Use Big Data to Help Potential Clients Find Your Content

If you're writing about "premises liability" injuries when potential clients search for "slip and fall" accidents, you're setting yourself up to fail, writes Julie Howell in Five Ways Lawyers Can Use Google Trends. They won't even find your post if you're not framing the issues using the words they type into the search box. But big data can help:

Rather than build your marketing strategy around the way you think your target client is searching, focus on the keywords and topics you know they’re searching, based on research.

Howell's post is a practical guide to connecting your written work with your intended audience. Read it, and start writing to be read.

Sharing (Legal Content) Is Caring - Not Giving Away the Store

Adding credible legal information to your blogs and websites isn't giving away the store, writes Susan Kostal, it's demonstrating a true expertise in the law that you practice, it's building trust with the people in a position to hire you, and perhaps most importantly, it's educating the consumers of your products so that they're better able to make informed decisions about the services you offer:

“Information helps consumers and spurs them to act; it doesn’t lead them to think they are experts and that they don’t need to see a professional. They ask better questions and are more engaged in their matter — essentially becoming the most ideal and cost-effective clients possible.”

Read the post. Then start publishing the content your clients and potential clients need.

The Golden Rule of Lawyering: Do Unto Clients...

Want to be a better lawyer? Walk a mile in your client's shoes, writes Sally Schmidt – legal marketing consultant AND business owner – in Walking in Your Client’s Shoes, before listing handful of cardinal sins that she's seen over the years. Think of them as a "how-NOT-to" list:

I send an email with a question … and nothing happens. Did you receive it? Are you rounding up the information? Are you on vacation? Inquiries should be acknowledged immediately. You may not have the answer but you certainly can let me know you received the question and when I might expect a response.

Read the post. Then stop doing unto to your clients what you wouldn't have them do unto you.

If Social Media Isn't Working, What Are You Doing About It?

The editors at Attorney At Work have pulled together some insightful facts and figures about social media in the legal profession in How Do You Use Social Media? Among them: according to the 340 lawyers who responded to a recent AAW survey, the #2 most effective online platform for bringing in new business is "none." That's right, 31% of respondents said that the absence of social media was more effective than marketing on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, or YouTube.

Why is that? And more importantly, what are you doing about it? Read the post. Then start making social media work for you (the Lawyer's Guide to Social Media will help).

It's Time for A Marketing Checkup. Here's What You Need To Do

The new year is a perfect time to assess your business development efforts, writes Sally Schmidt in Take Stock of Your Marketing and Business Development Activities. You know she's right.

But you may not know what to do, or or even how to evaluate what you're doing. That's why you need to read Schmidt's post. Schmidt serves up a series of questions, about the people you frequent, the organizations you join, the speaking and writing you do, that will send you down the path of intentional marketing and business development:

There will always be people who ask you to lunch, and there will always be folks who like to be wined and dined. The question is, are you finding benefit from these encounters? . . . The benefit can’t always be measured in terms of business generated, but there should be some mutual advantage to the relationship. For example:

• Are you learning new things when you get together?

• Is the person a potential source of work or other opportunities (e.g., visibility or introductions)?

• Can this contact be helpful to your clients in some capacity?

Read the post. Decide what's working, what isn't, and what you need to change. The get to it, before the new year gets away from you.

Client Satisfaction: Start by Annoying Them Less

Matt Homann’s “Annoy Your Clients Less: Five Steps” on the Attorney at Work blog. Nobody wants to think that they annoy their clients. But all of us probably do. Homann’s post is less about not annoying your clients, though, than about making them happy. And isn’t making your clients happy your real job? Sure, they’ve asked you to research that issue or draft that contract or develop that argument. But what they really want is for you to make them happy, for you to solve their problems or at least make them go away for a little while.

Homann’s post will help you do that. Because he gives you concrete, achievable, practical steps for identifying that which makes your clients squirm. So you can stop doing it. Read the post, and start making your clients happier. Sounds like a good new year’s resolution, doesn't it?

Getting the most from your marketing efforts, the single-minded way.

Merrilyn Astin Tarlton's "Six Steps to Single-Minded Marketing" on the Attorney at Work blog. If you're not reading Attorney at Work every day, you should be. Because their "one really good idea every day" is almost without fail just that: a good idea, that will help you better market your firm, run your practice, understand technology, and do just about anything you do.

Today's post is no exception. Before you join all the social media sites you can find, before you start blogging, before you buy that ad space or sponsor that dinner or hire a PR pro to help you get the word out, you need to figure out just what it is you like to do, are good at, and want to be when you grow up. You need a plan, or you might just find yourself somewhere you don't want to be. Astin Tarlton's post will help you write that plan.

It's 9:00 pm. Do you know where your lawyer is?

Jordan Furlong's "Be the World’s Most Client-Accessible Lawyer" on the Attorney-at-Work blog. There's been a lot of talk over the past few years about the "virtual law office." What it is, where it is and isn't permitted, how to run one, what are the risks and rewards, etc. But Jordan's post is one of the first I've read that looks at virtual law offices from the client's perspective. Not in the lower-overhead-means-lower-cost-to-clients sense, but rather in the making-yourself-accessible-to-clients-when-the-clients-need-you-to-be-accessible-means-being-a-better-lawyer sense. Sure, Jordan's suggestion is not for everybody. But isn't meeting your clients' needs a core part of your strategy? What's wrong with doing it on their terms once in a while?

Talking to strangers just got a little easier.

Mary Ellen Sullivan's "Big Ideas for Small Talk" on the Attorney at Work blog. Let's face it: networking is tough. You have to identify the right events, the ones where potential clients and influencers hang out. You have to identify the right people, the ones who might give you work or an introduction or whatever else you might need. And then you have to talk: ask the right questions, listen to the answers, carry on interesting conversations. Sullivan's post will help with you that part. Sure, you'll still have to figure out the who, where, and why. But once you do, these icebreakers (and conversation killers) are bound to ease the pain of striking up a conversation.

Think your website gets a free pass? Think again.

Deborah McMurray's "Nine Questions to Ask About Your Firm’s Website" at Attorney At Work. What do clients and potential clients see when they visit your website? How easy is it to navigate? Do they have to click through page after page, drilling down ever deeper to find the information they need? Can they scan titles and sub-titles to make sure they're on the right track? And just how relevant is the information they eventually find? Can they even read it on their smart phone?

Law firms don't get a free pass on website ease of use. Read this post, and make your site better.