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If you don’t keep score, how will you win?

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Why tracking your Google Analytics pays off.

By now law firms should know all about Google Analytics. Do You?
But what to do with those statistics on website performance? That’s a whole other story.

If this sounds like your office’s level of knowledge regarding your website, you’re not alone. Many law firms simply haven’t learned—or been taught about—how to read and leverage the numbers spit out by Google each month.

But ignorance is no longer an excuse. Laziness is not an option. These figures—free of charge to you—are really worth understanding, because they can dramatically impact how your website performs in the future, which can lead directly to new business you didn’t even know you were missing.

Remember, what you don’t know, you don’t know!

Likewise, prioritizing a wide-reaching TV campaign over your website is no longer acceptable. Your website should not only be the hub of your Firm—the platform for disseminating the information people need to know most—it should work in tandem with your TV efforts.

The point? You can no longer overlook this critical component of your legal marketing strategy.

Google Analytics 101

So what’s so great about tracking Google Analytics, anyway? Well, the search engine’s auto-generated statistics show both a big-picture view of how well your website is “performing,” as well as micro measurements that can provide helpful insight into how you can shift things to gain better traction on the Web.

Google Analytics gathers vast data on advertising campaign performance; audience characteristics and behavior; cross-device and cross-platform measurement; data capture; mobile applications; conversions; and more. It’s a tool worth getting to know better. Once you’re familiar reading the numbers, which are neatly broken down by category, you can very quickly glean information like:

Visitor type: Learn a user’s geographical location, dominant language, which browser they used, their screen resolution, whether they’re on a mobile device or desktop, etc.

Usage behavior: See how long users stay on your website, what pages they are visiting the most, which page is causing visitors to leave most often, how many pages an average user is viewing, etc.

Origination: How did the user find you—a search engine, popular social network, link from another website or direct type-in? Google Analytics also breaks down each traffic source, so you can focus on specific ones.

Content interaction: Gather knowledge about how users interact with your site’s content. For example, you can see how many users clicked on a specific link.

Timing: Find out what time of the day is the hottest for your website.

Google Analytics numbers are shockingly positive. Take a look: You might be surprised to learn just how many new people—called unique visitors—are actually coming to your law firm’s site.

Remember, anyone interested in doing even a quick background check might navigate to your home page, if even for a minute. Others might dig surprisingly deep on a blog post or attorney’s bio, for example. The details you can uncover are eye opening, and can help you adjust and re-target your marketing efforts.

So the question is no longer whether or not you’ve heard of Google Analytics. It’s how are you using this powerful resource to take marketing to the next level.

Google Analytics simply put, tells you exactly what is going on with your Website!

Anyone in this world that we live in that wants to know anything about you, looks you up online. Do not kid yourself by not engaging in this MUST DO part of today’s world.

Be honest with yourself and take responsibility for tracking all of your advertising. If your current agency is not pushing you to track your internet or the rest of your advertising activity and ROI, you should ask why.

The answer is they do not really know how to increase YOUR business.

Interested in learning more about making the most of this FREE online tool? Network Affiliates’ digital marketing experts can walk you through an introduction to tracking your Google Analytics.

The call is free and confidential. The advice is excellent and will help you capitalize on this opportunity. What are you waiting for? Call now: (888) 461-1016

Are you feeding your website what it needs ???

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Your digital hub deserves devotion—right now, agree?

One of our attorneys logged 131,000 unique sessions last year. A session is defined as activity that a user with a unique IP address spends on a website during a specified period of time—and in web-speak that’s a lot of traffic.

But our client didn’t get stats like these by turning the other cheek; this law firm gave its website the attention and nurturing required in a constantly changing environment.

Perhaps this makes you wonder how effective your website is.

Technology has advanced in warp-speed. No longer is a slick, eye-catching website design and compelling content enough go live with pride. No one makes a move without consulting Google, and to make things more challenging, the search engine giant keeps changing how it ranks websites altogether.

Keywords used to be key. Now original content rules. We must weigh the importance of page titles, meta tags, URL structure, anchor text, image optimization, heading tags, crawlers and so much more. Search engine optimization (SEO) is an ever-moving target, but you have to have the know-how to take an accurate shot.

Today, law firms are tasked with monitoring all types of traffic stats and staying on top of industry changes. The overwhelming prospect often leads to lawyers to turning it all over to a digital marketing agency. Working with professionals whose jobs are dedicated to keeping up with digital shifts, while positioning websites in the smartest ways possible to drive people to them, can pay off in stress relief alone.

What do I give my attention to?

If your website is a year old, it’s already time to start thinking about a refresh, which should include design and content updates, but also strategic methods for leveraging the brand equity you’ve already built through your website. It’s time to let your web presence move front-and-center and treat it with the respect it deserves. After all, if it converts one big case, it has more than paid for itself.

Start by considering your own web habits. Think about how you use the Internet to look someone up, check a restaurant’s reputation or dig deeper on a topic. If what you heard about is not what checks out through a Google search, you quickly move on to the next person, the next dinner joint or the next topic.

Your legal website is no different. If your web presence isn’t better than the vehicle that drives people there, it may drive them away. If your firm’s website doesn’t pay off your TV commercial or even word of mouth, people will instantly move on to the next attorney.

The competition is fierce. If you don’t stay abreast of what’s happening in the digital marketplace, you might miss out on a new client, a lucrative case or a better chance to represent the brand you’ve worked so hard to establish. Look at things such as:

  1. The first impression your website really makes
  2. How you are driving people to your website
  3. What visitors do when they get there—and how much you’re actually giving them to do
  4. Analytics shows where your site is “off”—so you can fix those broken areas
  5. How (and how well) you’re converting the people who initiative unique sessions to begin with

So as you ponder your next web steps, start by treating your website more like your baby. Give it love, attention and respect. You’ve got to nurse it along to perfection.

How injured victims view your Firm’s marketing

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After 30 years in the legal advertising business, we’ve worked hard to perfect TV ad placement and buying strategy to get our lawyers the best response rates in the market. Numbers, after all, are easy to track and tweak.

However, where advertising for attorneys gets complicated is in the messaging component. While our clients are often tempted to repeat traditional tactics they’ve seen dominating the airwaves, such as speed-and-greed talk, faked testimonials, and a hyper-focus on the size of firms and settlements, Network Affiliates now steers lawyers away from these communication strategies.

Why? Because they don’t work anymore. There are simply too many law firms shouting out brand messages that are too similar, too firm-focused and too overwhelming to victims in need of authentic legal advice. The legal TV advertising marketplace has become commoditized and generalized, which in turn has led to more TV viewers tuning out altogether, either by changing the channel or skipping over commercials.

TV Creative using the victim’s perspective

 

The key, we’ve learned, is refocusing efforts on crafting a marketing message that works a little differently, that causes viewers to stop in their tracks, and that paddles against the current of traditional legal advertising on television.

One way to begin to hone your message —the brand “story” that makes your firm stand out among the competition— is to ask three questions of your current advertising campaign, message and approach:

1. Who is the best person to tell your story?

In the past, many law firms have used a spokesperson or top attorney with a big personality and big cases behind him or her to “sell” the practice’s qualifications. However, if this person does not appear authentic and chest-thumbs too much on the firm’s greatness and not enough on solving a victim’s problem, it’s going to be a hard sell. We call this the “it’s not about you” reminder: Ads that emphasize lawyers rather than the benefits they provide to a potential client will ultimately fail in delivering quality cases.

To counteract this common advertising practice, it might be time to rethink who tells your story, what your story really communicates to a victim, and whether or not a spokesperson is even necessary. Can you “show” your brand through a personal story, animated character, real-life reenactment, or some other fresh messaging approach?

2. Is your story believable?

This is a real problem on TV today—people don’t actually believe what they’re watching and hearing because lawyers have used too many tricks to try to convince viewers to call right now. For example, we often see attorneys staging actors as real client testimonials. This used to work until people started reading the fine print and taking note of the unethical use of actors to misrepresent cases.

Is this the way to build trust with potential clients? We don’t think so, and neither do duped viewers, who thanks to the Internet and social media, can now call out dishonest lawyers and advertising practices for all the world to see. The point of this illustration is to help you examine the “believable-ability” of your advertising message. Are you using illusions when you could express your firm’s value in a more authentic way that might in turn bring you more reliable cases and clients? It’s something to consider.

3. Are you telling a new story?

One of the biggest downfalls in legal advertising is a majority of lawyers are saying the same thing in the same format. Most put lawyers, settlements and testimonials—themselves—first. What if you flipped that practice and started building a new message around what a victim might be feeling right now, what a victim might need from a lawyer, what questions a victim might have, or what expectations you could set for a victim?

There are countless creative ways to convey a new and memorable message to your audiences. As the legal advertising landscape is flooded, lawyers may have to swim upstream to say something differently and really stand out. This is your chance to develop an ad that’s a little out of the box, a little more provocative—something that makes a victim stop and think—or at least not change the channel.

It’s always an opportune time to tune in to how your commercials come across. If your law practice is not connecting with potential clients in an audience-focused, authentic and unique way, you can’t expect quality results. Let’s try taking a new perspective: the victim’s.

Case Study- Baby Safety and The Frickey Law Firm

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September is Baby Safety Month, which was a perfect alignment for The Frickey Law, a Denver based firm. The goal was creating relevant and informative content around car safety for children. Since the firm specializes in car accidents, the infographic was a perfect visual to entice site and social media visitors to engage with the firm.

We started by researching common car injuries for children. Then, we designed a large infographic and posted it on the site and the firm’s social media profiles. The digital team reached out to influential people in the space like local bloggers, parenting groups and national child safety websites. The outreach had one goal: Get the infographic and firm’s name in front of new audiences.

The infographic’s goal was keeping The Frickey Law Firm top-of-mind and driving site traffic using social media and outreach. The measure of success was get the Baby Safety Infographic to rank in the first position of Google Image Search for September… Take a look and see how we did!

Video Transcription: 

Meet the Frickey Law Firm they understand that it’s impossible to create more need for legal services so when the time comes they’d better be top of mind and here’s how social media fit their need to build more awareness of the Firm. They partnered with Network Affiliates to produce a baby safety infographic to be launched during Baby Safety Awareness Month.

The audience was identified as parents moms (eat the stuff up), between the age of twenty and 44 living within 50 miles of Denver. Facebook was chosen as the primary social channels in this gave us a target market 200,000 people.

We set our success calls for the campaign to be awareness at the firm shares of our infographic and a place on Google image search results for baby safety because all of these accomplish the objective of top of mind awareness.  So how did we do?

We generated over 182,000 impressions, nearly 1300 clicks over 100 likes and got 19 shares and drove over 900 people to the firm’s website and best of all our infographic to be found in the number one position on the Google Image Search. With awareness like this it’s safe to say the freaky law firm saw a positive ROI for the efforts.

Case Study- Safe Ride Home

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The attorneys from Hauptman O’Brien have sponsored the Safe Ride Home Campaign throughout Omaha, Nebraska for the last three years. The campaign ran through the holiday season. Its sole purpose is giving people who were drinking and didn’t plan ahead a safe ride home.

Hauptman O’Brien teamed up with a local cab company and paid every cab ride if the passenger mentioned Safe Ride Home or Hauptman O’Brien. Not only did this skyrocket the law firm’s brand and helped them remain top-of-mind, but also improved site traffic and increased online reviews. But the best part was helping the firm’s community get home safely after drinking. All. Night. Long.

Video Transcription: 

Doing good is good for business.  Hauptman O’Brien, Happy Cab and Network Affiliates all teamed up to run and promote the Safe Ride Home programover the holiday season in Omaha Nebraska. The idea is simple: if you were too drunk to drive call a Happy Cab and Hauptman O’Brien will pick up the tab.Where the story gets interesting is how this gesture of good will impacted their business.

Network Affiliates used a combination of TV pay-per-click and social marketing to get the word out the firm’s website saw three hundred percent increase in Google traffic three hundred ninety percent increase in Yahoo traffic and saw a hundred percent increase in Facebook ‘Likes’ over the campaign period and these visitors didn’t just come for the free ride. The average time on site jumped over thirty seconds 43 online chats were converted and 25 case contact forms were filled up 88,000 online impressions were made and over 100 people shared our campaign with friends.

This all led to the best December since 2000 for Hauptman O’Brien with a 35 percent increase in new cases and 57 percent increase in referrals from the previous year.  Oh, and did we mention we kept 1,850 drunk drivers off the road? The campaign was so successful that Hautpman O’brien is extending the program to Saint Patrick’s Day.

Want better cases from TV?

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Talk to viewers like you’d talk to a jury

Would you talk to a jury the way your TV ads talk to the pubic? It’s a question worth considering the next time you take a critical look at the success of your television advertising campaign—and quality of cases it yields.

Much like a jury must be convinced by a compelling argument—a real story with real human connection—so too must viewers of TV advertising be convinced about the authenticity of a law firm’s “story.”

Surprisingly, a majority of the legal commercials on TV today don’t take this simple approach. In fact, they do many of things you would never think to do in a courtroom, such as:

  • Talk about yourself (or your lawyers) instead of the case at hand—people with legitimate legal difficulties.
  • Scream louder than the other lawyer, instead of calmly, rationally explaining the evidence on behalf of your client.
  • Default to generalizations, which lose the jury’s attention, rather than specifics, which “sell” the story and make a lasting impact.
  • Focus on the end result—the big money, the number of cases won—rather than people’s universal “pain points.”
  • Skimp on the presentation of critical “evidence”—the images and visual aids that tell might tell 1,000 words in one picture.

Thinking about the parallel between advertising audiences and juries is a metaphor meant to help you reflect on how your legal firm is asking for cases. If you spend time creating a high-quality, well-researched and strategic argument (TV messaging), your case will be that much more convincing.

If you want quality cases—the kind that lead to stronger results, better relationships and more referrals—you must ask for them in a quality way through your advertising approach. That might require ignoring a majority of today’s legal ads and creating your own signature message, or systemically breaking down some current ads as how-tos on what not to do.

Legal advertising that asks for quick, cheap cases might bring short-term gain, but it is also guaranteed to deliver short-term clients and relationships, as well as to short-change consumers about what your law firm really has to offer.

Like all the strongest legal arguments, it takes a more strategic approach to acquire more valuable, higher-quality cases and clients. Again, think of it like talking to a jury in a courtroom:

  • Research what the other lawyer (competing law firm in your space) is doing.
  • Focus on explaining the undeniable evidence (your legal brand’s differentiators and story).
  • Connect with decision-making jury members (potential clients) by linking experiences they might have had to the ones you’re presenting.
  • Appeal to your jury (advertising audience) through emotion and empathy—the places from which all long-term relationships start.
  • Help your jury (viewers) see beyond outcomes and settlements to the real community service of law.

As lawyers, sometimes it’s easiest to understand advertising strategy in the context of the courtroom. Next time you question the quality of cases your TV messaging yields, ask first: Who is your jury?

Turn Your Legal Website Into a Profit Machine

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You spend thousands of TV advertising dollars every month to drive people to your website. But what happens when they get there? Do you even know? Here are some questions to consider:

  • Do they leave too soon, leaving your law firm with a missed opportunity?
  • Does your website’s look and feel match that of your TV ad campaign, creating cohesion and establishing instant brand integrity?
  • Is there compelling content to keep visitors engaged and interested in learning more about your attorneys and legal work?
  • Can users easily navigate your site and find written and video content that completes the story you started to tell on TV?

If you don’t know, there’s no better time to start making sure your TV and online efforts match up. Don’t neglect the TV’s small-screen sister if you want to see real ROI in 2015.

How to get your legal website up to speed:

It’s not uncommon for law firms, and most advertisers, to spend big for a big splash on TV but skimp on an online presence that ultimately pays off that first impression. A smarter strategy is to start making the messages on both platforms work hand in hand. For many legal firms that may require building a better website or enhancing the existing online “user experience.”

If you like your current website design and it pays off the brand image you’ve presented through your TV advertising, then focus first on content. (If not, get your TV and Web visuals in sync ASAP.) These days content comes in many forms, but the most competitive companies are producing it regularly, creating timely, informative assets on their websites weekly, if not daily.

Here are three quick ways to get your website up to speed with your TV efforts and ensure that once you’ve sent people to your website they stay there—at least long enough to prompt a call or an email, and ideally convert to a case.

Leverage video content: You’ve already got great TV creative (or perhaps are about to produce a new spot), why not leverage that asset on your website, especially given that two years from now video is expected to account for nearly 70% of all consumer Internet traffic, according to Cisco. Talk to your agency about repurposing a portion of your TV commercial with interactive or shareable elements appropriate for Web viewing, and start to build a bank of short videos that introduce your firm, position your attorneys as knowledgeable leaders and ultimately help you rise above competitors in your space.

Create a content strategy: One big push to update website content to match your impact on TV isn’t sustainable. A creative burst will likely die out, along with your online leads, if you don’t have a long-term strategy for Web content. That starts with assessing the existing tone of your website copy and overhauling it if it’s outdated or doesn’t complement how you’ve positioned your firm on TV. What follows is even more critical:

  1. Create a content calendar for distributing content regularly on a blog, news section or video storehouse, for example.
  2. Depending on the size of your law firm, consider hiring or designating a content manager, or outsourcing production to your ad agency or a content marketing expert.
  3. Each month monitor how your new content is performing via Google Analytics and other data measures your agency can recommend.

Track & compare marketing efforts: Keeping abreast of statistics such as what pages people are visiting on your website, where they stay, what they read the longest and what content they share most will build the intelligence you need to tweak and hone content in the future. The second part of gauging performance, and therefore better understanding how your audiences digest content, is comparing the success of your TV campaigns alongside your Internet marketing efforts. By measuring TV and online video against each other, you will start to see how the two work in concert and will be able adjust your cross-media mix in a way that makes sense for your advertising budget.

So as you start to evaluate your television advertising this year and strive for constant improvement, think big picture—yet outside the big screen. If your website doesn’t measure up to and pay off your TV campaign, it’s time to spend some quality time online.

Is a Law Firm a Brand? – A Roundtable Discussion

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How is your law firm the same as a company like McDonald’s?

One word – Brand.

Your law firm IS a brand – whether you know it or not.

You probably have never thought of your law firm as a brand, and that used to be OK. With relatively few places for lawyers to advertise, the concept of ‘brand’ could be overlooked to some degree.

However, in today’s fragmented media market (with a nearly endless supply of platforms and advertising placements) it’s no longer acceptable to overlook the fact that your firm is a brand. Your brand is how consumers will connect your marketing and advertising messages to your specific law firm, and is how they will remember your firm’s name when they are in need of legal services.

In the two minute video below, Tammy Kehe (Vice President of Network Affiliates) discusses this question of “Is a Law Firm a Brand?” Tammy will tell you why the answer is “yes” and how that is actually a good thing for your business:

Audio Transcription

Is a Law Firm a Brand?

“They’re a brand, whether they know it or not – they are most definitely a brand.

And, advertising regardless of all these mediums, and all of these opportunities, and all of these channels, and all of the areas you can go to – it’s still about the fundamentals. Advertising is still about the fundamentals. And the fundamentals are, and always have been in my opinion, is that while we can’t stimulate demand for their service, we can make their service desirable when they are in need of it.

And then you have to serve them relevant information and relevant help, in terms of what they need you for. And at the same time, delivering all of that to them so you’re constantly weaving that brand that they’re spending all this money, investing all of this money to establish in these marketplaces – you have to weave that into the thought process and the minds of these people [prospective clients].

And I think, sometimes in what we do – in professional service advertising – it’s not a new food product, or a new pair of shoes, or a product, or a car, where you can drive volume into the business.

I think they often say, and we’ve heard them say before – “I’m not McDonald’s.” And my response is, “Yes you are”, because the advertising principles don’t change anymore for McDonald’s than they do for XYZ law firm – they simply don’t.

You have to create a desire, and you have to provide them with relevant information, and you have to be embedded in their minds – so when they’re making that purchasing decision, or they’re making that service decision, they think “I need to call this law firm.”

But I think that kind of goes along with all of these choices that they have, and them [law firms] trying to make it more transactional how it was 5, 10, 15 years ago. And you can’t do that. You can’t just say, “I’m only going to do this because this has generated great results.”

And the good news is, it has – a lot of [law firms] have made a ton of money from doing just television. But, that landscape is changing so quickly (and it’s going to pass by) and I think it’s incumbent upon us to expose our clients to that whole branding situation, so they understand – while the website is so subjective, here’s why we think it should look like this, feel like this, sound like this. So when people come there, here’s the whole piece of this.

And there can’t be this big disconnect between broadcast, social, PPC, SEO, direct mail, referral based, grassroots – you know, from the stands that they put up at some of the biker rallies and the fairs, where they hand out stuff.

You know, it’s ALL branding.” – Tammy Kehe

Do Your Legal Commercials and Website Work Together?

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There’s nothing more inspiring than a fresh start. Each new year is an opportunity to position your law firm for success. January is a time for reflecting, revamping what’s not working, and taking business to a new level in 2015.

Two key advertising channels to review right now are your law firm’s TV commercials and website. When properly integrated, this powerful duo will help your marketing hit the mark. Let’s consider three ways clients interact with these mediums and why that matters.

Watch the ad.

Very often a consumer’s first interaction with your legal brand is through a well-timed TV commercial. This initial impression is critical and should not only create an emotional effect, but also a direct response. Your firm’s ad should encourage people to reach out through an appropriate call to action. As you review your current creative or start to work on a strategic advertising campaign for 2015, ask yourself these questions:

  • Does your branding and creative stand out? (Are you distinguishing your firm within your specific legal niche or regional marketplace?)
  • Does your commercial make it clear that your law firm has an online presence (i.e. website and social media)?
  • Would you call your law firm based solely upon that ad? (Be honest)

Google your name.

If consumers don’t initiate a phone call after seeing your ad on television, their next step is typically performing a Google search to check on the legitimacy of your firm. Based what’s returned, a consumer might learn more about your lawyers on your website or check other reviews of your firm via a social media platform. The results of a Google search can be very telling about how well your marketing is working, while providing key insights about how a typical client might interact with your brand. When was the last time you Google’d yourself?

  • Do you show up on the first page of Google results? Where?
  • How many times does your name/brand appear and in what “forms”?
  • Is it immediately clear that you are the same law firm that was on TV?

Take an action.

After a preliminary interaction with your law firm through TV or online, a potential client should have enough information to take further action or make an informed decision about what move to make next. As you watch your ad, Google your firm, and land on your website, try to view these neutrally as a consumer might. Think about what impression your firm is making and what your next intuitive action might be.

  • What is the first impression you’re really making?
  • What actions are potential clients taking upon an initial search or after landing on your website?
  • Are visitors converting on your site? Do you even know?

Applying your intelligence.

Once you’ve looked at how potential clients first interact with your firm—what they see, how they find you, and what actions they take—it’s the perfect opportunity to take that new intelligence and market better in 2015.

You are spending thousands to develop TV ads and drive consumers to your legal website. Make sure awareness doesn’t end there. Look at monthly analytics from last year’s campaigns: Where were leads coming from? Where did people spend time on your website? What actions were they taking on the site? What percentage of visitors did you convert to cases?

Not entirely sure? Give us a call. We would be happy to sit down with you to review what you’re currently doing and what you’re currently not doing (but should be).