26
Mar

How to build your speaking strategy before this year’s conference season

March 26, 2024
by: in Law , Marketing strategy , Lead generation No comments  

Legalweek. ILTACON. American Bar Association (ABA) section seminars. Sector-specific conferences. 

These eclectic events share two things in common: potential clients in attendance and invaluable speaking opportunities to reach them.

Leaders and professionals should consider joining the legal speaking circuit to amp up their profile and build their clientele. After all, speaking engagements are more than just additional CV bullets; they demonstrate authority and expertise to prospects.

However, lawyers and business leaders cannot expect panel invites based on reputation alone (unless they are U.S. Supreme Court justices or Fortune 500 CEOs). The average professional plebian can avoid the submission slush pile by approaching conference season like litigators: building a robust case with strong evidence of prior engagements and accomplishments.

Fortunately, a competitive submission does not need to feature a laundry list of prior speaking engagements — or any at all! What matters more is whether a speaker candidate made an effort to establish their expertise. Establishing third-party credibility through article writing, podcast appearances, smaller speaking engagements and more can give organizers the confidence and social proof they need to gamble on accomplished professionals with valuable insights.

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05
Aug

How to leverage your next event sponsorship

August 5, 2022
by: in Law , Marketing strategy No comments  
Here are some tips for before, during and after an event to make sure every penny you’ve invested in sponsorship counts.

Sponsoring an event — whether an event discussion, seminar or workshop — is a great way to promote your law firm or legal tech company. By sponsoring and/or putting on an event, you not only align yourself in the marketplace with other thought leaders but you can also demonstrate your knowledge regarding a pressing pain point for potential clients. Inviting speakers and eventists is also a great way to reward clients with a marketing boost or make connections with key influencers. (Flattery will get you very far sometimes…)

Event sponsorships don’t come cheap, however, and often cost thousands of dollars. There’s also your time to consider in setting it up, holding the event, etc… Given these investments, it makes sense to try and get the most marketing bang for your event sponsorship buck. (You’ll also reduce any objections from the firm’s beancounters if you can demonstrate a strategy for achieving the best possible ROI.)

Here are some tips for before, during and after the event to make sure every penny you’ve invested in sponsorship counts.

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28
Jun

Architecture public relations: 6 publications every architectural firm should target to showcase projects, expertise

June 28, 2022
by: in Marketing strategy , Content marketing , Lead generation , Public relations , Architecture, Engineering and Construction No comments  

When prestigious architectural publications showcase an architecture firm’s work, it gives that firm an invaluable stamp of approval that can play a key role in business development. 

While these publications are read by other architects — and not necessarily by clients — the coverage in these publications acts like a coveted referral from a trusted expert. It sends the message that your firm does quality work. 

While coverage in publications that clients read — like your local business journal or trade magazines such as Building Construction + Design, Medical Construction & Design and Hospitality Design (depending on your industry focus) — is also important, the strategy is different. These publications, while helping to establish your firm on your clients’ radar and demonstrate expertise in their industry, don’t provide the same cachet as publications like Architectural Record or Metropolis. 

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28
May

How to edit your law firm’s Wikipedia page: 3 golden rules

May 28, 2022
by: in Law , Marketing strategy , Content marketing No comments  

Just like death and taxes, if you’re a marketer, it’s inevitable that you’ll be asked to edit a Wikipedia page (or worse: create one).

It’s an understandable request given Wikipedia’s prominence on the web. The online encyclopedia continues to dominate search results due to its high-quality, up-to-date content on a vast swath of topics. Its pages are frequently referenced in links from other sites, one of Google’s predominant signals of authority. Google’s addition of snippets and knowledge graphs has further cemented Wikipedia in the top few results for nearly any given search. 

Unfortunately, errors are rampant on the site. Correcting inaccuracies, however, is not a simple matter. Any edits, especially those to business pages, have to follow certain rules in order to pass muster. If you do it wrong, there’s also a good chance you could get blacklisted permanently from the site. 

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27
Oct

Attending virtual conferences: How to get value from a socially distanced event

October 27, 2020
by: in Law , B2B , Marketing strategy , Architecture, Engineering and Construction , Professional services No comments  

While attending a conference used to mean skiving off work for a few days to listen to industry-specific keynotes with boutique coffee in your hand, these days … not so much.

Conferences are now being held entirely online, with participants watching presentations on one screen while checking in with work on another. This is all before we take into account that the farthest most of us can travel these days is to our porch. 

So even if you’re a rare unicorn of a human who can focus entirely on days worth of online presentations, odds are you are sharing your space with a partner, enthusiastic pet or homebound children.

This doesn’t mean you should throw in the towel.

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21
May

6 ways lawyers can use downtime to build for the future

May 21, 2020
by: in Law , Marketing strategy , Lead generation No comments  

6 ways lawyers can use downtime to build for the future

While much has been written about how to network and build business during the coronavirus pandemic, a lot of the advice has focused on short-term activities and gains. And while the recommendations are solid (as marketing and biz dev are critical during a downturn), a basic principle of marketing cannot be ignored: Marketing and business development are long-term endeavors. In professional services like the law, those who succeed are consistent over the long term with their marketing and business development.

However, marketing is time-intensive and requires the involvement of the attorneys themselves. This becomes a Catch-22 — marketers and publicists need access to lawyers’ knowledge and expertise (I call our role in the process “knowledge extraction”), while lawyers’ time is stretched thin as they meet aggressive billable targets.

That’s why, as COVID-19 disrupts every aspect of our society, I see an opportunity. While some lawyers are busier than ever in areas such as bankruptcy, healthcare, insurance, employment and cybersecurity, others aren’t faring so well, as M&A deals and court proceedings are put on hold. For those attorneys, now is the time to focus on the labor-intensive marketing activities that form the foundation of any successful practice.

Here are six ways lawyers with coronavirus-induced free time can build for the future:

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01
May

Law firm communications and COVID-19: What’s next?

May 1, 2020
by: in Law , Marketing strategy , Content marketing No comments  

Law firm communications and COVID-19: What’s next?

I was honored to be part of a panel discussion last week, hosted by three Florida Legal Marketing Association (LMA) groups: Orlando, Jacksonville and South Florida. If you couldn’t attend the virtual event, you missed hearing from the following law firm public relations professionals:

The panel discussion was moderated by Laura Kaminsky of BakerHostetler. While we covered a range of topics, I’ve highlighted key takeaways below (the full webinar recording is available here).

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23
Apr

How lawyers should network during the coronavirus crisis

April 23, 2020
by: in Law , Marketing strategy , Lead generation No comments  

How lawyers should network during the coronavirus crisis

Wendy Merrill is the Founder & Chief Rainmaker of StrategyHorse Consulting Group, providing leadership, professional and business development training and support to lawyers. We talked to Wendy about how lawyers can continue to nurture and develop their networks during the coronavirus crisis.

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13
Apr

How much should you spend on marketing during a recession? Here’s what the research says

April 13, 2020
by: in Law , B2B , Marketing strategy , Architecture, Engineering and Construction , Professional services No comments  

Image source: Vaile, Roland S., “The Use of Advertising During Depression,” Harvard Business Review, 5 April, 1927. 

As COVID-19 sweeps the world, our economy is quickly going down the toilet (along with stockpiles of toilet paper). Unfortunately, we are likely already in a recession. For marketers, recessions have historically been scary times. Often, marketing seems like the easiest thing to cut. But is that wise? 

As a marketer, if I wrote a blog post telling you to increase marketing during a recession, I’d look a little self-serving (to say the least). So instead, I decided to look at what the research tells us about marketing during recessions.

What I found is overwhelming evidence that it pays to maintain — and in some cases increase — marketing expenditures during an economic downturn. As Peter Fader of the Wharton School said, “As companies slash advertising in a downturn, they leave empty space in consumers’ minds for aggressive marketers to make strong inroads.”

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10
Feb

Legal marketing ethics: How specific can a law firm get with targeted social media advertising?

February 10, 2020
by: in Law , Marketing strategy , Content marketing , Public relations No comments  

Legal marketing ethics: How specific can a law firm get with targeted social media advertising?

Law firm advertising and social media. These two subjects are complicated enough on their own, not to mention when you put them together.

Unlike radio ads and the Yellow Pages of yesteryear, today’s social media platforms allow marketers to appeal to users in a more targeted and personal way than ever before.

But how much is too much? And where does that leave law firms?

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