It is commonly said that a jack of all trades is a master of
none.
On August 30
th, LexisNexis (which owns the
Martindale-Hubbell & Lawyers.com brands)
announced
a “joint venture” with Internet Brands to operate their internet marketing solutions
together. Along with the announcement came Lexis’s
elimination
of 205 “roles”, including their CEO and head of marketing and business
solutions, indicating that these roles will be carried out by Internet
Brands. Naturally this creates a lot of questions for their attorney website clients
who originally bought something more than directory listings with LexisNexis –
especially since many/most/all? of the brand websites listed with Internet
Brands are directories and blogs.
So Who Is Internet
Brands?
According
to their website, Internet Brands was founded in 1998 as CarsDirect.com. In
2005, they decided to diversify (expand) their industry vertical niches and in
2006 changed their name to Internet Brands. The vertical brands listed by
category on their website currently includes: Automotive, Careers, Health,
Home, Legal, Licensing, Money, Shopping & Travel. Does expanding verticals
outside of the legal space work for directories? AVVO tried it once expanding to
lawyers, doctors, accountants, etc. – now they are back to just legal. So does
Internet Brands want to be a master of directories or a master of a business vertical?
What Does This Mean
For Attorneys?
For a number of years now, I have had numerous attorneys ask
me if they should continue to pay for and/or promote their AV ratings online.
My question back to them was simple: “What is the quantifiable value it is providing
you and what is your Return On Investment with it?” This is a simple measurement
for all marketing and brand management – not just for them. In most cases, the
attorneys couldn’t answer the question thereby answering it for themselves. In
essence, this simply illustrates who much brand value may be left with these
brands and as has been written by others recently in the legal marketing space,
does
their value even exist anymore?
I am not going to pretend to know what the future holds for
the Martindale-Hubbell & Lawyers.com brands but I cannot deny the trends I
have witnessed recently. Attorneys have questioned the value of their AV
ratings, I rarely ever see a Lawyers.com TV commercial anymore and LexisNexis
has decided to give-up sole management/ownership of these two brands to a
company that runs many brands in many verticals.
Does
this mean nobody wanted to buy them first?
Looking forward, this could be welcome news for attorneys
who rely solely on web portals like Lawyers.com to generate leads but it leaves
a lot more questions about the other brands and services previously provided. More importantly, it also draws to question if
this new industry-ubiquitous entity provides all of the value needed to successfully
market as an attorney. Internet Brands currently lists around 238 total brands
(websites) on their website – 6 of which are legal brands (2.52%). Even a jack
of all trades can do the math…
#lawyermarketing