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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.

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.

Family Law Attorney Leverages Mobile App to Win New Business

Anand Pandya — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 04:06:00 GMT

We recently spoke with Christine Cruse, a partner at The Law Office of Christine M. Cruse, P.C. in Warner Robins, Ga. about how using LexisNexis^® Lead Alert, a free mobile application, helps her respond to leads quickly and win new business.

LexisNexis^® Lead Alert allows you to receive real-time alerts on your mobile device when a potential client contacts you through your Lawyers.com^SM profile, martindale.com^® profile or LexisNexis-hosted website. The application is free to use, and allows you to respond directly to a lead with just a few touches of your screen.

LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell: Could you briefly describe your law practice to me?

Christine M. Cruse: I'm a sole practitioner, focusing on family law. I've been a sole practitioner since October 2011 and I've been in private practice for nine years.

LNMH: Which LexisNexis marketing tools and services do you use other than Lead Alert?

CMC: I just decided to use LexisNexis for our website. We're still in the early stages of building it, but hopefully it will be up and running soon. And I have profiles on martindale.com and Lawyers.com.

LNMH: You're using the LexisNexis Lead Alert mobile application. If an attorney was unfamiliar with Lead Alert, how would you describe it?

CMC: It is an application that allows you to monitor both what's going on in your office (as far as response time of addressing new clients) and the effectiveness of your marketing techniques.

I live by my iPhone and my iPad, and Lead Alert is a great tool to monitor my office and how we are attending to new calls that come into the office. I can see not only the calls that are coming in, but also the duration of those calls and if we're actually answering those calls. I love being able to monitor that and see what we can do to improve upon what we are already doing.

LNMH: How long have you been using Lead Alert?

CMC: About a year. I learned about it from a LexisNexis marketing email.

LNMH: How has it helped you prioritize and respond to leads?

CMC: Leads arrive during the day, at nights and even on weekends. With divorce cases, if someone is angry over the weekend and thinking, "I need a divorce right now," they'll search for local lawyers and email me. I can respond immediately from my phone, even though our office is closed, and tell them that someone will call first thing Monday.

LNMH: What kind of volume do you get on the average week?

CMC: Eight to 12 leads.

LNMH: What particular aspects of the service are most useful?

CMC: If a lead comes in and I'm in court, I can forward it to my staff so they can respond immediately.

LNMH: In your practice, it seems that response time is critical because if you're not responding quickly to a potential client, another lawyer will.

CMC: Absolutely. Another lawyer will respond and the prospect will go with that attorney. That's the best benefit of Lead Alert. We're able to monitor and respond to leads on a minute-by-minute basis.

Another feature I like is the remind-me-later feature. I can tell Lead Alert to remind me to follow up in 30 minutes, one hour, two hours or one day.

LNMH: What kind of impact has Lead Alert had on your practice? Are there clients you know you've gotten because of Lead Alert?

CMC: Absolutely. I've had prospects contact me on weekends and I've responded quickly. They've later told me that the fast response meant a lot to them. They can't believe that they sent an inquiry at 1 a.m. and got a response in a few seconds (since I never sleep these days).

LNMH: Taking a step back to talk about your other marketing efforts, is all of your marketing online these days? Do you do anything that would be considered traditional marketing?

CMC: No, I've jumped ship on traditional marketing. I was previously at a firm that believed in the Yellow Pages — I think the firm spent $68,000 a year on Yellow Pages alone. I always said, "This is becoming obsolete, we don't need to do this." Since I've been in practice on my own, I've just used online marketing and it's made a tremendous difference.

We're using LexisNexis plus social media such as Twitter and Facebook, and a few other things. We try to do a little market research when a client comes in and ask how they found us. Unfortunately, they'll just say "online" or "Google." One thing I like about LexisNexis is that when a prospective client calls us through a LexisNexis site, we hear a "This call is from Lawyers.com" announcement before connecting with the individual.

LNMH: That's a good way to ensure you're getting a good return on your investment.

CMC: It is. We include the information on our "PC" or potential client sheets. So if a prospect calls in and the staff hears the announcement, they know to indicate it's a Lawyers.com lead, so we can quantify where the lead came from.

LNMH: And to bring this back to Lead Alert, which is another way of tracking the source of potential clients.

CMC: Exactly.

To learn more, visit the LexisNexis Lead Alert webpage or contact a LexisNexis Law Firm Marketing Specialist.

Bankruptcy Lawyer Sees New Business from Participation in Online Legal Advice Forum

Anand Pandya — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 14:46:51 GMT

We recently spoke with David L. Gibbs, senior associate attorney for The Gibbs Law Firm, APC, a bankruptcy, business and real estate firm in San Clemente, Calif. Gibbs is an active participant in Lawyers.com^SM Ask A Lawyer.

LexisNexis^® Martindale-Hubbell^®: Can you tell me about your law practice? Who are your typical clients and how does a new client typically find you?

David L. Gibbs: Our clients are primarily homeowners in our small town in South Orange County, Calif., who experience problems with their homes or other real estate they own. Most of it is residential foreclosure activity. The single biggest driver of our business is word of mouth, because it is such a small community.

But more and more we are receiving leads from online sources, including Lawyers.com and the Ask A Lawyer section on Lawyers.com.

LNMH: How long have you been participating on Ask A Lawyer?

DLG: It's been almost a year.

LNMH: I heard that you've gotten several new clients as a result of your Ask A Lawyer work. Some of the other attorneys I've talked to have told me that lawyers shouldn't expect to get new business from Ask A Lawyer because its primary benefit is search engine optimization. Why do you think you've had success in driving new business where others haven't?

DLG: It's probably a combination of factors: The sheer number of answers I'm providing and the areas of law where I'm posting.

LNMH: What about the other benefits you've seen from your participation? You mentioned the links back to your website.

DLG: I haven't tried to quantify the search engine optimization benefits. I have gone into Google Webmaster Tools, looked at the profile for our website and seen click-thrus from Lawyers.com to our site, so I assume it's working. I just have to think that just being on Lawyers.com and posting frequently is helping drive traffic to our website.

LNMH: How much time do you spend in the average week answering questions on Ask A Lawyer?

DLG: I'm not on there daily, but when I do get on, I usually spend about an hour at a shot, and I do that a couple times a week. So probably two to three hours a week.

LNMH: Are you doing this during office hours or on your own time?

DLG: Mostly during office hours. For example, I'll jump on if I have a half an hour free and don't have time to start something new. Or if it's slow, I'll go onto Lawyers.com and spend an hour or so answering questions.

LNMH: What's the strangest or most memorable question you've ever answered?

DLG: [Laughter]

LNMH: The laugh makes me think there must be one or two.

DLG: There are tons of them. I'd have to say that landlord-tenant law is the most frequent source of weird questions. They're all over the map. It seems that about half of the questions are comical in some respect. Not comical in the sense of making fun of people, but weird stuff happens in that arena. You hear about landlords peeping on their tenants or walking into apartments without any advance notice.

LNMH: Understanding that you probably don't want the competition, would you recommend Ask A Lawyer to a colleague with whom you weren't competing?

DLG: Absolutely. It's a great tool and the fact that it's still free is fantastic.

Ask A Lawyer is a good resource for consumers. And although the search engine optimization benefits are hard to quantify, it can't be a bad thing for attorneys.

LNMH: What advice would you give to other attorneys who want to participate on Ask A Lawyer?

DLG: Limit yourself to areas where you know the law. On other online legal advice forums, I've seen attorneys taking guesses on answers in areas where they don't practice. Don't do that, you look like an idiot. Focus on what you know.

Second, be human. I've seen responses on other online legal advice forums where attorneys seem very condescending and are talking above their audience.

Finally, jump in and get going. It's very easy to do.

To learn more about Lawyers.com Ask A Lawyer or to find out how your firm can participate, contact a LexisNexis Law Firm Marketing Specialist.

Estate Planning Firm Benefits from Online Legal Forum Participation

Anand Pandya — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 14:54:24 GMT

We recently spoke with C. Randolph Coleman, the named partner in a two-person estate planning law firm in Jacksonville, Fla., about his participation in Lawyers.com^SM Ask A Lawyer and other effective marketing initiatives.

LexisNexis^® Martindale-Hubbell^®: Can you tell us about your practice and your typical client?

C. Randolph Coleman: We have four major categories of clients. We have the traditional estate planning clients, and probate and trust administration clients. We also have elder law clients, where we help people preserve their assets from long-term care costs. Finally, we have pure asset protection planning clients, where we help people structure their assets to provide not only the protection from taxes at death, but also protection from unreasonable creditor claims during their lifetime.

LNMH: How do you market your legal practice?

CRC: The bulk of it is online.

We have an active blog that was named one of LexisNexis's top 25 estate, probate and elder law blogs for 2011. That has been a phenomenal marketing tool for us. My associate attorney is very good at writing and his last blog entry had a total of almost 60,000 views, which is impressive for such a narrow practice.

I occasionally use Google's pay-per-click ads focusing on a particular niche market, which is very successful and have been modestly active in the social media arena.

We also do some traditional marketing, such as sponsored events and quarterly newsletters.

I also use Preferred Results on Lawyers.com. If someone goes to Lawyers.com and looks for an estate planning lawyer in Jacksonville, Fla., my firm will be in one of the top three spots in the search results. I have been doing that for six years, and just renewed our contract for another three years. It includes a direct link to my website and generates good traffic.

LNMH: What prompted you to get involved with the Lawyers.com Ask A Lawyer feature?

CRC: I've participated in similar features on Avvo, Law Guru and RocketLawyer, but the prospective clients weren't high quality - it wasn't profitable for me to take them on as a client or for them to engage me as their counsel.

Lawyers.com attracts more qualified prospective clients, so it's a better investment of my time. I've picked up a few nice probate cases from Ask A Lawyer, as well an estate planning client or two, and a couple of asset planning clients. Lawyers.com is the only site where I can specifically identify clients who have resulted from my participation.

LNMH: Are there other marketing benefits that you get from your Ask A Lawyer participation?

CRC: When you give an answer, there's a link back to the firm's website. So I'm enhancing my site's backlinks, which improves our Google ranking. That's a pretty positive benefit.

I understand that Lawyers.com is in the process of developing a tool that will let me provide a live feed of Ask A Lawyer answers on my website. It will provide a steady flow of new information on my firm's site, featuring the answers to questions real people are asking.

LNMH: From a technical perspective, was there a steep learning curve when you first started participating on Ask A Lawyer? Or is the infrastructure fairly intuitive?

CRC: It's pretty intuitive. Once or twice a day I get an email of the questions which have been asked in my practice areas. The email includes the state in which the person or issue is located, so I can quickly scan the list, pick out Florida questions, then click on a link that takes me directly to the page where I can write my response.

LNMH: About how much time a week do you spend on Ask A Lawyer?

CRC: Twice a week I spend anywhere between five minutes and half an hour on Ask A Lawyer, depending on the number of questions. I probably spend about an hour a week answering questions.

LNMH: Do you have any particular memorable questions you've answered over the years?

CRC: They are always somewhat interesting. If a question is being posed on Ask A Lawyer, often it's because the person has already asked a couple lawyers and not gotten enough guidance to proceed.

LNMH: What tips would you offer to other attorneys who want to get involved with Ask A Lawyer?

CRC: Just get involved! It's been beneficial to me.

To learn more about Lawyers.com Ask A Lawyer or to find out how your firm can participate, contact a LexisNexis Law Firm Marketing Specialist.

Bankruptcy Attorney Builds SEO with Lawyers.com Ask A Lawyer

Anand Pandya — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 18:02:56 GMT

We recently spoke with Joseph F. Botelho, a sole practitioner in Fall River, Mass., about Lawyers.com^SM Ask A Lawyer and other marketing activities that have proven valuable to his practice.

LexisNexis^® Martindale-Hubbell^®: Can you tell us a bit about your practice?

Joseph F. Botelho: I'm a sole practitioner, but I have been interviewing for an associate. I mostly handle bankruptcy, foreclosure defense, personal injury and probate law. Most of my clients are individuals but I do work with a couple corporations that have debt issues.

LNMH: How does a new client typically find you?

JFB: Seventy-five percent of them come from the Web and the other 25 percent are word-of-mouth.

LNMH: How did you first get involved with Ask A Lawyer?

JFB: I have been participating in Ask A Lawyer since I started using LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell and Lawyers.com services to market my website. I've been doing it for several years now.

LNMH: What convinced you that Ask A Lawyer should be part of your overall marketing efforts?

JFB: The search engine optimization benefits and ability to have a link back to my website. From my perspective, the primary benefit of Ask A Lawyer participation is as a search engine optimization tool. Google really likes Lawyers.com.

LNMH: For our readers who aren't familiar with SEO, could you describe it?

JFB: Web crawlers or Web bots — which are programs used by Google and other search engines — go through your website, read it, look at the back end, as well as links going into and out of your website. That information influences how a website gets organically ranked. Organic rankings on Google aren't the highlighted pay-per-clicks at the top of the page, but are all of the white listings below those.

SEO, which stands for search engine optimization, involves tweaking your website to improve its rank in search results on Google and other sites.

When I answer a question I highlight key terms — such as bankruptcy, chapter 7 and chapter 13 — and a link back to my website. It increases the ranking of my law firm's website on organic Google Web searches. That's the primary reason I participate.

LNMH: Are there any other benefits to participating in Ask A Lawyer?

JFB: I read what other attorneys have to say on a subject and I've learned things from their answers. It has helped me.

LNMH: How much time a week do you devote to answering questions?

JFB: I spend two to three hours a week answering questions. I don't usually do it at work. Instead, I answer questions while I'm drinking coffee at home in the morning or after work while checking email. I knock off one or two questions here and there each day.

LNMH: What advice would you give to other attorneys who want to participate in Ask A Lawyer?

JFB: Get a basic understanding of how basic search engine optimization works. If you're taking advantage of answering questions on Ask A Lawyer, you should take advantage of the SEO opportunities it offers. Also, have your word processing program open so you can cut and paste a general disclaimer as well as your signature — including name, firm name, address and contact information — into each question you answer. It saves a lot of time.

LNMH: Anything else to add?

JFB: If you're going to do a marketing campaign, use a separate phone number for each marketing effort so you can gauge where your money is being spent. It's easy to spend a lot of money and get no results or have no idea where your leads are coming from. It's important to know what efforts you're putting in and what the fruits of those efforts are. If you have no idea where your return is coming from, then you're throwing money away.

To learn more about Lawyers.com Ask A Lawyer or to find out how your firm can participate, contact a LexisNexis Law Firm Marketing Specialist.

Immigration Attorney Celebrates 10 Years of Hosting Lawyers.com Online Chats

Anand Pandya — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 20:07:00 GMT

We spoke recently with Andrew Wilson, Partner at Serotte Reich Wilson, LLP in Buffalo, N.Y. about Lawyers.com^SM chats and other marketing activities that have proven valuable to his practice.

LexisNexis® Martindale-Hubbell®: Can you briefly describe your practice?

Andrew Wilson: Our firm has been doing immigration for close to 40 years. We are a little different from many immigration firms because we handle anything and everything immigration based. That includes employment-based matters and family matters, as well as removals in immigration court.

LNMH: In addition to answering consumer-submitted questions in the Ask A Lawyer section of Lawyers.com, for the last 10 years you've also been hosting an online immigration chat on the site. For our readers who aren't familiar with the chats, could you briefly explain how they work?

AW: They are pretty simple. You log into Lawyers.com and people come into the chat real time. They'll submit their questions, I'll ask follow ups and we'll go back and forth as I answer their questions.

It's not legal advice, but is for individuals who have questions about specific issues: "Is this possible?" "I need general immigration advice."

LNMH: By our calculations, you're approaching your 500th online chat. Why is it a worthwhile part of your marketing efforts?

AW: There are five reasons I do it.

It's a great way to keep up with current issues. Because I'm answering immigration questions online, I become aware of issues that will affect my clients.

I like helping people. It's not pro bono work, per se, but I'm helping people who might not have money to spend on a lawyer.

It's also important to have the exposure. Attorneys have to be visible online. And it's nice to be seen as knowledgeable in my area of immigration law.

I certainly like the search engine optimization, or SEO, aspect of it. Lawyers.com allows me to get my name and our website URL out there. It helps with our search engine optimization and drives traffic to our blogs.

Finally, I enjoy being associated with LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell and Lawyers.com.

LNMH: Do you often help people on the chats who then become clients?

AW: It's not my immediate goal. Attorneys shouldn't go into the online chats with a goal of getting new clients each month. It's much more valuable in terms of search engine optimization and online visibility.

LNMH: Is it more often a case that clients — as they research attorneys to hire — see your immigration chat work, read transcripts and then contact you?

AW: Yes, though it's not always obvious when it happens. Maybe a new client saw an answer I provided or saw a chat I hosted. They might not have been the person who originally asked the question, but they read my answer.

LNMH: Aside from your Lawyers.com activities, how else do you market your own practice?

AW: We focus most of our efforts on the Internet and online marketing. We try to build up our website, and we have several blogs that do quite well.

I also try to stay active online, through Lawyers.com and other sites. Then there are the old-school marketing efforts, like writing articles and speaking at conferences.

LNMH: How would you rate the success of your Lawyers.com activities in comparison to your other marketing efforts?

AW: I'm a tough grader, and it's a solid eight out of ten. It's been one of the best things I've done. It's excellent exposure, and it's helped with my client development efforts.

LNMH: What advice would you offer to attorneys who want to get more involved with Lawyers.com?

AW: Attorneys have to be seen and be active online, because consumers are going online to find lawyers. If someone couldn't find anything other than your website, that would cause concern.

These days, it's not enough to have a website or a blog. You need to generate traffic to your site, and Lawyers.com is perfect for that.

Lawyers.com is a perfect fit for us because our marketing efforts are focused on the Internet.

To learn more about Lawyers.com chats or to find out how your firm can participate, contact a LexisNexis Law Firm Marketing Specialist.

Real-Time Leads for iPhone and Android Users

Anand Pandya — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 13:44:00 GMT

The use of mobile devices as a way to obtain information and connect with other people continues to soar. According to International Data Corp., the worldwide smartphone market grew by more than 54 percent last year. Our own market research has illustrated this mobile revolution is affecting the way law firms market their services as well, with more than 1 in 5 consumers using a mobile device to search for an attorney in the past year.¹

LexisNexis® Martindale-Hubbell® is working hard to keep our customers in front of this trend with a variety of strategies to drive more mobile consumers to Lawyers.com^SM, such as a mobile-friendly search platform and other strategic partnerships. At the same time, we're developing new services to help law firms better leverage mobile technologies in the way they respond to these prospective clients. New mobile technologies that allow lawyers to receive leads immediately — and respond from anywhere — accelerate a law firm's response time so it connects with prospective clients at the precise moment when they're looking to hire counsel.

Earlier this year, LexisNexis introduced Lead Alert, a new service for attorneys which was initially available just for the iPhone. Due to the popularity of this program we've extended the service to also be compatible with Android-powered smartphones.

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 it responds to these leads. LexisNexis Lead Alert provides our customers with real-time lead notification and streamlined response options, which enable lawyers to reply immediately when a prospective client is in need of a lawyer.

LexisNexis Lead Alert for Android is the latest example of a mobile application developed by LexisNexis to help lawyers manage and grow their practice wherever and whenever convenient, improving productivity and ultimately work/life balance. Get started on Lead Alert, or for more information on law firm marketing tools to help you grow your practice, contact us.

¹ Based on a survey of 4,000 adult Internet users (Internet users comprise 78% of the U.S. adult population** and the U.S. adult population comprises 235 million according to the U.S. Census 2010) conducted by The Research Intelligence Group (TRiG), March 2012. ** According to The Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project's Spring Tracking Survey conducted April 26-May 22, 2011.