08 May 2013
Blogs are often the starting point of a legal content strategy, especially amongst well-positioned practice groups, boutiques, or chambers focused on a single specialism. They offer the chance for lawyers to demonstrate how clever they are and they result in lots of original content that can help your practice rank well in search engines.
02 April 2013
Amongst its more amusing entries such as the suggestion that a banana should be eaten with a knife and fork instead of “monkey fashion” with ones hands, The Debrett’s Guide to Etiquette and Modern Manners has at its heart some very sensible advice. Most of it boils down to “think of others before yourself”.
02 April 2013
Back in February, at the start of Lent, I set out to create a new content writing habit. There where two aims: to improve the performance of our own website, and to learn lessons we could pass on to our clients. The idea was to write a new blog post every day during Lent and this post is a summary of the initial findings.
13 March 2013
The Harlem Shake was a viral video craze that swept the Internet during the month of February 2013. It is remarkable for the speed with which it spread (over 1 billion views in the first month), and the number of times it has been imitated. The BBC estimate there are over 100,000 versions.
28 February 2013
There are lots of social media evangelists out there trying to convince us why we ought to jump on the latest trendy bandwagon, but there is one rarely cited reason for having a presence on a wide range of networks - the spreading of risk.
27 February 2013
One of the most enjoyable parts of my consulting work is when we help lawyers to develop new products and services. I reckon there must be millions of pounds worth of unrealised value sitting on fee-earners hard drive or (worse) stuck inside their heads.
26 February 2013
Our washing machine broke down last week so we trundled off to John Lewis to choose a new one. Correct model located, we took the precaution of a little web-based research before plunking down the cash. Our findings:
25 February 2013
By virtue of having his own radio show, Elliot Moss is perhaps UK law’s most famous marketing director. On Saturday afternoon he tweeted “Just showing my mum aged 67 how and why to tweet. She thinks it is a waste of time? What should I tell her?”.
22 February 2013
Back in 2011, Tim Bratton, General Council at the Financial Times wrote a post on the Legal Week blog that discussed the idea for a crowd-sourced legal information resource. Tim’s post is almost two years old now, but I’m not aware of anybody taking up the challenge.
21 February 2013
Last year, Google launched a feature that lets you put your lawyers’ profile pictures directly in the search results for content they have written. It deserves serious attention despite being a pain to set-up.
20 February 2013
In economics, a recession is two consecutive quarters of negative growth. The media speculation before, during, and after makes one hard to miss. But when our websites experience negative growth, it is not always so easy to spot.
19 February 2013
The way content is organised on your law firm’s website can make a big difference to how easy it is to use. Card sorting is a simple technique that lets test subjects help you find the right groupings for your content.
18 February 2013
The 4 Dimensions of Positioning a Legal Business.
While the possibilities for choosing a market position for a legal business are limited only by your imagination and commercial acumen, most represent the intersection of just four dimensions: discipline, jurisdiction, market vertical, and unique processes.
17 February 2013
Social media calls for a more personalised service than most firms can offer in a single feed. Many firms understand this fact and offer social media channels organised around their departments, practice groups, or client industries.
16 February 2013
One of our blog posts went viral last week and the resulting surge in traffic temporarily knocked out our web server. Our back-up systems kicked in and the down-time amounted to a little over ten minutes.
15 February 2013
When great explorers reach the place they’ve worked so hard to get to they raise a flag, symbolically claiming it as their own. Crafting a positioning statement for your legal business is the marketing equivalent of sticking your flag in the ground and laying claim to your particular area of expertise - you develop expertise over many years and then, through your marketing, defend it to the exclusion of all others.
14 February 2013
As a symbol of solidarity, the company has invested heavily in new tools to support my attempt to create a content habit - a grand total of £3.68. In this post I’m going to do a quick run-down of the tools I’m using on a daily basis.
13 February 2013
There’s a joke in my family that when asked what we’re giving up for Lent we reply that we’re going to try very hard to give up champagne and caviar. Since neither are consumed in any great quantity in our household, it has become a euphemism for not giving anything up at all.
11 February 2013
Neil Rose of Legal Futures published a thoughtful piece this morning about the trend for offering free services as a way of getting clients through the door. In it he says:
08 February 2013
36 questions to ask before starting a new web project for a practice group or boutique law firm
21 December 2012
A complimentary copy of Website Design and Strategy by Nicola Laver published by Ark Group and Managing Partner magazine landed on my desk this morning sent in recognition of the fact that our blog posts and articles inspired a lot of the content. If you are finding us as a results of reading Nicola’s book, then welcome along.
04 December 2012
Microsites present a unique opportunity to deliver highly targeted marketing campaigns tailored to very specific client segments. They allow a firms to stretch their brand in to all sorts of niches without compromising the identity of the firm as a whole.
08 October 2012
Client’s inboxes are rammed full of newsletters from law firms. Add interest to yours by trying out one of the following stylistic devices. Make your newsletter the one they look out for:
08 October 2012
Planning a translation project is a daunting task, especially if you only speak one or two languages yourself. Right from the start you’ll be faced with languages you cannot read, services you may not understand and companies that you have not dealt with before.
05 October 2012
Following our article a couple of weeks ago, Hogan Lovells published the first infographic we’ve ever seen from a top 10 firm. While it’s good to see firms embracing infographics as a marketing tool, we’ve got a handful of pro-tips that would help them make even more of their investment.
02 October 2012
A well-placed, effective Decision Tree could play a valuable part in your visual marketing strategy. Decision Trees enable the user to examine and consider all possible outcomes of a given scenario and can be spread easily across the internet.
26 September 2012
Feeling nostalgic on a cold and wet Wednesday afternoon we thought we’d trawl the Internet Archives for law firm websites of yesteryear.
10 September 2012
The majority of law firms have not yet cottoned on to the fact that Infographics can be a powerful tool in their marketing plan. This is a gap ripe for exploiting by law firms striving to stay ahead of the game.
21 August 2012
The exploding trend in the use of visual presentation on the internet suggests something of a visual content revolution is afoot. Visual content is, say some, the future of the internet. If this proves correct, law firms will be wise to fully exploit visual content within their marketing strategy – or be left behind.
18 May 2012
Writing great content can be a fairly time consuming task, but there is no getting away from the fact that lawyer-produced content is more effective that the stuff churned out by marketers or outside copywriting agencies.
17 May 2012
A client needs analysis is a simple list of all the things an ideal client should know about your area of law in order to make the relationship more fulfilling for both sides of the relationship.
16 May 2012
The key to a content marketing programme for a small firm or practice group is producing regular, useful content that makes prospects keep returning time-after-time.
14 May 2012
Caribbean Patrol is a Channel 5 documentary series following the life and work of the crew on board Royal Navy Battleship HMS Manchester, deployed on drug busting duty in the Caribbean.
28 March 2012
Just over 2 years ago we published an article on Law firm Social Media, in which we explained how law firms should approach social media with a focus on creating compelling content that others would want to share online. We used the example of the TED conference and provided a model for how law firms could implement the idea using online video.
12 March 2012
For most of my adult life I’ve been a keen but rather undedicated amateur athlete. I ski, climb, race mountain bikes, and engage in the occasional 10k, each with varying lack of success. I’ve read all the books over the years, I’ve subscribed to the blogs and watched the videos. I know what it takes to be a winner, but without commitment and careful attention, life has a plentiful supply of excuses for not delivering the goods.
10 November 2011
At Isaac Parker, we generally advocate that digital marketing should be organised around practice groups and feature a high degree of fee-earner involvement. However, there are some things that absolutely must be managed centrally, ideally by a dedicated marketing department.
07 November 2011
We spend a good deal of our time looking at law firms websites. As you would expect, we keep close tabs on what the big firms are up to, but smaller firms pique our interest frequently too. This week it was employment boutique CM Murray who grabbed our attention. Their use of Twitter is exemplary and you should take note.
03 November 2011
Your law firm’s website should be a great resource for your current and potential clients. Your website needs to really show your clients what your firm is all about and what the employees who work there stand for. They should start to feel they know what it would be like to work with you on a day-to-day basis and easily gain a clear understanding of where your experience lies and whether you are likely to be able to solve their problems.
27 October 2011
If you are responsible for marketing the services of a law firm, welcome to Thinking Thursdays, our series of blogs targeted specifically at helping you achieve your goal.
03 August 2011
This is the second post in a six part series which looks at how success in digital marketing for law firms is achieved by matching tools and techniques to the personality of each individual in a team.
02 August 2011
As an individual lawyer the secret to choosing the right digital marketing tactic for your legal practice is to choose a tool that suits your personality, commit to it, and sustain it over a long period of time. The merits of any particular digital marketing or social media tool matter less than the degree to which it plays to your own particular strengths.
04 July 2011
Law firms may wish to take steps to ensure their brand is protected from being associated with adult material, a possible risk posed by the imminent introduction of the new .xxx top-level domain.
28 June 2011
I was really excited when I saw a tweet pop up on the Legal Week feed that announced: “Mishcon de Reya launches three digital TV channels http://t.co/aEPmYLD” As la.st, I thought, a large law firm sticking their neck on the line and doing the work that matters. How wrong could I be.
22 June 2011
North East law firm Dickinson Dees has just launched a new iPhone app aimed at HR professionals. Although several firms have launched iPhone apps over the past year or so, we believe the new app from Dickinson Dees is the first from a large firm to be aimed at a commercial audience.
17 June 2011
Many of the newest and most exciting development in digital communications emerge through consumer markets and it can be difficult to know when and how to apply them in the corporate environment commercial law firms operate in.
26 April 2011
The goals feature of Google analytics lets you track actions that visitors complete as they navigate around your website. If your law firm is interested in measuring and improving the performance of your website, then setting up goals in Google Analytics is a very good place to start.
15 March 2011
The UK has a lively and thriving legal community on Twitter, but if you are new to the social network it can be difficult to know who to follow. We used FollowerWonk to build a list of UK Lawyers and Law Firms who might interest you.
23 February 2011
Law firms almost always structure their identity in the same way - using one name and a single visual system throughout. Amongst large firms I can’t find a single example where this isn’t the case.
30 January 2011
When I worked at Big Law LLP, one of my responsibilities was the acquisition and distribution of client marketing research. Despite being personally responsibly for blowing thousands on the stuff, I can’t ever remember reading an insight that I couldn’t have worked out with a colleague on the back of an envelope. I’d hand over the corporate credit card details in return for a password enabling me to download several thousands words and a few pie charts that almost always concluded along the lines of “do more and charge less”. Hardly the earth shattering insight our partners were hoping for.
11 January 2011
Yesterday saw the launch of yet another tech law microsite, this time by international law firm Taylor Wessing. The site is part of an integrated campaign that includes a dedicated Twitter account and sponsorship and content syndication to a new section of The Guardian newspaper’s website.
05 January 2011
The lawyer profiles section of your firm’s website should be thought of as your catalogue, your shop window, the place to set out your wares.
04 January 2011
You can spend hours crafting and refining the aims and objective for your firm’s new website, but when it comes down to it, there are only five that really matter:
17 April 2010
No matter what size your law firm is, investment in a redesign of your firm’s website is likely to be a significant expense. Agency fees, production expenses, staff time, and opportunity costs all add up to a big number that needs to be properly justified. This is where the business case comes in - the subject of this article.
01 March 2010
Learn how to recession proof your career by taking responsibility, specialising early and developing your personal brand.
01 February 2010
Pretty much every week I get asked about about social media, and what it means for law firms. Never one to automatically jump on a band wagon, I’ve been holding out on giving the definitive answer. Until now.
01 January 2010
Patterns are used in all sorts of industries as a short cut to delivering best practice. In the same way that lawyers have a bank of precedents, and boiler-plate clauses to draw upon, good web designers have patterns they use as a jumping off point for tackling a specific client’s brief.
15 November 2009
This Health Check quiz is designed to help you evaluate your existing website and identify areas for improvement. Grab some paper and a pen, answer the questions and add up your score at the end.
16 October 2009
In this newsletter we look at the problem of getting people in your law firm, particularly fee-earners, to co-operate with your ongoing effort to produce useful website content.
16 September 2009
As marketers of legal services, we all want to present our firms in the best possible light. Sometime it can feel like our hands are tied by the need to be taken seriously and unlike our colleagues in consumer markets we can’t rely on some of the more emotive drivers to win our customers attentions.
16 August 2009
1. Failure to Differentiate
The failure of firms to communicate a genuine difference between themselves and other firms.
16 July 2009
Client events have been a staple of the law firm marketing tool kit for years. In this briefing we look at how firm’s event managers can focus content, delivery, and marketing effort to position their offer as an essential business resource.
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