That is what you need to do if you want to build your law firm's brand on broadband. What does brand building on broadband mean? Well if you are a tech company you know (more or less). But what does it mean for a law firm? Not much, because most firms are not doing it. The legal industry is still woefully behind the curve with respect to the changing business landscape. How many firms leverage pay per click (PPC)? A few do, but not many. Still fewer understand search engine optimization (SEO) and the ability to generate business via organic traffic. Most don't feel a need to, but that will change.
If you look at the websites of top law firms there is little to differentiate them. They all look as if same person designed them. Most attorneys have an innate aversion to marketing. It is a concept that appears foreign to their sensibilities. Why is that? There are many reasons for this, but an important one is that there is very little (if any) business training provided at most law schools. For established practices the “culture of the billable hour” gets in the way. There is simply no time to innovate because everyone is too busy billing.
As a consequence, there remains a significant opportunity to leverage new media in ways that could lead to a sustainable competitive advantage. The legal industry has always been a laggard (or so the conventional wisdom goes) with respect to technology adaptation. That may now be an overbroad generalization but one that still resonates, especially vis-à-vis technology adaptation with respect to marketing (i.e. as opposed to the “back office”).
The objective of this offering is to quickly and effectively establish the strategy and action plan that will drive deliverables required to build your firm’s brand on broadband. In short, it focuses on showing our clients how to publish, promote and prevail. Your firm does not need SEO. What your firm needs is a sustainable SEO platform.
Approach & Methodology
Contrary to the approach taken by most firms, building an online presence is not something that you assign to your IT department and/or contract out for (at least not at the onset). This presence says everything to potential clients about who you are, what you do, and your value proposition. It will be more strategic to some firms depending on the type of law practiced. Where it is strategic, the online presence will play an important role in differentiating the firm from direct competitors, and thus contributing significantly to a sustainable competitive advantage.
Therefore, the first question to be answered is how strategic is your online presence to the future of your firm? The answer to this question drives both the amount of time and the amount of money that you should invest. Increasingly, clients are finding representation via the Internet. Unless you are so well entrenched that this kind of exposure is superfluous (very few firms satisfy this requirement) then your online presence requires the same level of attention (perhaps more) as any other strategic initiative.
Our approach to this engagement is to create the framework, including the project plan, which will drive the initiative. Once this framework is in place then (and mostly only then) is it appropriate to discuss details related to a technical implementation.
Build a Presence
The old adage that “content is king” applies to your online presence. It is not enough (and probably does more harm than good) to have a presence that consists of nothing more than a canned sales pitch. You need content that tells a story that informs; which demonstrates the value that your firm brings to the marketplace in general, and more specifically, to a particular client’s legal issue. You need content that educates and builds trust.
To accomplish all of the above, you need content that engages the prospective client’s interest and/or reinforces the client’s decision for having selected your firm in the first place. It is difficult to delegate this responsibility to a third party, and if you do, you’re unlikely to be happy with the initial results. The lack of attention paid to a firm’s online presence is the primary reason that there is very little differentiation in law firm websites—and where there is, it is obvious that the firm’s senior management was directly involved (usually in boutique firms).
The development of quality content is time consuming. You must first develop the message and then consider the bewildering number of options for delivering it, including: text, video, blogs, podcasts and others. Clearly, the keyboard pounding can be delegated, but the thinking behind the content requires input from partners and/or staff directly involved in selling the firm’s services. As discussed below, the better the content the more traffic driven to the site is likely to convert. The goal is to convert curious surfers into paying clients.
This engagement will help ensure that your firm develops its content in a manner consistent with its strategic objectives. This is accomplished via collaboration with key personnel and through concrete examples of where it is being done effectively.
Additional Information
To read the entire Building the Brand on Broadband service description click here. To review our other consulting services click here. To contact us click here. If you want to see an example of where these ideas are implemented click on Internet Lawyer.
To review LTTV marketing related posts peruse the list below.
- SEO Underground?
- It is early in web years!
- Legal Marketing Wisdom!
- Email Still the Killer App?
- The Next Billion Internet Users
- Marketing is not evil (revisited):
- Rough Type: Nicholas Carr's Blog: Adblock Plus: what would Jesus do?
- Newton's Law: The Third Wave Center of Gravity
- It's Called Marketing Stupid
- Wikis & Law Firms
- Organic Traffic: It's the content stupid, but content is not enough!
- Video Blogging & Podcasting
- Trust, Seth Says That is All You Need
- Markets as Conversations-So What?
- Get A Clue
- New Media, Geeks Still Rule
- Infotainment?
- If it ain't broke..., Caveat Emptor
- Law Firms & Garbage Disposal Manufacturers
