Will the ABA's decision unintentionally hurt attorneys while helping companies like legalzoom?

Retired United States Magistrate Judge John Facciola recently stated that 83% of Americans never talk to a lawyer to help them with a legal problem. Findings also indicate that consumers were more positive about online legal services (like LegalZoom) with 40% saying they would use them if they were cheaper than a traditional law firm and a 1/3 of consumers said they would be prepared to represent themselves in court in an employment dispute, divorce, or personal injury case if it was cheaper. Read the complete article here...

Dustin Ruge speaking on Digitial Marketing trends in 2016 - National Trial Lawyers Summit 2016

Details Link: http://www.thesuccessfulsalesmanager.com/2016/02/dustin-ruge-keynote-on-digital.html

Location: Loews Miami Beach Hotel

Time: Tuesday, February 9th

Estate Planning: What the new interest rate hikes can mean for your clients...

The Fed has raised interest rates for the first time in nearly a decade. How could these changes effect your estate planning practice? 

Read more: http://www.wsj.com/articles/estate-planning-how-to-adjust-to-rising-rates-1450866602

#estateplanning 

Is your website costing you business?

Attorneys often ask how consumers view them, how they search for them online, and how they can best position themselves for maximum consumer exposure and results.

But what about other attorneys?

Many attorneys I have worked with over the years claim to get some of their best clients and cases from other attorneys. Moreover, some of the best attorney referral sources are from other attorneys.

So what are attorneys doing to better market and position themselves to other attorneys and more importantly, what are other attorneys looking for in other attorneys and why? A recent in-house counsel report helps to shed light on this issue and how you as an attorney can take advantage of it.

Click Here To Read More...

#lawyermarketing  #referral  #attorney  #lawyer  #website  #conversions

Does My Law Firm Need An App?

A growing number of attorneys and law firms that I work and meet with are asking the same question: Do I need an App for my practice? When asked I always ask them 3 simple Questions:

1. WHY would their clients want to download their APP?
2. HOW would your App make your client engagements better and more efficient FOR YOUR CLIENTS?
3. HOW REPEATABLE are the engagements with your clients and HOW OFTEN do they take place?

As you can imagine, most attorneys are not fully prepared to answer these questions and therefore would be advised NOT to build an APP for their practice until then they are. There are some key considerations that every attorney and business owner must evaluate in order to understand how Apps can benefit their business. Click here to read on and find out what they are…

#lawyermarketing #mobile #apps #legalapps  

Is Gmail Bad For The Practice Of Law?

When I speak to bar associations across the nation, one of the first questions I ask the audience when it comes to client communications is if they use Gmail for your client communications. Invariably, a number of hands go up. At that point, I always ask them if they have read the Gmail’s privacy policy and if they know that Google is scanning their emails?

Why Is All Of This Important For Attorneys?

Attorneys, like many other people find the free Gmail email service to be effective, easy to use and highly portable (you can access and use it anywhere). The fact that over 425 million people now use Gmail speaks to its success.  When Gmail was released back in 2004, it was a break-through technology by providing users with an email account that had literally limitless storage capacities – providing a unique value to users that they could have a huge archive of emails they would never have to delete. The benefit to Google by having all of this m

ass storage of emails was they would now scan the content of those emails to provide relevant advertising for each Gmail user – based on the content of each individual’s emails.

Why Your Gmail Communications Should Not Be Considered Private

With the scanning of email content for advertising, Google opened up a Pandora ’s Box of potential privacy problems. Arguments emerged that if Google could use such data to create increased advertising intelligence for Google, then what else could this data be used for and why? What if governments would subpoena your communications and courts would issue search warrants for your data and communications housed with Google? Think it couldn’t happen? Google has a whole section on their website and even has instructional videos on YouTube about how Google responds to search warrants. For those who still think using Gmail for client communications insures attorney-client privilege, I would highly suggest watching this video and reading Google’s privacy policy before coming to that conclusion.

Google Proactively Alerting Government Agencies

A recent article published in the UK telegraph brought new light to a technology now utilized by Google to scan for illegal images in Gmail accounts. The intent of the case cited in the article was to allow Google to better identify pedophiles by matching “hashed” (or known) images on Google that are also collected by child protection agencies and then notifying these agencies when a potential image match is made. In the case cited in the article, once the image match was recently made in Texas, child protection experts were notified by Google and a warrant was issued to gain access to the user’s information (Gmail) at Google. While most would argue that steps taken to better manage pedophile activities on Google are admirable, it leads to new more ominous questions and concerns about what else such technologies and activities could also be used for. More importantly, where will Google draw the line in the future when potentially illegal content is communicated and when authorities should be proactively notified by Google as to the results?

The Bottom Line & Alternatives

The bottom line for attorneys using Gmail for client communications is that legal protections for information saved and stored on your own computers is far different then information stored in other places – namely on Google’s Gmail servers. As we continue to see by the actions of Google in their improved scanning of your Gmail communications and now taking proactive steps to help “alert” government agencies of potentially unlawful content, one has to wonder just where privacy and confidentiality of communications is protected with Google. For attorneys, this should be particularly concerning but there are alternatives.

It is hard to argue that cloud based email such as Gmail is not useful but just as an attorney would not cross ethical boundaries with other forms of client information, equal care should be provided to their email communications as well. It is very easy for even the average internet user to go to website service providers such as GoDaddy.com and easily register a new URL and setup new email accounts for that website address at a nominal cost. Most even provide web-based email access similar to how you access your Gmail today allowing you to have the same web-based access you currently enjoy – just at a different location. 

In the end, your emails can be more secure and you will look more professional if your email address ends in your company’s website address instead of @gmail.com. Think about it: what crosses your client’s minds when they still see attorneys with an @aol.com email address? Well, similar perceptions may exist for your Gmail address as well…along with other potential confidentiality problems to boot. So make the change.

#lawyermarketing  #attorney  #lawyer 

72% OF CONSUMERS RETAIN THE FIRST ATTORNEY THEY CONTACT

There is a good deal of discussion these days about client/case conversion but what attorneys often fail to realize is something that the insurance companies learned a long time ago: most people buy from the first responder. Geico, who has literally spent billions of dollars on their brand name alone, found in their own studies that most people will only get one insurance quote and then buy from that firm. When it comes to attorneys, people’s buying habits are no different.

In FindLaw’s recently released 2014 consumer legal needs survey they found that fully 72% of respondents indicated that they only contacted one attorney before selecting them. The remaining 15% contacted two attorneys and 13% three attorneys. In short, nearly ¾ of consumers do not continue to shop around after initially contacting an attorney.

SO WHAT CAN ATTORNEYS LEARN FROM THIS?

We know from previous studies that people will on average look at 4.8 attorney websites before they contact a firm – so they ARE shopping around. The issue here is that the shopping process for attorneys ends 72% of the time after the initial contact is made.

So what can be done to help improve this process BEFORE the initial contact is made…

IMPROVE YOUR BRAND & REPUTATION ONLINE

Online consumer opinions were the backbone to building such websites as Amazon.com, ebay, Yelp and others. Why? Because 79% of consumers now indicate that they trust online opinions about you. This is important for attorneys because many page-one search results for attorneys and/or law firms include consumer opinion sites like Yelp, AVVO, Google local and others. So have you created a strategy to manage your brand reputation online? Remember: if you do not proactively define your brand, others will define it for you. Since most referrals are given out in numbers, write down the names of your top 3-5 referrals competitors. Next, Google their names and firm names and look at the results – compare them to yours. Finally, look at their websites and also compare them to yours. If you were an objective consumer who has never used an attorney before, which search results impress you the most? If it is not you, you have work to do here.

IMPROVE YOUR ONLINE PRESENCE

Is your online presence an accurate reflection of what you want people to think of your firm (your brand)? As the old saying goes, you never get a second chance to make a good first impression. Most attorneys today already have a website so the question is moving beyond “IF” you need a website to now “HOW” you need a website. Most of your new and referral clients are looking at your website and formulating an opinion about you BEFORE they ever contact you. They are also increasing looking beyond your website alone to look for more information about you from other resources.  In a growing number of instances, we are seeing these “delayed conversions” in excess of 60% of the time.

INCREASE YOUR VISIBILITY

Most attorneys limit their brand and online presence to a website alone and in most cases; their websites fail to provide high visibility in Google for anything beyond their own names. As we have previously discussed, a website is like a book and in order for search engines like Google to be able to properly index and display your website for desired searches, you have to structure the website optimally to do so.  Additionally, your brand footprint should extend well beyond just your website alone so you can create additional citations to support your brand. People who don’t know you won’t always trust what you tell them on your website alone – they want citations to support it. These can come from videos, rating & accreditation websites, news, social media and others. Want a great example of how this can look? Try this one:  https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=tom+girardi

INCREASE YOUR QUALITY OF YOUR CONTACTS

We know from the same FindLaw survey that 74% of contacts attorneys receive are by phone while only 7% are by email and 2% by online contact form.  We also know from other surveys that 80% of callers will hang-up when they get a voicemail. I am still amazed at how many times I will call a law firm on hours and off hours and receive a voicemail or no answer within 5-7 rings. If a caller receives and voicemail and/or if they hear 5-7 rings or more, you are sending them a message (intentional or not) that your contact is not of high importance to them.  If you do not have a live body answering the phone quickly 24/7 you are losing client and cases – period!

In summary, people shop around for attorneys but 72% of the shopping stops at the first attorney they contact. Since the majority of the decisions the consumers and referrals make about you comes from their research online BEFORE they contact you, you need to be smart, proactive and competitive in your evaluations of how you can become the first attorney they chose to contact. You also need to make sure that they way the majority of them prefer to contact you (PHONE) leads to a conversion and not a hang-up. 

#lawyermarketing  #attorneymarketing #sales #business #law #attorney  #lawyer #sales manager

26% of Car Crashes Caused By Cell Phone Use

Many personal injury and criminal defense attorneys fail at advertising due to the lemming syndrome. Most will write the same content, advertise in the same ways, do what everybody else does and then expect a different result. The bottom line is there is far to much competition today to be successful as a Lemming. You need to become unique, learn how to set yourself apart and the first place to start is with the facts...

In March, the National Safety Council released their 2014 injury facts report that included a few key findings:

- Poisoning & Drug Overdoses were the leading causes of death in 18 states. This inludes death from perscription pain killers
- Cell Phone use is involved with 26% of all car crashes  - an increase from previous years.
- Only 5% of the 26% of cell phone usage involved texting.
- Motor vehicle crashes still remain the #1 cause of death for teens
- The mostly costly Workers Compensation claims in time and money involve head and nervous system injuries.
- The number of Elder adult falls have increased by 112% since 1999
- Deaths involving motor vehicles are highest in July and lowest in February.
- Alcohol related driving deaths are the highest during the 3 days around New Years.

What does this mean for Personal Injury and Criminal Defense Attorneys:

1.) How are you marketing and creating content around cell phone injuries and accidents? Texting is getting a lot of press these days but talking is still the cause 4X more often
2.) How much content do you have around poisoning and prescription drug overdoses? Most attorneys have very little marketing content & focus for the #1 cause of death in many states.
3.) How are you better targeted teen related motor vehicle accidents and deaths? Do you have targeted marketing around this?
4.) Why are elder falls increasing? Is there an increase in negligence?
5.) Instead of vacationing in July, how are your INCREASING your marketing around motor vehicle deaths that month?
6.) Are you celebrating New Years with a drink in your hand or receiving calls from other people who were and are now in trouble? What are you doing to increase your awareness for these during these critical few days and who is taking your calls at 2am in the morning to convert them?

#personalinjury  #criminaldefense  #accidents  #accidentnews  #carcrash

Organic Search & Google + Lead The Way on ROI (Return On Investment)

So how does the Return On Investment (ROI) for Organic Search compare to PPC (Pay Per Click or Google Adwords) advertising?  This is a question I receive on almost a daily basis from attorneys.

A recent survey by BrightLocal was conducted to determine the highest levels of ROI -  and the results may be surprising to some. We often think in the context of organic search versus PPC but what this surveys shows is that we may be missing one of the most important and fasting growing tools of all: Google + / Google Local.

Since 2009, we have been posting countless articles on the importance of local search for attorneys  as well as the recent emergence and importance of Google +. Google, who is now in effect the traffic cop of the internet, has made it abundantly clear that Google + will be integral to the use of their other services - including Google Local which is a must for attorneys.

So the next time you are debating whether your search strategy should include organic or PPC, make sure you are not missing out on #2: Google+ / Local. Additionally, a lot of attorneys today are  spending heavy on social media and most do nothing to feed their Google + strategy beyond a simple setup. These results should also question that thinking as well...


#lawyermarketing #attorney #lawyer

One Out Of Every Three Reviews On Yelp Could Potentially Hurt Your Law Firm #lawyermarketing

Today a story was released in the WSJ about a lawsuit filed against sites that host and manage customer reviews of their companies online. One of the most prominent review sites, Yelp, is at the center of the story. According to one carpet cleaning business owner, his business was negatively impacted by as much as 30% following a rash of negative reviews on Yelp.

As we have previously posted, user reviews are critical when it comes to brand management for attorneys. I recently visited with an attorney who had two reviews on Yelp - one of which was highly negative. When I showed her a search of what her potential referral clients see when they Google her name, Yelp was right there are the top - with a 3 star rating. When I asked her if she was aware of this, she said that a number of clients has mentioned it to her over the past few months. Which leads me to the following question; if this many people would mention it to you, how many more would not? Moreover, how many of those have now become lost cases and clients? 

We know from studies by AC Nielsen in 2009 that 70% of people now trust online consumer opinions. When referrals are given out, they are typically given in numbers which means you have competition for that client / case. Now that your referral clients are increasingly reviewing you online before and after your initial meeting with them, you need to know and more importantly, better manage your brand reputation and reviews online.

According to this chart on Yelp reviews, fully 34% (1/3) of all reviews on Yelp are three stars or less. That means negative reviews and lost business for attorneys with negative reviews and increased business for those without them.

Which option best appeals to you?

#lawyermarketing  #brandmanagement #seo #yelp

New Attorney CLE's March 20th & 21st - Social Media & Attorney Marketing Online #CLE

Dustin Ruge will be presenting two Southern California CLE's next week on Social Media for Attorneys and Attorney Marketing Online. If you are interested in attending either of these events, please see below for details...

ATTORNEY MARKETING ON THE INTERNET

DATE/TIME:  Thursday  March 20th @  12:00 noon

LOCATION:   The Old Spaghetti Factory  (111 N. Twin Oaks Valley Road; San Marcos, CA)

SPONSOR:  North County Bar Association 

INFO:  Vik Chaudhry - (858) 519-7333

MCLE CREDIT HOURS: 1.0 General

MORE DETAILS: http://www.northcountybar.org/eventlist.html?cat=2 

SOCIAL MEDIA FOR ATTORNEYS

DATE/TIME:  Friday  March 21th @  12:00 noon

LOCATION:   The Classic Club: 75200 Classic Club Blvd, Palm Desert, CA 92211

SPONSOR:  Desert Bar Association

INFO:  Michael Rover: - (760) 346-4741

MCLE CREDIT HOURS: 1.0 General

MORE DETAILS: http://desertbar.com/events.html#87 


More more information about CLE's provided by Dustin Ruge and/or to request Dustin as a CLE presenter, please click here for more details...

#lawyermarketing  #CLE  #dustinruge

Building An Effective Frequency Marketing Plan For Your Law Firm #lawyermarketing

One of the biggest mistakes I commonly see lawyers make is in creating ineffective marketing plans. The actions I frequently see are sporadic mailings, setup and infrequent use (or no use at all) of social media, and one-time media buys. My favorite comments from attorneys are when they will start a social media / media / mailing strategy and then stop it saying that they “didn’t see any results” and/or they “are not getting new cases” in continuing these efforts. The genesis of this problem typically emanates from too much focus on the “what” of marketing while lacking a true understanding for the “why” they are marketing to begin with.   

THE RULE OF 7

There is an old saying in marketing that your prospective clients need to see and/or hear you many times before they will buy from you. This is why you still see Coca Cola and Ford ads during the Super bowl. Did you not know what these brands were? Of course not. What they wanted to reinforce through these ads was the repetition in which you see them. The “Rule of 7” was adopted decades ago to provide a baseline for how many times (7) this needs to typically happen in a given year. The problem is that this was before the advent of the digital marketing age. With the increasing barrage of information we receive today, I typically recommend that attorneys be in front of their prospective clients and referrals at least 7-12 times a year in order to maximize this effect. The problem is that most attorneys are not.

FREQUENCY VERUS REACH

With the advent of social media, attorneys are now hearing the word “reach” which is used as a measure of the effectiveness of their social media advertising. REACH is nothing more than the total number of people who are exposed to your message. Conversely, FREQUENCY is the total number of times you reach them. To illustrate the difference, imagine you had $10,000 to spend on marketing in one year. Your first option is to create great content on your blog once a year that reaches 1000 people once. Your second option is to create good content eight times a year that reached only 125 of the same people. Which would be more effective? According to the Rule of 7, the eight content pieces to the same 125 people eight times would typically be 5X more effective when it comes to potentially converting them to clients. But what do most attorneys do today? They create high levels of reach over frequency.  

BUILDING YOUR BRAND

There are two types of marketing for attorneys: Branded and Non-Branded Marketing. The difference between the two is simple: BRANDING is what you are (Your Attorney & Firm Name) whereas Non-Branded Marketing is what you do (Your Practice Area/s). Most attorneys go to market today with a heavy imbalance between these principles and as a result, fail to improve conversions and their Return-On-Investment (ROI). The reality today is that there is a heavy convergence between these two types of marketing for attorneys and by forsaking one, you lose with the other. Let’s use an example. Say you have a heavy web presence in Dallas for white collar criminal defense lawyer searches. If you have high visibility for these searches online (Non-Branded) but have little/no name recognition or citations (Branded), what are you chances of that prospective client bringing their case to you? If the average person typically receives 2-3 referrals and looks at 4.8 attorney websites before contacting the firm, then how are you going to be able to convert that (Non-Branded) search into a case?

When people buy, they go through three psychological stages in the process: Need, Proof and Risk. Following the example above, the prospective client had a NEED so he/she searched. When they found your web properties, they found part of the PROOF for the search. The problem now is how does this person really know you’re the best option and mitigate their RISK by choosing you over another attorney? Is your BRAND strong enough to convey this proof and mitigate the risk?

An effective branding strategy is necessary for ANY attorney to establish the following criteria in a prospective client’s mind:

Does your BRAND confirm credibility?

Does your BRAND connect clearly with your target clients?

Does your BRAND emotionally motivate your target clients?

Does your BRAND convey value and loyalty?

Your branding strategy must address each of these areas to be fully effective in your attorney marketing. Here are questions / issues / actions I commonly see dealing with each…

Confirm Credibility: If you want the best cases / clients, what are you telling them about you that makes them want you? Most people today do not stop their search after they find you for a Non-branded search. If they find you but don’t know you (Your Brand), their next search is commonly your attorney and/or firm name to see what comes up about you. Just because YOU might say good things about yourself (on your website) doesn’t mean that your prospective clients aren’t looking elsewhere (Yelp, Google Reviews, Super Lawyers, LinkedIn, AVVO, etc.) to confirm the same. They are and the internet is now enabling this!

Connect Clearly: I cannot tell you how many times I have had attorneys who target consumers asking me if they should maintain their AV Rating and promote it. My answer is simple: does your target audience understand what an AV Rating means? Think about WHO your target client profile is and what they do and don’t know first before you assume they know anything about attorneys, the law, your profession and you.

Emotionally Motivate: Most people are not happy when they have to seek out an attorney. Because of this, they are both logically and emotionally driven in their search and evaluation. If I am getting a divorce, being sued by a business partner or arrested for a DUI, how do you think I feel when I need legal help and most likely have never worked with an attorney before? How do you best connect to that emotion and convert them to a client? The good news is that most of your competition fails at this – you do not have to.

Convey Value & Loyalty: The third most active page on an attorney website is typically the case results and testimonials pages. Why? Simple; people need to satisfy the PROOF of what you can provide them and mitigate the RISK they take in choosing you over another attorney. Both of these factors are increasingly confirmed off of your website as well so just telling them on your website alone is no longer good enough. Did you know that 70% of people now indicate that they trust online consumer opinions about you? What should that tell you…

BUILDING AND EFFECTIVE FREQUENCY MARKETING PROGRAM

Effective frequency marketing for lawyers incorporates all of the elements above into one coordinated and cohesive strategy. It gives symmetrical balance to both your BRANDED and Non-Branded marketing elements as well as your marketing REACH and FREQUENCY. Here are some steps to help achieve this for your law firm:

• DIVERSIFY YOUR REACH: Referrals and prospects all respond differently based on the target audience and individuals so maximize your reach by diversifying your marketing mediums. Find out where their eye-time is by percentage and break down your marketing accordingly. This should be an ONGOING process and never assume that what is working today will work tomorrow. A lot of buggy whip and AOL stock owners learned this the hard way.

• BUILD FREQUENCY: Identify your target audience and make it a goal to have them see or hear from you 7-12X a year. If you have a limited budget, YOU MUST balance your reach and frequency to support the Rule of 7. Say for example you have two options: 1.) you can only afford one TV commercial (large audience) compared to 2.) being able to blog twice a week, build your social media and send out one mailing a month (smaller audience), which one is a better option? The best options are always balance of Reach and Frequency – DO NOT neglect one for the other.

• BUILD YOUR BRAND: If you have historically invested heavily in non-branded marketing (most attorney can raise their hands now), it is time to start balancing the scales. Do you have a system to get your happy clients saying good things about you on review sites? Have you created a profile on Super Lawyers to help get nominated? How good if your LinkedIn profile and network? Did you know that nearly 93% of all attorneys are on LinkedIn?

• FOCUS ON COVERSION ROI: Marketing is no longer linear for attorneys – there are simply too many points of citation to go with only one. It is no longer easy to simply track-back a lead source when they may have found you through a referral and/or online (website, blog, social media, Google Local, etc.) looked at your reviews on Google and Yelp, saw you on Super Lawyers, read your LinkedIn profile, etc. – all of which took place BEFORE they ever contact you. Now how do you calculate your Return-On-Investment (ROI) for just one of these contact points? You can’t anymore. The only true measurement you have now is the cases and clients you generate as a result of ALL of these mediums working as part of a unified approach.

• UTILIZE LEVERAGE POINTS: 10 years ago, attorney marketing was much easier than it is today. In most instances it was build a website and run yellow page ads and there you go. Fast forward to today and you will see that nearly EVERYTHING your referral and prospective clients do has an online component (PC, smart phones, iPads, etc.) to it and those piles of phone books sitting in the trash make great doorstops. The world is rapidly changing and becoming more complex – especially online. The bottom line: I would no more advise an attorney to handle all of their marketing any more than I would advise a patient to perform brain surgery on himself. The world of law and marketing is becoming increasing competitive and complex leading to specialization. If you want to succeed in growing your business of law, hire a lawyer marketing specialist who can help you achieve it. If you want to simply practice law, do the same. Either way, you can end up with the same result. 

#lawyermarketing #attorneysearch #brandmarketing #seo