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Legal IT

The 2021 Social Law Firm Index

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Some weeks ago, Good2bSocial published its eighth annual report on how law firms use social media, the 2021 Social Law Firm Index. In this article, we look at its key findings, at social media practices to avoid, and at predictions for 2022.

Key Findings

Some of the findings were expected. As the pandemic endures, everybody is still having Zoom meetings, but as vaccines are rolled out, more and more people are returning to the office. And now that lawyers spend more time online professionally, their budgets for digital marketing are also still increasing with more spent on advertising. The report also notes that by now, all the major law firms are on LinkedIn. Apart from that, there are four key findings.

The number of law firms that are creating podcasts has grown exponentially. In 2020, 38% of the biggest law firms in the US had a podcast. In 2021, that number has grown to 75%, and many of them had more than one podcast. Overall, podcasts are popular, with 40% of the US population listening to at least one podcast a month. For law firms, they are an ideal way to establish themselves as experts in a given field and to attract a new and interested audience. For those law firms who consider starting a podcast, the report points out that it is important to maintain a consistent schedule. (For more information on starting a legal podcast, read our article on podcasting for lawyers).

The use of video has increased across social media. Video content is the most popular content on social media and has become one of the most mediums for law firms too. Videos tend to appeal more because they are more engaging and more memorable. (People are more likely to remember something they’ve seen than something they’ve read). Video also tends to score better when it comes to SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization). Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok are the most popular platforms for videos. The report encourages law firms to produce more videos. It urges law firms to make sure their content is relevant and to include captivating headlines and descriptions. (For more information, read our article on using video in your law firm).

There is an increased focus on diversity, equity and inclusion and corporate activism. Over the last years, there has been an increase in intolerance towards minorities. Law firms have joined the movement to turn the tide. They “issued press releases emphasizing their commitment to improving their diversity efforts, upped their donations to BIPOC causes, increased pro bono efforts, and showed their support for LBGTQ audiences with rainbow flags.” (p. 7). Some went further and created fellowships and/or they created partnerships with racial justice organizations.

Covid-19 resource centres. During the pandemic and its different waves, what people, businesses and organizations were allowed and not allowed to do often changed. Many law firms offered resource centres on their websites to keep their clients and potential clients up to speed with a variety of in-depth information and insights regarding the fast-changing developments.

Social Media Practices to Avoid

Every year, the report also highlights the worst practices that are still prevalent and should be avoided. This year, it lists five of these practices that law firms should avoid in their usage of social media and their website.

Poorly defined target audience: this is one of the most persistent errors law firms keep on making, i.e., they do not target a sufficiently defined audience. Many law firms still seem to cling on to the misconception that they have to target as wide an audience as possible. The opposite is true. If your message isn’t specific enough, it will just get lost in the information overload Internet users are bombarded with. The more specific your target audience, the higher the chance you will stand out for those potential clients that actually need your services. In other words, the more accurately you define your target audience, the higher your conversion rate will be.

Failing to engage in conversations: legal consumers want their lawyers to listen to them. Engaging in conversations demonstrates that you are listening and offers a chance to show your expertise. Respond quickly and consistently to the comments your law firms receive. The report advises to occasionally do a Q&A on certain topics or do an ‘ask me anything’ session.

Poor reporting and analytics capabilities: to know what social media and content marketing strategies work, you need to analyse the metrics. It helps you to evaluate your ROI, and to finetune your strategies and your budget. Unfortunately, most law firms don’t do a great job at regularly tracking the relevant data. (For more information on web analytics and metrics, you can read our article that provides an introduction to web analytics).

Treating all social media platforms the same: different social media attract different user groups with different expectations. LinkedIn has a more professional audience than Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or TikTok. What works on one platform does not necessarily work on another. It is crucial to understand each platform and to use the correct type of content, as well as the optimal rate of publishing content for that platform. (For more information, read our article on planning your social media activity).

Too much focus on firm-centric and promotional content: Another big mistake law firms tend to make is to mainly focus on self-promotion. Legal consumers may well be interested in what you can do, but they rather would know whether working with your firm will be a satisfying experience, and whether your firm will meet their expectations. (For more information, read our article on making your law firm more client-centred).

Predictions for 2022

Sticking to tradition, the report also makes some predictions for the year ahead.

Continued increase in paid online advertising: the pandemic more or less forced law firms to spend more on online advertising as the more traditional ways of business development – which for lawyers largely depended on socializing – were not available. Still, compared to regular businesses, law firms tend to spend a far lower percentage of their budget on marketing and advertising. This is especially the case for small and medium-sized law firms who hardly spend any money on marketing and advertising. The report expects that law firms slowly will start catching up with the rest of the market and will continue to spend more on online advertising.

Focus on account-based marketing and related technologies: as we explained in a previous article, the idea of account-based marketing is to identify key accounts and then customize your marketing strategies for each one of them individually, rather than having one general marketing strategy for all accounts. It is more effective, and makes it easier to track and measure goals, and identify a clear ROI. As it focuses on the client’s journey and experience, it also results in a boost in client loyalty.

Evaluation of firms’ marketing technology stack: the report defines the marketing technology (often shortened to MarTecK) stack as “the collection of marketing tools that your team uses to place ads, post on social media, and gather results and analyze ROI.” (p.11) Digital marketing campaigns use several different tools, and now additional tools are appearing that either combine the functionality of those tools or allow them to work better together. It is advisable for law firms to evaluate the tools they are using and see where improvements in the stack are possible.

Exploration of programmatic advertising and intent-based targeting: the report predicts law firms will start experimenting with intent-based targeting. What are we talking about? In a previous article on the digital marketing concepts lawyers need to know, we explained what a conversion funnel is. Intent-based marketing is a type of marketing that specifically targets those prospects who are in the last stage of the funnel, i.e., those who have shown an intention to make a purchase.

The report also expects an increase in programmatic advertising, which it describes as “a way to automatically buy and optimize digital campaigns, rather than buying directly from publishers” (p. 12). This used to be something only the largest law firms could to. But more and more tools are becoming available that allow smaller law firms to use programmatic advertising, too.

 

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Making your law firm client-centred

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How satisfied are your clients with your services? Do you know? An important metric to measure client satisfaction is the NPS, i.e. the net promoter score. What is it? Well, you surely have encountered the mini surveys before, where they ask you to give a score from 0 to 10 on how likely you are to recommend the services or product you are using. Scores from 0 to 6 are not considered good, scores of 7 and 8 are all right, and scores 9 and 10 are what you are aiming for.

Now, most law firms do not achieve these high scores when it comes to client satisfaction. In a previous article, we already pointed out that there is a chasm between what lawyers think their clients want, and what those clients actually want. This disparity is greatest for three items: when the clients want to meet their lawyer in person, when they want to speak to their lawyer on the phone, and when it comes to balancing service with cost.

Now that the Coronavirus is forcing you to rethink the way your law firm works, why not take this as an opportunity to also make your law firm more client-centred? Not only will it give you a competitive advantage, legal consumers are also increasingly demanding it. And if they are satisfied with their experience, they are more likely to recommend you. After all, referrals still are the way most legal consumers find their lawyers. You can only benefit from making your law firm more client-centred.

So, how does one make one’s law firm more client-centred? The Lawyerist website recently published a ‘Complete Guide to Law Firm Client Experience’, and that is an excellent place to start. It explains how building a client-centred law firm requires paying attention to your client’s journey, as well as to your client’s experience. Lawyerist breaks the process down in 8 items. Here is a summary.

  1. The difference between client experience and client service: Your client’s experience is the sum of all his or her interactions with your law firm, from your website to the last consultation. It affects and is experienced by all your clients and determines how they feel towards you and your firm. Client Experience needs to be proactive and intuitive. Client Service on the other hand, is the subjective experience for each client when they need to interact with anyone in your firm, at any given moment when they encounter some issue or problem that needs to be resolved. Client Service is problem oriented and is reactionary by nature.
  2. Understanding your clients: to better understand your clients, their needs, desires, and expectations, it is useful to create client personas. These are descriptions of your ideal client. These profiles can be as specific as you want them to be, but should at least determine what your ideal client’s wants, needs, and expectations would be. Knowing this can also help you understand how they might be feeling when they come to you for help. It will allow you to better empathize with your client, and to you create a more personalized and attentive client experience for them, which is something all consumers of services always appreciate.
  3. Create a clear Law Firm Client Experience Journey: What is a client journey, or client experience journey? It is the entire process your client as a legal consumer with a legal issue that needs to be resolved goes through, when trying to resolve that issue through the services that your law firm offers. How do you want them to feel when they interact with your firm? How can you stay in control of the relationship and manage your clients’ expectations? Map your client’s journey, i.e. identify the different stages your client will go through: each stage should 1) represent a major milestone in the overall goal for your client during their time with your firm, and 2) have clear objectives and goals to meet. At every step, you need to communicate what you are doing with your clients to keep them in the loop. It is a good approach to visualise your clients’ journey. The article by Yolanda Cartusciello on client journey mapping (listed below) provides many useful insights. Cartusciello also refers to research that shows that companies that have transformed themselves to focus on the client journey across the organization have enjoyed a 20% improvement in client satisfaction, a 15-20% decrease in cost of serving their clients, a 20-30% increase in employee engagement, and, perhaps most convincingly, a 10-15% increase in revenue growth.
  4. Your Law Firm Client Experience begins online. In previous articles, we pointed out that most legal consumers check out the lawyers they consider hiring online first, before contacting them. This means their first impression of you is what comes up when they perform an online search on your name. The results may include your website, your reviews, and your social media profiles. You have to pay sufficient attention to all of them. We have previously published an article on online reputation management that addressed this.
  5. Create a connection with your clients. A lawyer-client relationship is built on trust. Building that trust already starts when your client finds you online. Let your personality shine on your website and social media profiles! Then, as soon as you are contacted, make it a top priority to give your client personalized attention. When you meet with your client, “ask them questions, be patient, and listen to what they have to say. Treat them with respect, and don’t be afraid to engage with them emotionally or to talk about yourself to relate to their situation. When you truly care about your clients, you’ll naturally want to do your best to help them out. People will feel this sincerity and respond in kind.” When talking about client experience and client journey, we already mentioned the importance of keeping your clients in the loop and communicating with them regularly. This, too, helps build trust and a connection with your clients. If your clients feel they do not know what the status of their case is, they will get frustrated and dissatisfied. Also, remember to always communicate securely with your clients, e.g., through your client portal.
  6. Getting everyone on your team onboard. All your clients’ interactions with your law firm contribute to how they experience their journeys with your firm. It should therefore be obvious that all this planning for your client experience only works if everyone at your firm is onboard and shares that common purpose of focusing on the client’s experience. One bad experience with anybody in your firm will lead to client dissatisfaction. Everybody should know how the client experience journey goes, what is expected of them, and what their responsibilities are. To this end, you can develop workflows, documents policies and procedures. It helps if everybody involved in a case can access previous communications, which most law firm management software typically allows.
  7. Capture feedback in real time. It is all good and well to decide to put the client’s experience central, but the ultimate test remains how the client does experience his or her journey with your firm. You need to find out what works well, and where there is room for improvement. For that you need your client’s feedback. While the case is ongoing, you can ask for direct feedback, and at the end of the case, you can ask for a review and/or testimonial.
  8. How to Measure ROI. Lastly, with the feedback of your clients, you can measure your return on investment. You need to establish some metrics for that. You can start by asking your client for relevant feedback for each stage of the client journey, and evaluate whether, and if so what, needs to be improved. “To measure the ROI of your client experience, you have to decide what you’re going to measure on the business side of things, what you’re going to measure on the client experience side, and how to correlate those two things.”

The articles listed below also give the following tips that will improve your clients’ experience:

  • Respond faster to potential clients. Research has shown that law firms easily take up to three days to get back to a potential client, if they respond at all, where that client expects an immediate response.
  • We already mentioned reputation management, but make sure to also pay specific attention to regional reputation management, as your referrals are most likely to come from other regional clients. Get involved in your community to build relationships with potential clients.
  • Demonstrate your value. Take extra care to explain how your services will save your client money and/or time.
  • Show a commitment to help. Ask your client what their greatest concern is and show your commitment to helping with that.
  • Reach out with unprompted communication: it shows involvement, and people appreciate that.
  • Offer a breadth of service: clients are looking for lawyers who can handle their needs, and not necessarily just your expertise. Be ready to help anyone who comes through your door, even if it means referring them to another lawyer.
  • Adapt to your clients’ future needs.

In short, to become more client-centred, your law firm needs to focus on embracing your clients and providing them with a positive client experience. This not only helps improve the life of your clients but typically also leads to an increase in revenue growth.

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Google My Business for Law Firms

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In an online world, legal consumers need to be able to find your law firm. Google My Business (GMB) plays an essential – and often overlooked – part in that.

What is it? GMB is a free online listing in Google’s business directory. It is available for businesses and organizations to manage across Google’s services like Search and Maps. What is important is that Google uses GMB listings in the local search results it presents. A well-organized entry in GMB therefore results in a better ranking in Google’s local organic search results, making it easier for people to find your firm. (‘Organic’ search results are the ones that are not paid for).

GMB offers other benefits as well. It allows you to manage your own information: you can specify areas of expertise, address, opening hours, your website and how you can be contacted. GMB also offers you several ways to interact with your target audience (see the overview of features below). Lastly, GMB offers metrics, called insights that allow you to better understand and expand your online presence (see below).

Google My Business offers several useful features.

Messages: people can use GMB to leave you private messages that you can reply to.

Questions and Answers are similar to messages, except that they are public, so people can see them in the ‘Knowledge panel’ of your law firm. (The knowledge panel offers a summary of your GMB listing and is what is shown in the local search results).

Posts are short announcements you make that have a limited life span. You can use them, e.g., for promotions, or to wish people a happy new year, to announce days with different opening hours, to announce new staff, etc.

Bookings allow people to directly make an appointment with your law firm.

A GMB listing also offers Reviews from your clients. Google has de facto become the largest review site.

Insights is the name Google gave to the metrics it provides with regard to your GMB listing. You can discover how people found your firm (e.g. what key words they used), where they came from, how many people directly clicked on the link to your website, or on the telephone link, etc.

So, how do you start using your GMB listing? Stacey Burke describes the process in four steps: claim the listing, have Google verify it, optimize it, and keep it active.

Step 1: Claim your listing. To be eligible for a GMB listing, you must be able to meet clients in person, either at your law firm’s physical address, or at their premises. If you haven’t claimed your listing yet, perform a search on your law firm’s name and address. If a knowledge panel appears with information on your law firm, it is already listed. If there is no knowledge panel (area in the rectangle) then you will want to create a listing following these steps from Google. To claim the listing, you will need a Google account.

Step 2: Verify your listing. To make sure not just anybody claims your law firm listing, Google will have to verify it first. This step is required in order for your law firm’s listing to be eligible to appear on Maps, Search, and other Google properties. Once you’re verified, it also means Google deems your law firm a legitimate business, providing third party verification of your company’s credibility when people search for your law firm online. To verify your listing, sign into your Google My Business account where you will see a “Verify Now” option. As part of the verification process, Google will contact your business to ensure your contact information is correct and legitimate.

Step 3. Optimize your listing. Once you’ve claimed your listing, you want to optimize it for the best search engine results. First, you have to add the basic information like the name of your firm, the phone number and other contact modalities, as well as the business category and location, the service area (=geographical area your law firm mainly serves), and opening hours. Optimizing your listing is an art in itself, and these two articles will greatly assist you in the process.

 

Step 4. Keep your listing active. In its search results, Google tends to favour law firm that remain active: make posts (e.g. to announce blog posts), answer questions, make sure to get reviews and respond to them, etc. Burke recommends checking your GMB listing once or twice a week.

 

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Marketing Essentials for Law Firms

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For most, if not all law schools, marketing is not a part of the curriculum. That shouldn’t come as a surprise. Practicing law is one of the liberal professions, and as such is ruled by its own ethics which typically limit the marketing options of their members. While there may be differences from country to country and even from bar to bar, when it comes to marketing, lawyers are not allowed to do what companies are. Still, for the things that you are allowed to do as a lawyer, there are certain basic marketing principles that always apply, even whether it’s writing blog articles or about what you put on your website.

It is beyond the scope of one blog article to give a thorough introduction to marketing. So, we will stick to some essentials. These can be summarized in five sets of questions.

The first set of questions has to do with your target audience: Who is your target audience, and what are they looking for? You must identify your target audience and learn about their needs and their interests. Are they big businesses, small business, or specific types of individuals? You have to find out where can reach your target audience: e.g., on what social media they are, etc.

The second set of questions has to with differentiating yourself from the competition: What sets you apart from the competition? Who is your competition? What are they doing? What services are they offering? What makes you different from them? This does not have to be limited to legal services, but also applies to the whole ‘customer service’ aspect of things: how client-centric are your competitors, and is your law firm?

The third set of questions has to do with the message you want to communicate to your target audience: What is your message? This applies to any communications you have with clients or potential clients, whether it’s a blog article, a video, an image, your website … Your message has to be tailored to suit your target audience.

The fourth set of questions has to do with the presentation of your message: how do you present your message? This applies to the medium you choose, to the language and the visuals (imagery and video) you use, as well as the layout, … One important aspect of the language you use, e.g., is the readability of your texts. All of these, too, should be chosen to best suit your target audience.

A fifth set of questions has to do with building customer loyalty: how do I retain clients, and create repeat business? It is a good habit to regularly do specific campaigns for your existing clients.

Once you have answered all those questions, you can proceed to the next two groups of questions. These largely fall into two separate categories: questions about the operational aspect of your marketing, and about your online presence.

With regard to the operational side of things, you must ask yourself the following questions:

  • What is my business plan?
  • Will I handle my marketing internally or do I outsource?
  • What follow-up process do I have for prospective clients?
  • How many clients can I handle, at most?
  • What are my marketing goals?
  • What does my marketing budget look like? As a rule of thumb, it is generally recommended to spend at Least 2.5% of your revenue on marketing.

The last set of recommendations focuses more specifically on your online presence (website, blog, social media, etc.). Legal consumers are online customers: more than 90% of people with a legal issue look online for solutions first. If they need to get a lawyer, they mainly find them through recommendations and through online searches. But the vast majority of people looking to hire a lawyer will check that lawyer out online first, i.e. before contacting them. So, from a marketing point of view you should:

  • Have a (well-designed) website. Does your website live up to the current best practices?
  • Optimize your website for search engines: What are the keywords your target audience will be looking for?
  • Measure and track all of your marketing efforts. In a future article, we will focus more on the relevant marketing metrics, and what you can learn from them.
  • Install Google Analytics on your website, not only to keep track of who visits your website, but also to see which pages work and which don’t.
  • Maintain a digital database of all contacts so you can follow up effectively
  • Create Google, Facebook, and LinkedIn pages, because it is more than likely that that is where your target audience will find you.
  • Get reviews, testimonials, etc. In an online world, social proof is essential.

In future articles, we will deal more in detail with some of these aspects.

 

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Legal IT

Email Marketing for Lawyers

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Email marketing is a valuable tool for lawyers, with many benefits. It is still seen as the top medium for return on investment by 70% of digital marketers. It is pretty straightforward to get started, and with limited resources you can reach a global audience, have an instant impact, maintain customer loyalty, etc. Add to that that emails are easy to share, and that their impact is easy to measure. You can deliver targeted messages, drive revenue, etc. One of the most obvious advantages of email marketing is its lower cost compared to mainstream marketing channels. As a lawyer, however, you must keep in mind that there are not only legal (GDPR compliance, e.g.) but also ethical considerations.

What types of emails can or should you send? Joleena Louis mentions six different types:

  1. The Welcome Email, e.g. when you get a new client, but also when somebody signs up to your blog.
  2. The Tools or Resources Email, where you share helpful information with clients: URLs, seminars/webinars, eBooks, etc.
  3. The Asking Email, where you ask your clients for feedback or assistance.
  4. The Content Email, where, e.g., you share a new blog post you’ve written.
  5. The Curated Email, where you share interesting content by other authors.
  6. The Newsletter Email.

The list is not exhaustive. You can also send out different types of reminders, birthday and holiday wishes, etc.

So, how does one go about organizing an email campaign? In essence, there are four major aspects to keep in mind: your target audience(s); the message you want to deliver to that target audience; the presentation of the message; and how it will be delivered. Let’s have a look at those.

Your Target Audience: who do you send your email campaign to? The most obvious targets are your clients, as well as people who signed up to your blog. It is not a good idea to send the exact same content to all of your readers. It is recommended to use segmentation of your email list, e.g., by interest, by activity, by date, by type of reader (e.g. client vs. blog subscriber). But don’t make segmentation too complicated or time consuming.

Your Message: you have to define what the message for each target audience is. Remember to personalize your message: start with their name or, if applicable, the company name. Keep your emails concise and focused. When it comes to the actual content, it is important to not just pay attention to yourself and/or your services/products. The content has to be about and for the readers. Make sure to provide value. If in doubt or uninspired, you can ask your readers what information they want. It’s often also a good idea to include some fun facts and statistics.

The Presentation: how you present your message is important. Research has shown that it’s good to include images in your message. Using 1 to 3 images typically has the greatest impact. Make sure, however, that those images are not too large: They have to load fast. It is also recommended to not send out a mail that consists only of an image. (Those typically get marked as spam by spam filters). Use short plain texts from one or more real persons on your team.

Sometimes, it can be a good idea, too, to use video: don’t embed a video, but instead include a link to the video you’d like your readers to have a look at. This works best for first mails, e.g., for a welcome email. Using either static image with a play button, or an animated gif typically results in more people watching the video.

Also keep in mind that by now a majority of people read their mail on their mobile device. Make sure your message is mobile responsive.

The Delivery Method: how are you going to deliver your message to your audiences? If you are using Office Management software, chances are that it comes with a module for email campaigns.  If your law firm management software does not offer the option, you can use the services of service providers like Mailchimp, Litmus, Reachmail,  Cakemail, etc.

Some additional observations: it is recommended to automate the sending of emails where possible. That is the case, e.g., for welcome mails, reminders, holiday or birthday wishes, etc. When you start planning your email campaigns, it is recommended to start with a clear goal in mind. The biggest mistake people tend to make with email marketing is not having a strategic plan. Another important aspects of emails campaigns is to keep track of your results: how many mails were opened, and read? What topics are successful, and what works best for which target audience, etc.?

 

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