Content creation Archives - Page 8 of 14 - The Attorney Marketing Center

2 questions that can get you out of a jam

September 15, 2022 by David M. Ward

You’re blank. You don’t know what to talk about or write. Relax. I’ve got 2 handy-dandy questions you can use as your go-to idea starter.

The first question: What do I want them to know?

What do you want the reader (audience, interviewer, new contact, etc.) to know about the law, about your services, or about you?

What do you want your new client to know about his case, what you’ll do first, and what might happen?

What do you want people to know about how you can help them or why they should choose you?

What do you want your clients to know about making a referral, writing a review, or when they should update their docs?

So much you want them to know. You could write or talk for days.

Okay, second question: What do you want them to do?

What do you want your new client to send you? What do you want them to do if an investigator calls? What do you want them to tell their doctor?

What do you want the reader to do after they read your article? What do you want your website visitor to do before they leave your site?

What do you want someone to do if they have questions? Want to make an appointment? Want more information? Aren’t sure they can afford it?

Use these questions to brainstorm ideas for content, correspondence, or conversation.

If you still run dry, ask yourself, “What else do I want them to know or do?”

Filed Under: Content creation

Steal this blog post

September 13, 2022 by David M. Ward

I’ve had people steal my content. One guy took one of my sales letters and published it as an ebook on Amazon.

The nerve.

But once I got over the shock of someone doing that, I realized it’s nothing to worry about, or try to stop.

You shouldn’t, either.

You shouldn’t worry about anyone stealing your content or idea. If that’s something on your mind, let it go.

You’ve got better things to do.

The time and energy you might put into stopping them could be much better used creating new content and new ideas, or building on what you’ve already done.

I know this might trigger some IP practitioners, but think about it. Even if you could stop someone from stealing and using your stuff, is it really worth the effort?

Don’t take that case.

Besides, the purloiner of your content isn’t going to do as well with it as you do because it’s your baby, not there’s.

You’re writing to and for your readers. You have a relationship with them and your content resonates with them. It has your personality and style, your stories and examples, watermarked on it, and anyone who tries to pass it off as their own is going to fall flat.

Even if someone successfully passes off your stuff as their own, even if they make a fortune with your idea, so what? If you have an abundant mindset, you know there’s plenty for everyone.

If you are worried about someone stealing your content, the best thing you can do is avoid writing generic articles and posts. Write something that carries your brand.

Spend your time creating good content, not looking over your shoulder.

Filed Under: Blogging, Content creation, Writing

Batch and grow rich

September 8, 2022 by David M. Ward

Just about every productivity book or article today talks about the value of batching or bunching tasks. Don’t respond to one email, they say, answer most or all of them in one sitting. Or designate “theme days”—one day a week to work on one of your projects or areas of focus.

Tuesday might be marketing day. Thursday afternoon might be time to catch up on your reading or research.

It’s more efficient this way because instead of starting from scratch each time, we can leverage the different states of mind and pacing of different activities . Sometimes, you also benefit from the economy of scale, meaning you get more out of each task because you’re doing them in batches, alongside other, similar tasks.

One area this is true is in content creation.

If you write a weekly blog or newsletter, each time you sit down to come up with a topic, you’re starting from scratch. You have other things on your mind, and switching contexts to do something different can be difficult, especially if you’re behind.

It’s much easier to write when you don’t have to find a topic, you already have one lined up.

That’s where batching comes in.

The next time you brainstorm a topic, brainstorm several. Don’t limit yourself to just today’s topic, find topics for the next week or month or longer.

Not only will this save time and allow to write without pressure, it also allows you to develop themes for your blog or newsletter, making your content creation even easier, and arguably easier.

For example, this month you might write a series of posts about trending issues in your field. Each post could talk about a different case or argument or one of the stakeholders. One post might talk about the history, another post about the future.

One idea, several topics.

Another example would be a series of posts about the stages of handling a case:

Intake
Investigation
Liability
Damages
Demand
Negotiation
Settlement
Litigation, discovery, trial, post-trial. . .

You could get one or several posts about each of these stages. If you do a weekly blog or article, you could get three months’ worth of topics around that one theme.

Note, you don’t have to publish those posts sequentially. You could instead spread them out over six months and fill in the other weeks with content around a different theme.

Another way to create topics in batches might be to make a list of resources you recommend to your readers or clients—consumer tips or agencies or business organizations, for example.

Dedicate each post to sharing one or more of those resources, along with your experiences, observations, or explanations.

Another idea might be a series featuring some of your business clients’ businesses or products. Or a series based on war stories from several notable cases you’ve had.

Once you have a list of topics, put them on a content calendar or in your reminders app, and the next time you have a post due, you won’t have to scramble to find a topic.

You might also want to schedule your next brainstorming session, to come up with your next theme or bunch of topics.

Where to get more ideas and how to use them

Filed Under: Blogging, Content creation, Newsletters

Should lawyers outsource content creation?

August 19, 2022 by David M. Ward

You can hire people to write blog posts and newsletters and other content. Should you?

It depends on what you intend to do with it.

If you intend to use your content to connect with people who can hire you or refer you, the answer is no.

Write your own content. You can’t outsource you.

People connect with you and hire you because they relate to you. They hire you not just because of what you know, but because of who you are.

Let them hear your voice, not a generic voice speaking about generic legal issues. Let them hear about the cases and clients you’ve helped and what you did to help them.

Let them get a taste of your personality and a sense of what it is like to have you as their attorney.

You can have people help you with research and editing your content, but that content should come from you.

On the other hand, if you intend to use content to generate traffic and leads, for advertising and direct mail and other purposes where a “generic” you might be sufficient, it’s okay to hire people to create that content for you.

Some attorneys buy “canned” newsletters from companies that provide the same newsletters to many attorneys. The attorneys don’t pretend this content is coming from them, however. It is (or should be) positioned as “from the firm”.

Attorneys who buy canned content know (or should know) this content won’t do much more for them than allow them to put something in their subscribers’ mailboxes and remind them they are still around.

There’s nothing wrong with this.

It’s better than sending no content to clients and prospects. Much better.

Some attorneys send out a canned newsletter and also write their own content, which they publish in a separate newsletter.

Their content is by them and from them and uses stories and examples from their practice. It is this content that builds trust and relationships with readers.

Similarly, some attorneys outsource content for a blog, and use that blog to attract search traffic. They might have several such blogs, each focused on different practice areas and keywords and markets, all of which send traffic to their regular website or into their lead capture funnels.

But again, they don’t (or shouldn’t) position that blog or those blogs as having been written by them.

They might also write their own content, but, as with a newsletter, it should be separate from the outsourced lead generation blog.

Outsourcing some of your content creation might be right for your practice. But it will never do what your own content can do.

How to write an email newsletter that brings in more business

Filed Under: Blogging, Content creation, Newsletters, Online Marketing

What is quality content?

August 11, 2022 by David M. Ward

If you can write and publish more content than your competition, you should. But while quantity might bring more traffic to your digital door, it is the quality of your content that will convert that traffic into leads and new clients.

What is quality content? It’s content that is more likely to get someone to read it and take the next step.

Here are the key elements:

Benefits. Especially in the headline and lead. Show the reader you have something they want; make them curious to read your post to learn more about it.
Specific. Specialized content from a specialist. Talk about a specific issue or problem, and the solution, and address it to a specific reader who has that problem.
Interesting. Don’t bore people with boring information or overwhelm them with too much of it.
Stories. Tell readers about people like them with problems like theirs who came to you for help and got it.
Conversational. Write to them, not at them. Don’t make it all about you. Ask questions to draw them into the content.
Easy to read. Plain language, scannable (short sentences and paragraphs, lots of white space, sub-heads, bullet points).
Call(s) to action. Tell them what to do next and why. Make it easy to do that by highlighting your phone number, form, or link.
Email opt-in form. So you can stay in touch with them and continue to market to them, because most people don’t hire a lawyer the first time they visit their site.

Those are the basics. Get these right and you get an A.

For extra credit, consider:

Variety. Short and long articles for those who want them.
Involvement devices: quizzes, questionnaires, checklists, forms.
Visuals: graphics, charts, videos.
Service-related offers. You may not have one in every post, but when you do, promote it and limit it (time, quantity) to make it more valuable and create a fear of loss.
Why you: They can find this in your About page, testimonials, and other pages on your site, but if you see a place to mention something compelling about you or your practice, do it.
Links to related content, so they can drill down and learn more.

Ultimately, you want quality and quantity. But since most of your visitors will be first-time visitors and, statistically speaking, are unlikely to return to your site, better to have 10 great posts than 100 that don’t provide a great first impression.

This will help

Filed Under: Content creation, Writing

Could this be true?

August 2, 2022 by David M. Ward

I was on social media the other day. Yes, I do that occasionally. A company had surveyed a group of lawyers, asking them what they wanted out of their practice, and posted the results.

Nearly everyone said they wanted better systems and automation, to make their practice run more smoothly. They also wanted more affordable help.

Makes sense.

What doesn’t make sense is that only 14% said they wanted help with marketing—“getting more good clients, more reliably.”

Why so low? Who doesn’t want more good clients? What’s going on here?

Ah, what’s going on is that the firm that conducted the survey helps lawyers automate their practice. So their clients’ and followers’ primary interest is in becoming more organized and efficient.

That’s their bias.

Go ahead and survey a cross-section of attorneys and I think your results might be a little different.

Of course my list is also biased. If I did a survey, I’m sure I’d find that most want more good clients and cases.

Because who doesn’t want more good clients?

Okay, some lessons.

Before you draw any conclusions about the results of a survey, make sure you know who’s conducting it and of whom.
Surveys are a great way to engage your list. People like to share their opinion and are curious to see what other people say about the subject.
Surveys are an easy way to generate content for a blog or newsletter and social media. I just did that and it wasn’t even my survey.

Go forth and survey some folks. Or find someone else’s survey and talk about it.

Filed Under: Blogging, Content creation, Newsletters Tagged With: engagement, surveys

The best place to find ideas for your blog or newsletter

July 21, 2022 by David M. Ward

Ideas for blog posts and articles and other content are literally everywhere.

Find a post written by an attorney or other expert in your field, for example, and write a post about the same subject.

You can even use their article as a template. Rewrite the headline and bullet points, add your own comments, recommendations, and examples, and be done in minutes.

Make sure you follow the blogs and subscribe to the newsletters published by attorneys in your field.

Yes?

It is a quick and easy source of ideas. But there’s something even better.

I’m talking about the blogs and publications written for and read by the people in your target market.

If you want to represent people in the health care industry, read what they read, and write about the things they’re doing, talking about, worried about, hoping for, or working towards.

Write about the issues, the people, and the tends, in their niche. Write about the things they care about.

Other lawyers may write about generic legal topics. When you write about topics that are specific to an industry, occupation, or niche, your content will resonate with readers in that niche.

Your content will also be completely original. And valuable to the people in your target market, which means they are more likely to see you as the go-to expert in their market, and share your content with their colleagues and contacts in that market.

Write niche-specific content and you can own your niche.

How to write content your readers what to read

Filed Under: Blogging, Content creation, Newsletters

10 questions for you

June 29, 2022 by David M. Ward

In this post are 10 questions you might be asked in an interview. Review them and note how you might respond.

The questions can also prompt you to write things people want to know about you for your website’s “About” page, in your bio, or your introduction.

You can also use these questions to write 10 blog posts, telling readers about yourself and what you do.

The questions:

What does a (type) lawyer do?
What types of clients do you represent?
What’s your favorite part of your job?
Why should a client hire you instead of any other lawyer?
What’s your favorite marketing strategy?
What’s the hardest part of your job?
Have you had any unusual cases or clients?
What’s the most important thing you want new clients to know or do?
How is your work/the law different today than when you started practicing?
What book(s) are you reading right now?

These questions are necessarily generic. Edit, re-write, and add additional questions to your list to suit your practice and personality.

What do you want people to know about you and what you do? What would they find interesting? What do people ask you at parties?

Finally, you can use these questions when you interview another lawyer for your blog or newsletter. And you should do that because you’ll get some easy content and the lawyer you interview might reciprocate and interview you for their blog or newsletter.

I wrote a book based entirely on an interview I did with a very successful appellate attorney friend who does a great job marketing his services. Here’s the book; here’s what I did to write it.

Filed Under: Content creation, Marketing legal services Tagged With: interviews

The problem with story telling

June 27, 2022 by David M. Ward

I once had a client who asked me to. . .

Yeah, a story.

You probably want to hear how it goes. But I’m not going to tell you that story right now, I’m going to give you some advice about story telling.

My first piece of advice is to do it. Put stories in your articles and presentations and conversations.

People love a good story, which means they’ll be more likely to read or listen to you when you tell one. They’ll be more likely to understand and remember your story, more than your other words, and remember you as the one who shared it with them.

Facts tell. Stories sell.

Second, talk about people your reader will relate to, and tell them three things:

What did they want? What did they do? What happened?

The essence of every story ever told.

Third, use “The Goldilocks Rule”: Not too much, not too little, just right.

People love stories, but they don’t have time to read them when they are impossibly long or there are too many in your emails or blog posts.

If they wanted to read a book, they’d read a book.

Which is why most of my emails and blog posts are short and sweet and yours should be, too.

The good news is that you can tell a good story in a few sentences.

Like the time a friend asked me to sign a letter she had written to her landlord, with my name and address typed at the top and filled with typos, and when I refused and told her I would write the letter, on my letterhead, she was hurt and thought I just wanted to ‘make money off her’.

One sentence.

I need one more sentence to tell you ‘what happened’.

What happened is she dropped the subject but never forgot that I ‘refused to help her’ (the way she wanted) and our friendship was never the same after that.

Stories don’t always have a happy ending.

Anyway, I’m done telling that story. I’ve got another one to tell you, but that will have to wait until next time.

If you related to my story, maybe remembered a time a friend or client asked you to do something you didn’t want to do, I’m pretty sure you’ll come back to hear another.

Which is what your readers will do when you tell them stories. But not too many or too long.

Filed Under: Blogging, Communication, Content creation, Writing

Playing with words

June 23, 2022 by David M. Ward

Sometimes, I get an idea for a blog post, write it, and add a title. Sometimes, I start with a title and start writing without knowing what I want to say.

It’s all good. And sometimes, it’s a lot of fun.

The other day, I read the phrase, “Use it or lose it” which we’ve all heard a thousand times and thought I could use this as the title of a post about the value of practice and keeping your “instrument” well tuned.

I thought I might get a good article out of it. But I’m weird.

When I see a phrase like “Use it or lose it,” I play with the words. I turn them around, mix and match them with other words, punch the sentence in the face, kick it in the groin, and see what happens.

Sometimes nothing happens. Sometimes, something interesting emerges and I use it.

In this case, I turned “Use it or lose it” into “Lose it or use it” and wrote about “losing” bad habits so you don’t use them and make bad things happen like alienating your clients.

And I got a pretty good article out of it. Arguably better than what I would have written had I stuck with the original meaning of the words.

If you’d like to add a creative spark to your writing, consider playing with your words. It can help you look at things differently and generate ideas you might never have thought of.

Try it. Go find a quote, aphorism, song or movie title, or other pop culture reference, and give it a poke in the eye. Twist and turn it and see what you come up.

If nothing else, you’ll come up with something original that people will notice and remember.

It works especially well when you start with something well known. Your readers will recognize something familiar in your title and be curious. Is this a typo? Is something missing? What’s this all about?

And read your article to find out.

If so, mission accomplished.

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