Kevin O'Keefe of Real Lawyers Have Blogs wrote a post yesterday entitled, "How to make your law blog trashy and salesy," in which he likens some advice given to legal bloggers to late night infomercials. He bemoans sales tactics that make lawyers appear less like professionals and more like used car salesmen. He laments that few lawyers seem to approach the law as a profession - and a respected one at that.
Yesterday, I wrote about marketing tactics that may be seen by your potential clients as too 'in your face' or salesy, and I suggested that you may want to review your own marketing methods and messages from your clients' perspective to determine whether you're turning away potential business without even knowing it. So I can see where O'Keefe is coming from - to a point.
I certainly agree that lawyers should act as professionals and that the best way to get business is through a great reputation and referrals from others. And I wholeheartedly agree that there are some lawyers whose marketing tactics (not to mention their marketing messages) resemble the tactics of carnival barkers, are unprofessional and unflattering to lawyers as a whole. But I can't agree that the specific strategies that inspired O'Keefe's post are unprofessional or that, if used properly, they would turn off any but the most sensitive potential clients.
At the beginning of O'Keefe's post, he references a post from the Legal Practice Pro blog by Jay Fleischman, a bankruptcy lawyer and legal marketing consultant, entitled, "Why Law Firm Blogs Fail as Legal Marketing Tools." Fleischman's post advises lawyers to make sure that they post contact information prominently on their blogs to make it easy for readers and potential clients to contact them. He also suggests placing a 'call to action' at the end of each blog posts to guide readers and suggest a next step, such as subscribing to an RSS feed or signing up to receive a newsletter. It is these suggestions that inspired O'Keefe's post.
I'm no fan if "in your face" marketing, as yesterday's post attests, but Fleischman's suggestions don't rise to the level of suggesting at the end of a trial that jurors contact you if they or their family members are involved in a similar situation, or shouting out your telephone number at a networking meeting.
When considering whether your own marketing methods or messages might alienate others, consider your target audience, your method and the context in which the message is being conveyed. While it may be rude and unprofessional to shout your telephone number during a networking meeting, it certainly wouldn't be considered unprofessional or overly salesy to give your business card to an individual who expresses an interest in or a need for your services.
Lawyers who write blogs provide valuable information to the public, including potential clients. Readers of those blogs are looking for information on a particular topic or practice area, and may be in the process of seeking legal counsel or deciding whether they need legal counsel in the first place. Providing contact information so that readers can seek further information directly from the lawyer, or directing readers to additional information on the same topic, via an RSS feed or a newsletter subscription is not only good business, but it provides added value for the reader. Those who aren't interested will either simply click away or will not read the blog post in the first place.
The difference between what Fleischman advises and what O'Keefe derides is context. In the jury example, the jurors have not already indicated an interest in the lawyer's services, and they aren't sitting in the jury box to hear an infomercial about the lawyer's services - they're there to hear evidence and render a verdict. Even at a networking event in which most, if not all of the participants are present in order to meet people, learn about others' businesses and make connections, shouting is rude and assumes that everyone in the room is interested in you. That kind of behavior ignores the very real necessity of building relationships and getting to know people.
In contrast, putting contact information prominently on your blog (which O'Keefe himself does) and creating a relevant suggestion or call to action at the end of a blog post makes information readily available to readers when those readers determine that they want more information. Forcing readers to seek information about you through Google or other web searches creates more work and extra steps for the reader - steps they may never take. Since the blogger can't possibly know each reader individually, how well versed they are in the subject matter or where they are in the buying process, the smart move is to make the information available at the point at which the reader is engaged.
One final point - O'Keefe notes that some of the legal bloggers in his network do have contact information on every page of their blog, but he says, "[T]hat's not the reason they are getting clients from blogging." Of course not - but the point is that those who don't have this information readily available may well be losing potential clients.
Make it easy for your clients to contact you or to access additional information that might be of value to them. Failing to do so may be a missed opportunity.
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