Spread the cheer! How to do holiday marketing the right way for B2B and professional services

November 20, 2019

Spread the cheer! How to do holiday marketing the right way for B2B and professional services

Ah, the holidays. A time when we’re surrounded by warm wishes, those we love — and a never-ending sales pitch to get us to spend, spend, spend. The holiday fervor seems to start earlier every year, too (I swear I saw toy Santas alongside the American flags in one store this past July 4th). 

This is the noisiest time of year in consumer marketing, with brands of all kinds clamoring for attention. So why would B2B companies and professional services firms — which have much different sales cycles — choose to enter that fray? Wouldn’t it be best to just lie low and go big in January?

Unfortunately, that would mean disappearing from view for weeks, maybe even a couple of months. In today’s connected environment, that can be a death blow when you’re trying to maintain a consistent brand. 

Done tactfully and in line with the spirit of the season, holiday marketing for B2B companies and professional services firms can help you maintain awareness while leaving a warm feeling behind that clients and prospects will remember all year long. 

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Boo! Five scary pitfalls to avoid during law firm marketing budget season

October 24, 2019

Boo! Five Scary Pitfalls to Avoid During Law Firm Marketing Budget Season

*Foreboding, creepy music plays*

Our law firm marketer hero is alone in the office, at her desk. Everyone else went home hours ago. It’s deathly silent, aside from the echoing sound of her keystrokes as she sets up tomorrow’s social media posts on Buffer. She’s just about done. She can go home after a long day of helping build the financial future of her firm.

*Ping*

An email? At this hour? Annoyed, she switches windows to look at the offending message. Annoyance morphs slowly into creeping dread and then abject horror as she reads the name of the sender and the subject line. 

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From blah to ah-ha! How to write law firm case studies that win new business

September 24, 2019

From Blah to Ah-Ha! How to Write Law Firm Case Studies That Win New Business

This post was first published on Law Journal Newsletters.

Visit any law firm’s website and you’ll find bulleted lists of representative matters and deals that look like this:

  • Represented leading international retailer and several of its officers and directors in securities class action and shareholder derivative suits.
  • Represented an investment fund in connection with a $500 million secured credit facility.

This might be the most wasted opportunity in the land of wasted opportunities called Law Firm Marketing. While laundry lists of every single matter an attorney has ever touched may be helpful on a resume, it’s much less effective for law firm marketing goals. 

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The hidden costs of cutting your legal marketing budget

June 19, 2019

The Hidden Costs of Cutting your Legal Marketing Budget

Note: This post was first published on the Thomson Reuters Legal Executive Institute blog

It’s the classic chicken-and-egg problem: You don’t have money to invest in marketing, but you need marketing to grow. And while there are plenty of studies clearly demonstrating a direct link between law firms’ marketing investment and financial growth, many firms still choose to cut back on marketing when money gets tight.

This was one of the findings from a recent study by the Thomson Reuters Legal Executive Institute. In the 2018 Dynamic Law Firms Survey, law firms categorized as “static” (no growth or contraction) reduced their marketing spend by 1.7% in 2017. That’s a 5% point difference from “dynamic” (high-growth) firms, which grew their marketing spend by 3.4%.

So why do many law firms still axe the marketing budget first when looking to save money? My guess is that there’s a lack of understanding surrounding the many hidden costs of cutting marketing. Below are seven of these tangible, day-to-day losses and how they impact a law firm long after the financial crunch is over.

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How law firms can use marketing automation to enhance their client experience

September 25, 2018

How law firms can use marketing automation to enhance their client experience

Acquiring new clients is expensive. Depending on the study, research shows that the cost to acquire a new client is anywhere from five to 25 times the cost to retain an existing client.

Yet many law firms focus the majority of their marketing efforts on client acquisition — not client retention.

Here’s more research if you’re not convinced of the value of client retention: Frederick Reichheld of Bain & Company (the inventor of the net promoter score) found that increasing customer retention rates by 5 percent increases profits by 25 to 95 percent.

From client alerts to blog posts, webinars, educational events and more, law firms are investing heavily to demonstrate their attorneys’ expertise and attract the right clients. How can these efforts be leveraged to enhance the client experience?

Enter marketing automation.

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4 reasons marketers must shift toward a ‘knowledge extraction’ mindset

May 2, 2018

RepInk-blog-Extraction

Marketers… if you had to describe your most important role in one or two words, what would you say? My gut tells me that many would say “promotion,” “brand building” or “thought leadership.” I doubt many would say “knowledge extraction.” And that must change.

Knowledge extraction is basically that — extracting knowledge from your subject-matter experts (SMEs). It’s a specialized skill when done right, and it’s imperative for effective business-to-business and professional services marketing. Here’s why:

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7 ways to overcome content marketing’s biggest challenge: just getting it done

April 24, 2018

RepInk-blog-7waysChallenge

We’ve all heard it before:

“I just can’t get my subject-matter experts to give me the information I need.”

“We would do content marketing, but we can never find the time — we’re too busy focused on billable work.”

I get it. Content marketing takes time. It’s the reason I have a viable business, after all.

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Legal marketers: Here’s how to get general counsel’s attention, straight from the horse’s mouth

April 17, 2018

Four marketing strategies are particularly effective, says panel of GCs at Legal Marketing Association conference

Law firm marketers: Want to know what works to get the attention of general counsel (GC)?

Here’s the short answer: high-quality, relevant and timely thought leadership content, in the form of client alerts, helpful articles vendita piscina gonfiabile con scivolo and speeches. In addition, well-written case studies help GCs understand your firm’s experience in solving specific problems (that they may be facing themselves).

Five GCs sat down for a panel discussion at last week’s Legal Marketing Association national conference and laid bare how they choose outside counsel, what gets their attention and how to cut through the clutter in today’s information-saturated environment.

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7 steps to developing a law firm content marketing strategy

September 27, 2017

While law firms are prolific content generators, very few firms have a documented content marketing strategy. 

According to Greentarget’s 2017 State of Digital & Content Marketing Survey, 96% of in-house counsel say that there is content overload, while 81% of law firm marketers plan to produce more. And a measly 26% of law firm marketers say they have a documented content strategy.

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Thought leadership vs. lead generation: Why legal blogging needs a strategic update

September 22, 2017

Thought leadership vs. lead generation: Why legal blogging needs a strategic update

At the Legal Marketing Association’s Southeastern Conference last week in Charlotte, North Carolina, in a session on content marketing, the presenters gave an overview of Greentarget’s 2017 State of Digital & Content Marketing Survey. Unsurprisingly, the theme of the report: information overload. The survey found that 96% of in-house counsel say that there is content overload, while 81% of law firm marketers plan to produce more.

How to rise above this content deluge? Shift from a thought-leadership mindset to a lead-generation mindset. By doing so, law firms will be forced to become more strategic in how they reach their prospective clients, giving them the content that they want, when they want and how they want it. Because if they don’t, the proof will be in the pudding: zero leads.

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