It Takes More Than Facebook To Get New Clients

Yes, the importance of social media to your marketing efforts continues to grow. Yes, social media can increase your visibility, and make it easier to find you. Yes, potential clients are probably looking at your social media profiles to get a better idea of who you are before they pick up the phone to call.

But having a Facebook page (or a Twitter feed or an Instagram profile or an active presence on any of the other hundreds of social media channels) isn’t going to turn your firm into a potential-client magnet, writes Sam Glover in Social Media May Help Your Business, but It’s No Silver Bullet:

“When social media works, it works because the lawyer who is using it is just networking. Not Networking with wine and cheese and a stack of business cards, but actually getting to know people.”

Read the post, and start thinking of social media as the ice breaker, not the main conversation.

Successful Networking Hinges on Follow-Up

Networking is not a race, writes Cari Twitchell in An Essential Networking Ingredient: Followup. Not even a marathon. It's an exercise in building relationships, and that takes time, and it takes effort, and most of all, it takes focused and methodical follow-up:  

One meeting is not enough to build a relationship. Invest your time reconnecting and building upon what you already know about your new lead. Send a follow-up email or handwritten note. Ask to schedule another meeting for a month or two out. Share emails, blog posts, and other items that you believe your contact will find interesting.

Read the post. And start following Twitchell's advice. To stop stumbling on the road to relationships.

The First Step in Marketing: Identify Your Ideal Client

Writing your marketing plan? Identify who you want to work for before you decide what you want to say and where you want to say it, writes Sam Glover in Let Your Ideal Client Guide Your Marketing Strategy. And he's right: if you're marketing your practice without a clear idea of the person you want to represent and the problems you want to solve, you're doing it wrong.

Many lawyers ask whether they ought to use Twitter or write a blog or join a networking group. This is like asking whether you should use Word or Photoshop for your next project before you know what it is. [...] But if you already have a clear picture of your ideal client — your laser-targeted demographic — your marketing strategy will probably be pretty obvious.

Read the post. Figure who your ideal client is (Glover's questions will help). Then start connecting.

Relationships, Not Screen Time, Are The Key To Business Development

You might think that Sam Glover is an anti-social media Luddite when you read the title of his latest post, 4 Things to Do Before You Spend a Dollar on Online Marketing. But he's not: his piece is less a critique of online marketing than a reminder to leverage your existing relationships - with friends, current and former clients, referral sources, and the like - before you plop down any hard-earned cash on the newest, coolest, shiniest digital tool. Because relationships, not screen time, will get you more work:

Stay in touch with your former clients. And no, adding them to your email list and sending a holiday care do not constitute staying in touch (although they are better than nothing, if only a little). Take some time to consider what you could do for former clients that would keep them connected to you and your firm. [...] Be familiar enough that when they need more legal work or when someone asks them for a referral, you are the first person they think of.

Read the post. Step away from the computer. And start spending your money wisely.

Is Your Website a Waste of Time and Money?

Sure, you've got a website. But that isn't enough, writes Cari Twitchell in 8 Best Practices for Law Firm Website Content at Lawyerist.com:

"If your website content does not engage and convert, then your website is a waste of time and money."

What to do? Read Twitchell's post, for starters. Her best practices (Stop using legalese. Tell your readers what to do. Write for a mobile audience.) will put you on the road to an engaging - and readable - website. One that's both easy to read AND focused on the very information your prospective clients seek.

Stop wasting your money - and your reader's time. Read the post. Then fix your website.

Making your first time count, every time.

Allison Shields' "Elevating the Elevator Speech" at Lawyerist.com. An elevator speech, like a cover letter for job seekers or a slogan for law firms, is most conspicuous when it's bad. Rather than engaging your interlocutor, it makes them want to flee. But a good elevator speech isn't easy: it needs to pique your interlocutor's interest, engage them, articulate what you do in terms they understand and can relate to. Shields' post will help you prepare that speech, the one people like to hear, the one that demonstrates the value you add, the one that just might get you to Step 2. Read it, and start practicing. Because, as the saying goes, you only have one chance to make a first impression.

Today's Law Marketing Resource

Kevin Houchin's "4 Questions: Finding Your Authentic Marketing Niche" at Lawyerist. What do you like to do and are really good at? For most of us, questions like this are not particularly easy to answer, but if you're embarking on a law practice, you can't ignore them. Read the post. Answer the questions. The bonus? You get advice like this:

Following the money first is the wrong move because if you don’t have a passion for the work and the people you will NEVER stick with the niche long enough for the investment of energy, time, and money to pay off.