I originally wrote this article eight years ago…and, in a fast-changing tech world, the core message is still true. (The economics of supply and demand hasn't changed). Ironically, firms are largely still ignoring the extremely effective and inexpensive route to market presented by content sharing in favour of more expensive, less effective (but perhaps more fun and certainly glitzier ) SEO.Content sharing and social media marketing, if done systematically, with a tight control on time costs and in a targeted fashion can work well..this mean using automation.
I am really interested in how often ideas become part of the accepted wisdom without any real evidence for their veracity. This is one of the reasons that having one’s thoughts challenged is something I would strongly recommend all managers to make part of their regular routine: the discipline imposed by knowing that you may have to justify any view is a discipline worth encouraging.
The world is replete with examples of accepted mythology and a chance conversation I had a year or so ago has led me to do a little informal research into what I now am starting to regard as “the Google myth”.
I was talking with several other company directors and we were talking about how we choose law firms to do our work. These people are the sort of potential clients most law firms would regard as the bulls-eye on the target of their client-acquisition strategy. The word “Google” was never uttered. We used advisers we knew and if we didn’t know the right person, we asked someone who did. People mentioned seminars and newsletters. No-one mentioned search engines or social networking sites.
Since then, I have made a point of asking people how they choose their lawyers. In my world, Google (and Facebook) just don’t feature. Now, this may be because we are “grey hairs”, but I don’t think so—everyone I ask is certainly web-savvy enough to find a law firm on the web…but they don’t. Instead, they use the old-fashioned methods of relying on existing relationships and their personal referral network (see news p 514).
Doing the math
I started thinking about the maths underpinning search-engine optimisation (SEO). If there are 20 firms in your city paying for SEO designed to make them number one on an Internet search for a specific term, 19 (at least) will fail. At least half will fail to be on page one if the user has set their search engine to show 10 results per screen. Second, SEO requires continuous and not unsubstantial investment to be effective. I’ll let you do the maths, but it looks relatively expensive to me if you are targeting the director/family business type market—not because the amount of work you’d have to generate would be that great to make it pay, but because of the lack of relationship between the marketing expenditure and the “law firm choosing” process (the key metric about which there seems to be little credible research applicable to this market).
Indeed, one could reasonably conclude that you should direct your internet SEO budget at those areas where lawyers are not chosen mainly by reference to relationships or peer-group recommendations, such as personal injury, for example. I mention PI because this is one area where I am regularly told by law firms that this type of marketing, done well, actually works.
High street approach
What then, should be the approach for the high street firm that wants to use the internet to attract the director, medium-sized business owner or find good-quality private client work?
One proven method is the self-subscribed e-newsletter. While these lack the permanence (and cachet, perhaps) of the printed newsletter, they cost a fraction of the amount to create and distribute. A newsletter that deals with issues of interest to the reader is well received and if written to remind the reader of potential issues, can generate good levels of work and excellent returns on investment, hugely outstripping on the page advertising. Key points here are to obtain the e-mail addresses of clients and contacts; permission to send the e-newsletter; enough information abut them to know what is likely to be of interest; and to add a peroration to pass the e-newsletter on.
Another method is to get your branded web content onto the pages of other relevant organisations. If, for example, you can get your business law commentary or guidance onto your local Chamber of Trade’s website, then you are addressing those who already are interested in the topic. This technology is inexpensive and easy to implement and also gives you the benefit of association with another established brand. The issue here is identifying where you’d like to leverage your brand and getting permission to put your material on those websites.
Keeping promises
Last, when people do come to your website, don’t blow it! Make sure you give the right messages. If you promise “news” and then have nothing less than six months old—well, you may as well just tell visitors you firm is happy to make promises you don’t intend to keep. Telling people you are client-centred and then talking about yourselves, not their problems, smacks of insincerity. Offering a contact method (email or phone) which doesn’t produce a prompt response is self-defeating.
But—do you need to be top of the search engine rankings to make your Internet presence an investment rather than an overhead? That’s looking increasingly like a myth to me.
Joe Reevy, Words4Business