Berbay's Blog: Marketing for law firms, engineers, CPAs, architects and other professional services

Really good ideas are almost as rare as natural redheads.  So when I spotted one at the salon recently—a good idea, not a natural redhead—it jumped out at me.

The salon was offering to take 10 percent off whatever hair product they were promoting that day if you brought in an old hair product of your own. Ladies—you get why this is a clever ploy to increase hair-product sales. My medicine cabinet, for one, is absolutely littered with products I’ve bought—when my hair was somehow different, or somebody recommended a brand, or whatever—but used only once or twice, or never. There aren’t many people who this promotion wouldn’t cause to think of their medicine-cabinet graveyard and resolve to return, exhumed hair product in hand.

The problem is, I wasn’t interested in the products the salon was promoting—but I would have been interested in a discount on a salon service or another promotion.

Those who market professional services have a lesson to learn from this. The salon had a good idea, but it wasn’t executing the idea to its full extent. When you’ve got a good idea, really question yourself about whether you’re taking full advantage of it. Could it be implemented in a different area of your business? Could it be used to reach another market? Ask yourself: Am I giving my good marketing ideas the full treatment?

Berbay Corp. Senior Account Manager, Beth Miller, recently spoke on a panel to a group of attorneys and legal services providers discussing, “A New Outlook for Legal Marketing 2012,” which covered innovative methods of marketing, including videos, blogs and teleseminars. Beth recaps the discussion:

As attendees began asking questions about implementing these tactics, the panelists reminded the audience that it’s easy to get caught up in the “newest” way to market, but that it’s critical to look at your marketing tactics in the context of the bigger picture – how each one fits into an overall marketing plan, otherwise, you may get the phone to ring, but not with the kinds of clients you want.

Implementing any marketing tactics presumes that you’ve already created foundational items such as a database of current clients, prospective clients and referral sources. Without identifying your target market, who will you be reminding to read the blog you’ve created, or watch the videos posted on your website?

As 2012 gets underway, it’s a great time to reflect on what worked and what didn’t in the past year. But before you jump on the latest marketing bandwagon, avoid shooting from the hip and consider how to integrate these new methods into a strategic plan that will generate more business.

We’ve all seen them: Those square barcodes that have been popping up everywhere from cereal boxes to business cards. Many of us, however, don’t know what the strange-looking images are—much less how we might want to use them in our marketing.

The barcodes, called QR (Quick Response) codes, work something like the barcodes found in supermarkets or other stores: When scanned, they provide information. A QR code can support up to nine different types of data including, contact info, URL link, calendar event, geographic location, etc.

In order to read the code, you will need to “scan” it by taking a photo with a smartphone camera (Keep in mind, you have to download an application to read the codes). Once read by a smartphone, QR codes direct potential clients to a “landing page” on the internet, where they will be able to access what they were sent for, whether it is information about trends in your practice area, event details, contact information, etc.

If you’re thinking about incorporating QR codes into your marketing efforts, there are a few points to consider:

• First, what will you provide using the code? A video about a recent court decision that impacts your clients? Contact information?  A discount?  How will your offer improve your potential clients’ lives? You need to provide something of value to keep them engaged.
• You should deploy a “call to action” with your QR code—just a few words near the code to entice people to scan it. For example, “Scan this code for a free gift,” yields a higher scan rate than, “Scan this code.”
• Think about design and usability. Color, for instance, makes a code look more approachable than the traditional black and white. A common mistake when it comes to QR codes is to direct people to your regular website. Aside from the fact that many websites don’t load very well on cell phones, your standard website doesn’t provide any added value to a potential client. He or she could have easily accessed your website without the code.
• Once you have your QR code marketing campaign in place, it is important to track the results. The most meaningful way to do this is to track not only the number of scans, but how much time visitors spent on the landing page. If the landing page is your Facebook page or Twitter account, you should record how many new fans/followers you received during your QR code campaign.

QR codes are here to stay, and will only be popping up in more places as time goes on. You can quickly and easily generate a code using sites such as Kaywa, Qurify and Delivr. QR code marketing can be quite successful—if, before embarking, you give thought to the factors involved in developing a high-quality campaign.

One of the most important aspects of any professional’s website is the biography page, which is the section that is often looked at the most. What we’re seeing is the morphing of each firm professional from having a “cookie-cutter” biography page to a biography microsite—a miniature website, which much like their larger counterparts, can have multiple pages. For instance, within a biography, along with facts like education and experience, there might be navigation tabs for published articles, awards, or case studies, which then make the biography more of a standalone website within the firm’s umbrella site.

People forget that often site visitors no longer enter a website via the home page. For example, when they run a search, they enter the site from wherever that search leads, meaning they might be coming to the website via a practice area or a biography page. The latter is particularly significant because research shows that clients hire the professional as opposed to the firm, and each lawyer is selling him/herself. Therefore, you want to think in terms of creating your own website within the larger firm’s context; it’s no longer about just having a one-page biography. Instead, it’s about creating a microsite that provides page visitors with a deeper amount of information and expanded content. This transformation of the one-size-fits-all biography page into more of a personalized landing page is one reason microsites are becoming more common.

Another reason for this transformation is that no two lawyers want to be limited to marketing the same way. Whether there are 20 or 2,000 lawyers in a firm, each has a different background and is selling something different. There are also those lawyers who have a much better understanding of marketing and how to sell themselves, and you want to be able to work with those variables. Microsites provide individual attorneys the ability to use their landing page as a personal business development tool and control the amount of marketing they do while still incorporating the firm’s overall culture.

Ultimately, microsites are designed with the intent to convert a site visitor into a lead. If developed and maintained well, microsites can greatly benefit professionals and their firms.

“Litigation follows the wealth,” commented the Hon. Andrew Guilford on a panel of judges at the recent Los Angeles County Bar Association program, “New Patent Litigation Pilot Program in the Central District of California: What Every Patent Litigator Needs to Know.” Along with Judge Guilford, the Hon. Otis D. Wright, the Hon. George H. Wu, and the Hon. S. James Otero were the panelists at this well-attended and very engaging program.  Judge Guilford added that intellectual property (IP) reflects the economy’s future. He illustrated his point by noting that a few years ago, there was a lot of real estate litigation; then, there was financial-services litigation, and now there is IP litigation—so litigation follows the money and is definitely on the rise.

With an eye toward helping Central District judges handle this increase in IP cases— which represents about 4 percent of their dockets—as intelligently and expeditiously as possible, the District launched this patent litigation pilot program on September 19, 2011. Now, within 30 days of a case filing, judges can reassign newly filed cases to this panel if they involve a patent issue.

During the discussion, the judges acknowledged that they are not patent experts and not Federal Circuit judges. So, they need lawyers’ time and expertise to get them to the level of the proficiency in the federal system as they address IP litigation.

The panelists also noted that 18 districts have adopted local patent rules, and that 12 have adopted them within the last three years. Citing a Law360 article, Judge Otero commented that there is a lot of forum shopping because of the way the rules are structured in different districts. Currently, the Central District does not have local patent rules. When asked how many attorneys in the audience would like local patent rules in the Central District, a majority of the group raised their hands.

Additionally, the panel addressed the issue of damages and how judges act as gatekeepers in this regard. Because more cases settle before going to trial, attorneys have fewer opportunities to hone their cross-examination skills. The judges acknowledged that if attorneys were better at cross-examination, they’d be making points about damages and their value during the cross-exam. However, because lawyers are not as skilled in this area, the onus is increasingly on judges to lead the discourse. For instance, it is less up to judges to say that the discount rate you’re using is really ridiculous. Whereas they’re really thinking that recognizing and making this point is what a skilled attorney would do.

Judge Guilford pondered who was the best expert with respect to damages — an economist or a CPA.  In his view, selecting the expert is outcome determinative — as soon as the judge approves the expert, the case is done. He wants an expert who will call it right down the middle.  An audience member who was both an economist and CPA commented that an attorney experienced in cross-examining witnesses should draw out the story well enough so that the jury can make a decision.

The kind of experts Judge Wright prefers are true experts who have devoted their lives to that particular subject and published on the subject.  For example, mention a treatise at trial and bring in the author as the expert — that’s heavy duty credibility in his eyes. He eschews “hired guns” who will testify to whatever their paying clients want.

The judges concluded the forum by offering practice pointers from their perspective:

• Be brief. Consider how you can best communicate with the judge and jury. Build themes and coalesce and simplify messages.

• Retain trust. One panelist sees many attorneys lose a judge’s trust by overreaching or making outrageous claims. He emphasized how critical it is to protect one’s credibility. Judge Wu added that full disclosure is also part of credibility. For instance, if you lack information, acknowledge it.

• Be transparent.  Judge Otero described an attorney who impressed him when he said, “Here’s a brief and here’s the law that supports it, but I really want you to be aware there’s this one decision that goes against this.” Judge Otero said he has never forgotten that attorney, who, through his honesty, built credibility and trust.

• Be courteous to court staff. Court staff is an extension of a judge and will tell him or her their impressions of attorneys; this, too, affects trust and credibility.

• Keep everything simple. Because these judges are not on the Federal Circuit, they don’t have that level of expertise. Therefore, simple is best.

It was clear that the audience found this seminar as engrossing as I did.  The panelists offered insights that many in the audience hadn’t considered before and information that will benefit them as they move forward in their work.