstream media have clearly hit a tipping point in their reliance on social media for their research and reporting,” said Heidi Sullivan, Vice President of Research for Cision “However, it’s also clear that while social media is supplementing the research done by journalists, it is not replacing editors’ and reporters’ reliance on primary sources, fact-checking and other traditional best practices in journalism.”

The groups placing the highest levels of importance on social media for reporting and producing stories were journalists who spend most of their professional time writing for Websites. Those at newspapers  and magazines  reported this less often. The differences between magazine journalists and website journalists is statistically significant.

• Journalists who spend most of their professional time writing for Websites (69%) reported this the most often, and significantly more so than those at Magazines (48%)
• 89% of journalists reported using Blogs for their online research. Only Corporate websites (96%) is used by more journalists when doing online research for a story
• Approximately two-thirds reported using Social Networking sites and just over half make use of Twitter for online research. Newspaper journalists (72%) and those writing for Websites (75%) use Social Networking sites such as LinkedIn and Facebook for online research significantly more often than those at Magazines (58%)

For more information visit http://us.cision.com/news_room/press_releases/2010/2010-1-20_gwu_survey.asp

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According to Web measurement firm Compete Inc., Facebook has passed search-engine giant Google to become the top source for traffic to major portals like Yahoo and MSN, and is among the leaders for other types of sites.

Being a member of Facebook involves having friends and family share Web links to interesting news stories, photos, videos and Internet sites. This "friend-casting" of information has helped propel Facebook into a major force in directing traffic around the Web.This trend is shifting the way Web site operators approach online marketing, even as Google takes steps to move into the social-media world.

Some experts say social media could become the Internet's next search engine, according to SFGate.

"People are spending less time navigating the Internet on their own and are now navigating the Internet based on their friends' recommendations or their friends' activities," said Dave Yovanno, chief executive of Gigya Inc., a Palo Alto firm that offers social-media services. "That's one of the big trends we started picking up on probably four or five months ago."

For years, Web content creators had to worry whether they had the proper level of search-engine optimization to make sure search engines listed them among the top results. Now, they have to consider social-media optimization.

"Marketers must focus on social marketing in addition to traditional search, as customers have a multi-pronged way of finding information," said Jeremiah Owyang, a Web strategist for the Altimeter Group, a San Mateo consulting firm. "The clear-cut channels of yesteryear are now an intricate set of connections."

Using a snapshot of Web traffic from December, Compete's director of online media and search, Jessica Ong, found that 15 percent of traffic to major Web portals like Yahoo, MSN and AOL came from Facebook and MySpace. The lion's share of that traffic, 13 percent came from Facebook.

Google, which has profited handsomely from directing Web surfers to their destinations during the past decade, was third with 7 percent, just behind e-commerce site eBay, which had 7.61 percent. MySpace was fourth with just under 2 percent.

The numbers are eye-opening because Google used to dominate most Web-referral categories. "I was surprised to see Facebook has become No. 1," Ong said.

In other categories, Compete's data showed Mountain View's Google still on top, but Palo Alto's

Facebook was not far behind. For example, Google accounted for 21.3 percent of referrals to sites catering to movie fans, but Facebook was second with 12.4 percent. And in a video category, Google - which owns YouTube - was first with 22.9 percent, but Facebook was next at 12.7 percent.

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According to the Dutch analytics company Distimo, there are now more than 150,000 apps available for the super-popular iPhone.  Of those, some 75% are paid applications while only 25% are free. This is in stark contrast to the second largest app store, Android Market, where recent data suggests that over 60% of the app there are free.

A slick law firm marketing technique is creating a free app for your own firm.  See Arnold & Porter Creates an iPhone App for Law Firm Marketing for more details. It  is the first AmLaw 100 law firm to publish an app, which takes the content from the Consumer Advertising Law Blog, and makes it more easily accessible with an iPhone.  Other law firms and legal sites like JD Supra and the ABA Journal are using the novel approach to reach clients and recruits.

I created an iPhone app for the LawMarketing Portal as well. Something else that’s very interesting is that the highest percentage of apps in the App Store are now paid book applications. In total, there are over 27,000 book apps in the store, and of those 92% are paid apps, according to Distimo’s data.

In terms of overall app numbers, games still rule, with over 28,000 of them in the store. But a much higher percentage of those are free versus the percentage of free book apps. All told, both games and books are far and away the two most popular categories in the App Store, with entertainment in third with just over 20,000 apps. And the numbers drop quickly from there. Education is the fourth most popular category, but that means only 10,000+ apps.

Now is the time for law firms to get in early, before iphone apps become commonplace.

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From Hubspot: We all know our website is a key part of our marketing and lead generation strategy. But when prospects visit your site, what are they looking for? What do they want to see, and what do they consider most important? To find out, RainToday surveyed more than 200 buyers of B2B services -- in companies of all sizes -- to rate the importance of various elements of a service provider's website.

The top 4 elements should come as no surprise:

•  Service descriptions (87%)
•  Description of industries served (78%)
•  Success stories / case studies (73%)
•  Professional website design and presentation (69%)

These elements are the core of most firms' websites. If something is amiss here, it will raise major questions with buyers from the get-go. Getting these elements in place is just the price of entering the game.

However, if you want to win clients, don't overlook the remaining six elements. Even podcasts and audio content, at the bottom of the list, were rated by 40% of decision makers as being "extremely" or "very important" when deciding to make initial contact with a service provider. 

Whatever marketing you are doing, the first stop for most buyers is a visit to your website. It can either draw them in further with online resources and content, podcasts, videos, and news, or it can say the same thing as your competitors' sites, providing a laundry list of services and a nice look, but neither helping nor hurting your chances to start or enhance a relationship.

Web Elements Working Together - An Example

Say you are going to run a webinar. You may send an invitation by email (a top way to generate attendance at webinars), directing buyers to register for the event on your website. During the registration process, you can ask them to sign up for your newsletter, allowing you to add them to ongoing marketing communications. And, on the confirmation page, you can direct them to blog posts, case studies, or podcasts on related topics to the event, further engaging them with your brand and thought-leading content.

Pull People to You

You can go a step further and share information about the webinar and the related content items via social media such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Doing this allows you to reach your followers and fans, some of whom may not be on your email list, as well as enhancing your Web presence. As more people use the Web to find services, you want to make sure you have compelling content that is findable in search engines and draws people to you.

Buyers may not indicate elements such as blog posts, podcasts, and video as being the most important features of a website, but leveraging content can really help your product or service stand out in a crowded market space.

What type of content do you have available on your website?

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