Part of the reason why lawyers are not good business-minded people as a profession is because they fail to understand and appreciate what building a brand means.  I’m sure you’ll get the same old boring answers if you ask lawyers what makes them memorable/different when compared to our competitors: “we are committed to client service through the delivery of affordable, practical, timely and exceptional professional solutions”.

But if everyone is saying that, how can you differentiate one lawyer or law firm from the next?  Look at the brand names out there…Davies.  Oslers.  Stikemans.  McMillan.  And the list goes on.  The brands are people’s names.  Some of the people aren’t even alive.  These brands – if you can call them that – don’t signify much to me other than “expensive Bay Street full service law firms which only rich people and big companies can afford”.  So what about the other law firms out there?  What’s their brand all about?  I’ve only heard of Payne Law and Diogardi actively promoting their brands in different media.  That’s why the public turns to them.  Because they remember them!

Some of the law firms out there try to distinguish themselves as specialists in a particular legal area, but that’s as far as it gets.  What the public needs is to be able to easily associate a brand with its people, the type of work they do, the quality of their services, and (perhaps most importantly) some type of niche, gimmick, or idea that distinguishes them from their competitors.  Here’s a few examples of what I’m talking about::

• Yorkville Lawyers.  Slogan: “Shop.  Dine.  Get Legal Advice.”
• PC-Lawyers.  Slogan “Where Lawyers and Tech Companies Connect”.
• Done Deal Real Estate Lawyers.
• Cut-Throat Litigators.  Slogan: “You better have US on YOUR side!”
• E-Lawyers.  Slogan: “We’re Connected and Cost-Effective”.

To repeat myself, law firms have to got to start marketing and promoting themselves ACTIVELY through new mediums that reach out to their target market (e.g. social media, websites, newsletters and articles, public relations events, books or e-books, etc.).  Give a taste of your knowledge and expertise!  For those law firms out there who say, “But my clients don’t come through those mediums”, the reality is that a new breed of clients – sophisticated and information hungry ones – will be familiar with those mediums.  And they will expect you to have a robust presence on the Internet.  Besides, if you’re not there, your competitors will be.  And if anyone writes something bad about you or your law firm, the prevalence of such negative publicity will depend on how active you and your firm are in that same space.  The bottom line is that law firms need to adapt or die out and give rise to a new breed of lawyers and law firms…

written by admin \\ tags: boring answers, brand names, building a brand, good business, law firms, lawyer, legal advice, litigators, niche, profession, professional solutions, real estate lawyers, slogan

I was practically in the yelling match with a (prospective) client and good friend about target marketing.  I wanted to know, plain and simple, who his target market was.  He gave me some fluff.  I kept asking: “Please be specific”.  He kept giving me general answers.  “We’re targeting everyone.  We’re targeting professionals and their families.  But we also do niche targeting to students and seniors”.  Geeze man!  Could you be any more vague?!?

The purpose of my sharing this little story with you here and now is simple: to have a clear strategy on how to use your limited resources to target your market, you must first identify that target market with precision.  I want to know, demographically speaking, as much as humanly possible about your ideal client.  The best way I’ve found to make this determination is to come up with a number of scenarios whereby everyday individuals (and perhaps groups and organizations) would use your product(s) and/or service(s).

Take the following example.  I sell candy.  A small boy who lives in Toronto around a candy shop would buy candy from my store.  That’s a scenario.  A young man who wants to get his girlfriend some candy as a gift would buy candy too.  That’s a scenario.  A group of women looking to quench a craving would buy candy.  So too would avid candy collectors looking for the latest craze.  You see: there are lots of different people who would buy my product for different reasons.  I have to figure out, by grouping these and other scenarios together, who my PRIMARY, SECONDARY, and even TERTIARY target markets are.   Perhaps the small boy buys the most candy, so I should cater my store to him.  Remember: 80% of your profits come from 20% of your customers.  So make your strategy count!

written by admin \\ tags: beautiful thing, candy shop, different reasons, fluff, girlfriend, good friend, group of women, latest craze, limited resources, match, niche, prospective client, scenario analysis, scenarios, seniors, target market, target marketing, target markets, toronto, young man

Law Firm SEO or Search Engine Optimization is all about designing a sound strategy and implementing that strategy to perfection.  At the end of the day, the strategy will tell you the who, what, where, when, why and how of how to improve your Google (and other search engine) rankings.  So let’s delve a bit deeper into what’s required to come up with a winning strategy.

1. Know your products/services: your elevator pitch should be short and sweet.  In but a few sentences, you should be able to describe your idea, the benefits to your target market(s) (i.e. your clients and customers), how you differentiate yourself from competitors (i.e. what’s your sustainable competitive advantage), the history or story behind the idea (this is always a great selling feature), the progress you’ve made, and your future plans.
2. Know your industry: This means that you should look around for competitors and figure out what services they offer, how they try to distinguish themselves from others.  You should also know where the industry has been (e.g. new, old, dominated by a few player or fragmented along various lines) and what trends are coming down the pipeline.
3. Know your customers: You should not only be able to describe your ideal customer as much as humanly possible (e.g. 18 year old teenager living with his/her family in Toronto working part time and saving up for university and who takes the TTC to work), but you should map out the different avenues they would take to find your product or service – both offline and online.  This is very important: mass marketing your idea to the world unless you are a General Electric or Tata Consulting company with vast resources and omni-presence.
4. Pick a niche: The easiest way to tackle a market is to pick a niche.  This strategy will put you at the top of your game and make you most memorable to your target market.  Remember: most customers want to compartmentalize product/service providers in the marketplace as offering or being good at 1 thing only.  Even though you may be capable of fulfilling multiple needs, it’s very difficult and not financially worth it to try to market yourself in that way.  Remember: it’s better to be a big fish in a small pond instead of a small fish in a big pond.
5. Find your target keywords: by doing the 4 steps above, you should have come up with an idea of some keywords to focus on.   These are the keywords that members of your target market will type into Google and other search engines to try to find your website.  There are many software tools available for purchase to help you identify the keywords in your particular industry that you should be focusing on and which may be under-served by your competitors.
6. Repeat steps 1 through 5: nothing stays the same over time.  In fact, that’s the only thing that does stay the same.

written by admin \\ tags: avenues, competitor, consulting company, elevator pitch, future plans, general electric, google, keywords, niche, other search engine, pipeline, search engine, search engine rankings, sentences, seo, sound strategy, sustainable competitive advantage, target market, toronto, vast resources