If you don’t know, you are failing at marketing!
As is the case when I get “blogger's block” I’ll look at some trusty book or two for ideas, as I did today since my RSS feeds aren’t inspiring me. Well, one of my trusty-ist is Richard Levick’s and Larry Smith’s 365 Marketing Meditations: Daily Lessons For Marketing & Communications Professionals, which is available on Amazon. Their meditation for today is:
“What keeps your clients up at night? This is the bullseye of marketing. If you don’t know the answer, you are not marketing. You’re just busy.”
There really isn’t much to add to that succinct statement, except it means that you are not talking or listening to your clients. And that is bad marketing!
From Legalmarketingblog.com
Monday, January 30, 2012
Friday, January 27, 2012
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
In Remembrance: Wesley Brown, the Nation's Oldest Federal Judge
By Joe Palazzolo, WSJ Law Blog
U.S. Senior District Judge Wesley Brown, the nation’s oldest federal judge and one of only two to serve until the age of 104, has died, according to news reports.
Brown handled a full criminal docket at the federal courthouse in Wichita well into his 100s, but he pared his schedule to part-time in the past year, the Wichita Eagle reported.
Brown, the subject of this 2010 story in the New York Times that explored aging and the federal judiciary, was quick to riff on his longevity.
“I always say we’re appointed for life or good behavior, whichever ends first,” Brown routinely joked. He warned lawyers prepping for lengthy cases, “At this age, I’m not even buying green bananas.”
In his earlier days, Brown, appointed by President John F. Kennedy in 1962, was known for upbraiding lawyers for casual dress, tardiness and poor grammar, according to the Times, but he mellowed over time.
Brown earned a reputation for pragmatism on the bench. He used to shake his head when he heard people talk about “activist judges” or push for the election of judges, according to the Eagle.
“I hope the courts can keep their independence and not be subservient to the pressures of other branches of government, or other special interests. It is this separation of powers that is vital to our democracy,” Brown said on his 100th birthday. “It’s what makes America what it is.”
Brown graduated from law school at the University of Kansas in 1933. He had been an old-timer since he was young. Brown joined the Navy in World War II at the age of 37 — the oldest in his unit.
Before his appointment to the federal district bench, Brown served as a bankruptcy judge in Wichita in 1958, tapped by President Dwight D. Eisenhower. He took senior status in 1979.
Some of his major cases, according to the Eagle:
During the 1970s, Brown told a Wichita hospital it couldn’t fire a woman because she was single and pregnant and ruled that North High School had to let a girl on its golf team. During the 1980s, Brown ordered millions of dollars in payments to railroad workers denied promotions because they were Americans of African descent. More recently, Brown presided over cases including a $3 million athletic ticket scandal at the University of Kansas, his alma mater.
Before Brown, Joseph Woodrough, a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, had been the longest practicing judge in the federal judiciary when he died in 1977 shortly after turning 104, according to the Associated Press.
U.S. Senior District Judge Wesley Brown, the nation’s oldest federal judge and one of only two to serve until the age of 104, has died, according to news reports.
Brown handled a full criminal docket at the federal courthouse in Wichita well into his 100s, but he pared his schedule to part-time in the past year, the Wichita Eagle reported.
Brown, the subject of this 2010 story in the New York Times that explored aging and the federal judiciary, was quick to riff on his longevity.
“I always say we’re appointed for life or good behavior, whichever ends first,” Brown routinely joked. He warned lawyers prepping for lengthy cases, “At this age, I’m not even buying green bananas.”
In his earlier days, Brown, appointed by President John F. Kennedy in 1962, was known for upbraiding lawyers for casual dress, tardiness and poor grammar, according to the Times, but he mellowed over time.
Brown earned a reputation for pragmatism on the bench. He used to shake his head when he heard people talk about “activist judges” or push for the election of judges, according to the Eagle.
“I hope the courts can keep their independence and not be subservient to the pressures of other branches of government, or other special interests. It is this separation of powers that is vital to our democracy,” Brown said on his 100th birthday. “It’s what makes America what it is.”
Brown graduated from law school at the University of Kansas in 1933. He had been an old-timer since he was young. Brown joined the Navy in World War II at the age of 37 — the oldest in his unit.
Before his appointment to the federal district bench, Brown served as a bankruptcy judge in Wichita in 1958, tapped by President Dwight D. Eisenhower. He took senior status in 1979.
Some of his major cases, according to the Eagle:
During the 1970s, Brown told a Wichita hospital it couldn’t fire a woman because she was single and pregnant and ruled that North High School had to let a girl on its golf team. During the 1980s, Brown ordered millions of dollars in payments to railroad workers denied promotions because they were Americans of African descent. More recently, Brown presided over cases including a $3 million athletic ticket scandal at the University of Kansas, his alma mater.
Before Brown, Joseph Woodrough, a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, had been the longest practicing judge in the federal judiciary when he died in 1977 shortly after turning 104, according to the Associated Press.
Monday, January 23, 2012
Building an Online Reputation Can Be Tricky
The most effective tool is for lawyers to establish their online reputations before they are attacked. Some law firms, for instance, pre-emptively buy 3,000 domain names to prevent them from falling into the wrong hands. They also operates 100 Web sites and a dozen or so blogs, and participates in social networking sites.
However, flooding the Internet with positive links doesn't necessarily stop negative news from jumping to the top of search results. That's where businesses focused on "reputation management" have cropped up.
One of them is Fertik's Reputation.-com, a venture capital-backed startup in Redwood City, Calif. "The fact is that it's taken a while for lawyers to get comfortable with the idea that they can do something about it," experts say. "The last 18 months or so, the adoption has been growing very fast. Lawyers are now comfortable with the idea of using the Internet as a reputation marketing or management for themselves."
Some lawyers refer their clients, but more are looking for control over their own reputations.
The average lawyer pays the company $2,000 a year to attempt to influence the list of hits that come up when his or her name is punched into search engines. Reputation.com uses algorithms to observe variables — such as the number of clicks on an item — that help it to change the order in which search results appear. For example, to push business listings, which have little marketing value, down the list of results.
For Reputation.com's clients, the concerns rarely involve defamatory material, but rather marketing. For instance, lawyers often want a big case or transaction to appear at the top of a list of search results, or to highlight the law school they attended, where they clerked, journal articles they've written or speeches they've made, Fertik said.
Instead, he said, they often get the location of their office. "Left to its own devices, Google might say you have an office in New Jersey," he said. "That's not doing anything for you. An article that you won a case or that you were the promising lawyer of 2011 — that would be useful to have in the top search results."
During a recent search for Michael Pines, Google listed the personal injury lawyer's law firm Web site, http://seriousaccidents.com, as the top result. The second link was to a 2010 blog item by The Wall Street Journal about Michael T. Pines, the foreclosure attorney, whose bar license was suspended last month after he was convicted of second-degree burglary.
Michael Pines said he's made some progress in clearing up the confusion that tainted his name on the Internet. He has posted information about himself and his firm on Facebook and LinkedIn. He also has been writing articles for a blog on his law firm's Web site.
"So the good things we're writing about will push the bad things down," he said. "That's a hope. That's a wish. Whether or not that will happen or not, I don't know."
Amanda Bronstad can be contacted at abronstad@alm.com.
However, flooding the Internet with positive links doesn't necessarily stop negative news from jumping to the top of search results. That's where businesses focused on "reputation management" have cropped up.
One of them is Fertik's Reputation.-com, a venture capital-backed startup in Redwood City, Calif. "The fact is that it's taken a while for lawyers to get comfortable with the idea that they can do something about it," experts say. "The last 18 months or so, the adoption has been growing very fast. Lawyers are now comfortable with the idea of using the Internet as a reputation marketing or management for themselves."
Some lawyers refer their clients, but more are looking for control over their own reputations.
The average lawyer pays the company $2,000 a year to attempt to influence the list of hits that come up when his or her name is punched into search engines. Reputation.com uses algorithms to observe variables — such as the number of clicks on an item — that help it to change the order in which search results appear. For example, to push business listings, which have little marketing value, down the list of results.
For Reputation.com's clients, the concerns rarely involve defamatory material, but rather marketing. For instance, lawyers often want a big case or transaction to appear at the top of a list of search results, or to highlight the law school they attended, where they clerked, journal articles they've written or speeches they've made, Fertik said.
Instead, he said, they often get the location of their office. "Left to its own devices, Google might say you have an office in New Jersey," he said. "That's not doing anything for you. An article that you won a case or that you were the promising lawyer of 2011 — that would be useful to have in the top search results."
During a recent search for Michael Pines, Google listed the personal injury lawyer's law firm Web site, http://seriousaccidents.com, as the top result. The second link was to a 2010 blog item by The Wall Street Journal about Michael T. Pines, the foreclosure attorney, whose bar license was suspended last month after he was convicted of second-degree burglary.
Michael Pines said he's made some progress in clearing up the confusion that tainted his name on the Internet. He has posted information about himself and his firm on Facebook and LinkedIn. He also has been writing articles for a blog on his law firm's Web site.
"So the good things we're writing about will push the bad things down," he said. "That's a hope. That's a wish. Whether or not that will happen or not, I don't know."
Amanda Bronstad can be contacted at abronstad@alm.com.
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Top Five New Years Resolutions for New Law Business in 2012
This year make your business resolutions stick by committing to these five easy-to-execute goals designed to jumpstart new business in 2012.
1. Claim your Google Places page. 97% of consumers search for local businesses online. Be there looking good when your practice area is being searched for. This is a great and free opportunity for you to add a new link to your website, include pictures, logos, team member names and a whole host of additional information.
2. Add a video element to your website. You may think Google is the most popular search engine online but did you know You Tube is the second? Online market research shows videos as the fastest growing source for information online. But beware, people aren’t searching for ads about you or your practice, they are looking for practical, easy to understand information about issues that matter to them. For instance, if you are a family law attorney create a 2-minute video about the top 10 things every couple should know before they divorce.
3. Install Google Analytics on your website and blog. Analytics is another wonderfully insightful and free tool that gives you rich insights into your website traffic and marketing effectiveness. Using Google Analytics, you can write better-targeted content that will rank high and keep your phone ringing.
4. Reach out to clients and referral attorneys all year long. Consumers engage with email more than any other online activity and email marketing aligns focused messaging with specific audience. Using a very inexpensive and easy to understand online tool called Vertical Response, you can build a e-newsletter or just an email postcard in a flash and send it out to your entire database. The service even offers free monitoring that indicates how many people opened the email and what links they clicked on. Use e-marketing for firm news, new partner announcements, case updates, awards and media mentions.
5. Make sure your website is mobile-ready. 80% of consumers keep their mobile devices on them all day long. Internet soothsayers say the future of personal computing won’t be found on a desktop computer but in the palm of your hand in the form of a smart phone. Does your website measure up? You want to make sure your site incorporates click to call options and full screen, interactive content that is built for a smart phone. Developing a mobile site should be at the top of every attorney’s marketing investment list this year.
Integrate these resolutions in the first month of January and you will be way ahead of your competitors all year long!
1. Claim your Google Places page. 97% of consumers search for local businesses online. Be there looking good when your practice area is being searched for. This is a great and free opportunity for you to add a new link to your website, include pictures, logos, team member names and a whole host of additional information.
2. Add a video element to your website. You may think Google is the most popular search engine online but did you know You Tube is the second? Online market research shows videos as the fastest growing source for information online. But beware, people aren’t searching for ads about you or your practice, they are looking for practical, easy to understand information about issues that matter to them. For instance, if you are a family law attorney create a 2-minute video about the top 10 things every couple should know before they divorce.
3. Install Google Analytics on your website and blog. Analytics is another wonderfully insightful and free tool that gives you rich insights into your website traffic and marketing effectiveness. Using Google Analytics, you can write better-targeted content that will rank high and keep your phone ringing.
4. Reach out to clients and referral attorneys all year long. Consumers engage with email more than any other online activity and email marketing aligns focused messaging with specific audience. Using a very inexpensive and easy to understand online tool called Vertical Response, you can build a e-newsletter or just an email postcard in a flash and send it out to your entire database. The service even offers free monitoring that indicates how many people opened the email and what links they clicked on. Use e-marketing for firm news, new partner announcements, case updates, awards and media mentions.
5. Make sure your website is mobile-ready. 80% of consumers keep their mobile devices on them all day long. Internet soothsayers say the future of personal computing won’t be found on a desktop computer but in the palm of your hand in the form of a smart phone. Does your website measure up? You want to make sure your site incorporates click to call options and full screen, interactive content that is built for a smart phone. Developing a mobile site should be at the top of every attorney’s marketing investment list this year.
Integrate these resolutions in the first month of January and you will be way ahead of your competitors all year long!
Monday, January 16, 2012
5 Tips for Launching Your Google Plus Page
With nearly 1,500 followers, Children's National Medical Center in Washington, D.C., dominates the Google+ hospital scene. The next biggest hospital on Google+ has 290 people in circles.
It all started out when Mark Miller, the hospital's director of philanthropic marketing and communication, started a personal account in July to see how it worked.
The hospital has been on Facebook for four years and on Twitter for three years. When Google+ launched, Miller knew the hospital should get involved—even if brand pages weren't allowed in the beginning stages.
"I developed a network of people who care about children's health and hospitals, along with our employees," Miller says.
He posted a mix of personal and work-related material on his page. "When the brand pages were launched, I already was thinking about how we could use the content," Miller says.
When the official account launched Nov. 7 (the first day that brand pages were allowed), Miller already had a handful of blog posts to use, along with pictures to post. Getting content prepared was important, to gain more followers even more quickly. There was no switchover of followers from his personal to brand page. Miller still maintains his personal page.
How the hospital uses Google+
Miller says Google+ is where the hospital puts its "cream of the crop content," such as the story about a boy whose heart was born outside his chest. Another featured article detailed a complicated birth, including a diagram that showed where all 32 specialists were standing in the operating room.
Here is an example of a fundraising-styled post:
"My name is Jaiwen. I'm 12 years old and I have osteosarcoma, a form of bone cancer. In October of last year, x-rays and an MRI showed that I had a malignant tumor in my leg. I had 10 weeks of chemo and then surgery to remove the tumor. A part of my bone was removed and replaced with a prosthesis, and I'm just getting strong enough to ride my bike again.
"Through it all, the nurses and doctors at Children's National Medical Center have been there for me and my mom. My chemo treatments ended in August. I'm so glad! It's been great to get to go back to school again, and to be at home with my family for the holidays.
"That's my story—I just wanted to share it with you on behalf of all of the other kids in the hospital this holiday season. Thank you for listening, and happy holidays!"
Please consider making a donation to help send more kids home with renewed health and hope. Between now and Dec. 31, your donation will be doubled thanks to a gift from Food Lion. It's easy to make a safe and secure donation at https://secure2.convio.net/chfdc/site/Donation2?df_id=4064&4064.donation=form1&s_src=EOY11_Google_Plus
What's next
Miller is excited about Google+'s potential and encourages health care communicators to explore Google+ because it's intuitive.
The hospital's Google+ page has been promoted a little on Twitter and Facebook, but Miller attributes the growth of the social media site to his having been involved early. Miller says the numbers for Google+ aren't as high as for Facebook users, but he says the quality of content is better.
In the future, Miller plans to use "hangouts" more often. "With hangouts, you can do great stuff with timely topics or just say you're going to have a doctor answer questions at a certain time," he says. "You can also make major hospital announcements."
Miller says that using Google+ is like "starting over on Facebook."
"The people who are on Google+ now are the early adopters," Miller says. "So much stuff on Facebook is about games or birthdays. With Google+, you've got a clean slate and user-friendly platform. It's the best new social media platform since Twitter."
5 Google+ tips for hospital communicators
Mark Miller, director of philanthropic marketing and communication at Children's National Medical Center, shared the following advice for hospitals communicators who want to try Google+.
Jessica Levco is co-editor of Ragan's Health Care Communication News, where a version of this story first appeared.Try it yourself. Use a personal Google+ account to think about how your organization can get the most from its brand page. Connect with people, create "circles," share content, do a "hangout," and post photos. Just like in the early days of Facebook and Twitter, this experience will make you more effective when managing your organization's Google+ page.
Take advantage of "circles." The simple "circle" function in Google+ opens all kinds of possibilities for hospitals—and enables you to provide the right content to the right people. It starts with well-organized circles. Consider organizing people as employees, donors, media, partners, service lines, or anything else that fits your organization.
Don't make it all about you. Ask people what they want and need from you, and let that shape your content. Track what gets the most "shares" and "+1s" to dictate your strategy. Thank people who post comments and share content with you.
Fit Google+ into your overall communications strategy. Google+, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other channels have unique offerings and advantages. You'll be most successful if you make a plan and adapt content for each channel.
Track your results. What kind of content gets the most engagement on your Google+ page, and how does that compare with other channels? On your website and emails, which "share" buttons are used the most? What kinds of people and organizations are circling you—and whom would you like to attract? Learn from your experience, see what others are doing, and keep trying new ideas.
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Eight Ethical Ways to Spy on Your Competitors
It's always useful to know what your competitors are up to. Of course you shouldn't let a competitor's marketing activities govern which initiatives you pursue, and you certainly wouldn't do anything unethical. But if you were Microsoft, you'd keep track of what Apple was doing.
To this end, I ran across a collection of practical tips about competitive intelligence from Carol Tice on the Entrepreneur web site. From a dozen tips, I included the best below. I especially like #4:
1. Read the local papers. Subscribe to the daily newspaper and business weekly in the cities where your primary competitors are based. You'll be surprised what competitors might say when they think they're just talking to a small, local audience.
2. Tap your vendors. Product suppliers and service providers talk regularly with all their clients. If you're on good terms with your vendors, chat them up and see what you can get them to spill about your competitors. Don't be pushy, though. Keep the conversation casual.
3. Go to trade shows. You can stand near competitors' booths at a busy time when it's easy to blend in with the crowd and eavesdrop on what they tell prospects. New initiatives often are announced at shows, and chatty salespeople may reveal details. If you think you'll be recognized, send an employee or friend to listen.
4. Google your competitor's website. You can reveal hidden pages by doing Google searches such as: "filetype: doc site: companyname" says August Jackson, a senior competitive intelligence analyst for Ernst & Young in McLean, VA. Change the file type to .pdf, .xls, or .ppt to turn up data or presentations. "It's surprising how many companies put this information up and think, ‘If I don't link to it, no one will find it,'" Jackson says. You also can view the site's source code to see the meta-tags or key words being used to optimize its position in searches.
5. Explore LinkedIn. On LinkedIn, you can sign up to follow a law firm and get notices when updates are posted on its LinkedIn page. You also can search a firm's name on LinkedIn to find former employees and new hires, Jackson says. People may identify and brag about their clients on their personal LinkedIn page updates. If you're worried the company might recognize and block you, ask a colleague to follow the page.
6. Troll Twitter and Facebook chatter. If members of your industry hang out on Facebook, monitor their conversations. Music-rights agent Jennifer Yeko, president of True Talent Management in Beverly Hills, Calif., says she gets the scoop on the clients her competitors sign and the royalty rates they offer from posts made by her Facebook friends.
Many events have a Twitter hashtag that people use to chat and post speakers' comments live. If a competitor is speaking, tune in. Jackson has had success asking follow-up questions by responding and using the same hashtag.
7. Find competitors' job ads. Job portal Indeed is a great place for sussing out postings because it aggregates listings from many online job boards. Watch the skills a company may be hiring for; they're a leading indicator for new initiatives, says Sean Campbell of Cascade Insights in Oregon City, Ore.
8. Check Slideshare. Law firms frequently use this popular portal to share slideshow presentations but forget to take them down. Presentations may contain financial data, forecasts and information about new projects.
Visit 12 Ways to (Legally) Spy on Your Competitors for all the tips.
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