Constant Content : Legal Ghostwriting & Content : Janet Raasch : Copy for Lawyers & Attorneys, Law Firm Business Development

The Legal Marketing Association provides guidance on marketing, business development and communications within the legal profession.  This article summarizes a presentation by Betsi Roach, executive director of the LMA, on important themes that emerged at the 25th annual LMA Conference held last month, as well as recent LMA developments.  This excerpt covers the first of four conference tracks:  Driving growth and profitability.  This is part two of a six-part article.  For a link to the entire article, see below.

“One major theme of the conference was the continuing evolution of law firms from a purely marketing culture to a sales culture,” said Roach.  “This involves a reallocation of personnel and resources, an emphasis on niche marketing, the creation of industry and client-focused teams, the development of sophisticated and customized proposals, and the gathering and use of competitive market intelligence.”

As part of this process, successful firms are providing business development training and coaching to help select lawyers grow their books of business.  “After all, lawyers are not only the ‘product,’ but also the ones who have to close the actual ‘sale,’” said Roach.

Another session covered the strategy and tactics behind successful written and face-to-face client pitches, including pitch team composition and leadership, elements of the process (strategy, staffing, pricing, submissions and presentations), debriefing, and using what was learned to improve future effectiveness.

A session on law firm economics devoted considerable attention to the delivery of legal services less expensively in a highly competitive environment – especially through better pricing and better processes. “Increasingly, law firms across the country understand the need to operate like businesses,” said Roach.   Finally, technology was discussed as a robust way to deliver premium content to high-value targets throughout the sales cycle.

For the full article:  LMA Conference Synopsis and Update

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

If you care about content marketing, you should subscribe to the Junta42 Content Marketing blog, written by Joe Pulizzi.

In a recent post, "How much should brands pay for content marketing," Joe delves deep into one of my favorite subjects -- how to price content writing services.  True content marketing involves not only individual bits of content, but also the strategy and execution surrounding that content.

Joe's post was inspired by another great content writing blogger, Kate Headen Waddell at Savvy B2B Marketing, who wrote Pay Peanuts, Get Monkeys.

According to Joe, the process of creating content includes:

The marketing plan

The content strategy within the marketing plan

The specific tactics (i.e, a blog) within the content strategy

An editorial plan for the tactic (the managing editor's role)

Base content for the tactic (i.e., a blog post)

Review of the base content (expert review and proofreading)

Distribution of the content through the content management system

Optimization of the content for search engines (on-page and off-page)

Syndication of the content (i.e., through Facebook and Twitter)

Integration of the content (back to the marketing plan and other content and traditional marketing strategies)

Measuring the content (through analytics, conversions, direct/cross sales or other qualitative measures)

Reevaluating the content (based on the feedback about the content through analytics)

When calculating cost, most clients look only at the base content -- not the entire process.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments (2)
• Trackbacks
• Share Link