Top 10 Lawyer Marketing Mistakes

What Am I Doing Wrong:
Top 10 Biggest Marketing
Mistakes
AAJ Marketing and Practice
Management Seminar
September 8-9, 2014
Chicago, Illinois
STACEY BURKE
ATTORNEY/OWNER
415 WESTHEIMER ROAD, SUITE
209A
HOUSTON, TEXAS 77006
OFFICE (713) 714-8446
FAX (877) 314-9990
STACEY@STACEYEBURKE.COM
WWW.STACEYEBURKE.COM

Top 10 Biggest Marketing Mistakes
1. Focusing on one component instead of creating a
comprehensive strategy
2. Failure to monitor social media
3. Poorly written blogs, lack of content strategy
4. Failure to measure success
5. Website design mistakes
6. Your intake system sucks
7. Only brand law firm, not individual lawyers
8. Copying competitors, lacking originality
9. Referral lawyer DIS-management
10.Jumping on the mass torts bandwagon
www.staceyeburke.com

Mistake #1: Focusing On One
Component, Not an Overall Strategy
• What is a Comprehensive Marketing Strategy?
– One master document that focuses on a set
period of time, incorporating and calendaring
every business development or marketing
endeavor, including anticipated costs, and
projected revenue.
• Make master goals and ensure that each
endeavor is designed with those goals in mind
• Having too many vendors, each for a separate
interest, brings disharmony to the whole.

• Decisions are made spontaneously when a “problem
solving” vendor solicits the firm, without adequate
research or planning (i.e. a syndicated video vendor
calling with a pitch that “we make all your law firm
video in one day and it’s super awesome = video
solved”).
• Your law firm must focus on big picture goals and
watch whether your decisions are moving the firm
toward those goals with hard, real numbers:
– Increasing media attention
– Increasing conversion rate
– Decreasing website bounce rate
– Increase in projected net attorneys fees

• A comprehensive picture of your law firm’s
marketing and business development efforts can
include:
– Website content updates
– Email marketing
– Search engine optimization
– Television advertising
– Social media marketing
– Paid search advertising
– Social advertising
– Audience building
– Public relations
– Speaking engagements
– Print collateral
– Events (that your firm hosts and that you attend i.e.
CLE)

Mistake #2: Social Media “Set it and Forget it”
• DESIGN/BRANDING
– You are, at least in a digital consumer’s eyes, what they see online
• ETHICS
– Failure to timely respond to client communications
• MISSED OPPORTUNITIES
– Missing referrals
• A 2012 ABA survey showed 95% of ABA members have profiles on LinkedIn
and that 70% of corporate counsel regularly use LinkedIn as a tool to find
and vet outside counsel.
– Missed media inquiries
• REPUTATION MANAGEMENT
– Bad feedback left unaddressed in public
• BASIC MANNERS
– Connection requests left unanswered can be perceived as rude

Social media channel design:
• People use social media
channels as search engines
(i.e. Facebook search,
YouTube search)
• Would you want to show up
in social search with a
page/channel/account that
is not customized and
therefore does not
showcase what your firm
has to offer? No. So treat
each one like a freestanding
website, because each is its
own digital asset.

Customize Your Social Channels
• Never leave the default
imagery
• Utilize customizable features
like app tabs on Facebook
• Claim vanity URLs
• Make sure to include:
– Firm logo
– Firm website URL
– Contact information
– Some imagery
Have a Social Media Protocol
• Use a professional voice and
tone
• Always be aware of client
confidentiality and
inadvertently forming an
attorney-client relationship
• How to respond to
communications from:
– Existing clients
– New leads
– External lawyers
– Media and press

Top five social media channels for lawyers:
• Facebook
– Make sure your firm has a “Page” not a “Profile” or a “Group”
– Largest online social network
• Twitter
– Real-time news and viral sharing
– Brand your profile, including your handle and link back to your law firm website
• LinkedIn
– Online professional resume and best professional networking tool
– Link up your Employment section to the appropriate Company Page(s), and build
out your Company Page to reflect your practice areas as “services”
• YouTube
– Google owns YouTube and it is the second most used search engine online
– Upload a channel design and name your channel consistent with your entity name
• Google+ - Google Author Rank

Mistake #3: Your Blog Stinks
• If all you do with your blogging
is focus on being self-promotional,
don’t do it
• Images in blog posts for SEO and
for social sharing
• Not all blogs should end with
the same CTA of call us, we are
the best. Some CTAs can be
contact your congressman,
don’t buy these tires, watch for
these side effects if you are on
this medication, etc.

Mistake #3: Your Blog Stinks
• What is an editorial calendar and why should you use one?
– Ensures you touch on all of your practice areas regularly
– Includes holidays, seasons, and the like
– Allows an organized shuffle of authorship across the firm by date
so everyone has a defined time to contribute and a topic
• How to get started – blog 2x/week, define your target audience, select
keywords for optimization, set word count, and determine how you
will promote the piece.

Mistake #4: You Don’t Monitor Your
Metrics
• Do all of your websites have active, current
Google Analytics code?
• Do you track social media Key Performance
Indicators (KPIs)?
• Do you asses and track your acquisition costs?
• Do you conduct monthly, quarterly, and/or yearly
reviews of your marketing metrics to adjust
expenditures?

Mistake #4: You Don’t Monitor Your
Metrics
Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools
Mind Over Metrics = NO, you can’t guess better than the reports
will tell you
Know the basics so that you can have an intelligent conversation
with your vendors:
• Bounce Rate - the percentage of visitors who leave your site
after only viewing one page
• User Behavior - information on the behavior of your visitors
while they are on your website
• Acquisition – how web searchers come to find your site
(AdWords, social media, organic search)

Social Media: Monitoring and Metrics
• Law firms should track metrics for social media just as they would for any
other marketing expenditure.
• Social media metrics can include:
– Audience Growth/Overall Reach
– Engagement
– Visits to Websites
– Conversions
– Influence

Mistake #5: Your Website Has Issues
• Professional services websites should never be
DIY, done by your friends or family, or any other
non-expert
• Responsive/mobile
• Social sharing links
• Outdated design
• Difficult navigation/making user take extra steps
• Firm photography
• Video use or lack thereof

Mistake #6: Ignoring Intake, the Conversion
Piece to Law Firm Marketing
• People
• Software
– Database or CRM
• Procedure
– Lead tracking
– Lead nurturing
– Lead conversion
– Remarketing
• Universal merge documents/forms

• Where do leads and new cases come from?
– Direct firm marketing – which expenditure? Not just “the
internet”
– Referral attorneys
– Media coverage
• Biggest Problems:
– Lead entry often does not occur in real time
– Screening information must be consistently spelled out
– Paperwork must be sent to leads in real time
– Failure to convert leads into cases once paperwork is sent
– Failure to keep trained staff in intake positions

• With marketing, the first 24-48 hours after the lead’s initial contact
are the most important. You must get in touch with them quickly or
often the lead is lost. More than one call/email during this period is
crucial. After that 3x/week for 3 weeks works.
• Tip: Automate an initial contact email and all emails thereafter so
your intake staff can send “PNC Email 1” at click of button with
language pre-approved by the lawyers.
• Tip: If a lead DNQ, you should still capture information in your
system.
• Tip: How to Increase Conversions:
– Notary on the Run
– FedEx or UPS OVERNIGHT with return OVERNIGHT prepaid enclosure
– Emailing or Faxing Forms to PNC
– EchoSign or another online document execution provider

Mistake #7: Firm Brand Above All
• Your people are what make you different
• Each person has his or her own story as to
why they practice law, how they practice law,
and what types of cases they handle. Tell it.
• Use every personal data point as a potential
connector to any audience. Same college,
church, daughters, coach kid sports, etc.
• Local listings for firm and directory listings for
lawyers – equal importance

Mistake #8: Copying the Competition
• Competitive landscape analysis is good –
copying is bad.
• Don’t miss the opportunity to be yourself and
be original.
• You can certainly borrow elements that you
like as part of creating your own identity, but
do not go in with the attitude of “I want to be
just like so-and-so.”
• Duplicative content is bad. Google is smarter
than it used to be.

Mistake #9: Referral Attorney
DIS-Management
• Do you have a dedicated website page for referrals, joint
ventures, co-counsel, local counsel arrangements?
• Who at your firm handles/communicates with your referring
attorneys (RAs)?
• What type of reporting do you provide and how often?
• How do you keep in touch after a case resolves?
• Referrals work both ways – your firm can also refer hundreds of
leads or cases OUT per year, needing to take the steps
necessary to retain a fee interest and track the SOLs.
– Lawyers must read and understand current state law regarding
referrals, co-counsel relationships, joint ventures, consent to
associate, and contingency fee contracts. A serious examination
should be made of of ethics rules regarding barratry wand the
wording of employment contracts.

Mistake #9: Referral Attorney
DIS-Management
• What your law firm intake or RA department should do:
– Relieve handling attorneys (litigators) of spending significant
time dealing with minor RA questions and issues
– Send Intake document folders
– Keep track of who is marketing for what, so you can follow up
– Communicate regularly with RAs concerning case status
– Keep your best referral sources on a “Hot List” for new
projects
– Provide data to the firm as to who should be included in
Quarterly RA Marketing Events

Mistake #10: Mass Torts for Everyone
Don’t Do/Cons
• If you have not practiced in
this area before, do not make
up your own mass tort
• This is a team sport, complete
with group strategy, do not be
the first to file and mess
things up for everyone else
• Your law firm must be able to
sustain the long-term wait for
income, if any
OK to Do/Pros
• Learn about different projects
from the firms that have years
of experience handling
multidistrict litigation
• Work with a litigation partner at
first to learn the ropes or simply
refer/joint venture your cases
with a firm that will help the
client the most
• Disseminate information to your
current and former clients so
that they can be aware/careful

STACEY BURKE
ATTORNEY/OWNER
415 WESTHEIMER ROAD
SUITE 209A
HOUSTON, TEXAS 77006
OFFICE (713) 714-8446
FAX (877) 314-9990
STACEY@STACEYEBURKE.COM
WWW.STACEYEBURKE.COM

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