Blog: Marketing Archive
Categories: Marketing•
on June 11th, 2010•
Want an easy way to showcase your firm and provide useful information to clients and potential clients? Get yourself a digital photo frame and set it up in your reception area. Digital photo frames have dropped in price over the past year and are now very affordable.
What can you do with a digital photo frame? A lot. Below are just a few ideas, and I bet you and your team can come up with even more.
- Include photos of everyone on your team with their names and positions. And if it works for your firm’s culture maybe a funky fun fact: Mary Jones, Full-Time Paralegal and Part-Time Gourmet Cook.
- Include photos of happy clients. This is a great option for estate planning attorneys and adoption attorneys.
- Does your firm support a local charity or foundation? Include photos from events you’ve attended.
- Do you mentor law students or high school students? Include photos of you working with them.
- Create a PowerPoint* presentation with information about your firm and practice areas.
- Create a PowerPoint presentation of testimonials from clients. Consider this the 21st Century version of a book of handwritten notes or framed notes hung on your wall. (Check the Rules of Professional Responsibility in your jurisdiction with respect to testimonials.)
*PowerPoint presentations will need to be converted to video. Wondershare PPT to Video software converts PowerPoint presentations to video that will play on a digital photo frame, iPhone or iPad. Click here to learn more about Wondershare PPT to Video software at cnet.
For a small investment of time and money, your digital photo frame can become one of your best marketing tools.
Categories: Marketing•
on June 1st, 2010•
A comprehensive guide to service marketing furnishes tips and advice on how one can apply one’s business knowledge to any area of sales and marketing, from a home-based consultancy to a multinational brokerage firm. Read more or buy it…
Categories: Client Development, Marketing•
on January 19th, 2010•
Have you taken a good look at your business card lately? In this era of electronic everything, your little old business card can still speak volumes about you and your practice. A well-designed business card is like having your laser talk in your pocket – or purse.
Maybe you’re thinking, “But I don’t have a laser talk.” Well, re-thinking your business card is a great reason to get one! Remember, your laser talk can – and should – be the genesis for all of your marketing. Or maybe you’re thinking, “But I’m a lawyer, how can I get creative with my business card?” If you’re a creative person, you may be able to come up with some fresh ideas on your own. If not, consider hiring a designer to work with you. It will be money well spent.
To get you started, check out these “10 Creative Business Card Ideas” from Inc. Magazine. And then if you’re still thinking, “Well that’s cool stuff. But I’m a lawyer, I can’t do anything that creative,” take a look at the business card at the top of this post. That’s the business card for Charleston, South Carolina, family law attorney, Melissa F. Brown. (In the interest of full disclosure, Melissa is one of my clients. And yes, I’m bragging on her!) The business card, a Charleston garden gate, opens to visually represent her laser talk: “Helping individuals cross thresholds to new lives.” The theme of her laser talk is reinforced in all of her marketing materials and on her web site: www.melissa-brown.com
Melissa’s laser talk and business cards are unique. And, guess what, yours will be, too. Begin by focusing on your laser talk. You might be amazed at where that takes you!
Categories: Client Development, Marketing•
on November 15th, 2009•
You don’t get up in the morning, brush your teeth and say, “Whew, that’s done! Don’t have to worry about that for another month.” Think of marketing like brushing your teeth. You don’t brush your teeth once a month or once a week. You brush your teeth every day, twice a day, maybe three times a day. Just like brushing your teeth, you’ve got to focus on your marketing every day. You can’t go to an event and say, “OK, I’ve done my marketing for the month.” Nope. You’ve got to do a little bit every day. Make a phone call each day to a referral source. Send an email. Write a note. Go to lunch. Have a beer. Play a game of golf. Go shopping.
Here’s the other thing about brushing your teeth and marketing. You don’t have to think about brushing your teeth. It’s a habit. A good habit. I want you to make marketing a habit, something you do without thinking about it.
One of my clients told me recently that she’d been approached by a partner from a large business law firm. She’s a sole practitioner with a successful entertainment law practice. She’s worked in big firms before and has no desire to go back. She told me that a year ago she would have said, “No, thank you,” and that would have been that. But now, she says, “I told him that I appreciated the offer, but wanted to keep my own firm. Then I told him I’d love to have lunch with him and find out how we could each help each other. I never used to think that way.” When you make marketing a habit, you’ll begin to see marketing opportunities everywhere.
Categories: Client Development, Marketing•
on October 5th, 2009•
Attorneys tell me all the time, “Nora, I’m no good at marketing. I’m just not a natural marketer. I don’t like talking about myself.” I tell them, “Phooey! You can learn to be a natural marketer.” Before we go any further, let’s define marketing. According to the American Marketing Association, “Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.” Whew. That’s a mouthful. Here’s a simpler way to say it: Marketing is about knowing what you do, knowing who your ideal clients are, and building relationships that get those clients knocking on your door.
So you’re thinking, “Of course, I know what I do. I’m a lawyer. And a fine one, at that.” OK, but being a lawyer is part of who you are, not what you “do.” As a lawyer, you guide people through some of the most difficult and challenging times of their lives. Maybe you help them survive the break-up of a marriage or a business. Maybe you help them find a way to survive after an injury leaves them unable to work or they’ve been illegally fired from a job. Knowing what you “do,” and how you help people is critical to marketing your services. It might be difficult for you to talk about yourself, but you should be able to speak with passion about what you do for your clients.
Next you need to know who your ideal clients are. When you know who your ideal clients are, then you can begin to develop relationships with those people that surround your ideal clients. Let’s say, you’re a family law attorney, and your ideal clients are professional people with a high net worth. Who are those types of people surrounded by? How about starting with financial planners, investment bankers, and business law attorneys? Once you know who your ideal clients are and the types of people they are surrounded by, then you can get to work building relationships with the right people.
Finally, you need to build real relationships that create great referrals for you. The focus here is on “real relationships,” not relationships just for the purpose of getting referrals, but relationships out of which great referrals grow. In my example above, I mentioned business law attorneys as great referral source for a family law attorney. There are a lot of business law attorneys out there. But you’re not going to build relationships with all of them. You’re going to meet as many business law attorneys as you can, and then, you’re going to build relationships with the one, or two or three that you really hit it off with. You’re going to build real relationships with people you like, and you’re going to get to know them and trust them. And they’re going to get to know, like and trust you. You’re going to become a great referral source for them, and they for you. It’s a beautiful thing!
“It is the heart that makes a man rich. He is rich according to what he is, not according to what he has.”- Henry Ward Beecher
Whether or not you agree that the country is in a recession, there’s no denying that we’re experiencing a downturn in the economy. While the economy has some effect on all law firms, it’s often solo and small firm practitioners who feel the pinch of tough economy more acutely than larger firms. So, how do you find the silver lining in the economic rain cloud hanging over our heads? Here are a few suggestions.
Understand the Motivation of Crisis
You know the old saying, “Necessity is the mother of invention.” Well, bad economic times can create the pressure needed to move your practice to the next level. Just as pressure turns coal to diamonds, economic pressure can help to make your firm more profitable than ever. In a recent study by the Omnia Group, business owners reported that the refocusing of business priorities (37%) was the chief benefit of the current economy. Reinforcing client relationships was second (24.7%). Other responses included: finding and cutting unnecessary costs (19.8%); overdue company reorganization (8.6%); and adding additional products or services (6.2%). Use this time to carefully reassess (reinvent) your practice. You may find answers that will change your practice and your life for the better.
Save gas. Shorten your commute.
Work from a home office.
I know there are solos who’ve decided to close their offices and work from home, as a result of the downturn in recent months. While many might view this as a “bad thing,” that’s not necessarily the case. Thanks to the technology available today, it’s possible to “work” from just about anywhere. There are attorneys across the country in all types of practice areas that have very successful home office firms.
If you’re considering creating a home office, there are a number of resources available to support you. Check out a blog called the Home Office Lawyer.
Focus on the DREAM of becoming a great brand
In one of my favorite books, Love is the Killer App, by Tim Sanders, Tim refers to The Brand Mindset, by Duane Knapp, for a discussion of realizing your DREAM of becoming a great brand. Your “brand” is who you are, what you stand for, and how you are thought of in the community. The best law firms understand the value of creating a great brand. If things are slow for you now, use the time to focus on your brand.
In the Acronym DREAM…
D stands for Differentiation
Successful law firms need to find new ways to differentiate themselves from their competitors in order to build a great brand.
R stands for Relevance
In order to really stand out and apart from the crowd, you must make yourself relevant to others. Keep your knowledge base constantly expanding and share your knowledge with your colleagues and clients. Think in terms of providing useful knowledge via your web site, blogs, podcasts or eNewsletters. – Don’t have a web site? Use this time to create one. Check out www.netidnow.com, an online service that allows you to create your own professional web site for a very reasonable cost. The service is pretty easy to use, even if you’re not a techie.
E stands for Esteem
Esteem builds on relevance. We all want to work with people we know, like and trust. When you act in ways that build “know, like and trust,” you create high esteem. When people hold you in high esteem, they naturally want to work with you.
A is for Awareness
The more you have to offer, the more people will be aware of you. The more people (clients, influencers) are aware of you, the more business they will refer to you.
M is for the Mind’s Eye
Being distinctive in the mind’s eye of a potential client, means creating Top of Mind Awareness (TOMA). As Sanders says, most people have a number of credit cards in their wallet, but 80 percent of their purchases are made with the card at the top of the wallet. Do all you can to create that type of awareness of who you are and what you do.
These economic times will pass, although we don’t know how soon. So make the most of this time. You may look back at 2008 and realize it was a great year for your practice.
