Snapchat and Instagram are two visual social media platforms with big user bases.

Between 150 and 166 million people use Snapchat every day, while Instagram pulls in numbers north of 500 million.

With so many users, should law firms be marketing on Snapchat and Instagram?

We’re diving into these platforms and explaining how they work, what they do, who uses them, and if they’re worth your firm’s time and money.  Continue reading “Are These Social Networks Worth Your Time?”

Foresight is a real thing, and it comes from insight. The more insight you have into a market, the more foresight you acquire into that market’s future.

Law firms that spend a lot of money on marketing want to make sure every dollar counts. After all, as lawyers, you’re not in the marketing game because you’re passionate about marketing—you’re investing because it helps you reach more people and increases your bottom line.

So, which digital marketing efforts will get you the biggest bang for your buck in 2018? We’ve made our predictions below.

1. Digital Marketing Isn’t Just Important, It’s Essential in 2018

For years, marketing agencies like ours faced an uphill battle in one area: convincing the analog world that digital marketing matters. This is true in the legal field, where decision makers are often accustomed to pre-internet traditions.

But the march of time has been on our side. Experts like Jonathan Gabay, one of the world’s leading voices in brand psychology, predicts that 2018 will be the year the old holdouts will give in: digital marketing is effective, and there’s simply too much proof for any firm or company to ignore it anymore. 

2. Bigger Budgets for Digital Marketing

Marketers across the U.S. plan to increase their digital marketing budget in 2018. That means more money allocated for:

• Content writing
• Search engine marketing & optimization (SEM and SEO)
• Pay-per-click advertising
• Social media marketing
• Web design

Digital marketing budgets have consistently increased year-over-year, and marketing agencies are already confirming that 2018 will be no exception.

3. TV (Still) Reigns Supreme

Important as digital marketing may be, TV advertising will remain the single most powerful and effective means of reaching a potential client or customer base in 2018.

In fact, according to the Nielsen total audience report of Q117, time spent watching TV continues to lead all major media. Americans now consume more than four hours of television every day. Critics and market analysts alike regard the current era as a new “golden age of television.”

In contrast to last decade’s rumblings of an impending decline in TV advertising, the opposite has proven to be true: marketers are getting more out of their TV ads.

4. Creativity Distinguishes Successful Attorney Advertising

As one of the leading attorney TV advertising agencies, Network Affiliates has been pushing law firms toward creative, authentic, and outside-the-box television messaging for years.

No one wants to see a lawyer read a cue card into a cheap digital camera in front of their firm’s biggest bookshelf. It’s a waste of time and money and hurts your brand.

Instead, your firm should focus on film-quality law firm ads with a unique message and a creative spin. New data backs this up. A recent study shows that 75 percent of a TV ad’s impact is determined by how creative it is.

There is a right way and a wrong way to advertise your law firm on television. The difference is defined by dollars earned, not necessarily dollars spent. TV advertising doesn’t have to be expensive to be effective—but it does have to be creative.

5. Siri and Alexa Are Changing Search

Far from novelties or toys, new devices like Siri and Alexa have become access points for your clients. People use voice technology to run Google searches or find local contact information. (“Alexa, find me a personal injury lawyer nearby…”)

Here are a few voice-relevant guidelines to keep in mind:

• Content must be written with readers and listeners in mind
• Traditional organic search is still important, but so are other disciplines like local search.

6. Content Must Beat the Competition

As more law firms incorporate digital into their marketing efforts, and as the legal industry increases its spending on TV and digital marketing, you’ll need better content on both fronts to stand out. That means:

• More creative TV messaging than your competitors
• A voice that defines your firm’s brand as something identifiably different than your biggest competitors’
• Better writing — more authoritative, more knowledgeable, more authentic, and more reader-friendly

7. #FakeNews Will Be a Challenge

“Fake News” wasn’t in the vernacular two years ago, but it’s an everyday term now — and is quickly becoming an everyday challenge.

Even as web users are hungry for content, they’ve become deeply skeptical of the content they find online. If they don’t already know your brand, you’ll have to convince them your content is credible, authentic, and reliable.

Hard sales pitches will have a negative impact on your content. Instead, create content that’s helpful, knowledgeable, skillfully crafted, and trustworthy.

8. Google Will Pop the Pop-Up Bubble

Google has already cracked down on intrusive pop-ups. (We explained this game changer in great detail last year.) We expect this trend to continue in 2018, putting pop-ups to an end — or at least the worst kinds of pop-ups.

This is important because a lot of law firms still use pop-ups on their websites. Once upon a time, doing so was even considered a “best practice.” Not anymore.

Here’s the catch: social messaging is projected to become more important in 2018. And while most law firms aren’t actively engaging clients on, say, WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger, many do use pop-up chat features to make real-time contact with incoming leads.

This is important because web users, especially Millennials, value social messaging. It appeals to two of their top desires: authenticity (they can tell if you’re real by talking to you) and immediate gratification (instant messaging is just that… instant).

Fortunately, there are ways for your law firm to integrate pop-up chat and stay in Google’s good graces. Make sure you’re using those features the right way.

9. Don’t Forget Distribution and Social Media

In the crowded legal space, you can’t simply create a lot of great content and hope people find it.

You need multiple mechanisms for distributing your content, and that concept will become even more important as more law firms begin to compete digitally.

We are particularly interested in the way social media is changing the way we used to think about social sharing and distribution. For a long time, social media was a great way to:

(A) engage directly with your client base and community, and
(B) share links to your website’s content.

But increasingly, social media is emerging as a publication platform all its own. Twitter just doubled its character limit, for instance, meaning you can now tweet whole paragraphs at a time. That’s content, and it should be treated like content marketing.

At the same time, the lines between a platform like YouTube and a platform like Snapchat are blurring. Brands are producing original video content for Snapchat — something they’ve already been doing for YouTube.

As a general principle, it is wise to create multiple kinds of content across multiple channels. Social media publishing and distribution will likely make it easier to do that in the coming year.

10. Addressable TV Ads Will Be All the Buzz

On the TV side of things, we expect addressable TV ad spending to account for a bigger part of a media buying strategy.

Addressable advertising means you only show your ad to the relevant part of an audience. For example, if a million people are watching a show on Hulu, but you only need to address the ones in your state, it’s increasingly possible to target those viewers directly.

Consider, for example, that industry-wide, Spectrum (one of the biggest forces in TV broadcasting) projects a 141 percent growth in U.S. addressable TV ad spend from $1.26 billion in 2017 to $3.04 billion by 2019.

11. Your Design Needs an Upgrade

Visual aesthetics are crucial to building an authentic and identifiable brand. Part of your brand’s message needs to be that you’re current and progressive—millennials are especially aware of this as they browse the web.

Web design sends an immediate message to the public as to whether your firm is living in the past or in 2018. No one wants to hire a lawyer who can’t handle new technologies or understand emerging trends.

We know, of course, that you can handle new technologies and trends… but does your web design agree?

Remember: design trends change every year. Is your look due for a refresh?

Money matters in 2018, and with our help, you can spend every marketing dollar with intention, backed by a team of legal marketing experts who specialize in digital & television marketing for attorneys.

It’s the beginning of a new year—are you ready to turn these predictions into action?

Call Network Affiliates at 877-709-0633; or, contact us online and we’ll get in touch with you.

2016 was a bad year for drivers in the United States… the deadliest in nearly a decade.

That news came as something of a surprise when numbers were released earlier this year. After all, for some time now, the expert consensus has been that the roads are getting safer.

Advances in safety technology, urban living trends, increased carpooling, tougher laws on careless driving in some jurisdictions, the advent of self-driving cars — all these things were supposed to drive down the number of collisions and fatalities. And perhaps in the long term, they will. (Indeed, that’s one of the reasons PI lawyers need to think about adapting to a new landscape for long-term survival.)

But technology can be slow to catch the majority. Most people still aren’t driving cars with advanced safety features. Self-driving cars aren’t a practical reality. And while laws can punish negligence, they can’t prevent it… human nature is immutable.

Of course, the biggest factor contributing to motorist deaths in 2016 is one we didn’t see coming ten or twenty years ago: the use of cell phones behind the wheel.

Distracted Driving is the biggest and scariest threat on the roads today. It’s enough to unnerve anyone with a loved one who drives. Its death toll is staggering, and there’s no real indication of hope on the horizon where driver behavior is concerned.

With that in mind, what can we expect from the 2017 traffic accident statistics? Are we in for another tragic uptick in fatalities? And if so, what might that mean for your firm?

We’ll see some of these answers for certain in a few months. The 2016 stats were published in February, so we expect this year’s stats will be released around the same time.

For now, we look at the current trends on the roadway and how they might inform your legal marketing efforts as personal injury attorneys.

What the 2016 Stats Showed

The New York Times pointedly summed up the situation in their February report:

Over the last decade, new cars have gotten electronic stability control systems to prevent skids, rearview cameras to prevent fender benders and more airbags to protect occupants in collisions. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent on campaigns to remind the public of the dangers of drunken driving, failing to buckle up and texting while on the go.

Despite all that, more Americans are dying on roads and highways than in years past, and the sudden and sharp increase has alarmed safety advocates.

According to the National Safety Council (NSC), 40,200 people died in U.S. car accidents during 2016.

That’s a 6 percent rise over 2015. In turn, 2015 had seen a 7 percent  rise over 2014. In other words, we now have two years of consecutive, significant increases in fatalities on the record — a total rise of 13 percent over two years, the largest in more than half a century.

In fact, 2016 marked the first time since 2007 that more than 40,000 people lost their lives in traffic accidents within a single year.

In accounting for the discomforting new numbers, the Times and the NSC point to several factors:

• An improving economy, which has more people spending more time on the roads
• Distracted driving (where the primary distraction is the smartphone)
• A downturn in actual enforcement of seat belt, speeding, and DUI laws
• Budget cuts in highway patrol departments

“It’s still the same things that are killing drivers,” Jonathan Adkins, executive director of the Governors Highway Safety Association, told the Times, “…belts, booze and speed.”

Your Clients Need to Know

In terms of your digital content, one of the best community services you can provide your current and future clients is informing them about current traffic fatality trends and providing meaningful, worthwhile perspective on the situation.

The benefits of blogging about traffic accidents, statistics, and trends are myriad:

• Generating top-of-mind awareness for your firm
• Creating a forum for you to demonstrate your authority on the subject matter, building trust among your readership
• Creating high-quality content for search engines to crawl, thus boosting your SEO and making your firm easier to find online
• Connects you with your community (when blogging about local stories or news)
• Empowers your clients to keep themselves and their families safe by becoming aware of the current dangers

Talk to Our Experts About Your Digital Content Marketing

The 2017 traffic accident statistics are just a few months away. If they’re relevant to your practice areas, your firm would be wise to cover them on your website, in your social media, and across other digital platforms. Traffic stats are just one of many hot topics you can blog about to build your brand and increase client awareness.

We can help. The legal marketing experts at Network Affiliates have more than 35 years of experience in using television and digital platforms to help law firms grow.

Want more ideas for creating content that will connect you with future clients? Give us a call at 877.709.0633 or simply contact us online. We’d love to chat.

You simply cannot create demand for your legal services. And, on the flip side, because of ethics rules in most states, you can’t directly solicit clients even where demand already exists.

The demand is out there, though. Plenty of people in your area need legal representation and advice. But for the most part, they have to be the ones to find you.

The process by which they (A) come into need for legal representation, (B) search for such representation, and (C) hire a lawyer is what we call The Client Journey.

If you want to be a part of that journey, then your firm needs to be visible at every step along the way. After all, people want to find a good lawyer, but they’ll only invest so much effort in the hunt.

The law firms they see during commercial breaks on the day they’re injured, or on the billboard overlooking their accident, or on the very first page of Google results — those are the firms they’re most likely to consider and hire.

In other words, you need to be where your prospective clients are — at each stage and step along the way. So where are they? The Client Journey is your map, and it should guide your attorney advertising strategy.

The Client Journey is evolving all the time. Today’s journey looks different than it did ten years ago. Technology forges new paths for accident victims and other prospective clients.

 

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Below, we walk through The Client Journey as it looks today, and we consider what it means for the law firm looking to compete in a crowded legal advertising space.

Before They’re Ever Injured – Top of the Funnel

Consider a hypothetical in which 27-year-old Annie is severely injured on December 1^st by someone texting while driving in your town, where she’s grown up. Annie has never needed a lawyer before, nor has she ever given them much thought. But she’s been hearing the names of local law firms her whole life.

She’s caught their ads on TV, heard them on the radio, and seen their logo on banners at community events (as recently as November!). Now that she needs a lawyer, those handful of firms are the first ones that spring to mind. Next, she’ll head to the internet to search for them and give one a call.

Annie’s story perfectly illustrates the first step of The Client Journey: life before injury. Even there, before she becomes an accident victim or a prospective client, you need to speak to her (and people like her).

In the advertising world, this is what we call the top of mind awareness. It’s broad familiarity of your brand across multiple platforms and throughout the community.

Top-of-funnel touchpoints include:

• Law firm television commercials
• Digital marketing
• Radio spots
• Billboards
• Outdoor signage in visible areas
• Event sponsorships
• Community involvement
• Coverage in local news
• Publishing blogs and/or editorials on topics of local interest

The goal is to create content that engages people at whichever step of their journey they happen to be on. Here, at the first step, the best content will engage even those who aren’t yet injured and don’t currently need a lawyer.

The Next Step: “I Need a Lawyer, But Which One?” – Middle of the Funnel

This is the middle of the funnel, or the evaluation phase. You have two goals here. First, you need to be among the law firms selected for evaluation. Second, you need to survive the process of elimination.

A well-timed television ad remains the single most powerful and effective way to grab a prospective client’s attention. The modern trend is for an accident victim to see an impressive law firm TV commercial shortly after their accident, to then search for the law firm online, and finally to make contact if they like what they find online.

Of course, many people will simply run a Google search for attorneys in their area, using a variety of potential keywords, which is why you have to be easy to find online.

The overwhelming majority of search users will never click past Page One, so you are automatically out of the evaluation phase unless your digital marketing and SEO strategy is firing on all cylinders.

Sealing the Deal

Having evaluated a handful of law firms, the prospective client now moves to the bottom of the funnel, which you might think of as the moment of truth.

Here’s where they make contact with your firm. That can happen in any number of ways:

• Calling your office
• Coming by your office in person
• Sending you an email
• Using the contact form on your website
• Chatting with a representative of your firm using your site’s online chat box
• Sending you a text message (if you have a “text to contact” feature on your site, which you should)
• Very rarely, by sending a letter in the mail

Perhaps surprisingly, given digital trends, studies show that most clients ultimately make a phone call before hiring a lawyer. That call may come after other kinds of contact (chat, email, text, etc.), but it’s extremely important that your firm be prepared to covert the client over the phone.

We’ve written extensively about the many ways law firms struggle with client intake and conversion. Don’t neglect this step. It’s a crucial part of The Client Journey, and if the client feels inadequately nurtured — because they were put on hold for too long, didn’t get a call back, didn’t have their questions answered, were treated rudely, didn’t feel like the firm really cared, etc. — they will go back to their evaluation phase and contact one of your competitors instead.

Tip: even if the case isn’t right for your firm, you can still capitalize on contacts at the bottom of the funnel by referring them to other firms.

Let Us Help You Make The Client Journey Work for You

Strategic marketing at each step of The Client Journey is a practical and effective way of competing against the other law firms in your area. The most successful firms engage the public at every stage.

Network Affiliates can help you do the same. We are a team of legal marketing experts with more than 35 years of experience in this field. We specialize in cost-effective marketing for attorneys, from television to digital and beyond. To learn more, call 877.709.0633 or contact us online.

 

Plugging into your community and giving back can yield real, demonstrable business growth — the kind that puts you ahead of your competitors. And it’s something you can do without huge monetary investments.

In fact, it is the honest conviction with which you take part and give back — not how many dollars you donate — that makes the difference here.

Today, we look at how a humanized brand cuts through the law firm mold and speaks directly to the potential client trying to choose between your firm and another.

Lawyers Have an Image Problem. Community Involvement Can Fix That.

Nobody loves a lawyer until they need one. You’ve heard that before.

The stigma isn’t your fault. You inherited it from generations long ago. Nevertheless, people expect you to counter it. In other words, to overcome inherent skepticism and distrust among your prospective clients, you need to proactively demonstrate that you and your firm aren’t like “all the rest.”

Getting involved in your community is one of the best ways you can do that. But here’s the thing: your community engagement must be authentic.

The goal is for people to see that your community activity comes from the heart. The best way for them to see that? Do things that actually come from your heart!

Talk with the partners and leaders in your firm and ask yourselves: what does our local community really need, what matters to us, what’s an area we would really feel passionate about being a part of?

This Matters a Lot to Millennials

Millennials show a strong preference for companies and service providers that model Community Social Responsibility (CSR). CSR refers to all the ways your business participates in initiatives that benefit society.

They aren’t just paying lip service to the idea, either. Studies show that Millennials put their money where their mouths are, supporting businesses that seem to have a conscience and a heart.

As we illustrated last month, Millennials are becoming the single most powerful part of the population. Their preferences matter a lot, and they prefer businesses that truly seem to care.

Additional Benefits of CSR

Making your law firm a responsible and active steward of its community has other benefits too, including:

• Setting you apart from other firms (the legal services market has been one of the slowest to adopt CSR, so you have an opportunity to stand out!)
• Top-of-mind awareness for your lawyers
• Many employees (especially Millennials and those with many employment options) prefer to work for firms that take care of their community
• Tax write-offs
• Each time you get involved with another organization, they’re likely to link to your website on theirs (this is great for SEO)
• Picking up mentions in local news (or even national headlines)
• A greater sense of purpose and satisfaction for the attorneys working in the firm
• Lawyers often struggle with what to tweet about, but community activity is great fodder for social media!
• When you work with outside organizations, those people are more likely to refer others to your firm

How Your Law Firm Can Implement Corporate Social Responsibility

There are many ways to integrate your law firm within your community and model authenticity. A few ideas might include:

• Volunteering with local organizations
• Weighing in on issues of local importance in editorials
• Providing pro bono services for people in need
• Emphasizing work-life balance in your employment policies
• Making charitable donations (but don’t think that writing a few checks every year will impress anyone on its own!)
• Blogging about your activities and writing from the heart about why they matter to you
• Simply being present at community functions

Often, the best ideas for community involvement will spring organically from the people and problems in your city, county, or state. Take the time to schedule a meeting with your staff and brainstorm creative ways to get involved.

In all these things, remember that authenticity is key.

Let Network Affiliates Help You Humanize Your Law Firm’s Brand

A lot of this is human nature. People naturally respond to honesty, compassion, and commitment. The more your firm looks and behaves like a caring person rather than a profit-driven organization, the more the public will be naturally drawn to your brand.

Network Affiliates is a team of legal marketing experts with more than 35 years of expertise in law firm branding. Let us help you humanize your brand in a way that pays off. To learn more, call 877.709.0633 or simply contact us online.