“I know we said we would do an online
marketing activity every week,” Lance said to sister Linda and new
associate, Jason, sitting across from him at the highly polished
mahogany conference table of L&L Law, LLC, “but, it seems
impossible. We have to serve our clients, manage our administrative
responsibilities, maintain our continuing education, and meet the
billable hour requirements we set for ourselves.”
“I know,” Linda said, “but if we don’t
market there will be no clients to serve and no reason to worry about
billable hours. I’ve been doing research on time management and came up
with some ideas.”
L&L Law is not starting from ground
zero. Their website is up to date. A profile for Jason, who focuses on
investment fraud, has been posted and a description of the new service
has been added to the services area and their new video “About our
Firm” is ready. They also updated their profile information in the SBM
online member directory and added a photo and expanded biographical
information for each member of the firm. They opted in to the
“accepting clients” feature, and set up the new appointment scheduler.
The major problem for L&L Law is
keeping up with their other Internet sites—the blog on their website
and their Facebook and Twitter presence.
The Blog
Effective blogs that attract clients
and potential clients offer quick and useful information, which is
updated regularly. But, how often to post?
Establish a schedule you can keep. Once
a month or once a week or once a day—the secret is consistency. Once
you decide frequency, help yourself stick to your resolution by
scheduling time to research and write. Topics are not a problem in law.
Every week, the SBM e-Journal posts important case decisions and the
SBM NewsLinks publishes legal news daily.
Linda and Jason decide to share the
writing duties, each writing one blog post a month. They pull up their
electronic calendars and set aside the time for writing and posting.
Lance, who prefers social networking, will use Facebook, Twitter,
LinkedIn, and an e-mail blast to announce the blog posts.
The Social Network
The social network is a more frequent
task. Set aside a time on your calendar for daily or twice weekly
postings, whichever fits your busy schedule. Since you could be posting
on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn, it could mean a daily task. Remember, it is consistency that counts.
Lance decides he will post to Twitter and Facebook twice a week and weekly to LinkedIn. He adds the times to his calendar.
L&L Law will also want to know the effectiveness of the new marketing, they agree to keep track of:
- The number of people reading their blog
- The number of new followers and shared tweets on Twitter
- Whether people are contacting them mentioning something they published
Linda, Lance, and Jason, like you, are
busy lawyers. They realize, however, the importance of setting aside
time to market their business. Putting it in their calendars like all
their other important dates will help.
Feedback will determine if their plan
is working. They will change course as necessary or, perhaps, reaching
fewer people is not as important as reaching people really interested
in what they offer.
Roberta Gubbins has served as the editor of the Ingham County Legal News.
Since leaving the paper, she provides services as a ghostwriter editing
articles, blogs, and e-blasts for lawyers and law firms. She is the
editor of Briefs, the Ingham County Bar Association e-newsletter, and The Mentor, SBM Master Lawyers Section newsletter.
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