The problem with video marketing

August 8, 2012 by
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Everyone (and his brother) is touting video as THE marketing tool you MUST use. You have to deliver content using sight and sound and movement. You have to entertain people. Nobody reads anymore. Yada yada yada. . .

Of course it’s true that a well done video is a great way to engage people. Video also allows you to control the staging of your material, so you can deliver it for maximum effect. Millions of youtube views per day demonstrate the public’s appetite for video content.

But there’s a problem with using video in marketing: there are too many of them.

With everyone (and his brother) using videos, with so many coming at me every day, I don’t have time to watch them. So I delete the email or close out the web page. Or I bookmark it to watch later, and we all know that later never comes.

A brilliant video that nobody watches is worthless.

The written word is, and always will be, better than video.

People can skim a written message, and get the gist of it. If they like what they see, they will find the time to read more.

People can print a written message. When it’s in front of them on their (real) desktop, they are more likely to read it.

People can read a written message in their email inbox, without doing anything more than opening it.

And if people read your message, even if it is only mediocre, it will always outperform the brilliant video they do not watch.

I’m not saying ‘don’t use video’ in your marketing. Use it if you can. Audios, too. A lot of people like to listen while they are commuting or at the gym.

But if you don’t also use the written word, you’re missing out on a boatload of people who might be interested but didn’t have the time (or bandwidth) to find out.

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Filed Under: Advertising, Communication, Email, Marketing legal services, Presentations, Technology, Web traffic, Writing Tagged With:

Do you ever completely unplug? Me neither.

July 26, 2012 by
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I confess, I’m one of those people who is never completely unplugged.

When I’m not in front of my computer, I have my iPhone with me and it is never off.

I check email every hour, often several times an hour. In fact, in the middle of writing this paragraph, I clicked over to my always open gmail tab to have a quick look.

I can be reached by email or phone or text or instant message at any time of day (or night, if I’m up).

You may think I’m weird. Or you may say, “Me too,” or “That’s nothing. . .”.

In the Woody Allen movie, “Play it Again, Sam,” Tony Roberts plays a character who is obsessed with work and always being connected. Each time we see him he calls into his office to give a phone number of how to contact him and for how long, and then the next contact number.

That’s not me.

I am not a social media junkie. I get on when I can (perhaps once or twice a day), and get off.

I don’t get nearly the number of calls I used to get.

And even though I can receive information at any time, that doesn’t mean I respond to it. Sometimes I do, often I don’t, at least until I’m ready.

I like being connected. If I didn’t, if I was feeling overwhelmed by incoming communications or the need to respond, I would change something.

How about you? Are you always connected? Is it a problem for you? How about for your family?

How about vacations? Do you completely unplug?

I admit I don’t. I’ll shut things off for several hours, but I’m never completely “offline”. When we were in Europe years ago, before I had a smart phone, I made sure there was an Internet cafe within walking distance so I could log on at least once a day.

Michael Hyatt is a very busy and very accomplished individual who recently returned from a 100% unplugged vacation. I don’t think he needed to do it. He seems to lead a very orderly life. He wanted to unplug, and he did.

He wrote about everything he did to prepare for that trip, and it was extensive. He says it was worth it. He came home truly rested, and more in touch with the important things in his life. And because of his preparations, everything at work was just fine without him.

Reading his posts on the subject made me think he is onto something. Taking a vacation without my phone or the Internet, completely unplugged, intrigues me.

If I can just get used to the idea that everything at work will be fine without me.

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Filed Under: Inspiration, Law office management, Personal development, Technology Tagged With: , , ,

Using teleconferences and audio messages to market your law practice

July 24, 2012 by
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I just hosted a conference call for my business partners. It was a twenty minute call with a guest speaker. We could have invited our partners to dial into the call live but in this case, we simply recorded it. We will give the playback number to our partners, but I could also download the recording and either email it or post it on a web page.

Teleconferences allow you to create the excitement of a “live event” for your clients or prospects, and recording allows you to make that event available 24/7.

Here are some uses for teleconferences:

  • Live seminars for prospective clients
  • Informational programs for clients
  • Training employees; instructing new clients
  • Creating audio brochures or reports
  • To capture testimonials
  • Creating information products you can sell or offer as bonuses

You can do one-one-interviews, group presentations with multiple speakers, or simple broadcasts, with or without caller participation.

Speakers use a different code to dial in so they can be heard. Participants can be muted, or they can be allowed to ask questions.

There are many free and paid teleconference services available. The paid services usually offer additional line capacity and features, but for most purposes, the free services work just fine. For today’s call, I used FreeConferenceCall.com, which allows up to 96 callers.

FreeConferenceCall.com has another free service for recording audio messages directly for playback. It works like voice mail, but there is no limit to the length of your recording.

I’ve used this to record introductory messages, aka “sizzle calls,” to generate interest in a product or service I was promoting, for training messages, to record live conference calls for permanent playback, and for FAQ-type messages.

You can get a single audio playback number, or one with “extensions” so the caller can press “option one for information, etc. . .”.) The free version requires callers to dial an extension to listen. There is a paid version ($5/mo.) if you want a direct dial number without an extension or pin number.

The audio recording service can be set for “playback only,” so callers can access information, or you can allow callers to leave a message. This can be used as a lead capture tool for advertised promotions.

I’ve used teleconferences and audio recordings extensively in my businesses, both the paid and free versions, and they are an excellent, low-tech way to communicate with a large number of people. If you have not used these services in your marketing, I encourage you to do so.

A good place to start: set up a free account and record a message, “Three Reasons For Hiring [Your Firm Name] for Your [Legal Issue/Engagement]”.

How have you used teleconferences and audio messages in your practice?

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Filed Under: Communication, Law office management, Marketing legal services, Presentations, Technology Tagged With: , , ,

Marketing legal services the Evernote way

June 27, 2012 by
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You know I’m a big fan of Evernote. I use it all day long for everything I do in my work and in my personal life. I detailed my use in my Evernote for Lawyers ebook.

I’m also a fan of how Evernote does their marketing. They use a “freemium” model–giving away their apps and service for free, believing that users will fall in love with the product and sign up for the paid service.

Their free service is not stripped down. It has everything most people would want. The paid version provides additional capacity and features.

Evernote understands that the more people who use their free service, and the longer they use it, the more who will subscribe and pay.

Evernote does not advertise. They rely on word of mouth–satisfied users sharing their experiences with the product.

Their model works. Evernote has some 40 million free users and 1.4 million paid subscribers. They have recently achieved a billion dollar valuation.

Attorneys who offer free consultations are following a similar marketing model. The more free consultations they give, the more paying clients they get. Some attorneys take things a step further, offering not just free consultations but free services to get prospective clients to “try before they buy”. If you offer a free will, for example, a certain percentage of clients will want to upgrade to a trust or other paid services.

Evernote does not pressure users to upgrade. They provide upgrade links in their desktop, web, and mobile apps, but users are reminded to upgrade only when they try to use a paid feature or go beyond their free monthly usage limit.

There’s something attractive about a company that doesn’t push you. They give you value, lets you know there’s more available, and leave it up to you to come to them. Contrast that to what many companies do: they push, they chase, they sell.

I don’t know about you but when I’m chased, I usually run the opposite way.

Evernote provides value through their service and also through their blog and newsletter. Their blog provides tips and uses for making Evernote more useful and it’s fun to read.

Marketing consultant Jim Connolly wrote today about Evernote’s newsletter, contrasting it with other newsletters that do little more than sell. He says Evernote’s newsletter gets it right for three reasons:

  1. Their newsletter actually contains news
  2. Their newsletter makes Evernote more valuable
  3. Their newsletter doesn’t push

Connolly and I agree that providing valuable content that enhances the user experience with the product is effective in making the case for upgrading without ever asking users to do so. Their approach attracts us, instead of pushing us away with sales pitches and an abundance of links.

Attorneys deal with issues that don’t always allow for such a laid back approach. If it’s in the client’s best interests to push them to take action, a little push is not a bad thing. Nevertheless, I think we can all learn from Evernote how to be more attractive and let people sell themselves on hiring us.

People like to buy. They don’t like to be sold.

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Filed Under: Communication, Image, Marketing legal services, Newsletters, Technology Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

If I were starting my law practice today, here’s what I would do to bring in clients

May 7, 2012 by
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If I were opening a law practice today, my “marketing plan” would be very different than it was when I opened my office thirty-plus years ago.

The Internet changes everything.

So. . . here’s what I would do:

I would start by setting up a web site to showcase what I do. It would be my online brochure as well as a mechanism for networking and lead generation. It would be an information hub, the center of all of my marketing activities.

My web site would be a self-hosted WordPress blog so I could update it without depending on anyone else. I would spend less than $10/yr. for a domain, and less than $10/mo. for hosting.

I would keep things simple, with a clean, professional look. I would favor quality content over bells and whistles. The look would say, “competent, confident, accomplished and approachable,” because that’s what I would want if I was looking for an attorney.

I would add articles and other content to the site, to provide value to visitors and generate search engine traffic. I would continue to add content, seeking to make my site the most comprehensive in my practice area. When someone needed an answer, everyone would point them to my site.

I would make it easy for visitors to contact me through the site and I would encourage this. I want people to ask questions. My answers bring me one step closer to an appointment and a new client. Their questions and my answers would also give me fodder for new content.

I would add testminonials and success stories to the site, providing social proof of my capabilities and add a dramatic aspect to otherwise dry material.

I would set up a lead capture system, using an autoresponder to deliver an online newsletter. I would encourage visitors to subscribe so I could stay in touch with them. Over time, I know they will become clients, provide referrals, and generate even more traffic to my site through their social media channels.

Once my hub was set up, my focus would be to drive traffic to the site and grow my list. I would start by leveraging my existing contacts, telling them about my site and the benefits of visiting. I would ask them to spread the word to the people they know.

Every piece of printed collateral, including my business cards, would include a link to my web site. Every email I sent would link to the site. Every article I wrote would include a resource box and a link to my site.

I would become active in forums and on social media. I would do some networking and speaking to meet new contacts and to stay up to date with the news in my target market.

I would look for other professionals who target my market and propose writing for each other’s blogs and newsletters. If they were physically near me, I would meet them for coffee and explore other ways we could help each other.

I would regularly email to my list, notifying them of new content on the site and sending them other content I found that I thought they might like to see. I would stay in touch with them so that I would be “in their minds and their mailboxes” when they needed my services or encountered someone who did.

I would let people know I appreciate their referrals and thank those who have provided them in the past. I would suggest other ways they could help me, i.e., forwarding my emails to their friends and contacts, promoting my seminar or other event, or introducing me to people they know that I should meet.

I would look for ways to provide added value to my list and even more so to my clients. I would give them information and advice, but not necessarily in my practice area or even anything legal.

I would smother my clients with attention, exceeding their expectations in every way possible, because I know the best way to build a law practice is with referrals from satisfied clients and other people who know, like, and trust me.

Wait. . .  the Internet doesn’t change everything. Marketing is the same today as it was thirty years ago. The Internet just makes it easier, quicker, and less expensive.

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Filed Under: Client relations, Email, Image, List building, Marketing legal services, Marketing Plan, Newsletters, Online Marketing, Referrals, Social media marketing, Technology, Web traffic Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Are you a lawyer or an attorney? Actually, it DOES make a difference.

April 12, 2012 by
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I always thought that lay people use the word “lawyer” more than “attorney” and that attorneys do the opposite. “Attorney” has a slightly more professional ring to it, doesn’t it? After all, it’s “District Attorney,” “Attorney General,” and, “Attorney at Law”.

It turns out that our clients also prefer “attorney.” At least that’s what the search statistics tell us.

Search engine expert Mark Sprague found that attorney has nearly twice the search engine traffic as lawyer. “Consumers favor the term attorney over lawyer. You should use both, but attorney should be the dominant term in your web page copy,” he says.

This applies, of course, to articles, blog posts, tweets, social media profiles, and other online content.

You can read the results of search study here. Hat tip to Larry Bodine who brought this to my attention.

The data also show how people with a legal issue go about their searches. They don’t start by looking for a lawyer, they start by seeking information. This confirms the need to focus your online marketing efforts on creating content that speaks to those issues. You can do this with articles, blog posts, case studies, FAQ’s, and success stories.

Help prospective clients find you by providing information about the law and procedure as they relate to their legal issues. Describe their rights and their duties. Tell them their options, the possible penalties and available remedies.

What do prospective clients and new clients always ask you? Put the answers to those questions online.

You can spend a lot of time and money tweaking your web site to maximize search engine traffic. A much simpler approach is to provide the information people search for before they search for an attorney. When they go to your web site first, there’s a good chance they will see you as the solution to their problem and never look anywhere else.

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Filed Under: Blogging, Marketing legal services, Online Marketing, Technology, Web traffic Tagged With: , , ,

The one thing attorneys need to know about advertising, networking, and social media

March 13, 2012 by
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I’ve run a lot of ads in my lifetime. Big ads, small ads, and everything in between. And direct mail. And with every ad or campaign, there’s only one thing I wanted to know: the rate of response.

How many calls, opt-ins, or return cards? How many leads or appointments or new clients?

Response is the only that thing that matters.

You need to know which publication or web site is producing more response. Which headline, which offer, which key words.

You have to track response and then test one variable against others. It’s the only way to know if you’re wasting money and it’s the simplest way to increase your profits. One ad, letter, or web page can sometimes pull fifty times more response than another. FIFTY TIMES! Wouldn’t you want to know which one?

“What about “branding”–getting your name out there, isn’t that worthwhile?” Sure, but while you’re doing that, why not also get a response?

So, if you have a web page you need to track your stats. Google’s analytics is free and provides lots of information. If you do any offline advertising you need to put codes in your ads (and articles) so you can see which ad (article) is pulling best. At the very least, ask people who call your office how they heard about you.

One more thing. Track the time you spend networking offline and on social media. If you’ve been attending a group’s meetings for several months and you’re not getting any clients, growing your list or seeing any kind of response you can measure, don’t continue. The same for social media platforms.

You might not know as quickly as you might with an ad. I’ve run ads one time and pulled them when the response wasn’t there. Building relationships and getting referrals almost always take longer. But eventually, you’ll know. If nothing is coming from your networking with group A, either change what your doing or move to group B.

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Filed Under: Advertising, Networking, Social media marketing, Technology Tagged With: , ,

How I collect and organize articles and documents to read later

March 9, 2012 by
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I read a lot. I know you do, too. I also know that the volume of articles and documents that cross our paths every day is overwhelming.

We can’t stop the river of information. It would be foolish to ignore it. All we can do is manage the information that comes at us every day, and I want to share with you how I do that.

Here’s what I do to collect, organize, and read the articles and documents in my life:

  1. I subscribe to (over 100) blogs with Google Reader. I can read them later, on my laptop or on my iPhone (I use Mobile RSS).
  2. On my iPhone, I also use Zite, an intuitive app that learns what you like to read and serves up similar content. This brings posts from a wide spectrum of blogs I would never know about. I also use Flipboard and Twitter.
  3. I use Instapaper as a web app (Chrome) and their app on my iPhone. This is where I send posts I can’t read at the moment. I send them from my RSS reader, from Zite, Flipboard, by forwarding emails and via a web clipper.
  4. Every morning I go through my RSS feeds and Zite and Flipboard, scanning the headlines of the posts. I delete 98% of them. A few, I read on the spot. I may send five or ten to Instapaper. If it’s something I know I want to save, I send it to Evernote. If I’m reading it on the web, I’ll open it first with Evernote Clearly, to remove ads, etc. (Evernote is my go to app for saving everything I need to save (for reference or a project) or do. (If you haven’t tried Evernote, go check it out (it’s free). If you have Evernote and have not been using it much, get my ebook, “Evernote for Lawyers: A Guide to Getting Organized & Increasing Productivity”. You’ll be amazed at what you can do with Evernote.
  5. For blog post ideas, I go through Instapaper and when I find a post that catches my eye, I’ll read it. I may use the article as the basis for a post or it may give me other ideas. I also go through Evernote. I have a tag, “blog-post-ideas,” and with one click I can call up hundreds of notes with complete articles or one line ideas.
  6. I save documents (pdfs, Powerpoint, Word, etc.) in Evernote. I usually add a few key words to the body of the note and assign tags. Most of these documents are saved for reference purposes, or to use in connection with projects I am working on or plan to work on. However, I also use a couple of tags to identify notes for later reading. One is “Read/Review,” which is assigned to notes I know I want to read at some point. I will also assign a “When” tag (i.e., Now, Next, Someday, etc.) if I know when I want to read it. The other tag I use is “ebooks” for pdf ebooks I’ve saved. I can browse this tag to find things to read or for ideas.
  7. If there are emails I need to read or save or take action on, I forward them to my Evernote account. I now maintain “inbox zero”.
  8. Every day I focus on getting my work done, not on how much I can read. This is key. If I don’t read articles I’ve saved for later reading, I don’t worry about it. We’re talking about electrons here, so there is no problem with running out of storage space. The articles I’ve saved in Evernote are searchable and thus a repository of reference materials I may use in the future. So again, I do the best I can and I don’t worry about what I don’t get to.

So that’s my routine. I know there are many other methods and apps available for collecting, organizing, and reading. I’ve tried many of them and continue to try new ones when they come out. I like keeping things simple, however, and that means using as few apps as possible. Evernote is my “information hub” because everything is synced and available to me wherever I am, and because there are so many ways to get information into it.

How about you? What do you do to collect, organize, and read articles and documents? Please share in the comments.

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Filed Under: Productivity, Technology, Time Management, Writing Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

New eBook Shows Lawyers How to Use Evernote to Organize Everything

January 10, 2012 by
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If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you know how much I love Evernote. I use it for everything: notes, documents, writing, task management, you name it. Today, I’m proud to announce the release of a new eBook, “Evernote for Lawyers: A Guide to Getting Organized & Increasing Productivity“.

Lawyers manage an incredible amount of information and finding that information quickly is imperative. More and more attorneys use Evernote for capturing notes and web clips, and initially, that’s all I used it for. I’ve since discovered many other ways Evernote can be used to organize the information in my life, and that’s what this book reveals.

Topics include using Evernote for research and writing, time and billing support, marketing and career development, and managing client files and documents. Other chapters include, “going paperless,” “data security,” “working with email,” and “working with your calendar”.

Attorneys who use David Allen’s Getting Things Done® methodology (or want to), will want to read Chapter 4, which covers this subject at length. I’ve written before about my Evernote/GTD system. Evernote for Lawyers presents my latest thinking on this subject, as well as the latest updates to my gtd system and work flow.

Evernote currently has 20 million users world wide and was recently honored as Inc. Magazine’s 2011 Company of the Year.

Evernote is free and is available for Windows, Mac, on the web, and all major mobile platforms. A premium version with enhanced features is also available.

Evernote for Lawyers: A Guide to Getting Organized & Increasing Productivity is available for immediate download in pdf format at OrganizedLawyer.com

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Filed Under: Law office management, News, Productivity, Technology, Time Management Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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