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Will You Tell Your Kids to Become a Lawyer?

Dee Latham — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 15:22:15 GMT

"My son is lawyer."

Have you ever overheard someone at a restaurant say these words with a beaming smile? Becoming a doctor or lawyer has been considered the pinnacle of a professional career for as long as I can remember.

That phrase would still make many parents proud, according to a recent Lawyers.com poll. In fact, nearly two-thirds of parents want their children to become lawyers.

Per the American Bar Association, the number of new law school graduates has increased from 2011 to 2012, so there is more and more competition to worry about, as well as a tough market.

And as the Web and social media are constantly evolving, the next 10 years will inevitably hold more technological advances, which means marketing a law firm may be full of new challenges for the next generation of attorneys.

The idea behind marketing your firm will remain the same, no matter which decade you reference — there will always be a need to provide consumers with legal assistance. If you don't have a way to promote your practice and showcase your credibility and personality, you're doing a great disservice to all of your hard work.

If you're a parent, or if parenthood is in your future, would you advise your child to become an attorney?

So...what helpful advice can you give lawyers (or lawyers-to-be) about marketing their firms?

For more information on how to craft an online presence for your law firm, call 866-799-3717, or contact a LexisNexis Law Firm Marketing Specialist.

Tying Your Business Objectives to Your Blog

Steven Long — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 13:06:49 GMT

For attorneys, finding topics and regularly blogging can be challenging enough. Figuring out how to tie your business objectives to your blog postings can be downright overwhelming. But if your blog isn't furthering your short- and long-term business goals, then there really won't be much payoff for all your efforts.

So how do you go about tying your business objectives to your blog? Here are a few tips:

Figure out what your business objectives are
This may seem obvious, but have you ever defined where you want to be as a firm and a lawyer in six months? A year? Ten years? If you haven't, now is the time to start. Set aside some time to really think about this. There is no one right answer. Business objectives can vary, and they can be quantitative (maybe you want to grow your client base by X percent in the next 12 months) or qualitative (maybe you may want to increase your visibility among potential clients). Either way, take some time to identify what you want to accomplish professionally, which will help clarify what you should be blogging about. Which leads us to the next step....

Pick the right topics
Finding original, brilliant content for blog posts can be hard work. Once you figure out what your objectives are, it should help you define what you should be blogging about. When choosing a topic, whether it's adding insights about a new legal development or providing commentary on a high-profile local case, think about how you can frame it in ways that will further your goals.

Define success and track your results
Next, decide what you want your blog to accomplish. Maybe you want to identify how many comments you receive for each post. Maybe you want to have readers link back to your blog a certain number of times. Then, track your results regularly and adjust your strategy accordingly.

To learn more about achieving your business objectives through your blog, contact a LexisNexis Law Firm Marketing Specialist.

TL NewsWire Review: New Mobile App Helps Attorneys Compare Their Web Presence to Their Competitors’

Anand Pandya — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 17:43:40 GMT

TechnoLawyer has lauded the new Martindale-Hubbell® Competitive Essentials app in a recent TL NewsWire feature product review. The iPad app allows a law firm to quickly view and monitor performance data for their online marketing channels, as well as their competitors'.

TL NewsWire reports on — and links to — hot new products of interest to law firms and legal departments. In a feature published on May 23, 2013, TL NewsWire Editor Neil J. Squillante writes that Martindale-Hubbell Competitive Essentials "enables you to analyze your law firm's web presence and compare it to that of your competitors."

The purpose of this cool new app is to help law firms maximize the value of their marketing budget by taking a lot of the guesswork out of the equation. The app enables lawyers to better understand how their online marketing is working versus their competitors' and improve their online visibility based on what the data is telling them. It even provides some quick improvement suggestions. Once the analysis is delivered on the user's dashboard, reports can be saved, exported or shared with others in the firm directly from the app.

In his review, Squillante notes that having a firm website is now considered "table stakes" and that for a site to help generate new clients to the firm, it must be supported with other online marketing tactics. He notes that firms "can track all of this data and more with the new iPad app."

For example, the Competitive Essentials app dashboard enables lawyers, legal marketers and law firm administrators to analyze their firm's Lawyers.com^SM profile activity, website and SEO performance, overall social media presence and Martindale-Hubbell® Lawyer Ratings.

Martindale-Hubbell Competitive Essentials is a complimentary application for Apple iPad. It's available only to clients with a profile on Lawyers.com and martindale.com®, who can download the app from the iTunes store.

Testimonial from local San Diego divorce attorney regarding our great work!

Robert Hodge — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 20:38:00 GMT

Gordon Cruse, a San Diego divorce attorney, recently provided me with a kind testimonial of the work we have provided for his law office:

"I wanted a memorable professional site that would tell potential clients they'd come to the right place when they compared it with others. LexisNexis gave me that site — which gets compliments from visitors — along with one-on-one service I was surprised such a large company could provide.

My rep, Robert Hodge, was wonderful, and the web development team was prompt and thorough, explaining the development of my site and incoming data tracked from visitors in the form of clicks after launch. The team knew how to listen to me first, rather than try to learn about me as we went along, so there was very little trial and error.

Call them today — and be sure to opt for the video clip inclusion! They will take care of you."

What “To-Do” to Turn More Law Firm Website Visitors into Leads

Samantha Miller — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 16:59:00 GMT

Developing a website for a law firm is unlike creating a website for any other type of business.

The legal marketing sector is complex, so the content and design of your website must not only address your needs and goals but also be tailored to your target demographics and areas of practice.

Refer to the accompanying infographic for a list of practical steps that you can take to improve your website's ability turn more visitors into prospective clients who contact your firm.

This "To-Do List" was featured in our recent "2013 Law Firm Website Conversion Study," available for download.

Click here to access a free recording of The Secret Ingredients of 5-Star Law Firm Websites, a webinar I hosted that explores some of the results of that study.

To see how effective your law firm's website is at turning visitors into prospective clients that contact your firm, request a free Website Evaluation and Consultation by contacting a LexisNexis Law Firm Marketing Specialist.

Getting Potential Clients to Watch Your Video

David Wodnicki — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 15:22:40 GMT

When potential clients view videos of attorneys, it can create a powerful connection like nothing else on a law firm website. But even an Oscar-worthy video won't help, if viewers don't bother to actually launch it. So, how can you get them to watch? Here are a few ideas.

1. Make them worth watching
You don't need to hire Martin Scorsese to direct your attorney-profile video, but you don't want a video that looks and sounds cheap. Fortunately, digital equipment has become so inexpensive that you don't have to spend tens of thousands of dollars to hire someone to create simple, effective videos.

The videos also don't need to be long. Potential clients aren't looking for a law-school lecture or a bragging session. They just want to get a sense of who you are as an attorney and why they may want to talk to you about their case.

2. Make the videos easy to find
Feedback from the LexisNexis^®Martindale-Hubbell^® 2013 Law Firm Website Conversion Study points to the success of putting videos on the home page. You want to be careful about how you use this valuable real estate, but creating links here can pay off in a big way by encouraging people to watch them.

3. Optimize videos for desktop and smartphone viewing
Consumers who go online to look at law firm websites are most likely to use laptops and desktops, according to the Attorney Selection Research Study by The Research Intelligence Group (TRiG). However, more than one-fifth of potential clients accessed online resources with their smartphones. You want to make sure computer and smartphone users alike can easily view your videos.

4. Be sure to comply with all your jurisdiction's ethics laws
But you knew that, of course.

Want to learn more about creating and leveraging effective videos? Contact a LexisNexis Law Firm Marketing Specialist.

Guiding New Clients on the Journey to Retaining You

Larry Bodine — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 15:22:07 GMT

When you open a file, it's the end of a successful customer journey for the client — a trip that was influenced on the way by email, online searches, social media and referrals. Search engine giant Google recently unveiled data about which law firm marketing tactics are most influential in guiding that journey to a "customer purchase decision."

Which technique is the most effective? Savvy marketers understand that you don't always seal the deal with a single tactic. A client may see a display ad, click on a link from a friend, or do a search before deciding to select you for their legal matter. Google's online tool reveals online buying behavior and shows how different marketing interactions affect business success.

Every lawyer wants to "close" a new client, but that won't happen without marketing to consumers at the start of their journey, when they (a) become aware of a lawyer, (b) begin to consider the attorney, and (c) form an intent to call you.

Email and social media are effective early in the client journey, according to Google. These initiatives assist a consumer in becoming aware of a lawyer's services. (Note: I filtered the Google tool to display results for the finance industry, the closest analogue to the legal profession.)

This means that publishing an email newsletter, and having an active presence on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are important elements of a law firm marketing plan. These techniques will influence the journey a consumer takes, but it will require multiple interactions or "marketing touches" to direct them to hiring you. Lawyers.com has expertise in helping lawyers with social media marketing.

Pay-per-click advertising and paid search results are effective in tipping consumers from considering hiring a lawyer — to deciding to hire a lawyer. In fact, paid search turns out to be just as effective as being found in the results of "organic" or consumer-initiated searches.

A referral is marketing gold: according to Google, it leads directly to a purchase decision. Consumers who have received a referral to you are no longer shopping — they are ready to retain you. Among the ways to get more referrals is to ask clients to recommend you, and to establish referral arrangements with other lawyers.

To impress clients and lawyers, it is key to have an up-to-date lawyer profile. Lawyers.com receives 34 million unique visitors each year who are seeking legal assistance.¹ Seventy percent of those visitors come to Lawyers.com to find an attorney.²

The Google tool proves the necessity of having a multi-faceted marketing campaign to generate new business. Email, social media, paid search and referrals are guideposts on the customer journey to retaining your firm.

¹Self-reported LexisNexis Web Statistics, 2012
²Data derived from a custom analysis of sub-domain URL information from comScore Mar. 2012. This data is not reflected in the basic comScore interface.

Top Rated Lawyer Lists Help Promote Your AV Rating

Philip Livingston — Thu, 06 Jun 2013 15:59:04 GMT

Savvy lawyers are always looking for ways to get noticed by prospective clients. After all, talking about yourself is bragging, but when others validate your ethics and legal ability it provides a completely different perspective and an extra level of confidence for those seeking the right lawyer.

As I've discussed in an earlier post, Martindale-Hubbell® Peer Review Ratings^TM provide third-party validation and are an objective indicator that a lawyer has the highest ethical standards and professional ability. These are the gold standard of lawyer ratings, and achieving the AV Preeminent® Peer Review Rating — the highest Peer Review Rating available — is a mark of distinction. Although Martindale-Hubbell has been facilitating its ratings process for more than 130 years, I wanted here to spotlight a relatively new benefit of being an AV-rated attorney: our exclusive agreement with ALM Media enabling ALM to leverage data from our Peer Review Ratings service to publish special reports of Top Rated Lawyers, Top Ranked Law Firms and Women Leaders in the Law in more than two dozen major U.S. markets.

ALM reaches an audience of more than 500,000 legal professionals through its print and digital publications for the legal industry. Its Top Rated Lawyers lists appear in a number of these legal trades and also in consumer-focused publications affiliated with ALM, generating additional exposure for lawyers who serve the consumer market.

Here are some great recent examples, from the April 30, 2013 editions of these publications:

Oklahoma's Legal Leaders as it was distributed in The Oklahoman, Tulsa World and The Wall Street Journal.
Chicago's Legal Leaders as it was distributed in The Chicago Tribune and The Wall Street Journal.
Tampa's Legal Leaders as it was distributed in The Tampa Tribune and The Wall Street Journal.

Peer Review Ratings are driven by the confidential opinions of lawyers and members of the judiciary who receive survey invitations from Martindale-Hubbell to provide reviews of lawyers of whom they have professional knowledge. The legal community respects the accuracy of Peer Review Ratings because it knows that its own members — the people best suited to assess their peers — are directly involved in the process.

Contact us to learn more about our ratings services and how to promote your rating.

LegalTech NY Discussion: Getting Started with Social Media [video]

Amy Kovar — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 16:58:27 GMT

To wrap up our LegalTech New York 2013 panel — "Taming the Wild West of Social Media: The Secrets of Social Media Success in the Legal Profession" — moderator Steve Mann, chief marketing officer of the Research & Litigation Solutions business at LexisNexis, asked our expert panelists to share their practical counsel for how law firms can get "started down the road" of social media marketing.

You can view a two-minute video segment of this piece of the panel discussion.

We hope you've enjoyed the series of blog posts drawn from our LegalTech panel discussion. To recap, we explored the state of social media in the legal industry; new and improved social media best practices in specific online channels; and the various ethical and business considerations about which law firms must be aware. You can access the entire series easily from my profile page.

To get a free Social Media Evaluation, contact a LexisNexis Law Firm Marketing Specialist.

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DON’T MISS: “WAKE-UP CALL! Essential Mobile Marketing Strategies for Small Law Firms” [webinar]

Manish Bhargava — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 13:30:15 GMT

Did you know that 57 percent of consumers will not recommend a business with a poorly designed mobile site and 40 percent of consumers will visit a competitor's site after a bad mobile experience?*

If you haven't embraced mobile, you may be missing potential clients!

Join me as I present "WAKE-UP CALL! Essential Mobile Marketing Strategies for Small Law Firms," a complimentary one-hour webinar on Wednesday, June 12, 2013 at 12:30 pm (EDT). During this session, LexisNexis® Martindale-Hubbell® mobile experts will show you how to use mobile marketing to differentiate your firm from competitors and enable you to reach more potential clients.

In this session, you will find out:

The latest data for mobile and online marketing for law firms
How to create a mobile marketing strategy
Examples of law firms with compelling mobile websites and applications
How to leverage mobile applications to generate real business results
Ways to leverage mobile to engage with existing clients

Click here to register for this event.

Take advantage of this session to ensure you aren't sacrificing business with a difficult-to-navigate mobile website.

To learn how your law firm can improve its mobile marketing strategy, contact a LexisNexis Law Firm Marketing Specialist.

*Source: Compuware, 2012.

Identifying Case Studies that Will Resonate

Donald Rohan — Tue, 04 Jun 2013 14:23:45 GMT

It's an idea that extends far beyond the classroom, because people everywhere want to hear stories. That's why most law firms seeking to attract clients through their website include case studies or recaps of notable work. Through case studies, attorneys can show their successes, not just talk about them. But the cases you should highlight might not always be the most obvious ones.

The natural tendency is to highlight the biggest successes: the largest verdicts and settlements; the ones that made case law; the high-profile matters. These should definitely be included, but firms need to remember to think like consumers, not lawyers. That means presenting different types of stories. Your case studies should include matters of various sizes, so that would-be clients aren't discouraged from contacting you because they feel their problem is too insignificant.

For example, if you are a personal injury attorney and a particular intersection in your hometown is notorious for accidents, you may want to include a successful settlement or verdict that involved an incident there. The size of the award or settlement can be a small one-but by using a result that will resonate, potential clients can immediately see how you can help them.

Or if you are a family law attorney, you may want to highlight a case where you helped a client get the child support payment he or she was entitled to. The payment amount doesn't have to be five figures a month, just enough to show how that made a difference to the client and his or her children.

When considering which matters to highlight on your website, think about cases that will appeal to the widest possible audience. They don't all have to be Enormous, Important Cases--they just have to persuade potential clients that you're the right lawyer to help them.

To learn more about selecting the best case studies, contact a LexisNexis Law Firm Marketing Specialist.

Color Your Way to a More Effective Website

Brian Farrell — Fri, 31 May 2013 15:23:30 GMT

When it comes to your website, you probably spent significant amounts of time thinking about the text, layout and other details. But how much time did you spend thinking about the color scheme?

When viewers visit your firm's website, their first impression is a visual one. Colors create moods and impressions, and our brains process their meaning before we've read the first word of text.

"Everybody is fluent in the language of colors but they usually do not realize it because they do not have to think about it in order to understand it," says Robert Bossinger, project management team lead for LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell. "Designers use colors to communicate a singular message or a complex, multifaceted message without ever writing a word. The old adage that a picture is worth a thousand words is true."

So what does your color selection "say"? Here are some common website colors and the emotions they exude to clients and potential clients:

Red
Power and aggression, used most often by criminal law and personal injury firms. Be careful though — red also means love, especially if you have a pink accent. What's more, red, as a primary color, has for generations represented blood and is often used as a sign of danger (ever wonder why stop signs were red?).

Pink
A very feminine color, not often seen on law firm websites. However, as an accent, it's a very quiet and calming hue, and could be useful for both family law and women's rights firms.

Orange
The color of summer. Orange is very warm, and mixes well with browns. In business, it represents ambition, success and goals. It can also represent justice, happiness or new beginnings.

Brown
Earthy and rich, browns are often mixed with oranges and yellows to symbolize fall. It also stands for strength, productivity and hard work (as used in the UPS slogan "What can brown do for you?").

Gold
Wealth and riches. A masculine power color. When mixed with other bright colors, it represents playful humor.

Blue
Cool and calming, blue often represents both sky and water. A very strong color, used often by B2B firms, corporate attorneys and others who want to convey trust and devotion.

Green
Lighter shades represent nature, spring, growth. Be careful with greens though, since darker shades have a completely different meaning — that of power, money and success.

Your website designer should know the appropriate color combinations that complement each other and will most effectively convey the message you are trying to send. That is why you should schedule a consultation before designing or updating your website.

To get a free Website Evaluation and Consultation, contact a LexisNexis Law Firm Marketing Specialist.

Mark It On Your Calendar: June Blog Topic Ideas for Attorneys

Samantha Miller — Thu, 30 May 2013 13:14:31 GMT

Coming up with relevant, topical blog posts doesn't need to be difficult. In fact, inspiration can often be found no further than your calendar. Each month brings a host of new holidays, observances and events, many of which have a legal tie-in.

Take, for example, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Pride Month, which spans the month of June:

Corporate lawyers and employment attorneys can use the month-long observance to discuss the issues faced by LGBT employees in the workplace, including same-sex partner benefits.
Civil rights lawyers and real estate attorneys may use Gay Pride Month as an opportunity to blogs about state and local laws that ban job and housing discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
School bullying — particularly of LGBT students — continues to be a problem, often with tragic consequences. Education attorneys should consider blog posts that talk about schools' legal obligation to prevent and address bullying, while highlighting effective and innovative anti-bullying programs that schools have implemented.

The U.S. Supreme Court in June is also expected to hand down decisions in two gay-marriage cases.

Family law lawyers will want to address the impact of the Supreme Court's ruling on their LGBT clients, including those who are getting married, considering adoption or engaged in child custody battles where the parent's sexual orientation has become an issue.
If the court rules in favor of gay marriage, tax attorneys can discuss the host of issues it presents for couples who have been legally married in the eyes of their state but filing federal tax returns as single filers.
If the Defense of Marriage Act is struck down, immigration attorneys can discuss how that will affect same-sex couples where one person is not a U.S. citizen.
If the court upholds DOMA, estate planning lawyers and eldercare attorneys will want to emphasize the need for same-sex couples to have in place legal tools — such as last will and testaments, powers of attorney and advance directives — to give their partners legal powers that married couples automatically receive.

Need help taking your law firm's blogging and social media marketing program to the next level? To request a free Social Media Evaluation, contact a LexisNexis Law Firm Marketing Specialist.

LegalTech NY Discussion: To Blog or Not to Blog? [video]

Amy Kovar — Wed, 29 May 2013 13:40:33 GMT

At our LegalTech New York 2013 panel — "Taming the Wild West of Social Media: The Secrets of Social Media Success in the Legal Profession" — moderator Steve Mann, chief marketing officer of the Research & Litigation Solutions business at LexisNexis, pointed out that roughly one-half of all law firms are now using blogs as a way to reach potential clients. He asked our expert panelists to weigh in on how firms can assess whether blogging is a good marketing strategy for them.

"I think we've passed the point where law firms should be thinking about whether or not blogging is right for them," said Stephen Fairley, chief executive officer of The Rainmaker Institute. "If you want to grow your number of contacts and expand your business, you've got to have a blog. There are no 'ifs, ands or buts' about it. This is a no-brainer."

"If you're going to get started in social media, a blog should be one of the cornerstones of your marketing efforts," said Larry Bodine, Esq., editor in chief of Lawyers.com^SM and martindale.com®.

You can view a five-minute video segment of this piece of the panel discussion. Stay tuned next week for more details from the session.

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The “Must Haves” of an Attorney’s Website Profile

Samantha Miller — Tue, 28 May 2013 15:07:01 GMT

A few seconds is all the time you have to grab the attention of potential clients when they visit your website. One website feature that will determine whether visitors reach out to you for a consultation is the quality of your attorney profile(s).

What are the key components of a well-crafted attorney profile? Here's a quick list:

Areas of Law Practiced. Specify your areas of legal expertise and the services that you offer in each of those areas. If visitors can't find this information quickly, or if it's unclear, they are likely to leave the site.
Experience. Prospective clients want to know how long you have practiced law and whether you have previously handled cases like theirs.
Education. Reassure visitors that you have the know-how to resolve their legal issues. Tell them where you went to law school, and when and where you passed the bar exam.
Photos. Offer a glimpse of your personality through pictures, but remember to always use professional-looking shots. People who visit your site are searching for an attorney they can trust, not a drinking buddy.
Biographical Data. Sharing information about your family and your interests/hobbies conveys personality and helps build connections with potential clients. Just don't overdo it. (But if your goal is to secure referrals from corporate counsel, our research indicates you should minimize such details.)

Well-designed attorney profiles were among several features cited by consumers who participated in our recent "2013 Law Firm Website Conversion Study." Participants said that it was important for them to gain a sense of the skills and personalities of a firm's attorneys, and websites with quality profiles therefore received high marks.

Click here to access a free recording of The Secret Ingredients of 5-Star Law Firm Websites, a webinar I hosted that explores some of the results of that study.

Download key results

Writing a Better Case Study

Donald Rohan — Fri, 24 May 2013 14:27:55 GMT

Mel Brooks once said, "Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall in a sewer and die." Like all great comedians, he understands that people react differently when they feel something directly involves them. Every communicator has to ensure that their message resonates personally with their audience without striking the wrong chord.

How do we apply this while marketing our law firms to potential clients? One way is by taking extra care in selecting and writing the case studies you highlight on your website. Potential clients expect to see case results when they visit an attorney's website, according to LexisNexis® Martindale-Hubbell® research in the "2013 Law Firm Website Conversion Study." But if done carelessly, these can be counterproductive.

Like inappropriate jokes, legal issues often touch on highly sensitive subjects. When a potential client contacts you, he or she is probably doing so because of some sort of personal difficulty. Even if it's business as usual for you, it's very likely that the matter is traumatic for the client. When writing your case studies to connect with potential clients, be thoughtful about the words you choose. People feel uncomfortable reading details of certain matters, especially if they have similar problems themselves, so focus more on your efforts to solve the problem.

Drafting short case studies will also help you hone your message to prospects and clients. Try crafting a narrative that includes a brief description of your client's problem and how your firm solved it. Most importantly, emphasize how your firm's specific knowledge and experience led to the favorable result. When you read it aloud, it shouldn't take longer than 30 seconds.

Developing a diverse online "portfolio" of cases allows you to tailor your "elevator pitch" to a particular type of website viewer, as well as potential clients you encounter in person. To learn more about writing case studies with maximum impact, contact a LexisNexis Law Firm Marketing Specialist.

7 Tips to Keep Your Law Firm Thriving All Summer

Dee Latham — Thu, 23 May 2013 16:52:15 GMT

I'm going to take a wild guess: You're ready to get out of Dodge for the big holiday weekend and maybe even for a few weeks during this summer. But remember, sunscreen isn't the only thing you need to keep covered.

Prior to the planning and packing, there are still a few things you can do for your law firm before you go away. The good news (or the bad, depending upon the issue), is that just because there's a holiday, the need for legal representation among consumers doesn't stop. In fact, some areas of practice such as DUI see an increase in the coming months.

To keep your business thriving while you're on vacation, here are seven things to think about and take care of in advance:

Review your firm's website to check if all information is current. Do you need to update your office hours on your website? Are there images that need to be changed?
Do you have a live chat feature on your website? It can help consumers when they have questions and no one is available to provide an answer.
Does your website have a mobile version? Potential clients may be looking for a lawyer on their smartphones; if you don't have a mobile version of your site, you may miss a huge group of people that need an attorney during this time.
Assess the overall success rate of your marketing — from response rate to ROI. Figure out which of your marketing efforts have been most valuable to date and why.
Which marketing tactics make sense for you to capitalize upon now? Some firms may be slow in the summer, but you can beat the competition by just being visible in the right place, at the right time.
Keep in touch all summer with your blog. Are your posts still relevant? The dialog between you and your audience is important to acknowledge and could lead to potential clients.
Do your social media profiles, such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter "go dark" during the next few months? Bad idea! Social media doesn't shut down during the summer, so make sure you're up and running. Plan your editorial calendar and keep consumers engaged all year long with relevant updates and fresh content. Search engines also reward new information — so your tweets will do double-duty.

How else does your firm prepare for the summer months?

To learn more about how you can effectively stand out and attract potential clients all year round, contact a LexisNexis Law Firm Marketing Specialist.

LegalTech NY Discussion: Is Google+ Really Social Media? [video]

Amy Kovar — Wed, 22 May 2013 14:18:47 GMT

Google+, which Google rolled out amid much fanfare in 2011, has become the second-largest social networking site in the world (235 million active users). However, there are very mixed opinions about how useful Google+ is for legal professionals and, in fact, whether it's even accurate to think of the site as a social media platform.

At our LegalTech New York 2013 panel, "Taming the Wild West of Social Media: The Secrets of Social Media Success in the Legal Profession," our panelists agreed that Google+ has become an important player in the online world but shared differing views on whether it's worthwhile for law firms to invest any time on the site.

"We require all of our editors and producers at Lawyers.com to have active Google+ profiles," said Larry Bodine, Esq., editor in chief of Lawyers.com^SM and martindale.com®. "This not only makes you more visible to Google search results, but also allows a photo and biographical sketch to be displayed along with your name and website link."

But Stephen Fairley, chief executive officer of The Rainmaker Institute, minimized Google+ by commenting that very few law firm marketers even know what to do with Google+ or how to make it useful for marketing purposes. "In fact, I'd argue that Google+ isn't even a social media platform because of the first word there — social. The truth is that Google+ isn't a social network yet because you can't build relationships with it very effectively."

You can view a five-minute video segment of this piece of the panel discussion. Stay tuned next week for more details from the session.

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Using Your Website to Educate Consumers about the Law, Not Just about You

Sandra Del Tiempo — Tue, 21 May 2013 15:41:22 GMT

With so many attorney websites to choose from, consumers have extremely high expectations when they go online to look for a lawyer or learn more about their legal case. If they don't see what they are looking for, or if they don't like what they see, they will click right on by.

What exactly are they looking for? Increasingly, consumers are looking for basic legal information.

That is why it is so important to educate consumers about the law — not just about you, or your firm or even your most spectacular successes. By providing them with simple, straightforward information about developments and important issues in the areas of law in which you practice, you have a better chance of keeping viewers on your site longer. Providing this type of information will also showcase you as someone who is willing to offer something useful for free, which can set you apart from others.

You don't need to turn your website into a mini law-school experience, of course. A few short definitions, a little history or even links to trusted sources will be sufficient.

Along with a growing interest in legal information, consumers want to research their case beforehand. The Internet has put a world of information at everyone's fingertips. Once they know a little bit more about their particular situation, they may feel more comfortable contacting you. A good website should fluidly combine these factors, along with offering great content for search engines.

Of course, you should be sure that you provide all the appropriate disclaimers on your site and abide by all your local and state bar association rules.

To get a free Website Evaluation and Consultation, along with exclusive insights about conversion factors for consumers of legal websites based on recent research, contact a LexisNexis Law Firm Marketing Specialist.

How Fast Do You Respond to New Client Leads?

Anand Pandya — Mon, 20 May 2013 15:14:24 GMT

When it comes to obtaining new clients, sometimes the most important thing you can do is respond to leads faster than the firm across the street.

Lawyers now have a new tool at their disposal for engaging with prospective clients at the very moment they're looking for legal counsel. The LexisNexis® Lead Alert mobile app now integrates with the Lawyers.com^SM Ask a Lawyer service so your mobile device can receive real-time inquiries from individuals seeking legal advice in your area of practice.

According to the 2012 Attorney Selection Research Study by The Research Intelligence Group (TRiG), online legal advice forums are the second-most popular information source for consumers at the beginning of their search process when they have a legal need. The TRiG study found that 34 percent of consumers visited online legal advice forums when gathering basic information about how to address a legal issue, second only to search engines (39 percent) as the most common information source. Often times, the lawyer who is fastest to provide a relevant answer to someone's legal question is the lawyer who is best positioned to turn that simple inquiry into an actual client.

One of these online legal advice forums is Ask a Lawyer on Lawyers.com, where visitors are invited to submit a question on any subject and Lawyers.com subscribers are given the opportunity to answer any questions within their areas of practice at their own discretion. The app helps lawyers respond faster to these inquiries by integrating the Ask a Lawyer service into LexisNexis Lead Alert, which was launched last fall.

LexisNexis Lead Alert is an application that instantly delivers phone and email lead information to an attorney's mobile device, allowing him or her to receive and respond to prospective client inquiries. These leads are all sourced from the lawyer's profile on Lawyers.com, martindale.com® or from their LexisNexis-hosted website.

The concept of a mobile alert service is to help law firms convert a higher number of new client inquiries by improving the speed with which they respond to these leads. By adding the Ask a Lawyer service to the LexisNexis Lead Alert app, lawyers are now better able to strike while the iron is hot and a prospective client is in need of a lawyer right away.

The LexisNexis Lead Alert mobile application is available as a free download for both iOS- and Android-powered smartphones. To download the app, please go to the LexisNexis Lead Alert page on the iTunes Store or the Google Play Store.

It would be great to hear examples of when your speedy responsiveness helped you convert a lead to a client! To share your stories or to learn more about our mobile solutions, contact a LexisNexis Law Firm Marketing Specialist.

Think like an Ancient Roman

Dee Latham — Fri, 17 May 2013 15:51:16 GMT

I want you to think like an ancient Roman — a fierce, strategic-minded warrior.

No, I'm not asking you to act like a gladiator (that may not go over well in the office), just to get in the competitive mindset of one during the summer months for your law firm.

Whether it's on the playing field or in the office, there is something to be said for "getting a leg up" on your opponents, or in this case, other firms in your area of practice and geography. Have you ever met a professional who doesn't want to be No. 1 in his or her field? There's no room for complacency in today's climate. But, there has to be knowledge and a strategy behind any type of game.

Taking the pulse of your law firm's competition is extremely valuable.

How are they marketing their practice? Which tactics are working for them, but maybe not as well for you? What seems to be very obvious is to do research, but not everyone has continuous access to that type of information — and if you do, how would you realign your marketing strategy and efforts?

I challenge you to go to Lawyers.com^SM and search for a lawyer in your area of practice and geography. Does your profile appear?

Well, if you have a professional profile on Lawyers.com, you can download the complimentary Martindale-Hubbell® Competitive Essentials app for iPad and gain valuable competitive intelligence on Lawyers.com profiles, websites, SEO, social media presence and Martindale-Hubbell® ratings.

By knowing competitors' strengths and weaknesses, as well as your own, you'll be able to make better marketing decisions, which can lead to more client prospects and improve your firm's online visibility. The app also has reporting and smart suggestions that analyze your marketing efforts and measure ROI. Take the initiative and don't remain a spectator - the resource you need is here.

If you would like to learn more about a profile on Lawyers.com, contact a LexisNexis Law Firm Marketing Specialist. Or if you already have a professional profile, download our complimentary app here.

How Video Can Turn Your Website into a Star—or a Superstar

David Wodnicki — Thu, 16 May 2013 16:29:11 GMT

Random trivia question: What was the first-ever video to appear on MTV when it debuted on Aug. 1, 1981? Answer: "Video Killed the Radio Star," by The Buggles.

Some may admit to having seen it when it debuted, and others may have just caught random snatches of the song in movies or on the (yes) radio. But since that song was first recorded way back in the late '70s, the power of video has only grown. That power extends to the Internet, but its goes far beyond adorable kitten videos and viral dance crazes on YouTube.

The use of video on retail websites can increase sales by up to 20 percent, according to a report by GravityLab. And despite what some lawyers may think, law firm websites aren't so very different.

LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell researched this topic in its 2013 Law Firm Website Conversion Study, which focused in part on consumers who viewed videos of attorneys on law firm websites. (See a webinar based upon results from the study.) The study showed that consumers often developed more personal impressions of the firm and its attorneys after viewing videos. Seeing and hearing attorneys communicate through a video can be far more effective than text and pictures alone.

As one study participant noted, "Listening to an attorney talk about their background [in a video] could make a big difference. You can see how sincere they are, or how much enthusiasm they have."

The challenge lies in convincing consumers to actually click on those videos, rather than just fly right on by to another page or the website of a different firm. I'll talk more about that in my next blog post. But in the meantime, if you want to learn more about the power of video on your website, contact a LexisNexis Law Firm Marketing Specialist.

LegalTech NY Discussion: Reputation Management and Social Media [video]

Amy Kovar — Wed, 15 May 2013 14:04:35 GMT

For many years, the term reputation management was something used by public relations professionals to describe the practice of monitoring the reputation of an individual or brand, identifying specific issues that are causing damage, and then deploying tactics to protect the brand's reputation.

In the age of social media, though, most of reputation management is focused on responding to customer complaints, asking sites to take down incorrect information, using online feedback to influence product development and pushing down negative search results.

At our LegalTech New York 2013 panel, "Taming the Wild West of Social Media: The Secrets of Social Media Success in the Legal Profession," moderator Steve Mann (chief marketing officer of the Research & Litigation Solutions business at LexisNexis) responded to a question about whether law firms ought to engage an online reputation management firm as part of their social media strategy.

"My personal answer is not necessarily," said Mann. "Reputation management firms can be very helpful when addressing a crisis situation, but if your firm has a good public relations or marketing communications partner, that type of work should be included in what they do for you."

Stephen Fairley, chief executive officer of The Rainmaker Institute, agreed with Mann and contended that reputation management firms aren't necessary if a firm takes action now to drum up as much positive attention as possible in social media. "The best defense is always a good offense," he said.

You can view a two-minute video segment of this piece of the panel discussion. Stay tuned next week for more details from the session.

(Please visit the site to view this media)

Harnessing the Power of Twitter and Social Media

Sandra Del Tiempo — Tue, 14 May 2013 15:56:22 GMT

When any major event happens, it seems like Twitter has become as much a part of the news as the news itself. As one chilling example, consider the tweet sent hours after the Boston Marathon bombings by 19-year-old suspect Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev: "Ain't no love in the heart of the city, stay safe people."

However, Tsarnaev's tweets weren't the only notable Twitter activity around those terrible events of April 15. As the hunt for the suspects spread across the Boston area, witnesses kept a steady stream of tweets flowing, which often provided faster and more accurate information than the traditional news media.

Authors, neighbors and local professors were among those providing information and pictures during the manhunt. (Danny Sullivan, @dannysullivan, who is founding editor of @MarketingLand & @SEngineLand, has compiled a list of related tweets, for those interested in reading more.)

While the events in Boston present an extraordinarily dramatic example of the speed and power of Twitter, social media can provide a significant impact on everyday events and news for lawyers and others in the legal profession. If attorneys aren't tweeting and following other thought leaders on Twitter, they may be cutting themselves off from clients (and potential clients), and missing out on breaking trends.

In order to learn more about effective marketing through social media outlets and to get a free Social Media Evaluation, contact a LexisNexis Law Firm Marketing Specialist.

MUST-SEE WEBINAR: Jump into Social Media: Using Blogging & Legal Advice Forums to Engage Prospects

Anand Pandya — Fri, 10 May 2013 23:07:32 GMT

Whether someone is buying a car, hiring a lawyer, selecting a college or planning a vacation, the Internet has become an integral part of the research and decision-making process. As reported in 2012, 76 percent of all consumers who needed to hire an attorney in the past year used online resources as part of their search* — and that percentage will only continue to grow.

Among the most influential sources when searching for an attorney: blog posts and online legal advice forums. If you haven't embraced these forms of social media when marketing your legal practice, what are you waiting for? Jump in! To help you get started, on Wednesday, May 15, LexisNexis® Martindale-Hubbell® is presenting a free one-hour webinar focusing on how to use social media — blogging and online legal forums in particular — to market your law practice.

We hope you'll join us as we "Jump into Social Media: Using Blogging and Legal Advice Forums to Engage Prospects." Attend the webinar to:

Learn how participating in blogging and online legal advice forums can generate more business for your firm
Understand how to leverage these channels efficiently and effectively
Gain insight into how you can boost your visibility and demonstrate your thought leadership

Jump into Social Media: Using Blogging and Legal Advice Forums to Engage Prospects
Wednesday, May 15, 2013 12:30 pm EDT (New York, GMT-04:00)
Click here to register!

About the Presenters:

Moderator Larry Bodine, Esq., is the Editor in Chief of Lawyers.com^SM where he leads a 20-person news team. An award-winning journalist, Larry has 20 years' experience in the news business. He also ran his own business as a sales and marketing consultant and advised more than 250 law firms by training lawyers, leading retreats and composing marketing strategies. A former litigator, Mr. Bodine has served as an expert witness in litigation involving Internet marketing disputes.

Jason Weingarten is a Product Manager for LexisNexis® Website Marketing Solutions. He began working for LexisNexis in early 2011 and has focused his time expanding the social media services offered by the company. Before joining LexisNexis, Jason spent many years working in financial services, marketing credit cards and other financial services products.

Unable to attend or want to learn more about using social media to help market your legal practice and attract new clients? Schedule your free social media consultation and evaluation with a Law Firm Marketing Specialist today!

*Source: The Research Intelligence Group (TRiG), "Attorney Selection Research Study," March 2012.