The administrative board for the New York Unified Court System has lifted an old ban that prevented law firms from advertising based on trade names or domain names. This update to the rules of legal ethics will bring New York closer in line with other states that already permit the use of trade names in attorney advertising. However, there are still some cases where attorneys might get in trouble for advertising, depending on what trade name they choose for themselves. Continue reading “NY Court Reverses Rule Banning Law Firms from Using Trade Names”
Category: Marketing
Part II: Choosing a Webinar Platform
Part 2 of a 3 part series
Choosing a webinar platform can be challenging. At the Public Relations and Marketing Group, we are here to assist you with your webinar needs. We will choose the most cost-effective platform for your practice and walk you through a step-by-step process on preparing and hosting a webinar. When choosing a webinar platform, it essential to consider the following:
What are you looking to achieve from the webinar?
- Brand exposure
- Lead generation
- Relationship with clients
What tools and features does the webinar provide?
- Multiple presenters
- Presentations
- Screen sharing
- Live chat
- Question and Answer sessions
How often do you plan to host a webinar?
- Once a week?
- Once a month?
How can you use webinars to measure success of your practice?
- Email leads
- Client feedback
- Client questions/concerns on your products and services
Overall, there are various factors to consider when choosing a webinar platform. If you are interested in hosting a webinar please contact johnzaher@theprmg.com or call 631-207-1057 Ext. 107.
Part I: Why Host a Webinar? 4 Benefits to Consider
Part 1 of a 3 part series
Webinars make connecting with your audience easier. Presenters can use video, audio and screen sharing to market products and services to viewers anywhere. Begin building personal connections, engagement, and trust by inviting attendees to a webinar and engaging them through question-and-answer sessions, live polls and more. If you are considering new ways to grow your practice and attract new clients, here are 4 benefits to consider.
- Hosting Webinars Raise Brand Awareness
Webinars provide the opportunity to utilize video conferencing technology to reach a wider audience. With this technology, your firm can reach clients across the globe and increase brand exposure. In addition, the people viewing your webinar are showing their interest, and therefore, are most likely potential clients. If they are satisfied with the webinar, they may even encourage family and friends to engage with your firm. Overall, this word of mouth communication is guaranteed to leave a lasting impression for your brand.
- Webinars Assist in Building Relationships with Potential Clients
By speaking to a group of potential clients, you have the ability to understand your target audience on a deeper level. A few examples include what they are interested in, what concerns they may have, and also understanding what motivates them. In opposition, viewers can get to know you as a person and gain your trust. They are able to connect to the video call while they are in the comfort of their own home or office, therefore there is no pressure. Accordingly, they will have the option to participate in interactive question and answer segments. With each webinar hosted, you can establish a strong relationship with potential clients.
- Webinars Build Your Email List and Generate Qualified Leads
Sign-up forms for your webinar enable you to collect lead information such as email addresses, phone numbers, and job titles. In correlation, the details that you provide in your webinar educates and qualifies your audience. Examples include informing them about your background or services your brand offers and responding to questions or concerns your audience has.
- Webinars Can Allow you to Stand Out Against Competitors
Are your competitors currently hosting webinars? Right now, is the perfect time to stay ahead of your competition. Building a strong online presence is essential in promoting your brand. In today’s world, 97% of clients find firms online first. By responding to these consumer actions and standing out online, you have a higher chance of growing stronger than your competition.
Overall, there are various benefits to hosting a webinar. Most importantly, webinars open up a new entry way in growing your practice. With the eligibility to invite and promote potential clients, share your brand message, raise engagement, and analyze and convert leads, webinars are the perfect option. If you are interested in scheduling a webinar for your audience email johnzaher@theprmg.com or call 631-207-1057 Ext. 107.
How to Market Yourself Using LinkedIn
LinkedIn is a great way to showcase your professional brand and identity as well as your accomplishments. Not only can your profile reflect your resume, but it can also inform your network of the work you are doing. Utilize LinkedIn to network with people in your field of work, draw potential clientele to your business, and expand your brand over the wide web of digital connections.
Presenting Yourself on LinkedIn
To begin, fill out your entire profile completely. Below are some factors to consider when developing your profile:
- Make sure your profile picture is professional. If you’re marketing yourself to gain more clients for your business or firm, use your picture to demonstrate that you are an expert in the field and take your job seriously.
- Your cover photo should be just as professional, but instead of a headshot, it should promote your work. Use this photo as a digital billboard for promoting your firm’s services. Let viewers know that your firm specializes in divorces, injury law, or another field of law as soon as they click on your profile.
- Keep your bio short and to the point. Tell page visitors who you are, what you do, and why you love doing it. Make sure to show your passion for your career, this tells people you’re dedicated and committed to your position.
- Showcase your job experience; add your current position and at least two previous positions. This illustrates growth in your career and shows that you have extensive experience in your field of work.
- Add projects or volunteer work to display the things you’re passionate about in life. If someone can find you relatable, this may lead to more clientele.
Networking
There are three different types of connections: 1st, 2nd, and 3rd. Your 1st connections are people with whom you are already connected. This means you have either accepted their invitation to connect with you or vice versa. 2nd connections are those that are also 1st connections with one of your 1st connections. 3rd connections are people that are distantly connected to your network. For instance, they may be a 1st connection of one of your 2nd connections. The more connections you have, the more exposure and opportunities will become available to you.
Growing your network is important if you want to gain more clients and connections. Start by connecting with people you already know such as colleagues, previous people you have worked with or worked for, old schoolmates from college and even peers from high school. Join groups with alumni from your university, or if you were in a fraternity or sorority, connect with your fellow brothers and sisters.
Sharing on Your Newsfeed
When sharing posts and status updates on your newsfeed, be sure to sprinkle in any blogs or articles you have written. Articles created by you prove that you are extremely knowledgeable of the article’s topic and can increase your credibility on the subject matter. LinkedIn Publishing is great for generating articles, but another option would be to create a Medium account and write your articles through that site. Medium is a platform where thought leaders, CEOs, business leaders, and anyone really, can create a blog and share their stories and articles on Medium. You can post these articles on any form of social media including LinkedIn.
Another great way to increase visibility is to post any videos you may have of yourself giving a public speech at a conference or a similar event. There is no need to worry if you do not have any videos like this, regular articles and blog posts will suffice. Also feel free to share other people’s videos and posts that you resonate with to increase your presence on LinkedIn. Sharing other people’s articles and videos may help grow your network base as well.
Use LinkedIn’s tools to promote your business even further. Lastly, when it comes to marketing your firm or business, don’t forget the most important marketing tool is you.
PR4Lawyers is an experienced attorney marketing firm that has accomplished successful strategies for over a decade. For more information about our services, please call 1-866-PR4LAWYERS (866-774-5299) or fill out our online contact form.
Why You Should Hire an Outside Marketing Company
Marketing is easy to neglect in a busy law firm, especially when your attorneys are up to their ears in work. However, establishing a successful public relations strategy with outside help is often a key factor in developing long-term success. When considering hiring an outside public relations company, research will lead you to questions like:
- How do I know if my public relations work is working?
- Which method of marketing, traditional or digital, will give me the most bang for my buck?
- Can I track how many people view my ads?
- What is the difference between public relations, marketing, and advertising, anyway?
Continue reading “Why You Should Hire an Outside Marketing Company”
Email Marketing Practices for Lawyers
There are a lot of online articles discussing the best plan of action for an email marketing campaign, but some marketing channels may not necessarily apply to the legal profession. In an effort to save you time, we’ve shared some tips on email marketing specific to the field of law.
Some have come to associate email marketing with spam, resulting in a poor view of the company or firm that sends the email. However, when certain tactics are implemented correctly, email marketing can be a means to provide useful and interesting content to current and prospective clients. This, in turn, will help you attract new clients while helping to retain current ones. Word of mouth is extremely important in the legal industry, and successful email marketing can be one way to increase referrals by keeping your name in front of clients and contacts with relevant, useful information.
Why Facebook Advertising Is Important for Law Firms and Solo Practitioners
As of the third quarter of 2016, Facebook boasts 1.49 billion monthly active users and, during this time, 1.18 billion active users visited the social media network on a daily basis, according to Statista. Facebook is the largest social media platform in the world, which means it should be an integral part of any law firm or solo practitioner’s advertising strategy, as it allows you to connect with clients or prospects in a way not seen with traditional advertising strategies.
Continue reading “Why Facebook Advertising Is Important for Law Firms and Solo Practitioners”
Trust: The Key to PR’s Success or Failure
What’s the most important part of public relations? You might think that the answer is in the word “public”—in other words, how wide an audience you can reach with information about your organization. However, an equal amount of attention needs to be focused on the “relations” component of PR. PR is less a set of tried-and-true formulas for communicating with customers, and more a discipline of building trust. The relationships you cultivate with audiences will ultimately determine your company’s success or failure.
Continue reading “Trust: The Key to PR’s Success or Failure”
“The Times” Is Changing: Study Shows Increasing Role of Social Media in News Delivery
Where do you get your news? If this question were asked forty or even twenty years ago, the most common responses would have included radio, television and good old-fashioned newspapers. But the Pew Research Center and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation recently released a study on news and social media, and the findings reveal a significant demographic shift over the past few years.
Shifting News Sources
The big statistic revealed from this study is that 44% of American adults get their news via Facebook. Yes, 44% of all adult Americans stay informed through the world’s most popular social networking platform. This number represents two-thirds of all adult Facebook users, up from 47% of Facebook users in 2013.
Some other figures from this study are worth mentioning as well. The total percentage of American adults who get their news from any social media network (including Reddit, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram, Tumblr, and more) is 62%, and almost two-thirds of those usually get it from just one social media network. For journalists and marketers alike, this represents a paradigm shift. While news consumers of a previous generation might have read the day’s headlines in the morning paper, heard additional news on the radio during their commute to work and returned home to catch the six o’clock news on TV, today’s consumers are increasingly likely to get their updates from just one source—most often Facebook. Today, information and advertising are still delivered on a screen, but the screen can be found more and more on consumers’ desks or in their hands rather than in their living rooms.
Shifting Attitudes
Another important statistic: Among Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube users who get their news online, about 60% report that they merely see the headlines while they’re doing other things online; only 40% specifically search the web for it. The Internet has made it easier than ever before for information and advertising to reach consumers wherever they are, even if they don’t intentionally seek it out.
It is impossible to predict whether social platforms will ever completely crowd out the “traditional” media of newspapers, radio, and TV. But in regard to marketing and public relations, organizations can gain valuable information about consumers’ shifting news sources from last month’s report. A thoughtful, relationship-driven approach to advertising is essential to navigating the complex avenues of social media successfully.
If you have questions about how best to promote your organization across social media, PR4Lawyers is happy to help. Don’t hesitate to contact us at 1-866-PR4LAWYERS or at johnzaher@pr4lawyers.com.
Blogging Best Practices for Attorneys
Most attorneys include a blog on their website as a great way to entice current and prospective clients to visit your website and to read what you have to say. In order to make your firm’s blog as successful as possible, it is important to understand a few key best practices so you can ensure you get the best possible results.
Content Quality
When writing or reviewing your blog posts, think about your audience: are you writing for prospects or are you writing for referrals? Your answer will dictate whether your blog posts should be more informative and written in an easily comprehensible language or legally written to appeal to other lawyers and law journals. Also, keep in mind that the more useful your content’s information is, the more likely your blog will convince readers to call your firm. No matter what the topic is that you’re writing about, the primary objective should always be to write a useful, informative and timely post. For example, if you are a traffic law attorney and there is a new speed limit going into effect in your neighborhood, it would be better to post this information sooner rather than later, making your firm the most informative.
