On December 9, 2020, Meranda Vieyra, CEO of Denver Legal Marketing, appeared on the Colorado Bar Association’s Modern Law Revolution Podcast to discuss “Marketing for the Modern Lawyer. She shared with podcast hosts, Erika Holmes and Lauren Lester, that legal marketing does not need to be hard; lawyers just need to know how to market smarter by utilizing platforms and tools they already have at their disposal.
Meranda began by explaining the best way to help clients get over their fear of legal marketing is by reverse engineering their goals.
Clients need to think about what they want for their law firm and the type of people they serve before creating a marketing plan that includes accountability measures to demystify the marketing process.
To help with the process, Meranda recommends having a “special person” to run goals by empowering lawyers to feel energized to pursue their goals while allowing fine-tuning from a different perspective. She also examined how removing fear from marketing may be abolished by focusing on the benefits it will bring.
Next, Meranda expounds upon branding a small law firm. She admits that it is very different from what major corporations like Coca-Cola would use, but small firms need to have a marketing plan in place. Firms need to know their target audiences and brand assets—what makes them stand out from their competitors—to come up with everything from logos to video advertisements.
Solo practitioners and small law firms need their brand to support their mission.
Firms and solo practitioners need to know who they are via their skills, experience, and personality to brand themselves, and all this information should be in their initial business plan. Too often, lawyers and firms think they need to be creative when marketing and branding themselves, and that is not the case. They already have an entrepreneurial mindset and have the freedom to control their image. They just need to think about what kind of lawyer they want to be and what would appeal to their clients.
Erika and Lauren asked Meranda if it takes a lot of money to brand. The best answer is, it depends. If a small law firm wants to have a major advertisement campaign, that will take a lot of money, but there are easy ways to brand and market that cost nothing but a few minutes.
Lawyers and law firm owners say all the time that they are too busy to market, and that is just not the case. Marketing is not about right now; it is about keeping the pipeline moving. If they genuinely do not have the time to market, they need to hire someone to help them get a plan. It is also important to remember that technology is constantly changing, and people need to be open to trying new methods to reach their consumers, like YouTube videos.
Here are Meranda’s top three methods for things to do today on a small law firm marketing budget:
Update Biographies: About Us sections are the most visited webpages besides the homepage. People choose lawyers, not law firms. At least once per quarter, update biographies with new credentials, awards, practice areas, etc. Also make sure that LinkedIn biographies are regularly updated and in first person.
Send Thank-You Notes: Maintain and nurture relationships by sending thank-you notes to previous clients, referral sources, etc. This is a great way to keep getting new leads.
Write a LinkedIn Long-Form Post: 90% of attorneys in the US have a LinkedIn profile. This is the absolute easiest way to receive referrals and it’s SEO friendly (meaning it’ll appear on Google search results).
To hear the whole conversation and receive more information on marketing yourself, listen to the episode here: Colorado Bar Association’s The Modern Law Revolution Podcast.
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