Legal Marketing -- by Larry Bodine

• The average marketer spent 12% of his or her search budget on search engine optimization (SEO) last year. That's the art of tweaking your company's Web site so search engine spiders are more likely to notice it, and give you great organic rankings. (Organic are the results you don't pay anything for.)
• On the other hand, the average marketer spent 88% of his or her search marketing budget on paid search ads.

It's a massive discrepancy. But is it justified? Nope, according to Anne Holland, President of Marketing Sherpa in a new article entitled Your Search Marketing Budget is Probably Out of Whack.

Rather than buying paid ads on search engine results pages, marketers instead shoudl work on boosting their "organic" listing.  Not only are these links free, they're more effective.

Taking a Shortcut to the Top of the Profession

Marketing expert Mike Cummings profiles a lawyer on The LawMarketing Portal who started out running a three-person law firm out of his home, and today practices with a major firm representing over 10% of the cases on the Supreme Court docket. From his earliest days as an associate, lawyer Thomas Goldstein marketed himself to become an industry leading Supreme Court practitioner.

"Attorneys must realize that marketing, selling and relationship management are now essential skills that they need to develop to succeed in today's legal profession. If you master these skills, you can choose the clients that you want to work with, do the kind of work that you desire and control your own career success," Mike writes.

To read how a goal-oriented lawyer marketed his way to making his dream come true, read "Taking a Shortcut to the Top of the Profession" at www.lawmarketing.com

Law Firm Business Model Survey

Law Firm leaders are invited to take The Law Firm Business Model Survey, a pioneering benchmarking survey currently being conducted by marketing consultant John Remsen and Juris, Inc., makers of law firm business software.

The survey’s objective is to provide law firm managing partners and administrators standardized industry benchmarks from a broad sample of US law firms.  Participating firms will get a complimentary copy of the completed survey report, plus your own customized Law Firm Business Model.  With this information you will be able to compare your firm’s performance against broad industry benchmarks and gain invaluable intelligence regarding billing rates, leverage and other key financial and profitability data.

To participate in The Law Firm Business Model Survey, click here and you will be directed to the confidential online survey questionnaire.  It should take you or your firm administrator about 15-20 minutes to complete.  The deadline is March 31, 2006.

If you have any questions or would like more information, please contact Jay Hennessy, Juris’ Vice President of Business Development, at 615.850.2403.  Juris is a sponsor of The Managing Partner Forums, held throughout Georgia, Florida and Texas.

Join the Listserv discussion: why more women aren't partners

I urge all readers of this blog to join the vigorous discussion going on right now on the LawMarketing Listserv about why more women aren't partners at law firms. Go to www.lawmarketing.biz and you can join for free immediately. Just click on the blue "FREE TRIAL" flag.

Among the flurry of comments, I just sent this post, in response to a message from the always-vivacaious Andy Havens:

---

Andy,
As usual, you make excellent points. I will send you a paper bag of Million Dollar Bills to pay your hordes of wisdom.

You said: 5: Women don't golf as much. Heck, neither do I. Everyone who hates golf should read "Relationship Building Without Golf: Fifteen Fun Options" online at http://www.pbdi.org/pages/magazine.asp?Action=DrawArticle&ArticleID=84&MagazineID=9

You added that women as a group are not "clubby." Accordingly, I encourage every woman reader of this listserv to go out and join their local Rotary Club. I've been a member in my own community and it's been great to meet all the business and government leaders while doing charitable work. See www.rotary.org.

4. Women haven't been "out there" that long. I have to disagree here. When I got out of law school in the 1980s, there were scads of female students. Supply of women lawyers is not the problem. The problem is the avaricious nature of law firms focused on billable hours and profits per partner.

3. Women aren't as confrontational as men. I don't know about this Andy, you haven't met my ex-wife, heh heh. She was a lawyer too...but enough about my dark past. If women are less confrontational and aggressive than men, I am delighted. I am relieved. I am sick of the competitive one-upsmanship that passes for male friendship. Accepting your notion that women have a more pacific nature, that makes them ideal to be lawyers -- because 99% of all lawsuits settle. 100% of all deals are based on compromise. This makes their personalities ideal to be lawyers.

2. Women have babies. And thank God for this, or else I wouldn't have the adventures of Ted, my college-junior son, to tell tales about in my newsletter. Back to your point about law firms offering onsite day care for all attorneys -- men and women alike -- I agree with you 100%. If law is a calling, then the profession should act like a model business and offer the most human-friendly workplaces. Law firms should realize that their chief asset is their people, and create the most desirable offices possible. For example, I love my own workplace. I have my two pet parrots here, my beautiful trophy wife is always present, and I can take a nap whenever I want.

1. Women aren't men. Vive la différence.

Market This: Only 17% of Partners are Women

Today's New York Times carries the depressing news that only 17 percent of partners at major law firms nationwide were women in 2005.  Two major evils have contributed to this statistic:

• Billable hour requirements.
• Pressure to increase profits per partner.

"One of the main bugaboos in this debate — and one that analysts says is increasingly cropping up as an issue for male lawyers as well — is the billable hours regime. Billing by the hour requires lawyers to work on a stopwatch so their productivity can be tracked minute by minute — and so clients can be charged accordingly. Over the last two decades, as law firms have devoted themselves more keenly to the bottom line, depression and dissatisfaction rates among both female and male lawyers has grown, analysts say; many lawyers of both genders have found their schedules and the nature of their work to be dispiriting," says the Times in the Sunday Business Section.

"I see a lot of people who are distressed about where the profession has gone," says Lauren Stiller Rikleen, a 52-year-old partner in the Framingham, Mass., office of the Worcester, Mass., firm of Bowditch & Dewey. "They don't like being part of a billable-hour production unit. They want more meaning out of their lives than that."

Kudos to Haynes & Boone in Dallas, which appears to have cracked the code for keeping women lawyers.  "Mr. Boone, the Dallas lawyer, says that his 425-member firm has 38 female partners, about 25 percent of the firm's overall partnership base. He intends for that percentage to increase, adding that one thing that attracts a diverse group of lawyers to his firm is its compensation practices. Lawyers at Haynes and Boone are rewarded for teamwork, not individual accomplishments, staving off the dog-eat-dog competition for clients and assignments that pervades many firms. Compensation is also based on a number of other factors, including leadership and business development activities, among which billable hours are just one component," says the Times.

Compensation based in part on business development.  Now that's an idea I like.

Ain't Nothin' Worse than Bad Word of Mouth

64% -- more than half -- of all shoppers will never shop at a store again after hearing a friend's negative experience. That's the key finding of the Customer Dissatisfaction Survey from the Verde Group, Consumer Contact, and the Baker Retailing Initiative at Wharton. "If businesses want to stop the bleeding from negative word of mouth," said Wharton's Dr. Stephen Hoch, "It's clear that they need to invest in ensuring that each customer experience is first rate."

Other key findings include:

• 31% of all customers who have a bad experience will tell at least one other person.
• On average, shoppers will tell four other people about their negative experience.
• As negative experiences are retold to others, they are often embellished and can become up to five times as damaging as the original story.

Law firms should take note - every instance of client dissatisfaction has the potential to negatively impact loyalty and ultimately, the bottom line. With this latest study, we now know that negative word of mouth is so powerful that it can deter potential clients from ever retaining the firm again. But there is hope, according to Paula Courtney, President of The Verde Group.  By taking steps to better understand the problems their clients experience, law firms can begin to immunize themselves against negative word of mouth.

The Five Biggest Mistakes Marketers Make with the Media

Your firm can get good publicity that leads to new clients, according to the presenters on the LJN Web Audio Webinar I just attended, entitled, "A Marketer's Guide to Media Training for Attorneys." Just don't make critical errors.

The Web audio seminar was moderated by the multi-talented Elizabeth Lampert, Director of LJN's WebAudio Division and president of Elizabeth Lampert PR, which consults law firms on strategic plans, media placements, hiring, structuring and training of internal PR Departments. 

My favorite part was the "Five Biggest Mistakes Marketers Make," which was presented by the talented marketer Diane Hamlin of the Hamlin Strategy Group.  Based in Washington, D.C., she represents a small number of major law firms and is reachable at dianeehamlin@EARTHLINK.NET. The five mistakes include:

1. Building plans that are wholly reactive.  A marketer must anticipate trends, outcomes in court cases and potential crisis -- and plan for them in advance.

2. Executing: need to be able to respond speedily.  Lawyers must return calls from reporters right away.  This means the marketer may need to get up from their desk and visit the lawyer while they return the phone call. "Don’t send an email and expect them to act on it," she said.

3. Failure to clear conflicts: Make sure you don’t create problems for other lawyers by making a statement in the press that conflicts with a position the other lawyer has taken for a client in the courts.

4. Build relationship with lawyers: Become a noodge, coach, cheerleader and trusted confidant if you want the partners to respect your judgment.

5. Failure to create and support messages that are consistent with firm brand.  If the firm has decided to market itself as a merger-and-acquisition firm, it doesn't help if a partner describes the firm as a litigation powerhouse.  The message must be consistent.

By being a quick thinker and savvy marketing director, Hamlin has been able to turn a news story into a major piece of business for her law firm.  As the result of the publicity, her firm was brought in a major piece of litigation.  "The client said, 'based on what we read about you in the press, it clear that you know what you're doing,'" Diane said.  "So don't ignore the power of the press!"

"Benesch Beat" Wins National Marketing Award

You read about the Benesch Beat podcasts here first.  Now the news gets even better:

CLEVELAND, OHIO – March 10, 2006 – Benesch, Friedlander, Coplan & Aronoff LLP announced that the law firm's podcasts entitled "The Benesch Beat" won first place in the electronic media category of the national Legal Marketing Association's "Your Honor Awards."  The LMA "Your Honor Awards" is the vehicle by which products and services that stand for the "best of the best" produced by the legal marketing industry are honored.  Over 250 entries were submitted.

The producer of Benesch’s podcasts, Mark Avsec, is not only an intellectual property attorney at the firm, but also an accomplished musician and composer.  Avsec stated, "Benesch has always been an entrepreneurial firm.  It is natural to explore cutting-edge technology like podcasts, in addition to traditional paper and e-mail client advisories, to keep clients abreast of current legal information."  The podcasts are sent automatically and directly to individuals who subscribe to the free service and are also posted on Benesch’s website (http://www.bfca.com/).  In addition, they are listed in Apple’s iTunes directory.

“The Benesch Beat” podcast, which is professionally-produced at a state-of-the-art recording studio in Cleveland, features former WMMS morning legend Ed “Flash” Ferenc as moderator and theme music produced by Avsec.  "The Benesch Beat" provides individuals, clients and prospective clients with an interesting and simple way to access informative, mini-legal seminars.

With offices in Cleveland and Columbus, Benesch, Friedlander’s practice and industry groups include Business Reorganization, the China Group, Compensation & Benefits, Construction, Corporate & Securities, Estate Planning and Probate, Franchising, Health Care, Insurance, Intellectual Property, Labor & Employment, Loan Transactions, Polymer Industry, Private Equity, Public Law, Real Estate & Environmental, Tax, Transportation & Logistics, and Trial. For more information, visit www.bfca.com.

7 Ways Word-of-Mouth Attracts New Clients

According to the Word-of-Mouth newsletter, "Womnibus Weekly #1.42," word of mouth can be a "useful approach" for attracting new clients. That's the word from Daniel Bone, Customer Insight Analyst for Datamonitor. Bone elaborated with seven reasons why word of mouth works:

1. Reduces decision uncertainty
2. More trustworthy and impactful
3. It's cheaper
4. Less hindered by social taboos
5. Effective and manageable
6. Speed and broad coverage
7. Complements other marketing activity

Learn more:
http://tr.subscribermail.com/cc.cfm?sendto=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Ecrm2day%2Ecom%2Fexperts%2F50192%2Ephp&tempid=WOMNE7A0E4FA&mailid=f7466ac71a6448cabd21b19ce2d9ad9c

New Research: Professional Firms can Increase Revenues by Measuring Business Development Initiatives

Professional firms could earn a lot more revenue from their marketing and sales efforts if they just did one simple thing: measure them effectively.  This is among the insightful findings of a brand new research report “Increasing Marketing Effectiveness at Professional Firms,” published jointly by Expertise Marketing LLC of Concord, MA and Larry Bodine Marketing of Glen Ellyn, IL.

The first study of its kind reported that collectively the respondents spent a paltry sum – less than one-tenth of a percent of an aggregate $94 billion in gross revenue -- on formally measuring marketing and business development. 

The 148-page report includes 68 pages of valuable case studies in which 18 marketers in accounting, law, architecture, real estate, engineering and other professional services gave interviews on their marketing efforts and how they measured them.

The report and case studies are available for sale in the LawMarketing Store, at http://www.lawmarketing.biz/store/product.asp?dept%5Fid=11&pf%5Fid=288, in two PDF format downloads for $495.

“With partners and senior executives hammering marketers to improve the ROI of their marketing and sales efforts and even justify the value of their jobs, this finding is just astonishing,” said Strategic Marketing Consultant Larry Bodine, www.LarryBodine.com and editor of the LawMarketing Portal Web Site at www.LawMarketing.com.  “Now, for the first time, we have a verified link between competitive effectiveness and the intentional act of measuring. Marketers and business developers should immediately switch to activities that can be measured, and get out of doing the rest.”

My research partner Suzanne Lowe (President of Expertise Marketing LLC, http://www.expertisemarketing.com/ and author of Marketplace Masters www.marketplacemasters.com) added, “Until now, professional service marketers have had to fly blind and on a shoestring in measuring their programs’ effectiveness.  Our findings provide breakthrough insights about which metrics work, which ones won’t, and why.” 

In fall 2005 the two marketing and research companies conducted a six-week unblinded Internet study.  A total of 377 respondents from a broad cross-section of professions, including: accounting, architecture, construction/general contracting, engineering, environment & energy consulting, executive search, human resources consulting, information technology consulting, law, management consulting, real estate, marketing, and several other professional services sectors.  Individual respondents included marketing directors, managing partners, CEOs, marketing and P.R. managers and marketing partners. 

Among the 15 key findings of the report:

1. Respondents’ highest ranking initiatives reveal a strong link between marketing and sales.

2. Professional firms that said they were extremely effective used three particular client-focused metrics in combination with each other.  These three are:  a) Growing client revenue:  “Did you grow revenue with your client or not?” b) Moving the phases of a sale through a pipeline:  “Did you close the sale or not?”, and c) Listening to the client:  “Did you listen to your client or not?”

3. Only 20% said they were “extremely effective” in growing revenues against rivals; nevertheless, the more Client Metrics a firm used, the more it said it was extremely effective in growing revenues against rivals.

The Marketing Effectiveness report outlines the four steps that a professional firm must take to succeed at achieving marketplace leadership.  As such, it is a roadmap for marketers to follow, and makes clear which activities are a waste of time.  “Professional service firms do have the ability to compete more successfully in today’s marketplace,” said Suzanne Lowe. “They must expand their firm’s marketing beyond simply acquiring clients.  They have to do significantly better at using meaningful, non-ignorable marketing and business development metrics.”

Marketers in all fields faced obstacles to measurement, with the most common complaints being, “Our people aren’t inclined to measure / It’s hard to change their mindset / Measurement is not viewed as a worthy activity / Our people avoid accountability / Measurement is perceived as too hard, too costly and too time-consuming.”  Lowe showed no pity, saying, “Measurement obstacles are largely self-caused and are related to inertia and avoidance of accountability.  Now that we have verified the powerful punch that formal measurement provides, there should be no more excuses to avoid it.”

The report goes into depth on which marketing initiatives are the most effective. It also singles out the three worst: forecasting (i.e., envisioning future economic and business scenarios), analyzing market share and alumni outreach programs.  “Marketers should dump those programs, and fast,” Bodine said.

So which professions say they are the most “extremely effective” at marketing? In order:

1. Construction/General Contracting.

2. Environment & Energy Consulting.

3. Engineering.

4. Accounting.

5. Architecture.

The laggard professional services firms can clearly learn a lot from the leaders.

Reporters can find a 18-page summary of the study online at http://www.lawmarketing.com/Summary of 2006_study_results.pdf

Participants and sponsors of the research will receive copies of the findings and companion case study for free.  The report and case studies are available for sale in the LawMarketing Store, at www.LawMarketing.biz/Store, in two PDF format downloads for $495.

CONTACT: Larry Bodine at 520.577.9759 and Lbodine@LawMarketing.com or contact Suzanne Lowe at 978.590.6484 and slowe@expertisemarketing.com.

Yes, Something IS happening, Mr. Jones

“You know something is happening, but you don’t know what it is. Do you, Mr. Jones?” asked Bob Dylan on Highway 61 Revisited (1965). It’s clear that something has happened on the Web, including Wikis, blogs, buzzstorming, trendspotting, jamming, RSS, podcasting and Vidcasting.  If you want to keep pace with the times, you better know what is going on.

You can find a surfer’s guide to the changes in the article Internet 2.0 has arrived. Can you Feel it? at http://www.lawmarketing.com/pages/articles.asp?Action=Article&ArticleCategoryID=13&ArticleID=471.

"Our House" -- Legal Style

Here's a fun little tune emailed to me by Bill Stark of Tampa, FL.  It's "Our House (Up the River From Wall Street)," a play on the Crosby Stills & Nash classic "Our House," except the lyrics are corporate criminal skulduggery.  It starts out "I'll shred the files, you place the lawyers on the case..."

Download Our House (Up the River From Wall Street (have patience, it takes a few seconds).

Bill is the Managing Partner of Maverick, a business consulting firm that blends management and behavioral sciences.  Look for the video on their Web site any day now, at http://www.hsptmk6e2ftusk.readnotify.com/tg/hsptmk6e2ftuslhttp/www.maverickllc.com

Disturbing chart about lawyer productivity

I found a very disturbing chart tucked in a margin of the February 20 Crain's Chicago Business.  The chart was on page 21 in the "Focus - Law" section.

Citing a statistic from Altman Weil Inc., the chart illustrated that lawyers will work their tails off to make partner, and then essentially goof off increasingly as time goes by.

Lawyers reach their peak in billing hours between their fifth an seventh years in practice, which is exactly when they're being looked over to be promoted to partner.

Once they make the grade, they put their feet up on their desks, it appears.

My personal reaction was resentment.  In my 20s I was very ambitious and worked at my newspaper job from Noon to about 2 AM.  Now that I'm 55, I get up early to take calls from the east coast and am still clicking away on the computer until 10 PM some nights. 

When I left the big law firm where I used to be marketing director 5 years ago the average partner income was $500,000.  I don't make half a mil per year today, but I'm doing very well.  However, I'm not riding the backs of a feverish crew of associates and am not collecting origination fees for files I opened years ago.

So to my marketing comrades in arms: when a partner comes to you on Friday with an RFP that have been sitting on his/her desks for a month, and it's due on Monday, keep this little chart in mind.  Ask the partner if he'll join you as you work through the weekend, becuase you know that they have the spare time.

Dykema Chooses Newsgator for Firmwide RSS Aggregator

Dykema, a 400-lawyer Midwest law firm, picked NewsGator Technologies, Inc., to help attorneys and other firm employees find relevant information in an efficient manner. 

With NewsGator Enterprise Server ("NGES"), Dykema employees automatically get updates to key internal applications directly into Outlook instead of having to check multiple systems and data sources every day. For example, the firm’s marketing team receives instant notification when attorneys and staff update its “Proposal Tracking System.”  Similarly, Dykema attorneys are starting to receive real-time case updates from internal “matter tracking systems.” 

“One of the biggest benefits of Enterprise RSS is the ability for people to get notified when updates are made instead of having to go out and check Web sites,” said A.V. ‘Sandy’ Hamilton, NewsGator’s executive vice president of sales, marketing and business development.  “Dykema is using internal and external feeds to keep their attorneys, marketers and clients better informed.  This demonstrates a compelling value proposition for services firms to harness the power of RSS through NewsGator Enterprise Server.”

After evaluating several off the shelf RSS aggregators that reside in Microsoft Outlook, Dykema realized there was a major barrier to deploying this type of solution enterprise-wide: each installation would require an individual desktop “touch.” With 10 offices and almost 800 users nationwide, products that required a manual install and/or local administration by an IS staffer were not feasible. However, NGES eliminated this barrier as it is centrally managed, with administration across the enterprise handled from one location. 

NewsGator Enterprise Server is a new product for aggregating, reading and distributing RSS content within the enterprise.  It brings the power of NewsGator’s robust RSS platform behind the firewall, providing enterprise class security, manageability and deployment.  In addition, NGES optionally integrates with Microsoft Exchange and Active Directory, which eases deployment for enterprise IT departments and provides a user interface that employees are comfortable with.

NewsGator Technologies is the leading RSS platform company.  Consumers, business, and enterprise customers can subscribe to NewsGator’s services and read all their news in Outlook, on the web, on their mobile phones, via FeedDemon and through a rich array of other devices, anytime, anywhere.

Dykema is a Midwest-based law firm serving clients nationally with offices in four states-California, Illinois, Michigan and Washington D.C.  As one of the country's largest law firms, its diversified legal practice and international reach has made the firm the choice of both multinational fortune 100 corporations and entrepreneurial enterprises alike.

“We were looking for a solution that would help us gather and deliver external web-based content pertaining to the legal sector, our client-base and our competition, as well as improve the distribution and dissemination of internal information,” said Bill Gratsch, Dykema’s web technologies manager.  “NGES enables this and more, and since the product resides behind the firewall, our internal aggregation and distribution of confidential information remains secure.”