Legal Marketing

Self-Imposed Legal Marketing
Would legal marketing be easier if you were contractually obligated - to yourself - to do so? How effective would your client development efforts be if you would be required to pay cash if you failed to meet your marketing goals? One of the biggest obstacles to legal marketing is is the time commitment it requires. Attorneys are generally busy, due to billable hours, case demands, transactional demands, and other obligations. The result is that many lawyers fail to engage in any meaningful business development. Yet neglecting this aspect of practicing law usually creates problems down the road. As one marketer has emphasized, engaging in marketing activity every day is crucial - especially when one is busy. So what is the solution for busy lawyers? (…)

Using Google Trends as a Legal Marketing Tool
Lawyers should consider using Google Trends as a legal marketing tool. Google's Hot Trends lists the most popular Internet searches during an hour-long period. However, up until recently, you had to navigate to Google Trends to obtain a display of the most popular 100 searches. As of a couple of days ago, those searching on Google will now see a graph at the bottom of the page whenever they happen to type in a search for one of the top 100 searches. The feature (only available for now in the U.S. (…)

Harvard Courses and Marketing for Attorneys
The Harvard Alumni Association announced today that it is again offering Michael Sandel's course entitled "Justice" to alumni around the world via both streaming video over the Internet and via podcast. Thus, Harvard alumni can "take" the course via virtual means. In addition, alumni can interact with other alumni on the course blog and can participate in "online office hours" with Professor Sandel. Last year, over 4000 Harvard alumni participated in the course via podcast or streaming video. (…)

Marketing for Attorneys and Keyword Research, Part II
Although Wordtracker's free keyword search tool is helpful and provides a good start in marketing for attorneys, I recommend - if it makes sense within your budget - upgrading to the paid Wordtracker service. (…)

Marketing for Attorneys and Keyword Research
As mentioned in my last post, marketing for attorneys on the Internet should begin with keyword research. Any law firm should base its website, and specific website pages, on carefully targeted keywords. Those keywords should relate to the lawyers' specific area or areas of practice. However, the terms for which corporations or individuals are searching may not always correspond with the terms on which a law firm may be focusing. Thus, attorneys and law firms need a tool or tools to discover the actual terms or keywords for which potential clients are searching in large numbers. (…)

Barack Obama an Example for Law Firm Marketing?
It was reported today that Barack Obama's campaign manager sent e-mails to supporters offering them the chance to be the first to know who Obama will choose as his vice presidential running mate. Obama's strategy of opening up a dialogue with his supporters and potential supporters almost rises to the level of web 2.0 - even if it is based upon the "old" technology of e-mails. It seems clear that Obama is trying to expand his "list" of e-mail addresses and contacts. In fact, Obama's e-mail to his supporters goes so far as to ask them to forward the e-mail to co-workers, family and friends - similar to the "tell a friend" script concept espoused by such marketers as my colleague, Alex Mandossian. (…)

Facebook for Lawyers
On May 13, 2008, I interviewed Mari Smith in a Utah Bar-sponsored teleseminar about how lawyers can use Facebook as a client development tool; Mari is one of the leading experts on the use of Facebook for marketing and business purposes. If you're not already a Facebook user, I recommend that you add Facebook (www.facebook.com/profile.php) to your legal marketing mix. In the world of social networking and web 2.0, becoming an active Facebook user is becoming more and more important.

Blogging Teleseminar
On Tuesday, May 20, 2008 at 1 pm EDT, I will be moderating a teleseminar/webcast with ALI-ABA entitled "Blogging as Client Development: Effective and Ethical." My two interviewees are superstars in the area of attorney blogging: Denise Howell (bgbg.blogspot.com/); and Greg Siskind (blogs.ilw.com/gregsiskind/). Of course, ALI-ABA is providing 1 hour of continuing legal education ethics credit for the teleseminar/webcast. (…)

Comments On Blogs
One of the best ways to attract more visitors to the website for your legal practice is to have more in-bound links from other websites. If another website contains a link to your website, the search engines will view your website as more authoritative and popular. When a website that is highly ranked for searches in the area you're trying to emphasize links to your site, search engines will give you even more credit. (…)

Rescheduled Blogging Teleseminar
My Utah State Bar teleseminar - "Blogging: The Future (And Present) Of Client Development" - has been rescheduled for Wednesday, November 28, 2007 at Noon, MST. Here is the registration link:
http://www.legalspan.com/utah/catalog.asp?UGUID=D2007020901032382145718&CategoryID=20030404222929172134&ItemID=20071115-272095-153637
Should be an interesting dialogue on how lawyers can implement blogging as a legal marketing tool. I will be discussing blogs and will be interviewing two Utah lawyers about the use of blogs in Utah.