Berbay's Blog: Marketing for law firms, Engineers, CPAs, Architects and other professional services

How do you stay up-to-date on the latest trends in your industry? What are people saying about you and your firm? To answer these questions, set up a Google Alert. A Google Alert is a program which monitors the web and sends you relevant email updates on your search term or query.

To stay current on happenings in your area of expertise, set an alert using the name of your specialty or practice area, or any important terms related to it. You’ll receive email updates on any online content that mentions your keyword, whether a news article, blog, press release or conference announcement.

It’s always a good idea to set a Google alert for your firm name, as well as the names of your professionals. You’ll receive an email whenever someone writes something about your firm or its members, good or bad. The names of your clients or customers also make good keywords for Google alerts if you want to stay up to date on what others are writing about them in news stories or blogs.

By staying up-to-date with Google Alerts, you are giving yourself the option of responding with your own feedback and participating in Web 3.0.

Holiday cards can be an effective marketing tool—if they’re done right. The ones that leave a lasting impression on me are cards where someone has handwritten my name and signed it by hand. The gold star goes to cards that have a personal note. What a great way to remind a client, prospective client or referral source that you’ve taken time out of your busy life to think of them and write a few words specifically to them.

I immediately toss holiday cards that don’t have my name and an imprinted signature or firm signature. Why would someone spend 44 cents to let me know they’re not thinking about me? Maybe they believe they are fulfilling an obligation by running the envelope through the postage meter.

Equally thoughtless are email holiday cards. Yes, I know it’s the way the world is going, and I’m riding the wave of technology, too. But when it comes to email holiday cards, I dig in my heels and immediately hit the delete key.

One good thing about the continued march of impersonalization is that personalization stands out that much more, which is why it’s important to personalize your holiday cards if you want them to be effective marketing tools. To achieve an even greater impact, send a card that has something to do with the addressee’s industry, such as a humorous lawyer or CPA holiday card that makes people laugh. Remember to include a brief note and your signature! Now that can make a difference.

If your cards say nothing and don’t even have a name or hand signature, they are just more of the clutter that fills our lives at this time of year. Although there is generally some value in getting your firm name in front of people, if it’s in the form of an impersonal holiday card, the effect is minimal. In fact, it would not make one bit of difference to your business if you didn’t send impersonal cards. I guarantee not one of your clients would be wondering why they didn’t receive a holiday card from you this year.

I saw a terrific example of why branding works on my recent vacation in Australia.  Burger King is named Hungry Jack’s there. When BK decided to establish franchises in Australia, the name Burger King had already been taken by another takeout place. The Australian franchisee chose the name Hungry Jack’s, but used the same logo, color and graphics for which Burger King is known in the United States. When I first saw a Hungry Jack’s sign, I didn’t even notice that the name was different; I just recognized the familiar appearance. The logo, color and graphics immediately read Burger King, promising and delivering the same reliable meal as in the U.S.

And that’s the heart of branding: making a promise and reliably delivering on it.

Do your current and former clients only associate you with professional services you have already provided to them? If so, your ongoing challenge is to educate them about the other services you can offer. Unless you gently, but steadfastly promote your full range of professional services, they may not think of you when they have a need for them.

It’s not easy to market your other capabilities in a way that penetrates your clients’
consciousness. In addition to being consistent and persistent, you have to use a range of communication vehicles, such as email, hard copy, podcasts, etc., because different people perceive messages differently from different sources. Here are several marketing and public relations tactics to consider:

• On those marketing pieces which describe one specific service, list your other services either along the side or at the bottom. Do the same for your web pages wherever possible.
• When the time is right, bring up the fact that your company also provides professional service X and that you’ve given some thought to how it might help their business. Offer to introduce your in-house expert to them.
• Send your client a case study related to a professional service you’d like to introduce.
  Ideally, it should be in the client’s industry. Include a handwritten note or personalized email saying something like, “As you already know we provide service X, but I thought that service Y could make a difference in your business. I would welcome the opportunity to talk with you about it.”
• Forward a firm podcast related to the service, such as a case study, again stating that you thought it might be relevant for the client’s business.

Are you afraid your clients might think you’re always trying to “sell” them something? Actually, if you believe in the value of this additional service and its benefit to your clients’ business, you’re doing them a favor by recommending something that could increase their business success. It’s just good public relations—provided you handle these conversations professionally. If you encounter strong resistance, simply back away and keep the topic in mind for another time. The important thing to remember is to use a range of marketing vehicles, and to keep your promotion low-key but constant You never know when your gentle reminder will come at just the right time when a client needs the service.

What kind of information should appear in your professional biography, whether it’s on your website or a biography you furnish to an organization as a speaker?  Should your biography include personal information, such as where you were born, the high school you went to, or  the number of children you have?  If so, which information should appear first: personal or professional?

These questions are part of the great biography debate and often are raised by clients as we help them develop biographies for marketing purposes.  I have strong preferences in this regard, and even a visceral reaction.

The biography’s purpose determines how it is written. On your website, the biography’s purpose is to immediately establish your credibility. That means your professional experience and expertise belong right up front in the first paragraph.  Think about your bio as a resume with your current responsibilities and job position coming first, followed by your secondary information.

What type of biography would start out with personal information?  Maggie Lukaszewicz, one of our account managers, pointed out that general biographies are written this way – in chronological order.  This is the kind of biography you might see on Wikipedia or other sources of information on people.  But these biographies are not being written to establish credibility for business development purposes.

On a professional service website, a biography written in chronological order sends an unprofessional message.  It’s counterproductive to claim that your small firm is a hidden gem who can do the equivalent work of larger firms while the biographies on your website start out with where you were born and went to high school. From the get-go, let your biographies promote and substantiate the reasons your prospect should hire you.

Sometimes when I meet with a professional service firm that wants to talk about marketing, a painful image comes to mind—a great lumbering beast, its body parts flailing about, one not knowing what the other one is doing. Although the beast is lumbering forward, it’s wasting so much energy which, if harnessed, could propel it smoothly forward.

Sure, the beast may stay alive even without any investment in marketing, whether in-house or through an outside agency. After all, the owners of most professional service firms are making a nice living. They’re not in dire straits. But think how much more they could accomplish if they harnessed their energy and coordinated their marketing. With all its body parts working in sync, the lumbering beast would turn into a sleek, strong stallion.

If your database isn’t in tiptop shape, your marketing program is missing its very core. By database I mean the list of people with whom you want to communicate on a regular basis — current and former clients, prospective clients, and referral sources.

Tiptop shape means your database has to be up-to-date with everyone’s current contact information, including email addresses. It also means your database should be targeted so it can deliver its maximum potential. Develop some codes that make sense for targeting your audience. For example, you can code your entries according to the frequency with which they should receive information: As, Bs and Cs. You can also code the database by category (e.g. client, referral source); by profession, and/or by industry.

Getting the database in shape takes time and focus, but if you set up simple systems, it shouldn’t take too much time. Be careful not to slice and dice it into too many pieces, or it will get too complicated, and you probably won’t use all the groupings. Designate one person in your office who should receive information about any updates or additions, and establish a schedule for inputting changes (such as weekly).

This time of year is perfect for focusing on getting your database in shape. If you send out holiday cards and gifts, don’t make the mistake of limiting your clean-up efforts to the subset of recipients. It’s much more efficient to use this opportunity to scrub the entire database. Wouldn’t it be great to start a new year with a database you can actually use to make a difference in your business?

A couple of years ago, I took over as leader of about a 25 person networking group, which meets monthly. No one who knows me would call me shy and retiring, but I’m also not what you would call a “born leader.” However, in the past few years, I’ve seen my leadership skills grow and my confidence increase. I realized that my ability to lead was there all the time, waiting to be unleashed.

How does this relate to turning professionals into better marketers? Teaching lawyers, accountants and other professionals how to market is not about forcing them to do something unpleasant which does not come naturally to them. Rather, it’s about unleashing their innate ability to market and putting it to work so they can get better and better at it.

The fact is, most professionals who really want to build their own book of business can nurture the skills to do so. It takes a lot of work because you need to develop skills on two levels – your personal ability to connect with others, as well as the marketing tactics that support and maintain your connections, such as mailings, emailings, etc. Some professionals will always be better at it than others, but your inner marketer is there, if you’re just willing to set it free.

How often should you send an eblast? There is no pat answer, but John, who owns the spinning studio I go to, gave me some food for thought today. I told him that I enjoyed receiving his email newsletters, which seemed to come fairly frequently, although I had never stopped to think exactly how often. He told me that he was sending them out once a week, but originally had not stated the frequency of distribution on the newsletter. Then, people began commenting that they didn’t understand why they were getting them so often. This prompted him to add “weekly” to the subject line and masthead (e.g., “John’s weekly newsletter”) and people “got it.” No one has commented on the frequency since.

The lesson we can learn as marketers, i.e., professional services firms sending out eblasts, is that the frequency of our communications impacts the recipients’ expectations. In short, we need to let people know how often they will be receiving the email. However, make sure you don’t commit to a schedule you can’t keep. For example, don’t say “once a month” and then send it only every six weeks. If you don’t want to commit to a particular schedule, just say that it’s distributed “regularly,” which doesn’t tie you to a time frame.

If I told you I knew the location of an untapped gold mine you could exploit for years, but it would take some effort to claim, would you be interested? I do know where that gold mine is, and I’m always amazed at how many professionals lose interest when they hear what it takes to tap into it.

What is that gold mine? It’s a database of specific contacts in your target market. Many professionals want to market to very specific markets, but if a database is not readily available for purchase, they balk at the time and effort of creating their own list. What they don’t realize is that this list could yield much more than the initial investment, and, if they keep it “clean” and up-to-date, could help bring in revenue for years to come.

It’s very surprising to me that we can spend time discussing marketing strategy and public relations, which messages resonate, and other key factors; but when it comes to creating a gold mine that is the foundation of the whole program, they dig in their heels.

Whether your firm specializes in litigation, consulting or real estate development, target databases are central to your marketing program. In fact, spending money on other tactics before this, with the exception of your website, is an inefficient use of resources.  The time to develop the list is not billable time, but it yields tremendous results over the long term and more than pays for itself.