Spotlight Branding - May 2021

Spotlight Branding - May 2021

MAY 2021 (800) 406-7229 SpotlightBranding.com

THE BIGGEST FLAW IN YOUR MARKETING MIGHT SURPRISE YOU WHAT LAWYERS CAN LEARN FROM SPEEDING TICKETS A few weeks ago at a company meeting, one of my employees shared a story with the team. They told us they had gotten two speeding tickets within the last year. (Yes, I got a little concerned about their safety on the road — but that’s not the point of this story!)

After each ticket, my employee opened their mailbox to find dozens of mailers from different local attorneys. These attorneys were on the ball, and they were pursuing this lead hard. Our team member estimated they received around 30 pieces of physical direct mail in total. But here’s the kicker: None of those attorneys got their business.

“Our team member estimated they received around 30 pieces of physical direct mail in total. But here’s the kicker: None of those attorneys got their business.”

Now, I’m not saying doing things like sending mailers, paying for SEO, running online ads, and buying legal referral services like Lawyers.com and AVVO don’t deserve to be part of your marketing strategy. They have their time and place. But they won’t patch the biggest hole or create the same amount of opportunity as simply

Instead of picking a mailer out of the stack, my employee turned to their friends and family.

“Hey,” they asked, “do you know any attorneys who do traffic tickets?”

The answer was “Yes!” In fact, they ended up using two separate referrals to handle their tickets because they were pulled over in two different cities. If you do a lot of direct mail campaigns, this probably seems like a depressing story. After all, every lawyer who sent a mailer to my team member ended up totally wasting their time and money! But look on the bright side. What can you learn from this? To me, this story reveals one of the biggest holes law firms leave in their marketing strategies: They don’t stay in touch with their leads, clients, and referral partners. The truth is that even today, the majority of people don’t want to find their attorney through a piece of mail or an online advertisement. They want a referral from someone they already know and trust. And you can only get those referrals by staying in touch — an opportunity many lawyers miss out on. If you’ve ever let a lead walk out the door without following up or left a networking event with a business card you never added to your mailing list, then you’re guilty of this neglect.

nurturing your network, which includes your friends, family, colleagues, and connections (basically anyone you’ve spoken with or who follows you on social media) and, by extension, their friends, family, etc. Here at Spotlight Branding, we have a strategy to help our clients stay in touch with their networks: The Content Loop™. Once a person from your network enters the loop, we use content to consistently stay in touch with them, remind them of what you do, and keep your firm’s name in their heads. Social media posts, email newsletters, and blogs all play a role. The Content Loop™ ensures that when the topic of lawyers comes up, everyone in your network will think of you first. Using this strategy, we’ve seen clients double or even triple their referrals. Want to find out more about The Content Loop™ and how you can use it to patch the hole in your marketing strategy? Visit SpotlightBranding.com/NL today and click “Resources.”

–Marc Cerniglia

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Nadine is one of the rare attorneys who had a marketing background prior to becoming an attorney. However, once she started practicing, she realized she didn’t have the time to do the marketing activities that she knew worked (using blogs, emails, and social media). Although the initial majority of her business came through Google searches, she has seen an increase in referrals since working with us. Her email newsletter almost always gets responses to the featured topic or another issue at hand, proving that email marketing works well and drives referrals and new business! IMMIGRATION LAW, LAKE WORTH, FL Nadine Heitz

WANT MORE REFERRALS AND BETTER CLIENTS? Visit SpotlightBranding.com/NL to schedule a call!

Additionally, Nadine’s firm has experienced incredible growth, even during 2020! She now has four assistants helping out at the firm, and it is due, in part, to the commitment she made with her marketing, recognizing how important it is, and delegating those tasks to people like us to help make it happen.

HOW YOU CAN USE CUSTOMER STORIES To Make a Killer Marketing Campaign

MEETYOUR CUSTOMERS WHERE THEYARE. Find a way to get customer feedback on the products and services your business provides. What do they like about your product? How have those products and services helped them the most? Incorporating this information into your storytelling campaign can also ensure that those stories resonate a lot more with your customers. DITCH THE JARGON. Always remember to keep your stories short, to the point, and accessible. No customer is going to be interested in reading an eight- page white paper or listen to a testimonial that they can’t understand because it’s so full of industry jargon. That’s the beauty of good storytelling — it can impact anyone, transcending industries.

associations. Using stories, you can show how customers who use your product or service incorporate it into their rituals. If others see that your product has a benefit, they might be compelled to do the same. Before sharing testimonials of customers using your products willy-nilly, however, there are a few tips that might help you curate the stories your customers share and see. MAKE YOUR CUSTOMERS THE CENTER OF THE STORY. Many businesses make their product or their brand the hero of the story, but this isn’t the most effective way to grab your customers’ attention through storytelling. Instead, focusing on your customers, their rituals, and the success they’ve achieved can resonate a lot more powerfully. Of course, you’ll want to make it clear how your product helped them achieve success.

Stories are one of the oldest forms of communication. For as long as there has been language, people have used words to spin yarns and convey ideas. Today, when it comes to marketing your products, stories emotionally impact your customers in a way that mere facts never could. How do stories do this? According to behavioral economist and author Peter McGraw, memories are built on associations. When you form a habit, routine, or ritual, you’re essentially creating a new set of

More Referrals. Better Clients. Higher ROI.

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Millions of people lost their jobs in 2020, and in their search for new positions, they discovered a new-to-them social network: LinkedIn. Yes, you read that right — LinkedIn is having a moment. According to a Q3 2020 Performance Report from Microsoft, the platform grew 26% in that quarter alone, adding a whopping 15 million members. People have started posting on LinkedIn in the same daily, scroll- addicted way they do on Facebook. And if you AND your firm aren’t already on LinkedIn taking advantage of the surge, you should be! Here are three ways to get the most out of your accounts. 1. Post the same content to your personal AND business pages. Yes, we said it. Not only is cross-posting allowed, it should be encouraged! Unlike Facebook and Twitter, LinkedIn was made for business and self- promotion, so you shouldn’t be embarrassed about posting all of your firm’s content on your personal page as well. Of course, you can also post different content on each page if you’d prefer, as long as you’re posting on both consistently. A Huge Time-Saver RESOURCE OF THE MONTH THIS APP MAKES SENDING EMAILS EASIER! Don’t Sleep on the LinkedIn Boom! 3 Ways to Increase Your Firm’s Presence and Get Results If you find yourself sending the same email over and over — and over again — the truth is that you’ll end up losing hours of time that you could have spent doing actual legal work. Fortunately, there’s a great app that can help you save hours by sending emails in just a few seconds! TextExpander is a low-cost app that allows you to write out long emails by just tapping a couple of keys on your keyboard. How does it work? Well, it’s pretty simple. Inside the TextExpander app, you’ll just write out your commonly used emails (or paste from a previous send). From there, you simply apply an easy-to-remember shortcode to that email. Then, next time you’re ready to send that long email, you just type the shortcode into your email instead and BAM — the email auto- populates, streamlining your email process and saving you tons of time. Several of our clients swear by this app (and so do we!), so be sure to check it out.

2. Make adding LinkedIn “connections” part of your networking routine. When you get back from a networking event, you probably have a contact routine. Maybe you add all of the people you met to your CRM or other project management software and update your email list to include them. To level up your networking, we’d recommend adding another step to that routine. Take an extra 15 minutes a month and add all of your new contacts as “connections” on LinkedIn. This will help you stay in touch with leads, colleagues, clients, and referrals and nurture those relationships. 3. Get involved in LinkedIn Groups. You’re probably well aware that Facebook offers groups, but did you know LinkedIn does the same? On LinkedIn, those groups are places for people in the same industry or with the same professional interests to gather and swap insights, advice, and contact information. In other words, they’re an ideal place to do some networking. Use the search bar at the top of your LinkedIn homepage to find groups that work for you, then make a point of posting there regularly to grow your referral network.

FEATURED EPISODE From Our Newest Podcast, Center Stage

If you’re looking for more great resources to drive your business forward, take a look at this episode from our newest podcast, Center Stage. 008 – How to Build a Million-Dollar FirmWith David Hall Hitting $1 million in revenue is a huge milestone for every law firm. Unfortunately, there isn’t a guidebook on how to do it. This episode’s guest, David Hall, has helped turn Hall Benefits Law into a multimillion-dollar law firm, and he shares the things he learned on his way to reaching that goal. If you want more referrals, better clients, and higher ROI on all of your marketing, call us today at 800-406-7229 to schedule a consultation! Listen to this episode and find even more at

SpotlightBranding.com/centerstage and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Pandora, Spotify, or over a dozen other platforms!

Want more great tools for your law firm? Visit SpotlightBranding.com/rotm

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9624 Bailey Rd., Suite 270 Cornelius, NC 28031

(800) 406-7229 SpotlightBranding.com

THIS ISSUE INSIDE 1

The Biggest Hole In Your Marketing — and How to Patch It Success Story: Nadine Heitz Why Customer Stories Are Your Best Marketing Tools 3 Ways to Leverage Your Firm’s LinkedIn Presence Make Sending Emails Easier! How To Build a Million-Dollar Firm Why You Should Become an ‘Average’ Lawyer

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You Should Become an ‘Average’ Lawyer (Yes, Really) THE PERKS OF AVERAGING YOUR FIRM’S METRICS

Often, when we sit down with clients and ask about their measurables, they don’t have the key answers we need to run a successful marketing campaign. For example, we’ll ask, “What is your average client worth?” and the answer will be, “It depends.” Does that sound familiar? If you’ve ever given an answer like that, you’re standing in the way of your own marketing success. There is value in being “average” — and by that, we mean learning to average your metrics and using those averages wisely. When you know your firm’s averages — like your average case value, average client worth, average open-shut case time, and average case turnaround time for clients — you can better understand the value of your marketing strategies, including the ones we offer here at Spotlight Branding.

Finding these averages is ridiculously easy! Just choose a timeframe, add all of your case values or client values (for example) together, and divide by the total number of cases or clients. There you have it: instant >Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4

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