Legal Marketing | Attorney Marketing | Marketing For Lawyers

This video is the fourth in a series of daily habits that will help you improve your legal marketing. Our previous video covered the habit of eating with a client, prospective client or referral source every day.

Gratitude and legal marketing are not two things you often hear mentioned together. Expressing your gratitude can make a big difference in your legal marketing. Taking stock of the things in your life that are good will help you feel good. When you feel good you project an attitude of confidence and success. This makes you more attractive to clients, prospective clients and referral sources.

This video explains:

If you want to help make your legal marketing more effective, be grateful for what you have. Start by making a list of the things for which you are grateful. Write down at least seven things that are blessings in your life. Then review this list at least three times each day. Reviewing this list once in the morning, at lunch and before going to sleep will help you focus on all the good things in your life.

You will be pleasantly surprised at how effective this practice is at transforming your attitude. You will also be pleasantly surprised at how people react to you. They may even decide to work with you as a result.

This video is the third video in a series designed to help you make your legal marketing more effective. Our previous video covered making one valuable phone call each day.

Each day you eat three meals and most often you do not think of those times as legal marketing opportunities. Each meal period offers you an opportunity to sit down with a client, prospective client or referral source and get to know him/her better.

This video explains why this is such an important daily marketing habit.

If you want to give your legal marketing a boost you must take advantage of opportunities like these. Spending 3 or more meals each week with someone who can refer business to you is not only a smart practice, it is an excellent legal marketing habit.

This is the second part in a five part series designed to help you improve your legal marketing. The previous video was about mastering the psychology of the handwritten note.

Today's daily habit is commonsense but most people do not exercise common sense when it comes to legal marketing. One of the most effective actions you can take each and every single day is to pick up the phone and call someone. Do not call just anyone. Call a former client or someone who has referred you business.

This video provides more detail.

Reaching out to call someone is a way to reestablish the bond you had when you worked on their matter or when they referred something to you. This bond is powerful and when you combine this phone call with our follow-up system you will be amazed at how many referrals start coming your way.

This conversation needs to only last about fifteen minutes but the sole purpose of your call should be to "check in" with the person and see how they are doing.

Important Note: If you get voice mail when you are calling people to reconnect with them YOU MUST leave a message. It is important that you leave a message stating that you were calling to catch up with them and see how they are doing. These messages with also help your relationships but do not stop until you get someone on the phone. Have this conversation with one person each day and you will be amazed at the growth of your referrals.

Great legal marketing depends, in large part, upon the habits you develop. During the course of the next five days we will be introducing and discussing five key habits that can make a huge difference in your legal marketing.

Today's habit is: Mastering the Psychology of the Handwritten Note

Handwritten notes are a fantastic way to connect with new clients or referral sources or to recognize and engage existing clients or referral sources.

Make it a habit to write one note to people in your database each day. You will be amazed at how it pays off.

Law week I posted this video about attorney marketing on the Internet and a number of people contacted me with follow up questions. Today I am going to try to answer some of those questions in this article and video. I am just going to answer them as they came in to me.

The Internet is a valuable part of an law firm marketing plan. Marketing on the Internet is like marketing anywhere else. The best place to start is by thinking about the things that make your law firm different and highlighting those qualities throughout your website.

Here are some of the most frequently asked questions about Internet marketing for lawyers:

What is SEO?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. Matt Cutts sis a great job explaining how Google works. SEO is the name for the process that will help your website land on the first page of Google when potential clients search for your services.

What is a Keyword?

A keyword is a word or phrase that people type into the search bar when they are looking for your service. For example: If you were searching for a Real Estate Lawyer in Miami you would not necessarily type in: Joe Smith, Esq. You would type in "Real Estate Lawyer Miami" that would be the Keyword.

Someone who does SEO would then optimize your website for the keyword so that when a client searches for your law firm's keywords, you come up on the first page.

How does search engine optimization work?

This is where the video below comes in. In this video I explain some of the basics of SEO.

What is "On Page" SEO?

That term means examining the content of your website, along with some of the technical aspects of the site, and making adjustments to it to make it more search engine friendly. (That is a basic definition).

What is "Off Page" SEO?

That is link building. This is what the bulk of the video above is about. When someone posts a link to your website on their website, the search engines treat it as a "vote" for that site. If your site has lots of links, then many people have voted for it, meaning it must have content that has some value.

Keep in mind that the best way to build links is to create great content that other people will want to reference.

There is a lot more to it than I outlined but those are the basic answers to the questions I received. Search Engine Optimization is tricky. You should talk to multiple experts before deciding to go with one. But remember, the key to getting great traffic to your website is great content.

This is a great video by Matt Cutts who is the head of Google's web spam team. He describes how a Google search works.

This is valuable for you and for legal marketing because if understand how it works you can understand how to make your website more friendly to it.

Here are some things I found interesting in this video:

• There are over 200 criteria for determining what search results are delivered. That means the Google algorithm is almost impossible for your average SEO guy to crack. So your neighbor-turned-SEO-expert probably only knows a little about how to get to number one on Google.
• Google takes synonyms into account in search. This makes sense but I wonder if it is only common synonyms or even some obscure synonyms.
• Google still places importance on Page Rank (something that has been promoted by "SEO experts" as untrue.
• Linking the pages of your website together though links in the actual text of articles is as important as ever.

Think about how your website is designed and think about the content on it. Is it easy for Google to tell what you do and why a client should choose you?

Google always strives to deliver the best search results based on user intent. Make your website as much about the people who will be using it as possible and you rank highly in Google search.

If you would like more information about law firm marketing on the Internet watch this video that answers basic Internet marketing questions for lawyers.

Referrals area a critical component of any attorney marketing plan. There are many different ways to pass a referral to another attorney. Some of them are more effective than others. In this video we discuss the most effective ways to pass a referral to a colleague.

The two ways covered in the video include the "in-person Introduction" and the "email introduction" each of these methods is effective however I prefer the in-person introduction whenever possible. The in-person intro conveys the importance of the relationship between you and the client you are referring. It also shows the respect you have for the attorney to whom you are referring the client.

Remember: A referral is a referral only if the person you are sending to the other attorney is ready, willing and able to use his services.

At Rainmaker Lawyer Consulting we work with attorneys all over the world. The most restrictive place of any we have ever seen, in terms of law firm marketing, is Florida. The Florida Bar has very stringent Attorney Advertising rules and they enforce them. Many of our Florida clients despise these rules. They believe they restrict their ability to build their firm. Many of them feel that the rules affect their right to free speech.

Regardless of what you think of these ethics rules, they exist for the protection of the client. They may be a bit out of hand but their intent is not to restrict business.

Working within these rules is no problem for a smart legal marketing expert. Most of our clients are highly effective at marketing not matter what the rules are.

Why?

Because we practice relationship-based educational marketing. We do not ask our clients to act like used car salespeople. This video provides more detail:

If you want to attract more clients you must first understand that the law is a relationship business. If you develop a good relationship with your referral sources, they will send clients to you in droves. If you maintain relationships with your past clients, they will refer your new clients.

If you put the relationship first in your marketing you will never have a need to worry about any ethics rules because that is the most ethical thing you can do.

One of the areas many lawyers struggle with is meeting people and networking. Actually, this is not 100% accurate. The area most lawyers struggle with is meeting INFLUENTIAL people and networking with them.

Below is a rough guide to finding, approaching and networking with influential people in your community.

First: Identifying the influential people.

This is relatively easy to do and there are a couple of sure-fire ways to do it. 1). Ask around. Many of your colleagues will tell you who the "go to" people are in any community. Simply ask a question like: "Who should I know in Cedar Creek for Real Estate matters." 2). Check the local newspaper. Most newspapers highlight influential local people on a regular basis. 3). Check the public listings of people who have given to political campaigns or charitable organizations.

Next: Reach out to the influential person.

One of the best ways to reach out to the influential person is with a handwritten note congratulating them on some accomplishment. You can congratulate them for donating to a local charity, for being profiled in the local paper or for a business accomplishment. The key is to send them a note congratulating them on something.

Many times the person you send your congratulations note to will respond by sending you a "thank you" email or a note in return. When he/she does, that is your cue to move on to the final step. (Actually you should move on to the third step no matter what but especially after they thank you).

Finally: Call this person and ask for advice.

Asking for advice is the most important part of this equation. We know they will take your call (because you have already complemented them). Once you ask them for advice you can (and should) invite them out to lunch. You can do this while you are on the phone (if you have built up enough rapport) or in a subsequent email or phone call.

This seems a little over simplified but you will be amazed at how effective it can be. Give it a try today and you will be pleased with the results.