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

I was recently reminded by an attorney client that there is a marketing opportunity in even the simplest of daily activities such as email. Upon following up with him regarding approval for a website blurb, I received an out of office reply:

“I am presently out of the office seeking to be shark bait on a dive trip in Barbados.  I will return May 1.  Please contact my assistant if there is any emergency, and I will follow up. My services are best before Mai Tai hour.  So, please leave messages early.”

The reply included the essentials – when he would return; who could handle issues in the interim – but took the extra step of sharing a bit of his personality. I have no doubt that this was a memorable response to every email recipient and likely not one they’d typically receive from an attorney.

What are you doing to make yourself memorable to clients?

- By Berbay Senior Account Manager Beth Miller

In-house counsel can provide significant opportunities for attorneys in private practice—if those attorneys can reach general counsel, meet their specific needs and build a long-term relationship with them.

Just how to do that was the subject of a panel discussion (“Effective Approaches to Selling and Building Relationships”) I attended at the Law Firm Marketing Partner Forum early this year. The discussion was moderated by Cathleen Flaherty, editor-in-chief of InsideCounsel magazine, and featured participants Stephen Kaplan, senior vice president and general counsel of Connextions, Inc.; Darryl T. Mann, partner at Torkin Manes, LLP; and Ron Peppe, vice president of legal and human resources at Canam Steel Corp.

Reaching general counsel

The in-house counsel participating in the discussion said the best way for private-practice attorneys to persuade them to go outside their go-to corral of outside lawyers is to customize their pitch—Show me you understand me, my industry and my issue, they said, and you just might get my business.

The general counsel also said they view trade-group events as places to meet private-practice attorneys who are familiar with their particular industry. Follow-up is important here, they added: If a private-practice attorney meets an inside counsel at a conference, and it seems like there might be a relationship there, that attorney should establish contact by e-mail afterward.

Finally, the in-house counsel noted that a CFO usually oversees their contracting and are always seeking to limit expenses, so outside lawyers pitching their services need to keep the CFO in mind as well.

Meeting inside counsel’s specific needs

In talking about actually working with private-practice attorneys, the top-line topic the general counsel discussed was billing.

They stressed that outside counsel should delineate at an engagement’s outset what they will do and how much it will cost, and let them know if they need to deviate from that. Also, they said private-practice attorneys should include in their cost estimate the expense of supplementary services like e-discovery and trial-graphics design. The inside counsel reminded their outside counterparts that though they, too, are attorneys, they work in a business context where thoroughness is not always as important as cost-effectiveness, and where lawyers and their billings are often viewed with suspicion.

Building a long-term relationship

For private-practice attorneys wanting to continue working with in-house counsel after their initial engagement has concluded, the discussion participants offered numerous suggestions:

First, they said, make recommendations regarding how costs might be reduced in a future engagement, based on lessons learned this go-around.

Too, keep in touch with general counsel and keep them apprised of new legal issues for which they might need assistance by e-mailing them a client alert when such an issue arises. These communications should be to-the-point, provide information beyond the issue itself (e.g., analysis or predictions), and be clear to a business audience as well as a legal audience. Most importantly, client alerts should be tailored to their recipients.

Lastly, if a private-practice attorney would like to work with a company long-term, Connextion’s Stephen Kaplan recommended establishing relationships not only with the top inside counsel, but also with their subordinates. Often, Kaplan noted, there is a large age gap between those two parties, and the younger in-house counsel respond better to pitches that employ data—specific, quantifiable results from past engagements.

-By Berbay Principal Sharon Berman

I recently read an article, “The Science of Social Timing,” compiled by Dan Zarrella, Pure360 and HubSpot, discussing how timing can impact your email marketing.

This data suggests that there are specific windows in which sending an email could positively or negatively affect your readership.  For example, statistics show that:

• Between the hours of 6 am and 10 am, consumer interest is generally at its highest, because people allow themselves to be distracted.

• The average blog gets the most traffic around 11 am.

However, time of day is not the only factor worth noting.  For example, email open rates are at their highest during the weekend, by as much as 44%.  Although this may indicate you should be sending your emails over the weekend, the weekends are also prone to the highest abuse reports and bounce rates. Of course, these statistics might not accurately reflect the industry you are in, rather they act as a guide to experiment with your own clients.  Your own email timing data is the best guide.

Additional tips in the article:

• Emails related to property and financial services are generally opened between 3 pm and 5 pm.

• Email abuse reports are reported highest in the early morning during all days of the week, with the weekend being the highest.

• Email bounce rates occur highest in the early morning during all days of the week, with the weekend being the highest.

• Email open rates and click rates are highest in the early morning during all days of the week, with the weekend being the highest.

• The optimal frequency for sending emails is generally 1 to 4 emails a month.

• Consumer promotion emails are best sent between 7 pm and 10 pm.

• Holiday promotion emails are best sent between 5 pm and 7 pm.

When do you think your email marketing is most successful?

Not too long ago, I attended a presentation by Howard Stern.

No, not that one; Howard Stern, the president and director of Hudson Pacific Properties, a real estate investment trust (REIT) focused on owning, operating and acquiring office and media/entertainment properties in select growing California markets. Mr. Stern spoke before the Moriah Society, a real estate professionals association and American Jewish University fundraising group. I thought I’d share his insights into the dynamics of a couple expanding real estate markets: the tech market in San Francisco and the entertainment market in Los Angeles.

San Francisco tech market

When Hudson went public in 2010, its real estate holdings were concentrated in Southern California. Today, 55 percent of the company’s annualized rent is generated by San Francisco properties.

The Bay Area’s real estate market, particularly for tech-company offices, has recently mushroomed: Stern says rents have increased 15 percent in the past few months, and predicts further, double-digit increases in the next few years.

Deja vu? Not quite. Stern insists the current tech real estate boom is fundamentally different from the one that accompanied the dot-com bubble. Then, the property in high demand was large high-tech manufacturing facilities in Silicon Valley. Now, the growth area is social media and the cloud, where physical space is not as important; accordingly, the real estate that people want is office space in San Francisco.

Stern also noted that whereas dot-com companies commonly overcommitted themselves real estate-wise, leasing expensive properties even when they weren’t profitable, 2012′s recession-born tech firms are conservative, leasing more modestly, but more sustainably.

Los Angeles entertainment market

Hudson’s other focus area is entertainment production facilities in Los Angeles.

Stern pointed out that the supply side of this market is limited: There are only 305 stages in L.A. (fewer if one needs a stage of 5,000 square feet or more). The reason is, stages require a lot of land and can’t be built one on top of the other, so constructing new ones isn’t very profitable. Meanwhile, the demand side of the market remains high. Although film production is increasingly relocating to outside of L.A., TV is generally staying put. Ninety-five percent of Hudson’s revenue from this sector is from TV production.

The big drawback of the entertainment market is that the leases typically aren’t long-term, because they’re based on short-term factors such as whether a TV show is renewed. Real estate investment trusts like Hudson don’t like that, since cash flow and continuity are integral to their business model. So, Stern has been trying to persuade lessees to commit to longer-term agreements. One strategy he’s using is making long-term leases less burdensome than short-term ones (including fewer stipulations and such). Another tactic is including in long-term leases a relocation clause, which commits the landlord to paying the tenant’s relocation costs if the tenant is forced to move during the lease term (because, say, their show got cancelled).

Lastly, Stern discussed some ways aside from rent that Hudson generates revenue from its entertainment properties. Again, stages can’t be built on top of each other, so the amount of revenue the properties can generate through basic rent is capped. To ensure sufficient cash flow from the stages, Hudson requires tenants to use the properties’ so-called ancillary services—phones, intercom, parking, HVAC, lights, etc.–rather than bringing in their own. Such services yield forty percent of the income created by Hudson’s entertainment properties.

-By Berbay Principal Sharon Berman

Oftentimes, it seems to me, providing good client service is as simple as letting the client know they’re being heard. I’ve noticed a couple examples of this lately in my out-of-office life.

The first was at a sushi place my husband and I order takeout from every week, Santa Monica’s Sushi Sho. We’re creatures of habit: Week in and week out, we get the same thing, with the exception of maybe a few items. The other day, the woman who regularly takes my order says to me, “Look, I’m going to just keep your basic order on the bulletin board here; that way when you call, you can just tell me what the changes are.” That impressed me. On one hand, it made things easier for her as much as it did for me. On the other hand, it made me feel like when I had been calling to place my order every week, I’d been talking not to some automaton, but to a real live person who had heard me, gotten to know me and my order, and now wanted to make things easier for us both.

Example two happened at the place I’ve been getting my bagels recently, New York Bagel and Deli (on Wilshire Boulevard in Santa Monica). Whenever more than a couple people are in line, the employees make it a point to intermittently say things like, “We’ll be right with you,” and, “Thanks for your patience.” It’s a small but, I think, very nice gesture. Not only does it reduce any frustration the queued customers might be feeling, but it also gracefully acknowledges and expresses appreciation for the customers’ patronage and patience.

At Berbay, we try to let our clients know they’re being heard just by keeping them in the loop, even when the wheels are in motion but there isn’t much to report. We periodically reach out to clients merely to say, “Just wanted to let you know we’re working on this, and that it hasn’t fallen through the cracks. We’ll keep you up-to-date on the progress.” At the end of the day, showing clients you’re listening to them and you appreciate them, is as important in our line of work as it is in the bagel or sushi biz.

-By Berbay Principal Sharon Berman