Legal Marketing 2.0 Podcast: Recent Episodes
Guy Alvarez
Good2bSocial - joined by industry leaders - offers a fresh perspective on the latest legal marketing trends and strategies, with actionable takeaways for lawyers and law firm marketing professionals.
In this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 Podcast, Guy is joined by Al Biedrzycki. With over 15 years of experience in leading ecosystems, platforms and partnerships, Al Biedrzycki has been instrumental in scaling startups, and pre- and post-IPO organizations. One of his most notable achievements is growing HubSpot’s platform product ecosystem to 500+ app partners and its channel program to 3,000+ agency partners. He also helped build and scale Airtable’s extension marketplace and service partner program. At Jasper, Al leads the affiliate marketing and solutions partner program strategies.
In this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 Podcast, Guy is joined by Josh Hostilo. Josh Hostilo, is a current Product Owner at Filevine and oversees the legal intake product, Lead Docket. Josh was a previous VP of Operations at a personal injury law firm and is truly an expert in legal intake best practices. He has recently been involved in the development of Lead Docket's newest AI tool, LeadsAI, which provides lead summaries and predictive analysis to simplify the way legal intake and lead management are handled within law firms.
In this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 Podcast, Guy is joined by Phillip Greer. Greer has driven the continual evolution of Best Lawyers® since joining in 2005, becoming president in 2013 and CEO in 2018. By tapping into his training as an engineer, he created the company’s first content management system to take the company and its products – as he says – “from analog to digital.” Through the years he has led international expansion strategies that ensure lawyers around the world receive the recognition they deserve through various Best Lawyers offerings. His proudest achievement is in the consistency of the products and the Best Lawyers peer-review methodology.
This year Phillip has led the team through launching the rebranded Best Law Firms® rankings independently for the first time in 13 years and through the acquisition of Good2bSocial.
In this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 Podcast, Guy is joined by Craig Budner. Craig W. Budner is the global strategic growth partner for K&L Gates, a global law firm with 48 offices and approximately 2000 lawyers on 5 continents. In this role, Craig manages the global recruiting and integration functions for the firm. He also manages the firm’s global business development, marketing, and media relations functions. Additionally, he serves on the firm’s management and advisory committees.
In this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 Podcast, Guy is joined by Todd Smith and Jody Sanders. Jody and Todd both practice civil appellate law. Traditionally, that involves writing appellate briefs and presenting oral arguments to appellate courts, but they both do a lot of work in trial courts as well. Their trial court work involves legal strategy, potentially dispositive motions, jury charges, and other activities necessary to preserve error and prepare cases for appeal.
In this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 Podcast, Guy is joined by John Hellerman. John Hellerman is the President of Hellerman Communications, an award-winning corporate communications agency positioning professionals to win business and navigate crises. John and his firm specialize in strategic marketing and content development, crisis and litigation communications, and social influencer and stakeholder relations. He helps the world’s most elite professionals and their firms build and protect their most lucrative relationships.
In this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 Podcast, Guy is joined by Kate Boyd who is a 25 year veteran of the legal industry. She started her career at law firms Shearman & Sterling and White & Case. After completing her MBA at NYU in 2014, she took her business and legal experience to high-growth legal tech vendors HighQ and Kira Systems. In 2018, she co-founded litigation fund, Validity Finance, and served as COO before joining Sente in 2022. Kate is active on the boards of the leading legal edtech company AltaClaro, and immigration non-profit Immigration Law & Justice NY.
In this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 Podcast, Guy is joined by Kate Pearch. Kate is the Chief Marketing & Business Development Officer at Morris, Manning & Martin, LLP. Kate focuses on her firm’s unique client service to strengthen its brand and position in the marketplace. She is known for her excellent people skills and for leading successful collaborations between the marketing team, executive committee, and practice leaders. Her responsibilities include designing and implementing marketing, communications, public relations, practice growth, strategic development, and leadership succession programs.
In this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 Podcast, Guy is joined by Bill Barrett. Bill leads Digital channel strategy and operations for DLA Piper in the Americas. In his role, Bill helps the firm: amplify the DLA Piper brand in the marketplace, generate demand for services, enhance the visibility of lawyers, and provide actionable insights that help generate profitable growth.
In this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 Podcast, Guy is joined by Bob Wallace. Bob Wallace is a 40 year veteran practitioner of sports law, 30 of those representing three NFL teams. He currently chairs the sports law group of Thompson Coburn LLP. Thompson Coburn has offices in St. Louis, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, New York and Washington, DC.
In this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 Podcast, Guy is joined by Patrick Hayes. Patrick Hayes is a partner and chair of the Investment Management practice at Calfee, Halter & Griswold LLP where he supports investment advisers and broker-dealers in the development and administration of their compliance programs, including the creation and implementation of policies and procedures governing all activities of the firm. His clients include wealth managers, private fund advisers, family offices, ERISA investment fiduciaries, dual registrants, broker-dealers, crypto-traders, mutual fund trusts, and institutional asset managers. In 2020, Hayes launched The Securities Compliance Podcast: Compliance in Context™ to serve as a personal master class for the securities industry’s legal and compliance professionals, and he’s a proud graduate of the University of Notre Dame and the University of Cincinnati College of Law.
In this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 Podcast, Guy is joined by Jennifer Ramsey. Jennifer Ramsey is a former investment banker who discovered love of marketing / BD while preparing sales decks for road shows to pitch investors on funding startup/emerging growth companies. She left the world of high finance for marketing & BD where she developed and led enterprise-wide, sector-based programming and spearheaded a client relationship-building framework for an Am Law 100 firm. She and two colleagues recently launched Stage LLC, a women-owned business development & marketing venture focused on relationships, revenue, and growth for legal services.
In this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 Podcast, Guy is joined by Julie Lorson to discuss the topic of Artifical Intelligence (AI) and its impact on search engine optimization (SEO). Julie has been working in SEO for over 15 years. For the past 6, she has focused on SEO specifically for law firms Over the course of her career, she has learned the many nuances that it takes to make websites rank in the top positions in Google.
In this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 Podcast, Guy is joined by Justin Bernbrock. Justin Bernbrock is a partner in Sheppard Mullin’s Chicago office and the head of Chicago’s complex restructuring team. Justin has worked on some of the most complex Chapter 11 cases in the world over the last 11 years. Prior to Sheppard Mullin, Justin was a partner at Kirkland & Ellis in Chicago. Before his legal career, Justin served with distinction in the United States Navy.
In this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 Podcast, Guy is joined by Gary McRae to discuss the importance of the digital experience for law firms. Gary McRae is the global digital lead for Baker McKenzie. He ensures Baker McKenzie’s digital strategy aligns with its overall business objectives. He also leads the company's channels, digital marketing, web development, social media, and martech initiatives.
In this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 Podcast, Guy is joined by Davina Frederick to discuss how law firms should go about attracting their ideal clients while repelling all others. Prior to becoming an attorney, Davina spent 15 years as a professional services marketer. She started her own law firm right out of law school and grew it successfully. As the founder of Wealthy Woman Lawyer®, she's spent more than a decade coaching women law firm owners on the business principles they must master to effectively scale their practices. She's also somehow found time to write two books on law firm marketing and management.
In this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 Podcast, Guy is joined by Paula Zirinsky, co-founder and Chief Strategist of Structura Strategy Group, a professional services marketing advisory. She is known for her expertise in branding, strategy, marketing, content, communications, and digital technology platforms. As a former global CMO, Paula has held leadership positions at professional services firms including K2 Integrity, a preeminent global risk advisory firm, and law firms including Morgan Lewis, Morvillo Abramowitz, Fried Frank, and Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft.
In this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 Podcast, Guy is joined by Stephen Clark the Senior Marketing and Communications Manager at Brown Rudnick, where he oversees the firm’s PR and digital marketing efforts. Stephen is based in New York and joined the firm in 2021 after managing digital communications at Hubbard & Read for 10 years. Before joining the legal industry, Stephen was an award-winning journalist who served as a staff writer for the Los Angeles Times and as a politics editor for the Washington, D.C, Bureau of FoxNews.com.
In this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 Podcast, Guy is joined by Alison Reynolds, the Senior Digital Marketing Manager for Vinson & Elkins, which is a 100-plus-year-old law firm headquartered in Houston, Texas, with offices around the world. While it is her first and only law firm experience, in the last eight years Alison has helped transform the firm’s digital presence across channels and establish a robust content and social media marketing strategy. Prior to V&E, Alison came from the publishing industry, having worked in New York City and Houston in magazine, newspaper, and online publishing. Her love of storytelling inspires her to create compelling online experiences for the firm’s audiences.
In this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 Podcast, Guy is joined by Jenny Fortin, the Digital Marketing Manager at Winston & Strawn where she manages the firm’s digital marketing strategy including the firm’s website, SEO, analytics, and social media channels. Prior to her role as a digital marketer, Jenny worked with the firm’s attorney recruiting and development team for nearly a decade.
In this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 Podcast, Guy is joined by Alan Kaplinsky, the senior counsel and for 25 years the chair of the consumer financial services group at the Ballard Spahr law firm. He is the recipient of the lifetime achievement award of the American College of consumer financial services law. Alan has been consistently ranked as a tier 1 lawyer by Chambers, USA in the area of consumer, financial services, regulation, litigation, and government enforcement. He also launched Ballard Spahr’s blog Consumer Finance Monitor in 2011 as well as their podcast show which goes by the same name in 2018.
In this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 Podcast, Guy is joined by Emily Rogers, the US Chief Marketing and Business Development Officer at Norton Rose Fulbright, based in their New York office. Joining Norton Rose Fulbright during its combination with Chadbourne & Parke in 2017, Emily has led several special projects for the firm, including serving as the producer of the project finance podcast, Currents, which has more than 2.8 million downloads and has led the marketing efforts for the firm's innovation-focused subsidiary, LX Studio and privacy compliance tool suite, NT Analyzer. In addition to her core role, Emily is the firm's global strategic lead for podcasts, the chair of the firm's Wellness Committee and a local leader of WiN (Women in Norton Rose Fulbright).
In this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 Podcast, Guy is joined by Elise Holtzman, a former practicing attorney, certified executive coach, and the founder of The Lawyer’s Edge, where she and her team help law firms grow thriving businesses by helping lawyers become better business developers and leaders. Elise is the creator of the Lawyers Making Rain program for law firms as well as The Lawyer’s Edge Ignite, a business development program for women lawyers that is launching in 2023. In addition to coaching, training, and consulting, Elise speaks frequently for legal organizations and writes articles on the subject of business development for publications such as Law.com and Law360. She is also the host of The Lawyer’s Edge podcast, where Guy Alvarez was a recent guest!
In this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 Podcast, Guy Alvarez, the CEO and Founder of Good2bSocial, talks about some of the biggest mistakes that law firms make when it comes to handling their digital marketing credentials while transitioning from one agency to another. There are four specific areas Guy covers, where these issues come up.
In this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 Podcast, Guy is joined by Iris Jones, Akerman's Chief Marketing and Client Development Officer. Iris oversees the firm's client development team to advance the overall strategic plan of the firm by continuing to grow the firm’s client base while deepening existing client relationships. She works closely with firm leadership to build the firm's brand equity and position the firm as an influential thought leader and the law firm of choice for diverse clients in the firm's key practice areas. She was inducted into the Legal Marketing Association Hall of Fame earlier this year!
In this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 Podcast, Guy is joined by Jeanne Hammerstrom. Jeanne is responsible for all client-focused experiences for the firm as well as business development, marketing communications and market-driven initiatives. She has over 33 years of experience in law firm marketing and is currently the Chief Marketing Officer at the Benesch firm.
In this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 Podcast, Guy is joined by Alexandra Morren, a competitive intelligence analyst at Morris, Nichols, Arsht & Tunnell LLP. She has served in various roles within the marketing field for nearly a decade and has worked in the legal space for over half that time. At her current firm, she supports the competitive intelligence efforts and broader business development initiatives of the firm. When she’s not nose-deep in research or sharing actionable insights with attorneys, she manages her firm’s social media presence from content planning to execution and has spent the last four years running bimonthly LinkedIn Clinics for her firm’s attorneys.
In this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 Podcast, Guy is joined by Julia Bennett, the CMO of Brown Rudnick. Julia’s mandate is to amplify the brand of the firm, market the practices and industry groups, and enable the lawyers to deepen relationships with current clients and create relationships with prospective clients. She holds a J.D. from The University of Chicago Law School, an M.A. from The George Washington University, and an A.B. from Duke University.
In this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 Podcast, Guy is joined by Reza Torkzadeh, the founder and CEO of TorkLaw. Torklaw is a plaintiff's personal injury law firm based in Los Angeles with offices throughout the country. He is the author of The Lawyer as CEO, a book that has obtained record-setting results. He is an honorary board member of the trial lawyer charities and chairman of the Dean's Inner Circle at UCI Law.
In this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 Podcast, Guy is joined by Koree Khongphand-Buckman, the CMBDO at Foley & Lardner LLP. Koree is responsible for leading the firm’s business development, marketing, client service, and branding efforts for Foley & Lardner. She’s been involved in legal marketing for about 16 years and has been leading at Foley & Lardner for a little over a year now. The 5 key priorities she covers at her firm is: to drive business through their four major sectors (healthcare, life sciences, manufacturing, innovative technology, and energy), to enhance their brand in the market, capture and leverage data so they can support clients, to improve the client journey, and lastly, to recruit and retain the best talent.
In this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 Podcast, Guy is joined by Rebecca Edwards to discuss relationship techniques to establish and deepen client relationships in order to grow business. Rebecca is a legal marketing veteran with more than fifteen years of experience helping lawyers build their business and increase their brand. She currently serves as the senior marketing and business development manager for Williams Mullen, focusing on growth for both the Corporate and Tax Sections as well as attorney training and client service programs. Rebecca has been a long-standing volunteer with the Legal Marketing Association, currently serving as co-chair of the Strategies & Voices Editorial Committee. Her prior positions include service on the Mid-Atlantic Region Board of Directors and Virginias Chapter President.
In this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 podcast, Guy is joined by Allan Schoenberg, Chief Communications Officer at Vinson & Elkins. Allan is based in New York and joined the firm in 2021 after managing global communications at NASDAQ for five years. Before joining the legal industry, Allan has about 20 years of capital market experience. Allan is experienced in public relations with a successful track record in all aspects of business-to-business communications with a focus on brand management, internal communications, issues management, media relations, and social media.
In this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 Podcast, Guy is joined by Lynn Tellefsen to discuss agile marketing and what it can do for law firms. Lynn is the co-founder and chief strategist at Structura Strategy Group, a woman-owned professional service firm. Lynn works with Structura Strategy Group to help firm leaders build, optimize and scale their marketing and business development operations and teams. Before Structura Strategy Group, Lynn served in various sales and marketing roles for legal information and technology providers.
In this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 Podcast, Guy is joined by Morgan Ribeiro to discuss the use of content to further firms' reputations in their industries. Morgan has a passion for the ever-evolving healthcare M&A landscape, given her prior experience in the healthcare industry. She transitioned into the legal industry about 8 years ago joining Waller and their healthcare team, as she served as their Executive Director. Morgan is now the Chief Business Development Officer at Waller. Located in the greater Nashville area, she leads all business development, marketing, and communication efforts for the firm.
In this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 Podcast, Guy is joined by Eric Feldman to discuss how we can leverage people and processes to drive technology implementations. Eric is a seasoned attorney and business operations professional. As the Director of Strategic Projects and Initiatives for Wiggin & Dana, he supports the firm’s COO to develop and advance a wide range of operational objectives. Eric loves fixing things and is genuinely motivated by oat cappuccino.
In this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 Podcast, Guy is joined by Gina Carriuolo to discuss the importance of remembering the basics and making time for team coordination. Gina is the Chief Marketing Officer at Robinson and Cole, an Am Law 200 firm. Robinson and Cole is also a Mansfield Rule certified firm, established over 175 years ago with 230 attorneys and is a deeply rooted culture of collaboration, civility, and inclusion. Gina has over 30 years of legal marketing experience, having served as the director of marketing of Locke Lord and its predecessor firms for 14 years. She now leads the firm's overall business development, marketing and communication strategies.
In this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 Podcast, Guy is joined by Michael Janovici to discuss how attorneys can raise their profiles through industry associations and events. Michael is the Client Relations Director in the Los Angeles office of Kimball, Tirey & St. John – a California based real estate law firm with a concentration on landlord-tenant law. Michael has close to 15 years experience in professional services marketing and business development. During his time at Kimball, Tirey & St. John, he’s helped attorneys (as well as himself) raise their profiles through association involvement.
In this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 Podcast, Guy is joined by Kelly Harbour to discuss the use of client teams to drive success at law firms. Kelly is the Chief Business Development Officer at Goulston and Storrs. She has more than twenty years of experience in marketing and business development along with almost fifteen years of experience in the legal industry. She is passionate about data driven decision making and spends her free time working for the Sally Alliance, a non-profit that helps to uphold legal standards.
In this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 Podcast, Guy is joined by Amanda Schneider to discuss the benefits of including clients in your digital marketing efforts. Amanda is the CMO of Epstein Becker Green where she oversees a team of business development, communications, and marketing operations professionals. She also staffs the Firm’s Board of Directors and has been with Epstein Becker Green for 14 years.
In this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 Podcast, Guy is joined by Rosa Colón to discuss how law firms can use video and podcasting to reach their marketing goals. Rosa is the marketing technology manager at Lowenstein Sandler LLP where she manages the firm's day-to-day digital marketing needs. This includes their website, website development, maintenance, optimization, analytics, email marketing, experience management CRM, and multimedia production. She also works both in-house and as a vendor helping professional services firms garner and streamline their technologies. Lastly, she is also the vice chair of the New York Local Steering Committee.
In this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 podcast, Guy is joined by Marsha Redmon to discuss how to master virtual presenting. Marsha is the CEO of Marsha Redmon Communications. For over 20 years Marsha has helped lawyers and executives communicate more effectively in order to get more business through presentations, public speaking workshops, business development and law firm video marketing coaching. She is also a former Gibson Dunn attorney and a TV news reporter.
In this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 podcast, Guy is joined by Lisa Friedlander to discuss NEXT, an innovative law firm that gives guidance to startups and entrepreneurs. Lisa started her career as an attorney, entrepreneur, and angel investor. She practiced corporate and telecommunications law at both small and large firms for 15 years. Lisa joined Shulman Rogers to help launch and grow the NEXT platform, as well as support the business services group. Lastly, she is a mentor and speaker for a variety of entrepreneurship and investment groups along with sitting on the advisory board for several startups.
In this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 Podcast, Guy is joined by Lisa Vicine to discuss how the pandemic has impacted legal marketing. Lisa is the Chief Marketing Officer at Arnall Golden Gregory where she spearheads the firm’s business development, communications, branding and marketing technology initiatives. She works with her team to facilitate collaboration across the firm’s industry teams and practices. Lisa has nearly 30 years of experience in marketing and business development in the professional services industry, including 20 years in legal marketing.
In this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 Podcast, Guy is joined by Kate Stoddard. Kate is the Chief Marketing Officer at Kelley Drye & Warren where she leads their business development strategy. Kate is responsible for the creation of branded marketing and the communications program at the firm. Lastly, she is also a member of the firm’s client service and innovation committee and sits on its Steering Committee. In today’s episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 Podcast, Kate joins us to discuss how she promotes a client centric philosophy at her law firm.
In this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 podcast, Guy Is joined by Shreya Ley. Shreya is a lawyer at LayRoots, and asset protection firm that helps people protect themselves from stupid lawsuits. She loves being a business owner, talking to people, cooking and spending time outdoors. Shreya and her husband Colin have owned Lay Roots now for nine years. In today’s episode, Shreya joins us to discuss the significance of storytelling and authenticity in content marketing.
In this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 podcast, Guy Is joined by Jason Kennedy. Jason is a marketing operations consultant at Calibrate Strategies, a leading marketing operations consultancy in the legal sector. He is also the former in-house director of marketing operations at an envelope 100 firm. Jason is currently finishing his master’s degree in marketing analytics at the University of Alabama. Today Jason joins us to discuss the ins and outs of legal marketing analytics.
In this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 podcast, Guy Is joined by Lloyd Johnson. Lloyd is the visionary and CEO of Chief Legal Executive LLC. He also founded the Black In-House Counsel. Lloyd continued his work into women’s advocacy with the creation of the groundbreaking Women, Influence & Power and the Law annual conference, which has grown to become the premier global forum for women in the legal profession. Lastly, he launched the Minority Corporate Counsel Association, which he was executive director of from 1997-2000. Lloyd joins us today to discuss diversity and inclusion within the legal industry.
In this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 podcast, Guy Is joined by Dominic Ayres. Dominic is the International Senior Client, Marketing and Strategy Manager at Eversheds Sutherland. He heads up the development and growth of international client relationships and sector strategy. Dominic recently authored 'How to Advance Your Career in Professional Services Marketing' where he speaks about taking a deep inside look into how to go from a junior role to a senior role within the world of professional services marketing. Dominic joins us today to discuss how to manage your career strategically in the world of professional services marketing.
In this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 Podcast, Guy is joined by Jay Plum, the Senior Director of Communication at Bracewell, where he works to implement integrated communication strategies and supports revenue through growth of digital and social media. Jay also handles branding, brand management, PR, video marketing, and content marketing. In today’s episode, Jay discusses the power of storytelling-based social media and how he gets Bracewell attorneys engaged with their socials to generate leads and drive business.
In this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 Podcast, Guy is joined by Catherine Zinn. Catherine Zinn is the Chief Client Officer at Baker Botts, an international law firm in the energy and technology sectors. As the Chief Client Officer, Catherine oversees social media, marketing, communications, sector focused sales, client development, coaching, business development and lateral partner integration. Catherine acts as the liaison of Baker Botts, where she connects high profile executives, alumni and other friends of the firm to jobs and public board company seats with an emphasis on diversity. Lastly, she also serves as a board member for various for profit and nonprofit companies. Catherine joins us today to discuss sector focused sales and client development.
In this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 Podcast, Guy is joined by Christopher Melcher. Business owners, celebrities, and trust beneficiaries across California turn to Christopher Melcher for assistance protecting their most valuable assets in high stakes divorces. With deep experience in complex family law litigation and premarital agreements, he provides tactical representation in the most challenging family law disputes. He understands the need to keep sensitive family matters private, having represented noteworthy clients in the largest divorce cases in California. Clients include A-list celebrities, executives, and tech company founders. He is frequently hired by other family lawyers as a consultant, expert, or co-counsel on significant divorce cases in California. His passion is helping others and he loves the law. His father was a trial lawyer and he’s learned not only how to be a lawyer from him, but what it means to be a lawyer. He has presented about 200 continuing legal education programs to other attorneys on complex family law issues and is a published author. He also wrote the only treatise on California premarital agreement law, published by LexisNexis. He is an adjunct professor of family law at Pepperdine University School of Law in Malibu. Before entering family law exclusively, he practiced criminal defense and civil personal injury litigation. Christopher joins us today to discuss how he was able to find success through social media as a lawyer.
In this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 Podcast, Guy is joined by Matt Kalmans. Matt is the Co-CEO and Co-Founder of Applecart. Applecart is an enterprise technology platform defining the new category of “decision maker marketing.” The platform has been used by hundreds of industry-leading organizations, including 20+ members of the Fortune 500 to market to high stakes B2B decision makers (e.g. senior corporate executives, policymakers, investors and industry influencers.) Matt joins us today to give his insight on how marketers can target senior level decision makers.
In this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 Podcast, Guy is joined by Elise Buie, Esq. Elise is a passionate, creative, problem-solving attorney and founder of Elise Buie Family Law Group who creates family law and estate planning solutions, not obstacles, for clients. Elise opened her firm during a period of personal adversity. Now in a period of global adversity, Elise's firm has experienced its most significant growth yet, which she attributes primarily to her driving force and mantra: "I can do it.” Elise joins us today to discuss how she grew her firm and overcame the challenges of the pandemic.
In this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 Podcast, Guy is joined by Betiayn Tursi, the Global Chair and Co-Founder of the Women in Law Empowerment Forum, or as it is known WILEF. Now in its 15th year, WILEF is at the forefront of making women in law firms write their success stories. WILEF also benchmarks law firms to ensure they are working toward retaining, promoting, and compensating women to the highest levels. Betiayn joins us today to discuss some of the key differences in women attorneys, what challenges they may face, and insight into how male vs. female attorneys market themselves.
In this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 Podcast, Guy is joined by Lee Garfinkle, the Chief Client Development and Relationship Officer at Goodwin, an AMLAW 25 firm with offices in the US, Europe, and Asia. Lee has held senior-level client and marketing roles in law firms for almost 18 years and was a management consultant at Deloitte before joining the legal industry. His industry experience is well rounded, having experience at different types of firms, including a regional firm, a UK-based global firm, and now a fast-growing global US-firm, Goodwin. Lee joins us today to discuss how to engage clients and build deeper relationships with them as a business advisor.
In this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 Podcast, Guy is joined by Auseh Britt, the Vice President of Growth Marketing at Terminus, and Kasey Johnson, the General Counsel at Terminus. Auseh leads demand generation, marketing operations, field marketing, and account-based marketing across new business and customer expansion. Kasey is a member of the Terminus Executive Leadership Team and the business's chief lawyer. She is responsible for overseeing and managing all legal services, including providing strategic legal counsel to management, managing legal risk, and overseeing company contracts and business deals. Auseh and Kacey join us today to discuss what account-based marketing is, and how it relates to the legal industry.
In this Episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 Podcast, Guy sits down with Kevin O’Keefe. Kevin O’Keefe is founder & CEO of LexBlog, the leading provider of digital publishing solutions to the world’s largest law firms—and home to the world’s largest legal blogging community. Kevin, a former trial lawyer himself, is one of the key figures who made law blogging what it is today. Kevin joins us today to discuss blogging for lawyers and gives insight into how lawyers can use blogging as a tool for business development.
In this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 Podcast Guy is joined by Lisa Lang, Lisa currently serves as the General Counsel for Kentucky State University, a role she has had for four years. Lisa first began her career as a lawyer working as an associate attorney specializing in insurance defense for a law firm in Louisville, Kentucky. She left that firm in 2008 to work for the Commonwealth of Kentucky. She first worked in the Office of the Attorney General as an Assistant Attorney General and then for the Kentucky Department of Education in a variety of in-house counsel roles until taking her current position at Kentucky State University. Lisa Joins us to discuss tactics in-house lawyers can use to brand themselves, what challenges they face, and how to overcome them.
In this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 Podcast Guy is joined by Lauren Piccolo-Ingram, Lauren is the Managing Director of Client Development at Goodwin where she is responsible for the planning and execution of business development, marketing, and communications initiatives for the firm’s Litigation Department. Ms. Piccolo-Ingram has particular expertise in developing performance metrics and data-based decision making. Lauren joins us to discuss tactics for lawyers and law firm marketing professionals to use to increase their return on investment in marketing efforts through effectively leveraging digital marketing and social media.
In this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 Podcast Guy is joined by Megan Sullivan-Jenks. Megan is the director of marketing & communications at Choozle. She is a self-proclaimed tinkerer and a problem solver for marketing and advertising strategies and execution. From nonprofits to consumer goods and software, she's an expert at creating online and offline marketing & communications strategies that are engaging and results driven. The focus of Megans and Guy’s discussion is on the opportunities Choozle and connected TV offer to marketing professionals at law firms, what makes connected TV different from traditional ads, and how law firms can see success when utilizing connected TV.
In this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 Podcast Guy is joined by Ryan Klekas, Ryan Klekas is the Director of Partnerships at Bombora. Ryan works with Bombora’s strategic partners to ensure both they and their clients clearly understand how to use and achieve success with Bombora’s industry leading targeting intent data. The focus of Ryan’s and Guy’s discussion is on the power of Bombora's intent data, why intent data is becoming more relevant, and how law firms can strategically leverage intent data for their marketing efforts.
Guy is joined by Howard Kravitz, Howard is the Chief Marketing Officer for global AmLaw 50 Law Firm Winston and Strawn. He oversees all Business Development, Marketing, Branding, and Communications efforts for the firm and he reports directly to the Chairman and sits on the Executive Committee of the firm. The focus of Howards and Guy’s discussion is on the challenges currently facing the legal industry, where the legal industry is falling behind, and how law firms can approach these issues in a modern way.
Guy is joined by Justin Stivers, the founder and owner of The Probate Law Firm; a law firm dedicated to probate and estate planning based out of Miami, Florida. Justin is all about making the legal process simple and easy for the consumer and is constantly looking for efficient and innovative ways to improve the way legal services are sold and delivered. The focus of Justin and Guy’s discussion is on what methods Justin has implemented to enable growth for a new law firm, which social media channels offer the most benefit for small to mid-sized firms on a budget, and how he currently manages his time as an owner of a successful law firm.
In this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 Podcast Guy is joined by Ali Katz, the Founder and CEO of the New Law Business Mode. Ali founded the New Law Business Model to teach her techniques to other lawyers who want to serve families and business owners as a trusted advisor, while loving their lives and law practices. The focus of Ali and Guy’s discussion is on the challenges and issues lawyers face with the “modern law firm model”, and how they can address these challenges in order to execute successful online marketing strategies. Ali and Guy also discuss the importance of defining your niche as a lawyer and ways to do so. You can connect with Ali on LinkedIn or follow her on Twitter.
Guy is joined by Lauren Osborne, a marketing and business development professional who has worked in both the legal and accounting industries for over 13 years. She has been successful in leveraging search engine optimization (SEO) techniques for business generation. This week’s podcast focuses on the basics of search engine optimization for lawyers, the benefits of using the WordPress platform, and how law firms can transform their new website into a lead generating machine.
In this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 Podcast Guy is joined by Kevin Brodehl, a trial and appellate attorney at Patton Sullivan Brodehl LLP in northern California. His practice focuses on high-stakes real estate and business disputes throughout the Bay Area and California, which he often writes about on his blogs, “The LLC Jungle” and “Money and Dirt.” The focus of Kevin and Guy’s discussion is on the importance of blogging as a marketing tactic for attorneys. Specifically, they discuss finding blog topic inspiration, and the importance of finding your niche.
In this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 Podcast Guy is joined by Ali Awad, also known as @ceolawyer on social media, Ali is a successful lawyer/entrepreneur with his own law firm (Ali Awad Law, P.C.) and media company. Ali teaches lawyers, doctors, and other professionals how to brand themselves digitally and generate clients through social media. Tune into this episode to hear Guy and Ali discuss how law firms can generate qualified leads through social media, what kind of segmentation strategies to use, and how lawyers and law firms can get off the ground establishing their social media presence.
Read show notes.
Guy is joined by Charles Cousins, the Business Development Director at Passle. At Passle, Charles works with the Marketing and Business development teams at law firms to help them implement successful thought leadership programs. Tune into this episode to learn why getting your law firm's attorneys to contribute to your content creation is vital, how writing benefits your attorneys, common hiccups in the content creation process, and how Passle can be used to mitigate content creation problems at law firms.
Click here to access show notes.
In this episode Guy is joined by Dominic Ayres, a senior client development manager at Eversheds Sutherland. Dominic is responsible for the development and growth of international client relationships and sector strategy for the Industrials sector group across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa joins us to discuss how a sector-based strategy leads his lawyers to greater client success. Tune in to learn how firms can identify the best sectors to focus on to stimulate new growth and the marketing tactics that work to support sector-based strategies.
Click here to read the episode show notes.
In this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 Podcast, Gina Rubel, the CEO of Furia Rubel Communications, a nationally-known law firm, public relations, and crisis communications agency, shares her insight on the importance of public relations and how it can support a law firm’s overall business plan. Furthermore, Gina and Guy discuss the marriage between public relations and social media marketing, and provide tips on how to make social media content more meaningful from a PR perspective. Tune in to learn how public relations can assist a law firm's content marketing strategy, business development, and overall strategic business plans.
You can read the podcast show notes here.
In this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 Podcast, Dan Brian, a digital marketing guru, shares his best tips and tools to build a strong content marketing machine for law firms and how to include attorneys in the writing process. The entire content marketing process can seem overwhelming, particularly for lean marketing teams that are strapped for resources and time. Tune in to learn the specific strategies and tools that can help turn your law firm into a lean, mean, content creation machine.
Click here to read the episode show notes.
In this episode of The Legal Marketing 2.0 Podcast, Guy is joined by Michelle Wilson Murphy. Michelle is the owner of Wilson Murphy Law. As a trademark and small business attorney, Michelle works with businesses and creatives to secure and protect their business through trademarks, contracts, copyrights, and business formations.
While many lawyers gravitate towards Linkedin to market themselves, Michelle’s bread and butter is TikTok and Instagram. Within just a few months after downloading TikTok, Michelle amassed thousands of followers and generated substantial new business as a result.
In this episode of The Legal Marketing 2.0 Podcast, Guy is joined by Leia Dudek. Leia is Good2bSocial’s dedicated HubSpot Channel Account Manager. For about two years Leia has guided Good2bSocial’s clients through adopting HubSpot’s platform.
Unlike most Legal Marketing 2.0 Podcast episodes, this show’s guest hosts the show. Leia talks with Guy about Good2bSocial’s experience using HubSpot, and how the platform has skyrocketed the agency's growth.
Here are the show notes.
In this episode of The Legal Marketing 2.0 Podcast, Guy is joined by Karen Kahn. Karen started her career as a psychologist and later went on to become a strategic business development and career coach. Given her impressive track record of helping lawyers expand their books of business, Karen is one of the most sought-after coaches in the legal profession.
Guy and Karen discuss the challenges that most lawyers face in terms of business development. Tune in to hear Karen offer valuable advice on how to cultivate valuable professional relationships that will yield new business opportunities for years to come.
Click here to read the episode show notes.
In this episode of The Legal Marketing 2.0 Podcast, Guy is joined by Eric K. Thomas. Eric is the social media and digital media manager for Bracewell and the founder and Editor-in-Chief of The Quintessential Gentleman, which is a media platform dedicated to telling the positive stories of Black and Brown men. As social media becomes a more critical avenue of communication for law firms, Guy and Eric talk about important trends that legal marketers should be aware of. Tune in to hear the story behind The Quintessential Gentleman (and how the page has amassed over 45k followers on Instagram).
Click here to read the show notes.
In this episode of The Legal Marketing 2.0 Podcast, Guy is joined by Eilene Spear, the Operations and Projects Manager for the National Law Review. Eilene joins us to talk about the successful traffic-generation strategies that enabled The National Law Review to garner the most website traffic of any legal news website in the United States during 2020. If you’re a legal marketing professional looking for SEO and content marketing takeaways you can implement ASAP, you’ll want to tune in!
Click here to read the show notes.
On this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 Podcast, Guy Alvarez discusses why marketing never stops with Allison Williams, the founder and CEO of Law Firm Mentor. Law Firm Mentor is a business coaching service for solo and small law firms that helps lawyers to grow their revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money. Law Firm Mentor was born out of Allison’s personal experience creating a law firm and scaling it into a multi-million-dollar enterprise in just 3 and a ½ years. You can connect with Allison on LinkedIn.
Check out the show notes here.
On this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 Podcast, Guy interviews Patrick Smith, a reporter who covers the business of law for The American Lawyer and its affiliated publications. Patrick keys us in on the best ways lawyers and marketers should approach media outlets with newsworthy stories. Tune in to learn strategies that will help get your stories published.
Click here to access the show notes.
On this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 Podcast, Guy Alvarez interviews Lynn Tellefsen-Stehle, the CMO of Wilentz, Goldman & Spitzer. Lynn oversees the business development and marketing operations for this century-strong New Jersey law firm. Tune in to hear Guy and Lynn discuss how digital marketing has transformed the ways law firms develop business and market their practice.
Click here to access show notes.
On today’s episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 podcast, Guy Alvarez and John Remsen Jr. discuss the importance of strategic planning for law firm growth and prosperity. A strategic plan should act as the backbone of a firm’s strategy and remind the firm of its priorities when crises arise. Today, law firms must have a strategic plan that evolves with the firm and changes in the market.
Click here to access show notes.
On this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 Podcast, Guy has an engaging conversation with attorney Frank Ramos, about how lawyers and law firms can better market themselves on LinkedIn. Frank shares with us his process for generating and capturing great ideas for content. Tune in to hear about the types of posts that really move the needle for law firms.
Click here to access show notes.
In this episode, Guy is joined by Jay Plum, a legal marketing and communications professional to discuss how to integrate video in your law firm’s content marketing strategy. Jay is the Director of Communications at Bracewell LLP, a leading law and government relations firm primarily serving the energy, finance and technology industries throughout the world. Jay is in charge of improving, maintaining, and developing the firm's image through digital marketing. He’s had a ton of success with video marketing and joins us today to share his learnings and tips.
Click here to access show notes.
On this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 Podcast, Guy is joined by Rosanna Berardi to discuss team loyalty and retaining talent at law firms. It probably isn’t news to you, but attracting legal talent is no easy feat. So what can firms do - both big and small - to address this issue and heighten their ability to attract and retain precious talent? Rosanna has a few uncommon methods.
Click here to access show notes.
In order to thrive in this new environment, law firms need to be client-centric now more than ever. In this episode, Guy is joined by Yolanda Cartusciello and Bob Robertson to discuss law firm communications strategies and best practices in today’s “new normal”. Yolanda is a Partner, and Bob a Senior Consultant in PP&C Consulting, a strategic consulting firm focused on law firms and professional services. In May, PP&C launched the RevTeam, an innovative approach to providing fractional C-suite and supporting marketing, business development and communications services to law firms so they can successfully navigate today’s new business challenges.
Click here to view show notes.
In this episode, Guy Alvarez is joined by Rachel Hammerman, a business development coach and meditation teacher. Rachel is here to discuss how meditation can help lawyers find satisfaction in the business development process, as well as in the result of a thriving practice.
Click here to access show notes.
This week Guy is joined by Michael Mogill to discuss all things digital marketing, particularly, strategies that are most effective for lawyers and law firms during these uncertain times. They canvass everything from law firm branding to social media marketing. Michael Mogill is Founder and CEO of the video marketing company, Crisp Video Group, which has been named to the Inc. 500 list of America’s fastest-growing companies. Mogill is also the author of The Game Changing Attorney. You can connect with Michael on LinkedIn here or on the Crisp website.
You can access the show notes here.
In this episode, Guy Alvarez meets with Patricia Baxter to discuss how lawyers and law firms can use video to market their practice and attract new clients. The problem with making videos is the perception that it’s either too difficult or too expensive, but Patricia is here to tell you that it isn’t! Patricia Baxter is a managing partner at Morgan Akins. Patricia specializes in helping insurance companies and businesses navigate civil litigation, with an eye toward closing files quicker and save money in the process.
Click here to view show notes.
On this week’s episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 podcast, host Guy Alvarez interviews Matt Sunbulli. Matt is the CEO and Cofounder of Fishbowl, a new social network that connects professionals to have candid and relevant conversations about workplace topics. Every day professionals come to Fishbowl to discuss industry news and get career advice from both peers and senior leadership in an open, positive, and supportive environment. The app has been rapidly adopted by professionals across industries including Law, Consulting, Finance, and Advertising. Click here to download the app to start communicating with other lawyers. You can also follow Fishbowl’s Instagram account here.
Click here to view episode show notes.
In this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 podcast, Guy Alvarez discusses how law firms can treat the COVID-19 pandemic as an opportunity to innovate their business development and marketing practices with guest David Kamien. David Kamien is a former lawyer and the founder and CEO of Mind-Alliance Systems. Mind-Alliance offers an AI-powered business development intelligence platform called ‘MindPeer’ and just launched a COVID-19 Legal Thought Leadership Intelligence Hub that aggregates thought leadership from over 200 law firms. In the 20 years since he left the practice of law, David has consulted on innovation, knowledge management, business development, and research for law firms and corporates. You can connect with David on LinkedIn here.
Click here to view podcast show notes.
On this week’s episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 podcast, host Guy Alvarez and guest Eric Farber discuss the power and importance of developing a strong law firm culture. Eric Farber is the CEO at Pacific Workers’ Compensation Law Center and author of the new book, The Case for Culture. In his new book, Eric gives lawyers the wisdom and tools they need to transform themselves and their culture. Tune in to the episode as Eric discusses his new book and points out ways law firm leaders can spot toxic cultures so that they can work hard to improve them. You can connect with Eric on LinkedIn here.
You can click here to access show notes.
In this episode, Guy Alvarez and guest Barbara Malin discuss how law firms can handle the COVID-19 pandemic to help ensure business continuity. Things are changing so rapidly that we can’t lose sight of the need to adapt our marketing strategies. Our guest, Barbara Malin, is the Chief Business Development and Marketing Officer at Jackson Walker, one of Texas’ largest firms. She works with the firm’s more than 400 lawyers and an internal business development and marketing team of 15 professionals to identify client needs and develop effective and innovative solutions to those needs. Prior to this, she was a practicing attorney in appellate law for over 30 years, and also ran her own small firm.
You can access show notes here.
In this episode, Guy Alvarez discusses how to design a successful legal career with guest, Marianne Merritt Talbot. Marianne is the Executive Vice President of SCG Legal, an award-winning international law firm consortium, and the author of the new book “Balance by Design: A Planner for Women Lawyers with a Life.” Marianne is here today to talk about her new book, and her formula for how legal professionals can build success and happiness in their careers and in their lives.
Click here to access show notes.
In this episode, Guy Alvarez discusses how female lawyers can build their brand and develop business with guest, Nina Flax. Nina is a partner and the leader of Mayer Brown’s Northern California Corporate and Securities practice. Nina works on M&A, joint ventures, investing and commercial transactions. You can connect with Nina on LinkedIn here.
Access show notes here.
In this episode, Guy Alvarez discusses the notion of “content experiences” with guest, Jenn Bankston. Content experience is the evolved legal marketers’ approach to content marketing, with a shift in focus from creation and consumption to experience and engagement. Tune in to learn how you can create your own content experience strategy with insights and best practices.
Access show notes here.
In this episode, Guy Alvarez interviews Josh Epstein and Juliet McNulty from DLA Piper, this year’s winner of the 2019 Social Law Firm Index. Juliet is the Senior Digital Communications Manager at DLA, she oversees the firm’s communications for the U.S. including the website, microsites and social channels and Josh is the firm’s Director of Communications and oversees all internal and external communication efforts for DLA in the U.S. Tune in as Juliet and Josh shed some light on the strategies that enabled them to place number one. Follow DLA Piper on LinkedIn here and Twitter here.
Access show notes here.
In this episode, Guy Alvarez discusses the ways in which law firms can amplify the impact of their social media marketing efforts with Glenn Gaudet. They discuss tactical and strategic measures firms should take, such as using podcasts as part of their marketing mix or encouraging employee advocacy to extend a firm’s message. Glenn is the CEO of GaggleAMP, whose mission is to help companies maximize the use of their social media platforms.
Here is the link to the show notes.
In this episode, Guy Alvarez discusses business development lessons for law firm leaders with Uri Gutfreund. Uri is the founder of The Managing Partner RoundTable, the largest peer-to-peer learning group for managing partners of mid-size firms. The program enables Managing Partners to help each other in their mastermind groups to solve their biggest problems. Uri also chairs the successful Managing Partner Summit, an educational program for over 100 law firms. Connect with Uri on LinkedIn here.
Access the show notes here.
In this episode, Guy Alvarez explores the many benefits of staying active and engaged with your audience on LinkedIn. He stresses the importance of law firm company pages as well as personal pages for the attorneys at your firm. Tune in to find out why both are equally as important for branding and to learn about LinkedIn’s latest feature updates to their company pages.
Click here to access full show notes.
In this podcast, Guy interviews Robert Weiss, a marketing president at MultiVision Digital. Listen to the advice Robert has for attorneys looking to incorporate video as part of their law firm’s content marketing strategy. In the episode, Robert shares tips and techniques for developing engaging and effective law firm video marketing content to attract clients. You can connect with Robert on his website or LinkedIn.
You can access the podcast show notes here.
In this podcast, Anthony Geraci, discusses how to scale your law firm to new heights. Geraci is a lawyer, entrepreneur and founder of Lawcoaching.com, where he coaches attorneys to grow their book of business and how to manage their law firms. You can connect with Anthony on his website Lawcoaching.com or on LinkedIn here.
Click here for the full show notes.
In this podcast, Stewart Hirsch explains how you can develop a business plan for your law firm with his 7 step framework. Hirsch is the executive leadership coach and managing director of Strategic Relationships LLC. He is also an author, speaker and senior coach for Trusted Advisor Associates LLC.
Click here for the full show notes.
In this podcast, Margo Aaron, a marketing copy expert, speaks about ways marketers can craft law firm email newsletters that engage and convert.
View full show notes here.
In this podcast, Joseph Jenkins, the Director of Sales over Professional Services at Podium, talks to us about the secret to winning new and securing repeat business for your law firm.
In this podcast, Bill Bice, an expert in building legal technology companies, speaks about building the marketing foundation for your law firm.
In this podcast, Lourdes Slater, the CEO of Karta Legal LLC, discusses Lean Six Sigma and other business methodologies to improve processes at law firms and target pain or pressure points they are facing.
In this podcast, Susan Freeman, the CEO of Freeman Means Business, talks about understanding gender-based communication to combat gender bias
In this podcast, Betiayn Tursi, global chair and co-founder of Women in Law Empowerment Forum, discusses issues that women have when working in law.
In this podcast, Joshua Peck, founder and president of Law Firm Media Professionals and CEO of Woodridge Communications, discusses what stories law firms should pitch to the media.
View full show notes here
In this podcast, Andy Blum, a PR consultant, media trainer, and Principal of AJB Communications, discusses crisis PR for law firms and law firms clients in today’s digital and social media age.
View full show notes here.
In this podcast, Janet Falk discusses how solo practitioners or small law firms can use media relations to promote their product.
In this podcast, Roy Sexton discusses how to win the room when you’d rather stay home - the benefits of introversion.
In this podcast, Robyn Itule, the Director of Marketing for Fennemore Craig, discusses how to future-proof your law firm with brand as a business strategy.
View full show notes here.
In this podcast, Mike Mellor of Pryor Cashman discusses legal marketing trends today and best practices for optimizing relationships between attorneys and marketing departments.
View full show notes here
In this podcast, Guy Alvarez discusses how to measure the return on investment (ROI) of your firm’s social media activities.
View full show notes here.
In this podcast Hank Grezlak of ALM discusses how legal marketers can create and maintain relationships with journalists and how law firms can get media exposure.
View full show notes here.
In this podcast, Guy Alvarez discusses schema markup and how it can be useful for enhancing your law firm’s search engine optimization efforts.
View full show notes here.
In this episode of Legal Marketing 2.0, Leslie Gross of Saul Ewing Arnstein & Lehr discusses the marketing challenges that can occur during a law firm merger.
View full show notes here.
In this podcast, Lizzy Duffy, the VP of Acritas, discusses the Acritas Law Firm Brand Index and why it’s important for your firm.
View full show notes here.
In this podcast, Gina Passarella of ALM discusses this year’s The American Lawyer Industry Awards as well as ALM’s upcoming expansion of international content.
View full show notes here.
In this podcast, Duane Forrester, the VP of Industry Insights for Yext, speaks about digital knowledge management and why it matters for your firm.
View full show notes here.
In this podcast, Wayne Pollock, the founder and managing attorney of Copo Strategies, discusses how attorneys can market their cases and their practices at the same time to grow their firm.
View full show notes here.
In this podcast, Deborah Farone, the former CMO of two law firms Cravath, Swaine & Moore and Debevoise & Plimpton, discusses her journey of leaving her firm and writing her own novel.
View full show notes here.
Trends in the legal world come and go each year, bringing with them new developments and changes to law firms. In this podcast we talk about our digital marketing predictions for law firms in 2019.
View full show notes here.
In this podcast, John Klymshyn discusses the power of language and how law firms are able to generate awareness and build trust through the language that they use.
View full show notes here.
In this episode of Legal Marketing 2.0, Jennifer Malin of Shumaker, Loop & Kendrick, LLP discusses her firm’s Facebook strategy. Shumaker ranked No. 2 in the Facebook category of our 2018 Social Law Firm Index.
In this podcast, Alyssa Gelbard, the Founder and President of Point Road Group, brings her unique perspective to discuss personal branding for attorneys.
In this podcast, Maya Koshaba, the Social Media Strategist at Goodwin, discusses today’s multimedia environment and how to best utilize social media in the legal industry.
In this podcast, Laura Galeano, the chief marketing officer at Bilzin Sumberg, discusses leadership and how to develop a highly effective marketing team for the future of the legal industry.
The Social Law Firm Index is our annual report of how large law firms are using social media and other digital marketing techniques. In this year’s report we added new categories including Instagram. In this podcast, we will discuss the methodology behind our this year’s index and insight into how our ranking algorithm has changed.
View full show notes here.
In this podcast, Janine Buis of GrowthTera explains how law firms can grow their revenues through digital marketing and providing lawyers with sales training.
View full show notes here.
In this podcast, Tom Tate of AWeber discusses how to grow your law firm’s audience with email marketing and provides tips for delivering emails your clients actually want to receive.
In this episode of Legal Marketing 2.0, Kathy D’Agostino of Win at Business Coaching discusses how lawyers can shift their perspective and implement one strategy to close more deals.
View full show notes here.
In this podcast, Stacey Brown Randall discusses her five steps to generate referrals without asking. From identifying referral sources to executing a referral process, Stacey discusses how law firms can create meaningful and memorable touchpoints to build stronger relationships.
View full show notes here.
In this episode of Legal Marketing 2.0 the Business Development Manager at McNair, Jessica Haarsgaard, discusses her firm’s strategy when it comes to repurposing content and taking advantage of outside partnerships to expand an article’s reach.
View full show notes here.
In this podcast, Guy Alvarez discusses a few things large law firms should be considering when it comes to SEO. Listen in to discover how Google has changed the shape of SEO, how tactics vary in the legal industry, and new strategies large firms should use to rank higher on search engines.
View full show notes here.
In this episode of Legal Marketing 2.0, Paula Zirinsky of K2 Intelligence discusses the differences between Big Law and boutique law marketing, how to move from different types of firms, and the future of legal marketing.
View full show notes here.
In today’s podcast Marcela De Vivo of SEMrush, speaks with us about common SEO mistakes, Google’s featured snippets, and the connection between user experience and SEO for law firms.
View full show notes here.
In this podcast John Witts, Marketing Technology Director for Fox Rothschild LLP, joins us to talk about the role of marketing technologists in law firms, the challenges they face, and the future of legal marketing technology.
View full show notes here.
In this podcast, Jay Linder, Director of Marketing and Communications at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP, talks with us about the value of thought content for law firms, how content can foster business relationships, and how legal marketers can influence greater buy-in for content marketing efforts.
In this podcast, Guy Alvarez discusses what law firms and companies need to consider before redesigning their site. Firms often forget to consider details like domain name ownership, preexisting analytics data, or how SEO can be affected when a site is redesigned.
View full show notes here.
In this podcast, Lee Sanderson of the American Academy for Certified Financial Litigators (AACFL), discusses the practical and marketable value of financial certification and how it can help attorneys differentiate themselves.
View the full show notes here.
In this podcast Carla Johnson, founder of Type A Communications, speaks with us about the art of storytelling for professional services marketers, the challenges of innovation within professional services firms, and how digital transformation has impacted the client experience.
View the full show notes here.
On today’s podcast, we talk with Chander Singh, practicing attorney and Track With Ease COO about the biggest marketing mistake attorneys make, how to reduce client frustrations, and how he’s used legal tech in his own firm to expand marketing.
View the full show notes here.
Today Haley Altman, a former law firm partner and now CEO & Founder of Doxly, talks about how law firms can use legal technology for additional marketing opportunities, to establish a competitive advantage, and to provide exemplary client service.
Read the full show notes.
Today on our podcast, Good2bSocial’s Director of Paid Search discusses the difference between retargeting and remarketing for law firms, its effectiveness, and the qualifications your firm needs in order to participate.
Today our guest Despina Kartson, Global Director of Business Development & Communications at Jones Day, speaks with us about the biggest changes for law firm CMOs as well as her new book Last Night’s Soup Run and involvement in local charity.
Today our guest Rev Ciancio, Director of Industry Insights at Yext, talks about digital knowledge management for lawyers, how to rank highly on the Google Map Pack, and the value of managing your online reputation.
Full show notes at Good2bSocial.com/podcast
Today Guy Alvarez discusses GDPR and how it will affect legal marketing. He gives an overview of the major changes the policy will have on marketers as well as several suggestions for using GDPR restrictions as an opportunity to explore new marketing techniques and platforms.
Full show notes at Good2bSocial.com/podcast
Today our guest Aric Press, founding partner of the law firm advisory group PP&C Consulting, talks about the importance of relationships, particularly, the relationship law firms have with their clients, relationships strengthened and deepened and made more healthy through better and richer communication via client interviews.
Full show notes at Good2bSocial.com/podcast
A year ago we launched the Legal Marketing 2.0 podcast and what a journey it's been. It's exceeded our wildest expectations: not just with its popularity or number of downloads per episode, but the feedback we've received, the conversations we've had, the relationships we've gained, and the interest it has spurred in our services, including podcast production.
We've used the occasion of our one-year anniversary - and 50th episode - to do a retrospective and highlight some of our most popular episodes and some of our favorites - the ones that sparked conversations. Thank you for being on the journey with us and stay tuned for more in the coming year as we pursue our goal of bringing you relevant, useful, actionable content.
Full show notes at Good2bSocial.com/Podcasts
Eric Fletcher is a former law firm Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), author of a super useful blog, Marketing Brain Fodder, and a wonderfully inspiring TED Talk. Eric discusses leadership – what constitutes leadership, some of the challenges and characteristics of being a leader, and how it applies to law firm and marketing leaders. A concept we kept coming back to agin and again is the importance of listening. Intentional listening.
Full shownotes at Good2bSocial.com/Podcast
Kevin Vermeulen, Partner and Chief Operating Officer for Good2bSocial, with more than 30 years of marketing and advertising experience, gives his take on the changing role of law firm marketers.
Full show notes at Good2bSocial.com
How do you create client loyalty?
One North’s John Simpson joins Good2bSocial’s Guy Alvarez and offers deep insights into how to create client loyalty, how understanding the customer involves deep research to gather data, and how that data informs your marketing and business development process.
Full shownotes at Good2bSocial.com
HubSpot’s Anna Norregaard joins Good2bSocial’s founder, Guy Alvarez, to discuss inbound marketing methodology for law firms: what it is, how it relates to content marketing, and how to use it to get a better ROI on your marketing efforts. Anna talks about the benefits of inbound marketing, along with a discussion of the different marketing stages and analytics.
Lawyers and legal marketers will get a lot of use from this episode not just about marketing, but also business development and client retention.
Full shownotes at Good2bSocial.com
A content marketing strategy for legal technology companies is part of your overall digital marketing strategy. Here, I identify three core concepts for your content strategy that I like to call G.A.P. - Goals, Audience and Plan. Establish your goals, identify your audience, and create a content plan.
3 tips to gain audience insight for content ideas:
- Talk to your customers
- Talk to your customer service and success teams
- Talk to your sales team
Full shownotes at good2bsocial.com
Good2bSocial founder Guy Alvarez chats with Tim Corcoran about law firm marketing and business development. Tim clearly delineates the difference between the two and stresses that although law firm marketers are strategic partners of the business, the overall strategic marketing leadership comes from the executive committee at the firm.
Marketers have the power to produce the metrics and the framework for strategies that can help lawyers understand the value of strategic marketing. Partners then must recognize where spending may be inefficient and allow professional marketers to make big decisions.
Full shownotes at Good2bSocial
Consultant and former Big Law partner, Judy Selby, offers keen insights, strategies and best practices for using LinkedIn for business development and building relationships based on her years of successfully using the platform. The discussion is particularly useful if you’re looking to further your career or go down a new career path.
Full shownotes at Good2bSocial.com
Lawyer and legal techie, Ivy Grey, joins us to talk about using social media and content to build relationships. We discuss how to figure out what to be on the social channels, how content plays a role in engaging and building meaningful relationships, and informal mentoring in the space.
Advice for lawyers or legal techies wanting to get started?
Give first. Mention other people first. “Like” other people first. Share their content first. Promote other people first. Listen first.
When you give first and give freely, then you’re more likely to create deeper, lasting relationships.
Full shownotes available at Good2bSocial.com
As a lawyer or legal marketer, how do you get the right content to the right people at the right time?
Our very own Guy Alvarez, founder of Good2bSocial, joins us on the Legal Marketing 2.0 podcast to discuss the buyers’ journey in the search for legal services and how marketing automation helps you to pinpoint where your buyer or target audience is in that journey so you can serve up the most useful content to them exactly when they need it.
Full shownotes at Good2bSocial.com
Content marketing is ultimately thought leadership marketing in which you are sharing your knowledge and expertise through content.
Lawyers and law firms need to have a goal and a structure behind their thought leadership content marketing strategy. If it’s just people writing stuff, it tends to be more scattered and is less likely to get accomplished consistently. It takes a collaborative effort and people need to keep goals in mind for each piece of content produced. This includes an understanding of SEO concepts which encourages them to write longer pieces that go deeper into topics.
You have to begin with the end in mind. Consider who you want your audience to be and then cater the topics you write about to these clients and prospects. Start by thinking about what people are asking you, considering the geographic region you’re targeting, or writing for the audience within your industry. Also, remember that it’s more important to have the right people reading your content rather than a lot of the wrong people.
In this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 podcast we chat about attorney bios, typically, the highest trafficked pages on a law firm’s website. Mary Trice of Winston & Strawn, shares her experience about the process of identifying the problem, getting everyone at the firm on board, what makes an effective bio, and optimizing each bio for search engines.
Full shownotes available at Good2bSocial.com.
Testimonials are important to promote authenticity and passion around you as an attorney or your law firm as a whole and therefore they are one of the most powerful marketing tools.
Can you just write the testimonial and I’ll sign off on it?
Anyone who’s asked for a testimonial has heard this response. In today’s episode I chat with Vikram Rajan co-founder of phoneBlogger.net about why and how lawyers can get authentic testimonials from passionate clients.
Full shownotes at Good2bSocial.
Is social media the new public relations? I posed this question to Ryan King the Director of Communications at the law firm of Ogletree Deakins. Ryan goes on to discuss the relationship between law firm public relations, social media, and content.
Among the takeaways:
If you pursue social and/or PR as a marketing strategy, do one thing well and build from there. Even if you are really mature in this area, it’s still like drinking from a fire hose because there is simply so much out there in terms of helpful content, channels, publications, influencers, and the like.
Full shownotes at Good2bSocial.
At the beginning of each year Good2bSocial’s founder, Guy Alvarez, shares his thoughts in a blog post on digital marketing trends in the legal space for the year ahead. This year, practicing what he preaches, Guy uses a hot trending marketing format-podcasting-to share his thoughts.
Among the top digital marketing trends for law firms in 2018 are Paid Social, Facebook Live, Podcasting, Marketing Automation, and Semantic SEO.
Full shownotes at Good2bSocial.com
Good2bSocial’s founder Guy Alvarez welcomes software engineer and legal marketer Jaron Rubenstein to the podcast. They discuss five questions legal marketers should ask in 2018. Jaron touches on content marketing, engaging with your firm’s target audience, the potential of artificial intelligence in marketing, getting the most out of your content management system, and much more.
The running theme throughout the conversation is strategy and technology. This episode is conversation as tutorial.
Check out the full shownotes at https://good2bsocial.com/
In this episode, we chat with attorneys Kristin Tyler and Michael Brunet of LAWCLERK™ an online marketplace connecting small firms with freelance lawyers.
We discuss the emergence of legal marketplaces, including a discussion of LAWCLERK™ and the opportunities, including personal branding, for today’s lawyers.
Full shownotes at Good2bSocial.com.
In the rapidly evolving practice of law, traditional ways of law school and law firm training are not in sync with what lawyers need. It’s misaligned with the efficiency that the market now demands. It’s not good for the lawyers and it’s not good for clients.
In this episode we talk about the new model for developing lawyers, including the emergence of design thinking and creativity thinking principles, using networks for problem solving, and teaching law students to work in teams to innovate.
Full shownotes at Good2bSocial.com
We’re operating in a digital world where clients have so many ways to engage, which is why marketing teams needs somebody to manage the technology that’s available. In this episode Jacqueline Madarang, senior marketing technology manager at Bradley, an Am Law 200 firm, provides insight and offers tips on marketing technology for law firms. See expanded shownotes at Good2bSocial.com
Collaboration is more important today than it was yesterday and will be more important tomorrow than it is today. Harvard Law's Dr. Heidi Gardner joins Good2bSocial's CEO Guy Alvarez to discuss smart collaboration in the legal industry backed up by data and research: * The link between collaboration and business development * Client development benefits * Collaboration technology * The biggest obstacles that law firms face in smart collaboration
Additional shownotes: https://good2bsocial.com/category/podcast/
Molly Porter, Director of Marketing at Seyfarth Shaw, chats with Guy Alvarez, about putting together a strategic law firm marketing team by covering the 3 C’s: creative, content, and channels. Molly goes into some depth on the creative aspect, and also talks about becoming a student of the business of law as marketers, and making your own precedent.
See full shownotes at https://good2bsocial.com/
Baker McKenzie’s Will White, Global Director of Marketing & Communications, and Erin Nixon, Head of Digital Marketing join us on the Legal Marketing 2.0 podcast, and encourage legal marketers to:
“Don’t be afraid to fail!” Baker McKenzie is one of the world’s leading law firms, with 77 offices in 47 countries, and took the top Facebook spot in Good2bSocial's 2017 Social Law Firm Index. Erin and Will talk about the content sharing checklist they shared with us, and offer insight into how social and digital media should fit into your overall marketing and communications efforts, along with their approach to analytics.
For more, see shownotes at: https://good2bsocial.com/category/podcast/
In this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 podcast, we chat with DLA Piper’s Juliet McNulty, Senior Digital Communications Manager, and Josh Epstein, Director of Communications. DLA Piper has been ranked the top firm in the Social Law Firm Index year after year including in 2017. Juliet and Josh shares insights into how the firm maintains high quality content consistently, collaborating across offices in more than 40 countries, and working with partners and members of the firm on their marketing campaigns.
In this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 podcast, Good2bSocial’s founder Guy Alvarez chats with Breichen Madej Marsh, Director of Digital Communications at Orrick. Breichen comes from Big Pharma and shares her experience about bringing lessons learned there to the legal industry, including how to change behavior with the right message on the right mediums and platforms, KPIs, and metrics.
Shownotes The switch from pharma to legal When moving from the pharmaceutical industry to the legal industry, there’s an obvious shift from selling goods to selling services. However, the way each industry approaches clients is significantly different. In pharma, customers are viewed in a more holistic way and marketing strategies remain similar. While in the legal industry, lawyers work with a variety of clients throughout a range of industries, making a holistic approach more difficult to implement. In some ways marketing in legal is easier than in the pharmaceutical industry, simply due to less regulations and quicker turnaround times for campaigns.
The key to a successful marketing strategy is to understand the basic concepts and fundamentals of marketing that transcends industries.
How does campaign development vary between industries? A lot of marketing discipline goes into campaign development. In Pharma, there is always a strategy and a brand planning process that aims to change consumer behavior. The best way to do this is to market in the best place at the best time by considering the messaging and medium appropriate for each step of the client journey. Unfortunately, legal marketers often don’t create content with this in mind which means they miss out on leads and opportune marketing moments.
What can legal marketers learn from pharma? Writing in a consumer friendly way is crucial. All humans are consumers and clear and concise communication goes a long way.
Ask: What value does a piece of content bring? Is there a call to action? How does it fit into our firm’s strategy? What is our overarching goal?
Law firms should focus on developing an integrated marketing strategy. Every lawyer and all content produced across the firm needs to be cohesive in order to fulfill the firm’s overarching goal. The message should be prioritized first and then the medium second. Once you know what you want to say, consider how it can be shared in a consistent manner across channels.
How can you put marketing ideas into action? Legal marketers should assess existing marketing campaigns, and then understand where the gaps are. By measuring and evaluating useful KPIs and metrics you can create strategies to improve your firm’s successes.
The challenge of moving from pharma to legal The breadth of activity and the number of areas in which law firms are involved can be the biggest challenge when marketing in the legal profession. If you must strategize globally and across industries, it can be more of a challenge to implement a cohesive marketing plan for the firm.
Tips on shifting into legal marketing The first step is brushing up on core marketing fundamentals. By understanding your clients’ needs and their journey, you will have the insights that allow you to best reach your target market with the right messaging, at the right time.
In this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 podcast, Good2bSocial’s founder Guy Alvarez chats with K&L Gates CMO Jeff Berardi about their top thought leadership position in the 2017 Social Law Firm Index.
Jeff shares insights on marketing, business development and client development, how to get lawyers at the firm involved in initiatives, how to use analytics to make decisions, and his philosophy on generating client-centric thought-leadership content.
It’s clear that clients are asking law firms to provide more value. Some law firms work hard to get clients on board, but do very little to add value through insights.
But how can they provide value? An easy way is to create thoughtful, relevant content. With an understanding of what expertise you can give and the type of audience you want to share it with, law firms can build content based on what will resonate the most with clients.
The Evolution of The Social Law Firm Index The first Social Law Firm index was published in 2014 in partnership with Above the Law. The goal was to review and rank top law firms’ social media efforts. Through the years the report expanded from ranking the Am Law 50 firms to the Am Law 100 and the 2017 Social Law Firm Index expanded to include all AmLaw 200 firms for the first time.
Our annual report not only doubled in size this year, but also added an SEO category in addition to the social media and thought leadership rankings. Social media is just one of the channels where your clients can search and find your content, search engines are also a major source which is why this year’s report includes this category. As the digital marketing landscape is constantly evolving, so is The Social Law Firm Index. Each year the algorithm is adjusted to reflect changes in social media, marketing technologies, and overall best practices.
The Methodology Upon reading the result of the report some firms wonder why their ranking fell from the previous year or why they didn’t rank well at all. In general, other firms are trying just as hard and a poor ranking doesn’t mean you’re doing something wrong, other firms are just doing better. We collect data and measure analytics March through June which means this report is a snapshot rather than a full year analysis. A variety of measurement tools along with Good2bSocial’s proprietary algorithm generates the scores which we then rank.
Thought Leadership: You can’t have a successful social media or SEO strategy without content. In the Thought Leadership category we rank firms based on whether or not they are creating client-centric, engaging content on a consistent basis. Client-centric content is not self promotional, but instead anticipates what your target audience is interested in and provides relevant, educational insights. A lot of firms are already providing this in the form of blogs, but some are in PDF format or buried deep within their site. Other firms rely solely on client alerts to share their content, meaning it doesn’t reach potential clients. Firms that topped this category make a commitment to a variety of quality content that is easily consumed and accessed.
LinkedIn When looking at law firms’ LinkedIn profiles we measured the frequency of thought leadership content and use of best practices. We took the number of followers into consideration, but just as importantly, we looked at engaging visuals, curated content, and showcase pages to highlight firm practice areas.
Twitter In the Twitter category we measured ratios such as tweets to retweets, tweets to likes, and followers to following, We also looked for best practices like use of hashtags, content curation, and frequency of original tweets.
Facebook Facebook is the largest social network, but some firms don’t focus on it. For corporate firms the platform is best used as a recruiting tool or a channel to demonstrate corporate culture and community involvements. In The Social Law Firm Index we analyzed how firms were using Facebook and if they used features like groups and Facebook Live which can increase engagement.
SEO SEO was a new category for the 2017 report. To rank law firms on their SEO efforts, we looked at off-page optimization and domain authority. In the future, The Social Law Firm Index aims to include a more in depth SEO analysis.
How Can a Firm Improve? After downloading this year’s report, you may question how your law firm can improve their digital marketing efforts. A digital audit can help firms evaluate their social media and SEO practices. Reviewing top firms digital marketing strategies can help you understand how they ranked and how you can implement similar best practices.
Download the 2017 Social Law Firm Index
Lawyer, author, and ClearView Social founder, Adrian Dayton, joins to talk about evaluating data so lawyers and marketers can make more informed decision when it comes to social media strategy.
And, we do a deep dive on LinkedIn, which is gradually becoming more social, opening up opportunities for lawyers to build their networks and share content.
Legal tech is a rapidly changing field with a growing number of legal technology startups offering innovative products and services. Lawyers that see problems or gaps in tech are starting their own companies leading to a new democratization of web technology. Law firms can now choose to work with a large variety of viable products from both big and small tech companies.
How are firms responding and adapting to new marketing technologies? Firms are beginning to understand the power of data in marketing. To quote Peter Druker, “What gets measure, gets managed.”
Even though legal marketing has been traditionally relationship driven, a lot of marketing is also based on instinct which is why firms are starting to evolve their marketing strategies as new technology becomes available. This is true for solo and small firms as well as large firms.
Marketing analytics can help law firms be more efficient with their marketing budget and yield more meaningful results. We’re seeing more services like Lex Machina which provide legal analytics and competitive intelligence for firms for any number of reasons including legal marketing, making analysis and decision-making more fact based and data driven.
Marketing advice for new companies that provide legal services and products Knowing your audience and listening to your audience is the key for legal tech startups. Just because you think you have a good idea, doesn’t mean it’s going to be one that has practical implications.
The most successful startups are the ones where the executives talk to people all the time. It’s essential to go to legal tech or bar conferences whether you exhibit or not. Relationships still matter in the legal industry. Speaking with your audience isn’t just for networking opportunities; you’ll be able to ask what your audience wants and tailor your products to their needs.
How can lawyers maintain an energy and passion for consistent blogging? Perfect is the enemy of good. Blogs don’t need to be overworked, they just need to be posted.
The two hardest parts about blogging are coming up with the ideas and finding time to write them down.
Establish a writing routine. Track topics and favorites sites on RSS aggregators like Feedly. Keeping up to date with industry news can help you generate your own blog topics.
On lawyers using social media Be yourself on social media and figure out how you want to use it. Lawyers should make social part of their daily routines and get comfortable with it.
As with blogging and creating podcasts, it’s important for lawyers to develop their own voice through social media.
Google has placed a focus on connecting visitors to pages with the meaning they’re looking for rather than just exact phrases and keywords to help provide users with the best possible results. For marketers, this means thinking about the broader topics around the keywords you’re trying to rank for. Targeting topics instead of keywords only Ask yourself: how many different ways will people search for a topic? By creating series of pages answering their questions in multiple ways, Google will value the meaning your content is providing and you may then rank higher for multiple types of keywords. Tip: Use Google’s search engine suggestions to discover related keywords and phrases you can use to create content. Voice search Search is evolving as more people turn to their phones and connected internet devices to ask questions verbally. For SEO, this means that optimizing around long tail keywords and natural language is key. Tip: In order to accommodate for voice search, blog posts should now reach 1,500 words instead of just 500-1,000 to truly be search engine optimized. Think relationships instead of link spam Off-page SEO relates to the authority of your site which is mainly measured by links. The more links your website has, the higher your authority. However in the past, black hat SEO tactics often involved link farms. Now, Google is disavowing and penalizing these types of links. Google wants the highest value result for their users and therefore is not supportive of artificial link building. To develop links, you first must develop relationships with people in your industry and write content for their websites that will link back to your site. Tip: Subscribe, retweet, and engage with influencers through social media with the goal of creating meaningful relationships with industry leaders. Make your content topical and interactive You don’t increase SEO or domain authority from social media backlinks. Social media does, however, have an impact through user interaction signals. If you link to a blog post that creates high engagement on social, Google will see that it has high value. If users visit the blog on your website and the blog post has good internal links, this will help SEO. People won’t share content or revisit your site if they don’t find the information useful. Find a way to present the topics you’re targeting in a way that people will understand. When you place a focus on content, SEO will almost take care of itself. Tip: Utilizing images, videos, and bullet points makes your content more engaging to users visiting your page.
Ari Kaplan discusses the challenges and importance of accountability partners when it comes to executing marketing plans within law firms. What challenges do law firm marketers face today? There isn’t a lack of good ideas when it comes to marketing, rather marketers can struggle with executing their ideas due to an absence of accountability. Marketers should realize it’s more important to get things done than to get them done perfectly. At the core of both professional and personal development, is taking some calculated action in a positive way. Either you succeed or learn from it and move on. Good marketers find a way to empower their audience through their content and initiatives while effective accountability partners empower marketers and lawyers to do so. How can a law firm marketer build in an accountability partner? Professionals should collaborate with partners within their company in order to hold each other accountable. Law firms should encourage junior professionals to speak with senior professionals so they can learn from them. “Rainmakers work in tandem.” How can marketers overcome lawyers’ resistance to become involved? Marketers can help individual lawyers understand their own ability and how that ability has an impact on the whole. If they can encourage lawyers by reaching out and starting a dialogue, they will most likely be happy to respond. Law firm marketers can help persuade reluctant lawyers to see what’s possible. Then, everyone succeeds. About Ari Kaplan: Ari Kaplan is a lawyer and leading legal industry analyst, keynote speaker, author of over 200 articles, and an inaugural Fastcase 50 honoree featuring the law’s smartest, most courageous innovators, techies, visionaries, & leaders. Ari’s is the author of a few books including Reinventing Professional Services: Building Your Business in the Digital Marketplace. Ari founded Lawcountability, an online marketing and business-development application. Website: Ari Kaplan Advisors | Twitter: @AriKaplan
Small law firms face a different set of challenges than big law. However, they are able to take more risks on creative marketing strategies. In small firms, staffing and budget resources are limited, but this can lead to opportunities to utilize outside business partners in areas like writing, design, or SEO. Big law can lead to legal marketers being stretched thin, whereas small law can allow marketers to dive deep into content marketing tactics. Owned Media vs. Earned Media Earned: When another party produces content about your firm. Owned: What your firm publishes themselves which can include client alerts, social media posts, and blogs. Maximizing owned media can be important for small law firms who find it challenging to gain earned media attention. Tips for Creating a Content Strategy Suited for your Firm - Focused content. More volume does not equal high quality content. It’s important to focus on core initiatives rather than struggle to promote every practice area. - Know your audience. Use analytics to understand where your readers - are coming from and which platform they use to access your content. - Create Once, Publish Everywhere. Small firms with less resources can do a lot by repurposing content in ways that encourage their audience to see it in different ways. Highlight different key points and vary the platforms where you share it. - Utilize employee advocacy. Encourage employees and lawyers to share the content your firm creates with others through their own social networks. How Smaller Law Firms Can Do the Same with Less - Creating and then repurposing your own content. - Training lawyers on social technologies and getting them involved in your content strategy. - Taking advantage of tools like Canva that can make graphic design more accessible. - Finding strong business partners and utilizing consultants.
Law firms and companies trying to target a B2B (business to business) audience are starting to recognize the value of paid LinkedIn advertising. Paid advertising on LinkedIn is a great way to not only expand your reach, but provides you with incredible targeting opportunities. Budgets for LinkedIn Advertising Like Google Adwords, you can set up your own budget. However, the difference between Google Adwords and paid social, and in particular, paid LinkedIn, is that LinkedIn is much cheaper – as much as half the cost of pay-per-click. Some clients spend $200-$250 per month and are seeing great results. You can set your own budget and based on the results, choose to spend more or less. What is “Matched Audiences”? Matched Audiences is LinkedIn’s retargeting platform and lets you serve an advertisement for a piece of content to someone that’s already familiar with your brand. Studies have shown that people are much more likely to engage or purchase from a brand they’re already familiar with. Matched Audiences options Retarget people that have already visited your website. You do this by adding a script to your website that LinkedIn provides, and then targeting an ad to those people on LinkedIn. Upload your mailing list to LinkedIn. This action matches the email addresses that you have with the email address of LinkedIn users. So, instead of the contacts seeing your content in an email, which they’re used to, they come across it in their LinkedIn stream. Target employees of certain companies. Upload a list of companies to LinkedIn and your campaign will target individuals at that company. Get started by experimenting with tiny budgets and adjust as needed. If you want to go deeper it can get a bit more complicated so you should get some professional help. You can find helpful tips on our Good2bSocial blog.
Podcast Shownotes In episode 18 of the Legal Marketing 2.0 podcast we chat with Jennifer Ellis about using the WordPress platform to build a website for your law firm – from solos to large firms. Jennifer literally wrote the book on WordPress for Lawyers: WordPress in One Hour for Lawyers: How to Create a Website for Your Law Firm (ABA). Jennifer has had an unusual career in the legal profession going from continuing legal education (CLE) professional to practicing lawyer to marketing expert and, in addition to our conversation about WordPress, she shares some “Alt Legal” career tips, so make sure to check out the interview. Here are some of the highlights: What is WordPress and why should lawyers use it? WordPress is a database-drive software that allows you easily publish a website. It’s free and easy to use and update, and lets you quickly design the site, add images, pages, blog posts, and so on. You can create a site using wordpress.com (not recommended) or wordpress.org (recommended). You’ll need to subscribe to a web hosting service for the latter, which you can install with the click of a button. TIP: WordPress is great for solos, small firms, and legal tech companies, but it’s also powerful enough for large law firm websites. You can build a WordPress website without knowing any coding. Just find a theme you like, change a few settings, and you’re good to go. That said, a little HTML knowledge never hurts, especially if you want to customize your site. WordPress Plugins Plugins primarily alters the backend of a website but can make a difference in the front end – what visitors see and how they experience your site. They expand the functionality. Top recommended plugin is Yoast SEO. Akismet is another recommended plugin which controls spam comments on your site. TIP: It’s critically important that you get your plugins from reputable sources and keep them up to date to keep your website secure. Although WordPress comes with basic SEO and design functionality out of the box you need to understand the basics of SEO. Check out Moz blog (and our posts, podcasts, and videos on search engine optimization) to get up to speed. About our guest: Jennifer Ellis is a Pennsylvania legal ethics attorney who is not currently practicing law. Instead, she assists law firms and other businesses to maintain a competitive online presence. She also educates attorneys so they can make certain that their online conduct is ethically appropriate. Previously she practiced law with and managed the online presence of Lowenthal & Abrams, a medium-sized personal injury firm. Jennifer enjoys educating the public on the law by answering questions on sites such as Quora and Avvo, as well as on her own website through her “Ask Jennifer” blog.
Have you built a new website or redesigned your existing one and don’t know what to do next? In this Legal Marketing 2.0 episode, hosts Guy Alvarez and Tim Baran discuss the top three takeaways - content, search engine optimization (SEO), and social media - from our popular blog post: You’ve Built a Website. Now What? It starts with content Without content you can’t have a successful SEO or social media strategy. "You’ve built the Ferrari (website) and now you need the fuel (content) to make it go." But, not typical content - about the firm or the attorney, or practice area description. We’re talking about thought leadership and client-centric content that anticipates the issues and concerns your target audience has. Clients want lawyers who understand their problems, their business, and have the experience to handle their issues, and the best way to demonstrate that is with client-centric content. Instead to starting out with what you do, talk about the problems your target audience face and then show how you can help. TIP: Create content based on success stories with examples of how you’ve been able to help a client overcome a legal challenge. Why do success stories work? Because we all like stories and it’s a great way to demonstrate your legal skills and experience. Always be thinking SEO Create client-centric content that engages your potential clients while having SEO in the back of your mind, such as the keywords and key phrases that your target audience would. Use keywords in the right places and include long tail key phrases. TIP: Use Yoast SEO, a WordPress Plugin that helps you use your keywords properly in the title, body, and meta description, and optimize pages for each keyword. Social Media You can have great client-centric content on your site but if no one’s reading it, what good is it? In addition to SEO, you should use social media to help people find your content. TIP: Use paid social to increase your reach and exposure. You should also curate content and engage on the social channels. Curating content writing by others enhances your position as a thought leader and helps you build relationships with influencers and others. See: A Social Media Strategy Checklist for Law Firms. Additional takeaway Don’t forget to measure everything. Not just web analytics like page views and visitors to your site, but tracking downloads, social media posts, emails, and so on. Make sure you have the tools and KPIs in place to measure what’s working and what isn’t.
Podcast Shownotes What is Google AdWords and how does it work? Google AdWords is an advertising platform that allows advertisers to place ads anywhere they are willing to pay to position them. It enables law firms to gain qualified leads by high placement on the search results page. The platform works on a market principle. In other words, what you pay is based on what the market will allow - more competitive keywords requires higher bids. Google will give you a Quality Score based on an algorithm that looks at the relevance between the keywords you’re bidding on, the ad you wish to show, and the landing page you’re trying to send people to. The lower your Quality Score, the more you pay to rank. If you’re able to increase your Quality Score, your cost per click will be lower. When you start bidding, see where you’re positioned in comparison to others. Then, you can raise your bid incrementally until you’re in the position you want to be in. The key elements of your Google AdWords campaign Ads that reflect your law firm Individual landing pages for each ad Keywords Four types of keyword match: 1. Exact match - searcher must type exact key phrase for ad to show in search 2. Phrase match - searcher must type the entire phrase, but can include additional words 3. Modified broad match - searcher can search any of the part of the key phrase in any any order and the ad will show up 4. Broad match - searcher can type key phrase in any order and google will determine and allow for substitution words What are ad extensions and do they make sense for lawyers? Ad extensions are additional links or information you can include with your ads; this can be hit or miss for lead generation. Whether or not ad extensions are appropriate should be determined on a case by case basis as it may be effective for some law firms and not others. How do you track conversions? Tracking is essential in order to understand what is working for your law firm and what isn’t. AdWords is exceptional at tracking anything with a page via a cookie based tracking code, but lacks in ability when it comes to phone tracking. This is why a combination of AdWords and third party phone tracking services may be best. Takeaway Google AdWords can be a reasonable cost for advertising as it is priced based on the level of competition for your keywords. Unlike other SEO strategies that can take months for significant results to be seen, a firm can tell if AdWords is working after about a week. This is why Alan recommends companies experiment with the bidding and ranking process to see if it proves to be an effective way for your law firm to generate leads. This week's guest, Alan Schneider is the Director of Paid Search at Good2bSocial. He is a 14-year search engine marketing (SEM) veteran and the former co-owner of Mr-SEO.com, Alan manages paid search on the AdWords and Bing Ads platforms for all of Good2bSocial’s clients.
Podcast shownotes The conversation and effort around SEO has been about how to optimize your site, get inbound links and the technical aspects. But increasingly the importance of local SEO has taken center stage. What is local SEO? In a nutshell, local SEO tailors web results to your geographic area. A customization based on where you are in the world. It’s important because typical search isn’t for a specific lawyer, it’s for the type of lawyer you’re looking for or problem you’re trying to solve. Google can take that search data along with your location and give you results that matter to you. If you’re on the East Coast there’s no point in getting results for firms based in San Francisco. What factors go into optimizing for local SEO? 1. Consistency of information in directories is the most important first step - Name, Address and Phone Number (NAP) should be consistent across the 100+ directories that search engines crawl. Tools such as Yext can help, especially if a firm moves offices or changes phone numbers or other contact information. 2. Reviews - Google and other search engines want to provide the person who’s searching with the best options and having a good review helps. What are Knowledge Cards in Google search results? Knowledge Cards appear on the right in search results with the firm’s logo, address, phone number, short description of services, and other information. To optimize for Knowledge Cards, you must claim your business so you’re the sole source of information. It’s important to have control over your listing. What about law firms with a national or global presence? When someone discovers a firm with a national presence they probably want to have a meeting in the office closest to them. Local SEO will return results based on location of the office in that person's area. Our guest, Aaron Shepard, is an Account Manager at Good2bSocial. His responsibilities include day-to-day account management, social media, and local SEO for various clients. He got his start in legal marketing as a Social Media Intern with Good2bSocial. He then worked at a top political campaign consulting firm, winning a New York State Assembly race and running several grassroots campaigns. He then returned to Good2bSocial to put his skills to work for the legal industry. Twitter: @AaronG2BS
Law firms are not just about selling legal services but the client’s experience receiving those services. To do that you need to marry good industry insight with vigorous market research with exceptional design. What is the biggest challenge in getting a firm to do brand research? Their knee-jerk reaction is: “We don’t need it. We know our clients. We’ve got it covered. Let’s skip that and go straight to design.” Though law firms may know their clients, it seldom tells the whole story. Most engage with their clients on a specific case or matter. They seldom sit with clients and to find out more about them and their company generally – where they’re at and where they’re going. As a result lawyers get a skewed view of what’s important to the client because they’re only getting the view of what’s important to that matter. Market research can help identify the bigger — and softer — concerns clients and prospects have. Three points of resistance with research: 1. To reiterate, firms think they know everything. They may already know 80% of information gleaned from market research but the devil is in the details. That other 20% can make a brand resonate with the buyer. 2. They don’t want to hear about some of the things they haven’t done as well. 3. The research may reveal fundamental changes needed to their business. How does a law firm marketers convince the decision makers at the firm to do brand research? First, mine your own data. Focus research on one particular issue or sector. Second, do competitor analysis. Elonide provides examples of how brand research made a difference with clients and how it helped a firm expand. Affordable brand research include: - Digging into your analytics to see patterns. - Taking a closer look at financial data. - Doing surveys. Tip: Use a survey tool when sitting at a booth at a trade show. Meaningful insight can be gained by answers to just five questions from the targeted audience. - Email newsletter data such as open rates, click-throughs, A/B testing, etc. Elonide Semmes is the founder and president of Right Hat, a branding agency that focuses on helping companies that have offerings that aren’t always so easy to understand. She is a founding member of the Legal Marketing Association Mid-Atlantic chapter and was inducted into the Legal Marketing Association Hall of Fame. She is passionate about brand design driven by research, not assumptions.
Podcast shownotes What does it take to build a marketing and business development department? You’re responsible for sustaining a vision for how a law firm can improve and what it can become. Also, for inspiring colleagues and partners to embrace the same vision and to work with management on barriers to change. None of this is possible without buy-in and support from management, especially in top-down cultures. The more management can work hand-in-hand with marketing professionals and support and collaborate with them, the more success you will see over time. What’s the difference between being CMO at a law firm vs. being one at a company? You have more flexibility at law firms in terms of how you spend money. With public companies, you have a responsibility to your shareholders and have to be more mindful about spending resources. A company serving the legal industry is more like a strategic partner that helps to advance the industry. Commercial litigation finance is helping to facilitate access to justice — for companies that may have been on the receiving end of bullying behavior by larger entities — and need to have their day in court and get on with their business. What is commercial litigation finance and how can law firm marketers use it as a differentiator when marketing the firm? Commercial litigation finance, like Bentham IMF, provides financial resources to law firms and to litigants who are looking to bring litigation and need outside funding to afford counsel or to be able to continue on with their business while pursuing litigation. For law firms, funding is collateralized by a portfolio of cases rather than by a single case, with a return on investment based on a successful outcome of the case(s). Law firm marketers should know that it’s a resource. It’s something law firms are using in order to be able to get a leg up on the competition. For instance, when responding to RFPs and clients are inquiring about alternative fee arrangements (AFAs). With funding, a law firm can take a case on contingency, where they otherwise may not have been able to or willing to take on that much risk. With funding, the risk is more measured. It helps them to expand their practices and take on more plaintiff side work. With increasing client demand for flexibility, litigation finance provides another option law firms can offer to clients to be able to meet that demand. It can smooth out the law firm’s cash flow, especially for firms that are accustomed to taking cases on contingency where they might be waiting years for a case to reach a successful outcome. How do legal marketers approach marketing for litigators? When you’re a litigator you have to be in the hunt more of the time as opposed to a transactional practice where there is a more reliable stable of clients. A lot more pitching is involved. Client relationships becomes much more important. Content marketing plays a role. When you’re a litigator you need to be constantly visible and part of that is being top of mind. Producing content on a regular basis, writing about cases, the nuances in the law, video commentary, and being visible in the media, can be hugely beneficial. Blogging, LinkedIn, Twitter, creating an editorial calendar, tools to amplify messaging, all play an important role. Gretchen is also a certified executive coach and here’s her encouraging takeaway: Stay curious, stay flexible, continue to be excited about where the legal industry is headed and how you can contribute. Gretchen Lyn Koehler is the Chief Marketing Officer at Bentham IMF, one of the world’s most successful commercial litigation finance firms. Prior to joining Bentham, Gretchen held marketing and business development positions at four leading law firms. She is a New York State admitted attorney, certified professional coach, yoga instructor and energy medicine practitioner.
Podcast Shownotes In this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 podcast, legal marketing leaders with decades of experience in the industry, provide super useful insight and advice on the process of law firm directory submissions. Chambers and Partners and The Legal 500 directories play a prominent role in the discussion. Let’s get the big question out of the way: In today’s world, do you even need a directory listing? To answer the question our esteemed guests provide a list of benefits of the submissions process that go beyond being listed and getting ranked: - Third party affirmation – You get an independent and objective look at your practice and your lawyers as compared to your peers - An opportunity for an internal practice review as you’re putting everything together to see whether or not you’re hitting your benchmarks. - The submissions process is an information hygiene exercise and provides a framework to organize your information and keep it up to date. A big frustration partners have is: a matter may have opened, there is an initial description of what was going on, and then over time, the matter progresses, then closes, and the information wasn’t updated on the firm’s website and other places. The process forces you to have the latest information. - Increased client contact opportunities since you’ll need to reach out to them to use as referees – a great opportunity for partners to keep in touch with their best clients. Clients appreciate spending time with the partner. - During the process you get market intelligence about your practice and where it stands. Firms get to see where the market sees them and how clients perceive them. - Provides a wake-up call. References may not turn out the way you anticipated. Clients you thought would be champions of the firm may provide negative feedback. This provides an opportunity to work on client relationships. - All of the effort that goes into a submission can be repurposed in other ways. The process of awards submissions is like getting on a scale. If you haven’t done all of the exercising and careful eating before you get on the scale, you can’t get mad at the scale for the number that if reflects back up to you. There’s a whole lot of work to be done before you get to the directory submission. Like raising your profile, making sure that you’ve been targeting and developing business so you have the deals and the cases that will impress the researchers, and selecting and preparing your referees. How do Legal 500 and Chambers submissions differ? A big difference is how each engages with the firm. Legal 500 is very proactive about reaching out the marketplace, meeting with the firm’s lawyers and marketers, and gaining information about the firm and practices in a personal way. The researchers generally have longer tenures, bringing with it, a wealth of knowledge about the firm. The tenure of Chambers researchers may be just as long but they tend to rotate their researchers to different practice areas, handling different parts of the book. Chambers does that deliberately to get a fresh take on a particular area of practice. Another difference is Chambers ranks many more individuals than Legal 500 which tends to focus more on teams. About our guests: Yolanda Cartusciello is a business development and marketing consultant to law firms with over 20 years of experience in the legal industry. For the past decade, Richard Pinto had been helping law firms bridge their marketing communications efforts with their Business development activities with directories and awards marketing at the core. Bob Robertson's career has touched nearly every aspect of business development and marketing for nearly every size of firm and practice areas See additional shownotes at www.good2bsocial.com
Podcast Shownotes Evan started out at a big defense firm which represented large insurance companies. He left the firm to become a solo practitioner, and a few years later, joined together with another solo practitioner who was a former colleague, to form a firm with a primary focus on insurance recovery for policyholders. Identifying an underserved area of law Evan identified a law practice niche that was underserved, then went deeper into a sub niche – long term disability claims and litigation, and established a national practice. The firm was formed at a time that particular industry had undergone a significant change and shrunk due to an abundance of claims being filed by professionals like chiropractors and orthopedic surgeons and dentists. In 1996 when the firm opened their doors insurance companies were denying a lot of those claims. His marketing efforts started with a little yellow pages ad for insurance recovery and calls from professionals came pouring in. The sub-niche took off from there. Other types of insurance recovery claims came in through traditional advertising and it became the branding of the firm. The marketing may have changed over the last 20 years but the niche practice remains the same. The niche practice has served him well for 20 years. How do you get known for your niche or even sub-niche? Internet searches have resulted in the acquisition of many clients. In many situations, prospects don’t want to ask their circle for lawyer recommendations and expose their issues. Instead, they turn to the internet to find a lawyer for a private, privileged consultation. Digital marketing such as Pay Per Click works but you need to use all the tools such as social media to increase your profile and recognizability among the people you want to reach. Managing marketing the firm and practicing law Start with legal marketing 101: It’s not optional for you to not spend a significant amount of time on a regular, repeated basis towards growing your book of business and growing your practice. If you’re not doing that, you won’t grow. It needs to be as big a commitment as representing your clients on cases or to handling whatever other facets of your business. Evan has positioned himself to where he can spend up to 65 percent of his working day on things related to marketing origination, and growth and management of the practice. It makes him more valuable to the firm than he was when mired in the day to day activities related to cases. Don’t fear picking a niche It’s very difficult to be profitable and successful as a generalist. There are many rich veins of law that having an area of expertise or specialization – when you focus in on a niche, a core area of practice, or even two core areas of practice, you’re able to hone and focus on what you’re doing, in terms of marketing, as well as the efficiencies of managing the business. For people who are not as socially comfortable with networking in the traditional relationship-building efforts, becoming the expert in a certain field helps by speaking and writing about it. It’s also easier for someone to find you if you practice in a specific area. Clients are looking for people who handle issues similar to theirs on a regular basis. How to get started in your niche? Besides making the time and effort commitment, identify successful rainmakers, talk to them, learn from them. Then decide which of those techniques work for you. Identify your strengths and weaknesses. Other lawyers like to tell you what they know. Be a willing listener. Takeaway There is still no substitute for networking and relationship building. Maintaining good relationships with people who can connect you to clients is important. Also, figure out a strategy to ensure your clients are happy because some of the great promoters you’ll have are former clients. Conversely, some of the biggest damage can be made by having clients out there who aren’t happy with your services.
The beauty of CRM is it can do a thousand things. The problem with CRM is it can do a thousand things. Starting out, most firms should concentrate on only two or three things. The challenge is that those two or three things are different for each firm, groups within the firm, or attorneys. Start with a needs assessment. Understand what you want to get out of CRM before you get the technology. Consider people, processes, and problems first, then the product: - Some firms just want to manage email lists and events which saves tons of time and for law firms, time is money. - Others want to identify and leverage relationships. - Later, you can add client team support, an alumni program, business development tracking, pipelines for opportunities, and other activity tracking. CRM is a fundamental change and improvement in how the firm manages its most important assets: relationships. It’s not a project or initiative that just ends. It’s an ongoing effort. What is the best way to get your attorneys to adopt CRM technology? - Assess your needs up front. - Don’t roll out CRM firm-wide all at once. Do it strategically by group. Find a distinct group where CRM can be a benefit and deploy on a micro level. Chris offers a few law firm examples of successfully implementing CRM. - Training and communication are essential. What about the quality of the law firm’s data? Thirty percent of your data degrades every year – people move, get married, change jobs, get promoted, retire, etc. If you don’t keep up with the changes, within two or three years, your data will be completely degraded. The key to CRM success is clean, complete, and correct data. How clean your data is affects your campaign delivery to the recipients. When bounces come back, someone need to go through them, research them, and update them. Start with a manageable data set, such as the top 50 or 100 clients. Bring that data over first and validate the data. As the market has become competitive it’s tremendously important for law firms to do coordinated business development, and that involves tracking, pitches, RFPs, last step, next step, and have all of the historical information to be able to predict revenue, even hiring and expansion. About our guest: Chris Fritsch is Founder and President of CLIENTSFirst Consulting, a strategic business development technology consulting firm that focuses on CRM, eMarketing and related technologies for leading law and other professional services firms. Chris applies her background in law and more than 15 years of legal marketing, business development and technology experience to help her clients grow and succeed. Chris is a popular speaker on CRM, eMarketing and Competitive Intelligence topics in the professional services arena. Website: ClientsFirst Consulting | Twitter: @CRMSuccess
Think of online behavior as an extension of offline behavior. If activities run afoul of ethics rules offline, don’t do it online. Twenty-seven states have adopted some duty of technology competence requiring lawyers to understand and use technology to provide adequate representation to their clients. It can cause significant stress for solos and small firm attorneys, in particular. On top of representing their clients and maintaining competence in their practice areas, while trying to figure out how to run their businesses which law school doesn’t teach, they have to be up on technology. It can be overwhelming. But it’s important to be on top of changes in technology. If you’re a litigator and don’t understand social media and how it can be used to mine for evidence and research jurors, you may be committing malpractice. Question: How can attorneys make sure they’re complying with ethical obligations regarding social media and technology? Answer: The rule of thumb is to think of your online behavior as an extension of your offline behavior. Consider if you’d be able to do someone offline and apply that to your online activities. So, if you can’t post something in print with language that requires a “this is attorney advertising” disclaimer because it’s blatant advertising and not just educational, don’t do it online. Attorneys are responsible for complying. In other words, don’t outsource your ethics. Sure, legal marketers need to have an understanding of the rules but the ethical obligation lies with the lawyer. It’s the lawyer’s job to inform their legal marketing team of the ethics rules and review copy to make sure it’s compliant. Remember: The online is an extension of the offline and the medium doesn’t change the message. Mining social media data Lawyers are now using social media to represent clients and not just for marketing purposes. They are mining social media for evidence and to research jurors. Anything that is publicly viewable is fair game when mining social media for evidence. What about information behind the privacy wall on social media? Nicole provides some insight into the ethical considerations for disclosure when friending or connecting with someone online for the purpose of mining private data, including differences among jurisdictions. Bonus takeaway Pick one of the main social media platforms you’re not already using that might be relevant to you for marketing purposes or for litigation purposes and create an account and learn the ins and outs of the platform. See good2bsocial.com for links to referenced sources and information on our esteemed guest, Nicole Black.
You’re never in a bad situation if you have a full pipeline. And you can’t build a full pipeline if you’re not doing business development. What’s the biggest myth that needs to be put to bed when working with attorneys on business development? That business development is not sales and that sales is not involved in the legal business development process. We’re all individual walking brands. Lawyers deal with a lot of pointed, data-driven information. Legal marketers need to have a strong game when it comes to selling internal processes to get attorneys and leadership to buy into things. The shift from a firm-driven market to a client-driven market. Companies have gotten a lot smarter about how they do business and are more efficient about how they work with law firms and firms have to respond. They have to differentiate beyond performing legal work to include client service. Demonstrate why your service is better, why your touch points are better, why your team is better, why your firm is better. In other words, engage in sales and marketing. How do marketers at the firm convince an attorney to do business development? - The most valuable thing you can get is a referral. And that includes internally. Use an attorney you’ve trained on business development and who’s had success, as an internal advocate to convert the naysayers. - “I don’t have the time,” is a common refrain. And an attorney’s time is money. You have to convince them that it’s worth the time. Show them the benefits including the return on investment (ROI). That’s where an internal advocate can point to a book of business which resulted from their business development efforts. No matter what your client base looks like, whatever your book of business looks like, you’re never in a bad situation if you have a full pipeline. And you can’t build a full pipeline if you’re not doing business development. Change is constant – be it the market or the direction of corporate counsel, including their decision to cut back on the number of law firms that handle their legal work. You need to be constantly proving your value. You don’t want to be left scrambling when your flagship client goes in another direction. There’s nothing worse in sales and business development than a desperate person. What about thought leadership? Can that be used to increase business development efforts? - Absolutely. It’s an investment. - If you’re doing social media, writing a blog, doing a presentation, or video, or podcast, whatever the medium, it’s out there working for you while you’re doing other things. - Find the channel that’s going to play to your strength. - Putting your voice or image behind your consistent, relevant messaging, instead of just sending out yet another written alert, is one way to separate yourself from the pack. How does an attorney prioritize the many different assets available for business development? - First, identify what, if anything, they’re doing, including accounts that may be dormant. - Ask: “What do you want to be know for?” A great presenter? Podcaster? Writer? - Deconstruct and repurpose content for a higher ROI. - It doesn’t have to be perfect. It has to be real, authentic. - Convey your knowledge with the right dose of personality. - Marketers, don’t say: “Here are all the things you have to do.” Instead say something like: “Let me give you a 15 minute tip that will completely change how you do business development.” Quantify the time ahead of time. - Think about social media as a 15-minute a day fitness routine.
First a little background on Mark Cohen's journey before digging in to how he used writing and social media to develop a thought leadership platform. Mark was a trial lawyer for almost 30 years. He started out as an Assistant U.S. Attorney, became a big law partner, then left to start a national boutique firm where he learned how technology could be used more effectively to manage legal services, After a conversation with Thomas L. Friedman, author of the book, The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century, about whether some what what was in the book would apply to the legal vertical, Mark started Clearspire, a virtual law firm and legal services company that upended the traditional law firm business model, to provide services to clients that wanted it delivered better, faster, cheaper. After closing shop, Mark founded Legal Mosaic, which is where this thought leadership story built around writing and social media, starts: Mark shares some of the lessons he learned along the way: - Mark discovered that Twitter allows you to connect with other like minded people and participate in a global community in a way that’s very helpful for one’s career. - It's all about finding a voice and getting it out there. - It’s important to be patient. One does not create a social media presence and brand overnight. It takes time and thoughtfulness and effort. - Social media is a two-way street. It’s not all about you. You have to participate in the community. Find who has interesting ideas and engage with them and promote them. It becomes reciprocal though not the intention going in. - You don’t need a tremendous amount of content to develop a brand or thought leadership platform. You can become a thoughtful aggregator by summarizing some of the greatest hits articles and giving it a spin of your own with some interesting commentary. - You have to be authentic in what you message is and how you’re getting it across. Don’t put on airs. - Stick with it. Social media is a long-term play. And, some of the results: -Mark's development of a thought leadership platform led to being a columnist on Forbes, publishing a popular blog, and speaking opportunities around the world. - What’s gratifying is not the numbers - followers and likes and connections - but the dialog that the content has generated.
Law firm awards submission insights and tips! The recognition awards provide is meaningful to lawyers and firms who don’t get a lot of accolades for their work. In fact, they get a lot of heat. So when a publication says “good job!” or recognize them as part of an elite group of people, that can be a source of inspiration. Additional benefits: - Awards highlight something positive about the firm. There’s a morale benefit for people at the firm that shouldn’t be discounted. - Awards provide opportunity for networking and career building. They can also serve as a recruiting tool for new lawyers and lateral partners. - Awards tell a story. They provide a benchmark. Something for others to aspire to. But as deadlines approach, law firms marketing and communication professionals can get stressed out. You should know that it’s OK to ask for an extension. But don’t call and try to litigate the rules. Yes, that happens. It will not engender a warm and fuzzy feeling. Not all awards are created equal. Awards all have commercial aspects, for sure, but you can determine the quality of the award by their vetting process. Marketing teams should be selective of where to invest their resources based on the criteria that is being sought by the publication or group that’s putting together the award. David offers a few tips for submitting an award: - This may sound basic, but follow the rules. If they require a Word doc. Submit a Word doc. They prefer a spreadsheet? Submit a spreadsheet. Talk about your big wins, of course. But also share your losses and how you handled them. - Presentation really does matter. Make sure your writing is compelling and clear. It should adhere to the questions that are being asked and shine a light on the reasons you should win. Check out the Legal Writers Bureau which was created to help lawyers better tell their story with people who have a lot of experience working in legal media who have been been involved with a number of the awards programs.
What is Client journey mapping and why is it important for lawyers and law firm marketers? Simply put, a client journey map is a visual of the actual experience a client has in working with any organization. For a law firm, that experience can start even before a prospect becomes a client. Client journey mapping entered the legal lexicon about two years ago and comes from the phrase “customer journey mapping” used by corporations around the world for many years. It started in retail but quickly moved into professional services. When mapping out the client's journey, think individual rather than organization. Law firms tend to think of clients as organizations or companies. It's important to remember that people are hiring you. Focus on the person rather than the organization to understand the experience individuals have when working with a law firm. A person with feelings, attitudes, objects, preferences, and a client journey map helps us better understand how, when we interact with this person, from the beginning to the end of the journey. Don't be overwhelmed, you don't have to create a unique map for every single client of the firm. Create personas around individuals with similarities. Be aware that within one organization or company you may have several clients. And those different clients have different needs. So you need to understand what each client is looking for in order to meet those needs. For instance, in one company you can have an in-house counsel, board director, or procurement officer. They each have different needs when they interact with you at different points during the journey when working on a matter. Think of journey mapping as a piece of plumbing which can fit into a lot of different situations. It’s a very flexible piece and can be retrofitted in any number of ways. Client journey mapping can also be applied to your internal team, it can be applied to how you interact with your vendors, or used as a training tool for associates. How do you get buy in at the firm for client journey mapping? Get acquainted with journey mapping. Check out Bernero & Press. Focus on revenue generation. In other words, start with your end game: increased revenue: what happens when you enhance client relationships and lengthen the stay of the client at the firm. Show how it gives you an opportunity to listen to the clients and then apply the information gathered in a way that helps everyone in your organization contribute to becoming a more client-focused firm. Show how journey mapping can be a differentiation in the request for proposal (RFP) process. Demonstrate how it helps you to discover what delights your clients, including in-house counsel. It’s not about a legal competence problem. That is table stakes. In-house counsel hired you because they know you can do the work. Now, it’s about how you work with them - non-legal issues, like project management, emotional intelligence, communication skills, and so on. There’s a lot more great information on the podcast, including statistics and examples of success to use when trying to make a case for client journey mapping at your firm. Our esteemed guest, Yolanda Cartusciello, is a business development and marketing consultant to law firms. She has over 20 years of experience in senior administrative roles in major law firms, including Cleary and Debevoise. Yolanda develops strategies for practice and industry groups, as well as special initiatives within law firms and she also delivers training and coaching programs, including client journey mapping training.
Are you using analytics to track your website performance and digital marketing efforts? If so, are you using it correctly? In this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 podcast, we discuss - How to collect data - What to do with the data you collect - What are meaningful data insights? - Google and other analytics tools There’s more to analytics than Google Analytics vanity metrics: visitors and page views. There's Digital Marketing Analytics: Not just measuring your website but the entirety of your integrated digital marketing strategy. This includes SEO, email marketing, social media, campaigns, events, and so on. Why is overall, integrated digital marketing analytics important for lawyers and law firm marketers? - To understand the effectives of all aspects of their marketing efforts. - To see how each marketing initiative is performing: social media, blogging, email marketing, online advertising, events, etc. - To get data on what’s working and what's not across platforms, channels, and campaigns, and how to go about optimizing efforts for maximum return. - For insights on target audience and what they’re interested in, What are some of the tools to measure your efforts? We’ve been discussing analytics beyond Google. But all measurements should start with Google Analytics. Thing is, few understand how powerful it is beyond traffic, visitors, and time spent on site. Dig deeper into the journey visitors to your website go on for more meaningful insights. Where are they entering? What content are they looking at? When are they jumping off? Where are they coming from? Beyond Google, look at social media analytics. One tool is Hootsuite to see how your content is performing on the social channels, including engagement, reach, and other, deeper insights. Same thing with email. Many firms look at click-through and open rates, but there’s a lot more insight to gain, which leads to another category of tools: marketing automation. These include Pardot, Marketo, HubSpot, Eloqua, and Infusionsoft, to track the behavior of your target audience, and use segmentation to offer a better experience for your visitors based on their behavior patterns gathered from analytics data. Additional analytics tools covering SEO include Moz, Magestic, Agency Analytics, and DashThis. Finally, we discuss working with your technology person or IT department at the firm to make sense of the data. "Instead of making business decisions based on instinct, make them based on data." Guy recommends The Analytical Marketer: How to Transform Your Marketing Organization by Adele Sweetwood which dives into the relationship between IT and marketing and how to collaborate effectively to analyze data to make a meaningful impact on the firm. More takeaways: Before you start measuring, figure out what your key performance indicators (KPIs) are. Is it 10 more leads a month? 4 more clients? Get more speaking gigs? Figure out your business objectives first then track and tie in the data. On social media, focus on engagement rather than the number of likes or followers. Check out the free online courses on Google Analytics Academy.
Few things cause more confusion or frustration in digital marketing than search engine optimization (SEO). In the latest episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 podcast, we clear up some of the confusion by identifying four techniques: Technical, On Page, Of Page, and Local, with some actionable takeaways. Show notes: Technical SEO – This is how the search engines crawl and index your website and blog. You have to think about SEO when you’re building your website. It’s not enough to make your site look pretty and functional, you need a good back-end or coding structure that the robots crawling your site can recognize and register. Other elements to consider are site speed and responsive design (mobile) to improve your ranking. Tip: Submit your site to Google Search Console, including your sitemap. This allows the search engines to index your website. You will get feedback on errors on your site. On-Page SEO – Are the pages on your website properly optimized for the keywords you’re trying to rank for? This can be a page or blog post. Tip 1: Do your keyword research. Keywords should be client-focused and have enough search volume. Tip 2: Make sure the keyword is in your title, the meta description (which appear in the search results below your title), and repeated a few times on the page. Tip 3: Make sure each page or blog post has at least 300 words and then write for as long as it takes to tell your story. Off Page SEO – This is the authority of your domain which can rank from 1-100. The higher the domain authority, the easier it is to rank for your keywords. Anywhere for 40 and up is good for a law firm website. How do you build your domain authority? By the number of sites that link to your website. Note that not every link is created equally. Tip: Be careful of black hat SEO tactics. Some agencies or vendors will promise to link from dubious sites, trying to trick the system. Even if it works for a short time, Google will catch on to you and your site could incur a severe penalty making it very difficult to be found in search. In other words, don’t try to game the system. Local SEO – This is important for finding firms or businesses within a specific geographic location. Where you’re located impacts Google search results. This is especially important if your practice is local rather than national. Though even for national firms, local SEO is important when people are searching for an office location nearby. Local SEO is all about citations: your firm’s name, address, and phone numbers. The more citations or listings you have, the stronger the signal to Google that you are located in the address you specify. Tip: Make sure your name, address, and phone number (NAP) is consistent across all online directories, of which there are around 70 Google looks at to confirm you NAP. Use yext.com to lock down your NAP so that they’re consistent across all directories.
Ten essential elements to establish a thought leadership platform to build your personal brand, extend your network, and attract more clients.
Hosts Guy Alvarez and Tim Baran of Good2bSocial discuss marketing in the legal profession and why they're launching the Legal Marketing 2.0 podcast.