The Attorney Marketing Center--Earn More. Work Less

3 questions readers want to know about your article

June 24, 2024 by David M. Ward

Everyone who sees your article, video, podcast, report, or other piece of content asks themselves 3 questions to determine if that content is worth their time consuming:

What is the subject?
What will I get out of reading it?
How long will it take me to read this?

First, they read your headline or title, to learn the subject of your article. They can’t read everything and will choose subjects that are relevant, important or interesting.

Second, they ask what they (might) get out of reading the article. They consider the subject and what they know about you. Have they gotten value out of your previous content? Do they see you as an authority on the subject? Do they like reading what you write?

Third, they decide how long it will take for them to read your article, based on the length and complexity of the information. This helps them decide to read it immediately or save it for later when they have more time.

And they make those decisions quickly.

Therefore, do your best to

Know your audience. What do they need and want to know? What problems do they want to solve? What information do they want you to provide?
Focus on crafting a title or headline that conveys the benefits of reading the article
Make your content easy to read (short sentences and paragraphs, simple language (mostly)
Consider where your readers see your content, i.e., on your blog, social media, Medium, or in their email
Consider a mix of brief articles that can be skimmed, and longer, comprehensive articles

Finally, writing often is more important than writing brilliantly. Your job is to keep your name in front of your audience and remind them what you do and how you can help them. Do that regularly and when they need your help, or know someone who does, they’ll see you as the best choice.

Filed Under: Content creation

What do you like best about this article?

June 21, 2024 by David M. Ward

What would you like me to change? How often would you like to hear from me? What topics would you like me to cover?

Just a few of the questions you can ask the readers of your blog or newsletter via a survey or poll.

You can find out if they think you publish too often or not often enough. If they like the topics you write about or want to you write about other subjects. If they have questions about the subject or any other subject.

And they’ll tell you.

You’ll get valuable feedback about what you’re doing, ideas for future content, and learn how often your readers want you to post or publish.

Maybe you need to make some improvements. Or maybe you’re doing things just right.

But be careful. You won’t always get the truth.

Readers often say things they think they should say (or they think you want to hear) rather than what they really think or want. So take everything with a grain of salt and look for patterns.

If a significant percentage want you to write shorter pieces or publish less often, or they want you to write a follow-up to your last post, you should at least consider it.

The goal is to find out what they want so you can give it to them, get more engagement with your content, grow your following, and ultimately, get more clients.

You can do this with surveys or polls or by simply asking readers to reply to your email or add a comment to your blog post. You can use Google Forms, plugins provided by your web host or newsletter service provider or by WordPress.

You can ask simple yes or no questions, multiple-choice questions, or fill in the blank questions.

When they reply, you’ll learn more about what your audience wants in terms of your legal services, get ideas for future content, and grow your subscriber list as readers share your content with others.

And yes, you can do that without using additional software. Just ask readers to reply to your email or add a comment to your blog.

Even if only a few readers reply to your questions, everyone will read them and your replies or follow-up posts where you report the results of your poll (if you do that), all of which makes it more likely that your readers will respond to a future poll, or decide they need to contact you about their issue because your poll prompted them to do that.

Make sense?

If it does, reply to this post and tell me you’re going to ask your readers a question or two in your next post.

See, as easy as that.

Filed Under: Blogging, Newsletters

When should you publish (and how often)?

June 19, 2024 by David M. Ward

What are the best days for you to publish blog posts or other content? Which days get the most “opens,” sign ups, forms filled out, clicks and engagement?

Check your stats.

You might find that Tuesday gets far more opens than other days of the week, in which case you should consider making Tuesday your publication day.

But, there’s a problem. You typically need enough subscribers to see enough of a statistical variation to matter, and most lawyers don’t.

If your list is relatively small, other factors besides the day(s) of the week can affect opens and other metrics. So which day(s) you publish might not be important.

How often you publish is another story.

Publishing once a week will bring better results than publishing once a month. The more often you show up in their inbox, the more your subscribers will get to know you. If they like what you write, they will read most of your messages, look forward to them, and act on them.

So, publish as often as possible.

Once a week is good. Depending on your market and practice area, two or three times a week, or even every weekday as I do, is (usually) better.

It allows you to build a relationship with your readers, and that can make all the difference. It’s better to have 100 subscribers who like and trust you than 10,000 who aren’t sure who you are.

Won’t you get more opt-outs if you publish more often? Probably. But you’re not writing a newsletter for everyone who happens to be on your list. You’re writing for the ones who love you and can’t get enough of you.

The ones who read you because you teach them things they need or want to know. Because you inspire them, give them ideas, make them laugh, and otherwise lighten their burdens and make their life better.

You don’t have to write brilliant or lengthy articles or posts, or give away the store. You simply need to provide value and publish often enough to stay in your subscribers minds and hearts.

How to write an email newsletter that builds relationships

Filed Under: Email, Newsletters, Relationship marketing

Common sense email marketing

June 18, 2024 by David M. Ward

Everyone gets unsolicited email and I’m no exception. It’s usually from complete strangers but sometimes it’s from people I know (or knew), who apparently believe that because I know them, or subscribed to their list at some point or bought something from them in the past, it’s okay to continue to send me offers even though I opted out or never opted in.

It’s not okay. It’s annoying, and doesn’t make me want to do business with them. No matter how attractive their offers might be.

Why do they go to the bother? Because they get enough response to their offers to be profitable and not enough complaints to deter them.

Word to the wise. Don’t be that guy. Don’t send unsolicited commercial email, even if it works.

For one thing, it may violate the rules of professional conduct and anti-spam laws in some countries.

It’s okay to send a personal email to someone you don’t know, inquiring about or inviting them to something you have reason to believe might interest them, but don’t sign them up for your newsletter or put them on an email list.

But also don’t be that guy who refuses to offer free information (or services) because you don’t want to be tarnished with the same brush as those spammers. Offering free information or services to people who ask for it is not only a respectable way to market your services, it’s a great way to market your services.

It can help you get more inquires or leads, more sign-ups for your seminar or followers for your channel, help you build a bigger and more responsive mailing list, and bring you a lot of new clients.

Just use a little common sense. And treat people the way you’d like to be treated.

Always tell people what you will do with their email when they sign up, e.g., subscribe them to your newsletter or send them your report, and also what you won’t do, e.g., spam them or sell their email address to third parties. Tell them you respect their privacy and they can opt out at any time.

Your prospects and clients will respect you for respecting them, and reward you for it.

Email marketing for attorneys

Filed Under: Email, Marketing legal services, Online Marketing

Use more legalese, not less

June 17, 2024 by David M. Ward

Many experts tell you to “speak like your prospective clients speak,” mirroring and matching their language, word choices, and style, so they will more easily understand and relate to you.

They say that most people don’t have a legal background and might be confused and/or intimated by your use of legal terminology and references.

Basically, they’re saying “don’t talk like a lawyer”.

I disagree.

Prospects are looking for a lawyer or looking to learn something that might lead to hiring a lawyer. They expect you to act and speak like a lawyer, and if you don’t, they may think you don’t have the requisite experience and gravitas they’re seeking.

In addition, using appropriate legal terms will help people searching for those terms to find you.

So don’t eschew Latin and legal terms-of-art. But make sure to explain what those terms mean and use examples and stories to give them context that might be important to your reader.

You want your reader to understand you but you also want them to know you understand them. So, also make sure you speak like them.

Localize your message by using your target market’s terminology and references. Mention the names of well-known people in their industry or market, for example, as well as problems and solutions that are familiar to them.

Do both and not only will your readers and listeners better understand your message and how it applies to them, they will be more likely to see you as a better choice for them than other lawyers who don’t speak their language.

Filed Under: Communication, Content creation, Writing

Uncle!

June 14, 2024 by David M. Ward

In marketing legal services, we typically show people something they didn’t know or confirm something they thought they knew. We educate them about the law, the risks, the penalties, the options, and the benefits of taking action, i.e., hiring us.

Besides “telling,” we also persuade them by dramatizing what they know (or what we’ve just told them) by making the risks and penalties more formidable and urgent, and/or the benefits and relief more enticing.

We do the latter by providing more information, arguments, or examples, or agitating what we’ve told them by adding more fuel to the fire. Some copywriters call this “twisting the knife”.

We want them to feel more emotions, enough to tip the balance in favor of taking the next step. If they’re scared, that means scaring them more, but not so much that they shut down.

A little can go a long way.

The key is to talk about things they care about and make the threat or promise more likeable and believable.

The most important place to do that is in your headline or title. Show them you understand them and have something important for them, and they will be more likely to notice, click, and read your message.

In the body of your message, you continue to twist the knife.

Enough to make them cry ‘Uncle,’ but not enough to kill them.

Filed Under: Copywriting, Marketing legal services

Clients, not cases

June 13, 2024 by David M. Ward

There’s a singer I like and I watch a lot of reaction videos of her. On one video, a reactor who is his himself a singer, instantly fell in love with her and not just because of her voice and performance.

Among other traits, her humility impressed him. Even though she did her own version of a classic song, she showed respect for the original and the person who sang it.

“It’s not about her,” he said. “It’s about the song.”

Which made me think about the practice of law. Most lawyers see a new client in terms of the legal work—the case, the problem, the risks, and the solution. They focus on the work. Instead, they should focus on the client.

Of course, the work is important. But the client is more important. They are a person (or an entity composed of people) who need us to comfort them and guide them, to make them feel good about what we’re doing for them, and thus, good about themselves.

We can build a relationship with the client, which allows us to do a better job for them. And the client may have other work for us, either now or in the future, and a lifetime of business or personal contacts they can introduce to us, and will because of that relationship.

Think clients, not cases.

Filed Under: Client relations, success

You don’t have to be good if you do this

June 12, 2024 by David M. Ward

We want to be good at our work, but it’s not a prerequisite. We all start somewhere and often that means starting badly. I sure did. Maybe you did, too.

We had to be good enough to do the work, but not necessarily “So good they can’t ignore you” as Cal Newport says.

That’s the goal, but for most of us, not where we start.

Where do we start? What is it that allows us to survive long enough to become good?

Being prolific.

Handle enough small cases, draft enough simple documents, meet enough people, write enough articles, do enough presentations, run enough ads, post enough posts, and eventually, we not only pay our bills, we get good.

So good, they can’t ignore us.

How do we become prolific? By showing up every day, creating value for one or more clients and doing something to market our practice.

That’s it. We don’t have to do anything special. We don’t have to land the big case or client.. We just have to show up and do the work, and the next day, do it again.

Filed Under: success

You need another project

June 11, 2024 by David M. Ward

If I looked at your planner or task app, I would no doubt see several projects you’re working on, or are about to do. That’s good. When you finish one project, or run out of steam and don’t want to work on it right now, you have other projects you can work without delay.

That’s how you stay productive and get things done.

At the risk of overwhelming you, I’m going to suggest you add one more project to your list.

Not another regular project related to your work or personal “Areas”. Something different.

It might be a side business, an investment, a social or political venture, or a hobby. Something fun and exciting to work on when you’re not doing what you usually do.

Maybe you’ll finally write the novel you’ve dreamed about, or do something else creative. Maybe you’ll start an online business that brings in extra income or (finally) allows you to retire.

Your new project or initiative will give you something exciting to look forward to, and work on when you want to. No pressure. No guilt about taking time away from your usual work or obligations.

And there’s the thing. Even if your new project or venture doesn’t go anywhere, even if you fall flat on your face or abandon it in a few weeks, you will have learned some new things, been able to forget about the news or your problems, and restarted your dream machine.

We all need to tilt at windmills from time to time. It keeps us sane. And sometimes, leads to great adventures.

Filed Under: Increase your income, Inspiration, Just for fun

Lion or cow?

June 10, 2024 by David M. Ward

I saw a post that said, “Creative people shouldn’t work Monday through Friday, 9 to 5, moving slowly, like a cow who grazes throughout the day.

Instead, they should work like a lion:

Sit
Wait for prey
Sprint
Eat
Rest
Repeat

So, naturally, I thought about attorneys and marketing.

Here’s how I see things:

Unless we’re new, we should focus primarily on our warm market, e.g., our existing clients and contacts, and rely mostly on repeat business and referrals. When you’ve been around long enough and built a sizeable client base, you might never have to do anything else.

But when we’re new, or hungry, or want to be the King of the Jungle, we go into the cold market and bring in some fresh meat.

There’s a time to run and catch new clients and a time to do our work and let the clients catch us.

How to get more referrals

Filed Under: Marketing legal services, Referrals