Content Marketing is all around us. From the blogs we read, the podcasts we hear, videos we watch, and social media posts we upload, we engage with content on a daily basis. As advertising has gotten more competitive (and expensive) combined with the sheer volume of messages we encounter in our day-to-day, Content Marketing is still one of the biggest untapped opportunities for Bankruptcy Attorneys (or most small-to-medium-sized Legal Firms for that matter).
While many practices have a website, trying posting on social media, and might even try search-based advertising (Google, Bing, etc), it is still reported that, among firms with a Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), only about 25% have a documented content marketing strategy for their firm.
Among law firms without a dedicated marketing officer, it is expectedly even less!
Consider the following from the American Bar Association (ABA):
- Fewer than 20% of respondent’s websites had any of the following (Community/charity announcements, outside legal articles, outside guides/forms, inside consumer guides, etc)
- Still, 32% of respondents report having a client retain them as a result of their website.
- And, 46% of lawyers with a legal topic blog report that at least one client retained them as a result of their blog.
Two things stand out immediately:
- While there are many legal firms trying to attract clients online, most (~80%) are vastly under-utilizing their websites as a tool to do it!
- While simply having a website can attract clients, you can increase your odds by as much as 15% by using your website to deliver content-based value!
In this article, we’re going to break down what Content Marketing is, how it relates to your Law Firm, and what steps you can take to create and execute a strategy for your practice.
Editor’s Note:
The practice of Content Marketing works for Legal Firms regardless of your size or the number of attorneys in your practice. It is effective regardless of specialty because it is predicated on understanding and developing content with your ideal clients in mind.
Consider how these steps apply to your practice and your specific situation. Whether you are a part of a larger firm in an urban center or even a smaller (possibly single-person) practice in a more suburban or rural setting, producing content addressing questions and problems for your specific clients has a tremendous ROI.
Let’s get started!
What Is Content Marketing?
Content Marketing, in a nutshell, is the production and publishing of valuable content with the express intent to satisfy/answer the questions, concerns, or problems of your ideal clients and create an audience who trusts you.
For lawyers and legal firms, this takes the form of written, audio, video, and graphic information that satisfies the needs and wants of individuals who could become your clients.
When working effectively, your content draws potential clients into your practice as opposed to you having to push your brand and message out to them (via alternatives like advertising, sponsorships, etc).
Why Is It Important To Bankruptcy Attorneys?
- Trust across industries and professions (especially within the legal fields) is at historic lows.
- Advertising costs continue to skyrocket with most firms and industries seeing diminishing returns.
- Competition for viewer/listener/reader attention is at an all-time high as the available channels have made it near impossible to produce messaging that gets seen.
Combined together, these realities converge creating an environment where you spend more to be seen less by audiences less likely to believe what you tell them.
It paints a bleak picture for law practices (whether they be small, medium, or large) to find new prospects, uncover their legal challenges, and onboard them as clients whom they can serve.
There are real opportunities for Bankruptcy Attorneys (in addition to the other legal specialties) to get more leads, nurture them as prospects, and convert them into clients using Content Marketing techniques.
Frankly, using content to build an audience, segment them according to need, and onboard them is one of the best ways a legal practice can “flip the script” dogging so many firms today.
Examples of Content Marketing by Lawers or Law Firms
For examples of how other firms and entities publish content with the intent of building an audience, check out these links.
Blogs
- Law 4 Small Business (Publishes content specifically directed toward small businesses)
- Illinois Business Law Journal (Student-published from University of Illinois College of Law targeting topics of interest intersecting business and law)
- Latham & Watkins (Expansive blog publishing content across a wide array of topics which would elevate their authority (see later) as a go-to resource)
Podcasts
- Akin Gump (Podcast with a number of different topics offering a global perspective for legal topics)
- Proskauer Rose (Predominately benefits & compensation topics which position their expertise in the area of HR)
- Crowell & Moring (Offers audio content of varying length which builds in-roads to listeners at different levels of an organization)
Video
- Legal Eagle (YouTube channel with an entertaining “hook” where an actual lawyer compares against “TV law”)
- Law Partners (Animation sharing value provided to injured parties by a P.I. firm)
- Great Big Story (Story-based video highlighting an Immigration Attorney’s role in helping families)
These are just a few unique examples of lawyers and legal firms producing content for the purposes of building an audience and satisfying their needs/wants.
Let’s highlight action steps for how your firm can start using content as a marketing tool.
Getting Started with Content Marketing As A Bankruptcy Practice
Once you have decided to start, you will develop a plan, execute it, and adapt/pivot as needed.
Fundamentally, legal firms follow a similar process as businesses and professionals in other industries. Their output is just adapted and personalized for their firm’s service focus, customer base, and locality.
Steps include:
- Developing your firm’s Content Strategy
- Uncovering the Keywords most relevant to your practice
- Content Production
- Converting your Audience into Leads
- Measuring Results and Adjusting the plan
- Repurposing and Reusing across a wider landscape
Developing Your Firm's Content Marketing Strategy
As was mentioned earlier, studies suggest that fewer than 25% of law firms have a documented content strategy. This manifests as a scatter-shot approach to prospecting and client outreach.
It is easy to diagnose as these firms often switch from channel-to-channel and method-to-method. They might run some radio ads, then buy some Google Ads, then post heavily on Facebook about a local event they have decided to sponsor.
While none of these efforts are bad, lacking a detailed plan and schedule, their efforts become “a little of this” and “some of that” with results that don’t justify the budget spent.
What you are missing is a Pre-determined Content Marketing Strategy for Bankruptcy Attorneys! It needs to be intentional, actionable and documented so that everyone in your firm understands their role in achieving it and what success looks like.
Let’s get started creating one.
Identify Your Target Audience
Before you start developing content or even decide on your platform(s) / calendar, you need to take some time to define who your ideal client really is. Our objective and end goal for using content marketing is to attract potential prospects who have needs or wants that our practice can satisfy. We intend to do that by producing content that answers questions they are already asking.
In order to best do this, you need to know as much as possible about who they are and what challenges they face.
Consider these factors:
- Demographics – What personal characteristics, if any, do they share?
- Background – What experiences do they have in common? Do they have similar family statuses or commonalities in their history?
- Goals – Are there common aspirations? Do they share connections to a workplace or business that influences their outlook?
- Specific challenges, problems, or pain points – Are there common themes you hear when interviewing them or you see in their Facebook posts?
As you begin answering these questions, an image (or potentially a set of images) should start forming in your mind of who comprises your Target Audience. That mental image is called a Persona and will serve as a guide as we continue documenting your firm’s strategy.
Note: Personas, like the people they represent, change over time as they grow and external forces influence them. It is always a good practice to schedule “strategy time” on a recurring basis (possibly quarterly, but at least yearly) where you make adjustments. As your Target Audience changes, this is your practice’s opportunity to adjust the other parts of your strategy (designed below) as well.
Editor’s Note:
If you need help getting started with your Content Marketing Strategy, be sure to check out this checklist and template.
Click this link for the PDF (and you’ll be able to download the sample as well).
As you are defining your Target Audience, do not overlook the information that you can obtain from your existing clients!
There is a wealth of knowledge and understanding that are available with this already captive audience.
Here are some questions that you might ask:
- How did you find our firm?
- Are we meeting (or exceeding) your expectations for legal services and counsel?
- What led you to trust us in your unique financial situation?
- Are there other ways that our attorneys and staff could be helping?
- Do you still have questions or concerns that we could be addressing and helping you to make decisions faster?
Be sure to use this feedback to help guide your firm’s future content.
Choose Your Platform / Content Type
While Target Audience is identifying who your Ideal Customer is and what characteristics make define them, the decision of platform and type of content that your firm publishes is more individual. The former is externally-focused; the latter is a more internal decision.
Even though you choose platforms and content types based upon where your audience “hangs out” and what they consume, the determining factors are where your expertise lies and what format you are most comfortable as a medium.
Here are some examples from which you can choose
- Written / Graphic
- Website
- Social Media (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc)
- Newspapers
- Magazines
- Audio
- iTunes
- Spotify
- …other Podcasting platforms
- SirusXM
- Radio
- Video
- YouTube
- Vimeo
- TikTok
- …Roku & other streaming channels
- Network & Cable TV
This list is not expansive, but highlights that there are examples of each of the main content formats which, while not new, are still opportunities to build and/or communicate with an audience.
Quick Hint:
If you plan to publish video content, be sure to check out this post offering hints for virtual meetings. Recorded sessions with prospects or clients in which you answer audience questions are an effective source for new content.
Size vs Control
One of the biggest considerations between platforms is the relationship between your control versus the relative size of the available audience.
Social Media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, etc) have user counts in the BILLIONS. They have massive amounts of data segregating those users into groups by topical interest. Negatively, your firm has little to no control over how often and to whom your content is shown.
Your firm and its content can truly be thirsting for attention within an ocean of users with whom you cannot connect.
Email and newsletters are platforms where you have almost total control. Unfortunately, you will often start out with a small available audience and have to build it yourself from scratch.
Alternatively, this would be akin to your practice starting your growth plan in a desert.
Fundamentally, the question of platform choice comes down to an assessment of how you (and your other content creators) best communicate.
- Is your firm awash with writers? Do they organize thoughts well in textual form?
- Your best bet from a digital standpoint might be blogging on your website and/or communicating via email.
- Does your practice have an entertaining and well-spoken presenter? Is there someone who excels in an interview format bringing out “the story” trapped within a guest?
- You could be set up for podcasting and publishing on platforms like iTunes, Spotify, etc.
- Is there someone in your law office who is especially comfortable in front of a camera? Can they visually convey authority and command in a video setting?
- A video channel like YouTube could be your ticket.
There is nothing that requires your legal firm to singularly focus on one platform.
Frankly, your Content Marketing efforts for your Bankruptcy practice are going to be more effective in the long run as you publish content and communicate with audiences across a number of them.
For our purposes right now, select the one where your firm is most comfortable and start there. As your strategy grows and evolves, your reach across platforms and content types will naturally increase.
Information-Likes-Locale (ILL)
After identifying your Target Audience and choices for Platforms/Content Types, you begin a rough layout of your firm’s topics and connections. For the purposes of this exercise, you will organize your thoughts around Information, Likes, and Locales (ILL).
As you work through these details, your Content Calendar (see below) will begin to take shape.
Information
This section will most closely relate to your firm’s list of services. For Bankruptcy Attorneys, many of these will be financial and/or debt-related.
Think of the types of clients whom you serve, what problems you are helping them address, and the types of questions they are most likely to ask.
The more detailed you get identifying their questions, the more concrete your topic list will manifest.
Likes
Likes are where your firm’s unique personality and its tastes will shine through. They make up the foundation of relationships you can build with your Target Audience.
Note: While it is discussed in more detail later, it is through Likes that your legal practice can build early (and often unearned) Trust. Don’t overlook this!
Likes are where your favorite charities, sports teams, civic organizations become an aspect of your content plans.
Where you might have previously sponsored an event, here is where you get the opportunity and platform to talk about what it means to you! If your favorite team is doing well (or poorly), here is where you get to celebrate (or commiserate) with others of like mind.
Locale
Here you highlight your connections to the community (also called Service Area) where your practice works.
Be it local events, experiences at a nearby attraction, or relationships with leaders, your firm highlights its membership in the community as opposed to just being one of the law firms serving it.
Think of this as Chamber of Commerce logos on steroids!
Check this out!
Information, Likes, and Locale will guide a large chunk of your practice’s Content Marketing Strategy. While it was created before I-L-L was formalized, the following YouTube video shares hints and ideas for utilizing it on Social Media platforms.
Be sure to check it out for some actionable recommendations!
Create Your Practice's Content Calendar
Taking the prepared aspects of your firm’s Content Strategy, you have the components to layout a Content Calendar.
This schedule will guide the What-Who-When-Where-Why that will make up your Content Marketing efforts.
- What topics will you cover?
- Who will create content about them?
- When do you expect to publish it?
- Where is it going to live?
- Why are you choosing this topic at this time? (What outcomes do you expect to get from it?)
Your Content Calendar will combine with your practice’s Keyword list (defined next) to serve as the building blocks when you start creating content.
Editor’s Note:
One of the best books that I’ve read on developing a Content Strategy is Content, Inc by Joe Pulizzi. If you are wanting to go deeper on this topic, I would definitely recommend it for your reading list.
You can get a copy for yourself from Amazon via this link (affiliate).
Uncovering Your Keywords
With your Customer Personas and Content Calendar in hand, you are ready to build the third aspect of a Content Strategy: Keywords.
Put simply, keywords (and topics) are the words or phrases that a user might enter into a search engine seeking answers to their questions.
For example, borrowers struggling to pay their bills or facing foreclosure might be considering filing for bankruptcy. In that event, they might search for a ‘Bankruptcy Attorney’ looking for possible attorneys or law firms who could help them.
Keywords (and similar phrases) become the guide posts by which you build your content.
Note: As we will see, keywords and keyphrases are not limited to just the services that your firm offers! Added elements like interests and topics of local flavor are key differentiators separating your content (and audience) from that of your competitors.
List Your Topics
Start your keyword research by creating a list of topics relevant to your legal practice. From your Strategy planning (Personas, Information-Likes-Locale, etc), begin listing out your expertise, services, and main differentiators that would interest your Target Audience.
Note: Take a few minutes to jot these topics down before moving on to the next section. Nothing will stop you from adding new topics as you uncover them, but be sure to have a few before moving on.
Additional Hint:
When you add more topics, a good technique is to relate your message to trending topics as a mechanism for building interest from current events and storylines.
Here is a good resource to add now to your Favorites so that you can quickly refer back to it at a later date!
Develop Keywords From Topics List
From your list of topics, consider what questions an interested party might ask to a search engine seeking an answer.
Simplistically, a user who is facing mounting debt might enter “Bankruptcy Attorney” into Google.
That said, since search engines like Google respond to question-style queries, they could be just as likely to enter any of the following alternatives – seeking the same answer.
- How do I file for Bankruptcy?
- Who is a Bankruptcy Attorney near me?
- What happens when you file for Bankruptcy?
Don’t overlook specific segments of your Target Audience or certain secondary services/focus areas when identifying keywords and key phrases.
Identifying Similar Keywords
Due to the nature of search engines and the algorithms behind them, it pays to uncover similar or associated keywords and key phrases in addition to your main ones.
For example:
Members of your Target Audience might not yet have decided to file Bankruptcy. Their questions might be more like “What options do I have when I cannot pay my bills?”
Others might be looking for experience with certain businesses or filings on behalf of individuals.
Some might be searching for Attorneys with connections to local civic or social organizations. They might be interested in one who attended a favorite college or shares their faith.
As you exhaust your creative juices for similar keywords and key phrases, don’t overlook available tools which can recommend additional alternatives. See below for a list of some tools that are available.
Editor’s Note:
As you add topics to your list or think of new keywords/keyphrases, create a document or spreadsheet where you can keep track of them. As you start building content, keep notes for the ones you use and where. This information will serve as the foundation for your results measuring & metrics that we will address later on.
Here are some tools that you can use to aid your keyword (and similar keyword) research. (Note: Some of these tools are free; others have a cost associated.)
Review By Competiton vs. Value To Your Firm
Once you have identified a set of keywords and key phrases (and have written them down), take a few moments to compare them. For the purposes of this exercise, we will be comparing them on two factors (Competition and Value).
Competition is how difficult it is to rank for that keyword or key phrase in search engines.
Value is how often a keyword or key phrase comes up in searches.
As you would expect, there is usually high competition for keywords and key phrases that appear more often in searches. There would expectedly be more sites focusing on keywords that generated more search traffic.
You can compare competition and value using some of the tools above.
Note: You will find using the tools that there are some keywords and key phrases which have higher relative value, but surprisingly lower competition. When you find these, make note of them in your list because these represent keen opportunities for you to exploit! Be sure to consider keyword variations and more-specific/longer keyphrases to uncover hidden gems.
Start Building Your Content
Earlier, you will have identified who is in your Target Audience and developed an understanding of what motivates them. You will also have chosen an initial platform (or small set of platforms) on which you intend to deliver that content. With your firm’s Content Calendar handy, it is time to go to work!
With your Content Marketing Strategy and initial Keywords/Key Phrases, the next step is to start developing and publishing content for your prospective Audience.
At this early phase, it is time for you to get your feet wet. Don’t fret over details and minutiae! This is a time to create and share.
Some will be surprisingly good; others might be cringe-worthy. The most important action you can take at this point is taking the action and executing your research & plans.
In the following sections, I’ll share some initial advice to help get you started and get you in a certain frame of mind, but at this point, do not let perfection be a hindrance to momentum.
Earning Trust
One of the biggest problems with Content Marketing efforts comes when they “feel salesy”. Fundamental to our goals has to be providing value to the Audience; not trying to sell something to them! Keep in mind that they are coming for your expertise & abilities to help address their financial problems (i.e. Bankruptcy)! They are not looking to be sold services; they are looking for solutions to their problems!
In the legal field, there is historic distrust from those outside the profession. Content with the goal of attraction helps address that roadblock for attorneys and law firms when done well.
It is truly our job to show how we are entering already difficult situations (like Bankruptcy or Foreclosure or Family/Financial strife) and seeking to make situations better.
If your practice does this well, it will begin earning Trust that delivers results better than any alternative marketing channels can offer!
How can you do it?
Be A Friend And Advisor
Most law practices take the professional position as an “Advocate”. It is historically the lens through which most attorneys see themselves and that perspective usually comes out in marketing programs.
When producing content, think (and communicate) as someone who is more a friend or trusted advisor.
Note: Here we are again highlighting Trust. In the digital world, building Trust is difficult because we’re all told to “not believe everything you see on the Internet”. Focusing on their problems, answers to their questions, and speaking to the solutions that they seek are all trust-building patterns that serve as the foundation for good Content Marketing (and are invaluable tools for Law Firms in the digital realm).
Be sure that the underlying message to the content you share is understanding and interest in their situation and actions that improve their position.
Quick Reminder:
Remember above where we work through your Information, Likes, and Locale (I.L.L)?
As you are working to build Trust through your content, this is a great place to highlight shared Likes and Locale among your Audience.
- How does the content you are creating relate to recent events or circumstances that you share? Did your favorite sports team just have a big win (or painful loss)?
- Has there been a problem (or celebratory moment) in the local area that is affecting everyone? Did your community get awarded a new grant or announce a new employer? Might they have lost them?
Common associations (handled authentically) are one of the quickest ways to break down objections and earn trust. Few things work so effectively as finding common objectives (outside our immediate situation) where we can work together.
Be sure these become part of your content!
Keep It Simple
Avoid acronyms, technical jargon, and other attempts to impress!
Save your impressive vocabulary, negotiation skills, and ability to debate/argue for the courtrooms and legal correspondence!
Your content should be speaking to your Audience in crystal clear language that they will readily understand. They are seeking answers to existing questions (either through search engines, seeing linked shares on social media, or other means that they uncover what you publish). Your objective is to quickly deliver value and answers that satisfy their ask.
According to the Center for Readability, “the average American is considered to have a readability level equivalent to a 7th/8th grader.”
If we want to attract them into our Audience (and potentially earn their trust as a Prospect or Client), our messaging to them has got to be delivered at their level!
Note: This should not be construed or interpreted to suggest that your Audience is “dumb”! They are just not experts in the topics where you are publishing content. We are looking to educate (and sometimes entertain) them bringing value and enriching their lives.
Our content needs to show what we are bringing to them; not try to highlight how smart we are!
Domain Authority For Your Legal Practice
Domain Authority (DA) is an SEO (Search Engine Optimization) topic that you will encounter as you begin executing your firm’s Content Marketing strategy. While it is not a ranking factor in search engine algorithms, Domain Authority is calculated based on similar metrics making it a good observable (and trackable) measure.
Editor’s Note:
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a set of practices (both content-based as well as technical) that work to improve your rankings in search engines like Google, Bing, Duck-Duck-Go, etc. While beginning to develop content will be your first priority, gaining an understanding of good SEO practices will become more important as you measure results (see below) and look for ways to increase your effectiveness.
SEOSly.com has a good article breaking down the basics of SEO and it could be a valuable page to tag for later review.
While there are a number of factors that make up your website’s Domain Authority, two of the main ones are external links and ranking keywords.
- External Links are linking references from external sources to your content. Another individual or website links to your content from their site which infers value and trust (authority) from them onto your firm’s domain.
- As you might expect, links from domains with higher DA are more valuable than links from domains with lower DA. A link from Wikipedia.com or Microsoft.com or CNN.com will carry more influence than links from smaller sites (or social media sites).
- Ranking Keywords are your list (from above) for which your practice’s website has been publishing content and how many of them for which you have built a search ranking.
Moz.com has a free tool that you can use to check your firm’s Domain Authority (or that of other websites).
Here is a screenshot for the website of Lantham & Watkins which we mentioned above in the Examples Of Content Marketing section.
As you can see (right), Lantham & Watkins has a good Domain Authority score of 61 utilizing over 7900 links across a whopping 45,000 keywords. This is an amazing accomplishment across the wide array of topics for which their website publishes content.
It is easy to see how they are a top-flight example of a legal firm focusing a targeted effort on attracting attention through content!
Quality Over Quantity
It is good to point out here at this point that your firm does not need thousands of external links and tens of thousands of keywords to be effective in your Content Marketing Strategy!
We all have to start somewhere and it can be discouraging trying to compare ourselves to others who started earlier.
Keep in mind that the quality of your content and how it builds your relationship with your Target Audience is massively more important than link counts and keyword counts.
Most legal firms are not competing with big national entities. Your advantage is the relationships your build over time with individuals in your local area, your local athletic league, your church or civic organization, and any number of other associations where the “Big Guys with the Big Budgets” are not going to be!
Start with your Audience Persona using the Keywords & Key Phrases that are of interest to them and begin creating content that speaks to those topics.
Take the time to make good on-ramps enabling them to find you.
Remember that one good relevant piece of content is more effective than five dull “fluff” posts or videos that regurgitate the same things everyone else says!
Quick Hint:
The Moz.com domain tool allows you to calculate your Domain Authority.
It can also enable you to review your competitor’s DA as well!
A much more reasonable comparison for small-to-medium-sized law firms would be against their other local practices from a content standpoint.
Checking (and tracking) how you are performing against others with a comparable Target Audience and Area of Expertise is a much more effective standard!
Added Bonus:
Using tools (from the list above), you can break down what content those other firms are publishing, what keywords/keyphrases they are using, and from where their site is getting linked. This type of competitive analysis can help identify gaps or areas of focus that you might want to add to your firm’s Content Strategy.
Converting Audiences To Leads
As you begin publishing content and attracting members of your Target Audience, you want to start converting this Audience (who, by their interest, self-identify as solid Prospects) into Leads with whom you can follow up and deepen the relationship. While Content Marketing in the Legal niches (like Bankruptcy) is predicated on delivering value and answering questions for your Ideal Customers, it is ultimately about bringing them aboard as Clients!
Properly organized, your content posts should be dually satisfying your Audience’s needs as well as directing them along defined pathways that will engage them further with your practice and your unique service offerings.
Here are some specific actions you can implement as a part of our content development that will support that goal.
- Calls-To-Action – Where should they do next to find out more?
- Landing Pages For Your Practice – Having gotten value with your content, where will your next interaction happen?
- Upgrades You Can Offer – Are there additional suggestions or ideas that you can share as a potential next step?
By planning and setting up natural next actions and steps, you are building a digital on-ramp for Audiences who find you to become Clients who hire you. Few things are better for a legal practice than a consistent flow of potential clients who are already familiar with your practice (brand) and pre-disposed to trust you based on the value you have already delivered!
Calls-To-Action
When publishing content, there should be a clear objective and next step for a reader (or listener/watcher) to take. In most cases, this will take the form of some Call-To-Action (CTA) offering additional information or further value available through deeper engagement.
It can often be additional written material (like checklists or case studies). Sometimes it takes the form of deeper audio or video content on the topic.
Regardless, your overall objectives for publishing the content are equally to answer the question they asked and/or satisfy the need or want they felt AND offer a pathway for grow your new relationship together.
Here are a couple of goals to consider:
- It needs to be additional value beyond that which you have already delivered. (Don’t just regurgitate what you have already told them somewhere else.)
- Unless you are publishing a relatively long piece of content, you want to have one main objective call-to-action.
- It should flow naturally from the question they asked and the answer you provided.
- In most cases, it should be capturing contact information that will enable you to communicate more directly via platforms over which you have greater control (like an email list).
Remember: A Call-To-Action is about deepening the engagement and relationship that you are already developing with your content. It is another opportunity to show what value you bring to your Target Audience.
Landing Pages For Your Practice
After adding Call-To-Actions (CTAs) within your content, there needs to be a target (controlled-platform location) where you direct readers, listeners, and viewers. Instead of directing them to your website Home Page or some other page within your site, direct them instead to related pages specifically created for guiding them in a deeper relationship with your law firm.
We call these Landing Pages because they are the natural next steps that we expect them to “land” on for additional info, follow-up actions, or other extra value.
Usually, it is on these Landing Pages where you might offer them additional value in exchange for an email address or contact info that you enter in your contact and/or leads list.
Hint: To make your Landing Pages more effective:
- Create specific Landing Pages for different content topics that you plan to publish as a part of our Content Strategy.
- Ensure that there are opportunities for your users to receive additional value along each step in your progression ultimately guiding them along a path toward problem resolution and a deeper relationship with your practice.
- Foster engagement by acknowledging their progress along their pathway.
Upgrades You Can Offer
Once you have included Call-To-Actions that direct your Audience to a targeted Landing Page, what added nuggets of value do you have to offer to deepen the connection and earn their contact info enabling future connections?
Start with their Problem and identify things you can help them understand better or do quicker along their path to a resolution!
- If your content answered the question “Do I need to file for bankruptcy?”, a spreadsheet calculator estimating assets versus liabilities with industry guide ratios might help someone make that decision.
- If you published a post entitled “How to file for bankruptcy in [YOUR-STATE]?”, a checklist of documents and details that are required for filing would be invaluable (whether they eventually hire you or someone else).
- If you posted a video breaking down the different options for people struggling with debt issues, recorded webinars or ebooks providing deeper details about the different strategies could be a natural next step.
While these are just a few of the options for upgrades (i.e. additional value) that your legal practice can offer, an exhaustive list is only limited by the information you can provide and the format/platform that you choose to deliver it.
Here are some tools that I’ve used for Landing Page and Upgrade Content creation.
Landing Pages
I have used both Lead Pages (paid/free) and Welcome.ly (free).
They both offer a number of features and benefits that can meet your needs for building a system to capture traffic and earn permission to contact them further via email or some similar more-controlled platform.
Lead Pages offers a wider breadth of capabilities and flexibility, but that does usually require some additional technical skill to implement. Welcome.ly is more straightforward and uses a simpler WYSIWYG (What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get) editor, but some extended features are not available.
Content Upgrades
As content upgrades can take many different forms and formats, you can develop them with a number of tools. Document editors can be used to create checklists, case studies, and ebooks. Cellphones can record audio and video for walk-thrus, interviews, and instructional material.
Note: If you use Lead Pages (listed above), it can build your landing pages and integrate with a number of delivery options (or sometimes handle delivery right on your landing page).
I have used Attract.io (free) with supports a specific subset of content types (usually document-based) but integrates seamlessly with Welcome.ly (from above).
Both Welcome.ly and Attract.io are published by GrowthTools as two of a set of content-related tools that they offer. There are both hosted and embedded options that can integrate with a number of other tools that you might already be using (like WordPress, Mailchimp, etc.).
Coming Soon – How I used Welcome.ly and Attract.io to capture Email addresses and Facebook Messenger contacts of website visitors for FREE!
Measure Results And Adjusting
Once your firm makes the commitment to using content as an attractor and differentiator, your next steps after publishing need to be measuring the results of your efforts.
While it “makes sense” that Content Marketing would attract clients to your practice and make it easier for clients to choose your firm over your competitors, long-term budgets are ultimately determined by facts and numbers over intuition!
Decision-makers are looking to see returns on their investment.
Initially, we will look at three metrics that you can gather and report.
- Traffic
- Lead Quality
- Client Onboards
Using these, you can tell the story of the results that your legal firm is getting from your Content Marketing efforts.
Traffic
Traffic is usually the first response you will see to your firm’s Content Marketing efforts, but it can be one of the most difficult to effectively measure and interpret.
Just so there is no confusion – when we are talking about Traffic for a legal practice website, we are talking about User Visits.
Calculating website visits is a simple exercise to configure and calculate. Unfortunately, it usually tells an incomplete (or even, wholly inaccurate) story.
Of our three measures, this one is often the most nebulous and difficult to interpret because we need more information to understand if we are attracting the right traffic who can become Leads (and eventually Clients).
When measuring Traffic, keep these things in mind:
- How do your Traffic numbers compare to other law firm websites? (You can use tools like Ubersuggest (highlighted above) to estimate this?)
- From where does your Traffic come? (Are you attracting the attention of users who could use your services?)
- What percentage of your Visits engage with your additional content offerings and become Leads?
- How many of them eventually become Clients?
Measuring and interpreting Traffic numbers is as much art as it is science. Use it in relation to a broader story, but beware of letting it solely be the story!
Editor’s Note:
Traffic/Website Visits need to be an “interpreted” metric. Improperly weighting this measure has been at the foundations for some of the worst content (and technical) practices that Digital Marketers have used.
For example (and do not do this), many sites in the past used various “black-hat” search-engine “hacks” to get traffic. At the time, there was a proliferation of websites that packed their metadata with strings like “Britney Spears XXX” or other tags hoping to attract traffic.
Yes, it worked (before search engines enhanced their algorithms now punish websites for this kind of behavior).
However, even if it still worked, our end objectives should be providing value and attracting clients. Our Content Marketing strategies accomplish that by attracting the attention of audiences who have needs/wants that match our skills and expertise.
For hints of good search-engine practices, check out this post from SEOSly.com.
Lead Quality
More informative than how many “Visits” your website gets, the number of Leads (and quality of those Leads) is a greater measure of effectiveness. In this case, we are usually talking about Subscribers (or some other platform-based mechanism where we collect a list of audience members with whom we are interacting).
1M visitors a month to your firm’s website or blog could be “good” or “bad” depending upon who they are and how likely they are to become Clients.
Leads have higher value because you have the opportunity to engage deeper with them (because you have email addresses and/or phone numbers).
Through the use of questionnaires and surveys that you send to your Leads, you can more effectively understand who they are, how they found you, and more specifically, those things most important to them.
Keep in mind that 10K visitors a month (or even 1K or even numbers in the 100s) who are actively interested and engaged with problems you solve are more valuable than millions who are “just surfing and watching”.
One person interested in learning to surf who is planning a vacation to the beach is much more valuable to the surf shop than hundreds of people who watch videos of surfing competitions!
Focus on getting engagement by the right users!
Client Onboards
As you build your Content Strategy and begin executing on it, metrics related to actual Client Onboards should be your chief focal point!
During your onboarding process, interview every client to gain insight into:
- How they found you?
- What helped them decide to choose you?
- In what ways could you have made that decision easier (or quicker)?
- About what other things (that they now see you can do) should you be talking?
Onboards are your strongest conversion metric! Since you interact with them (and should be talking to them as you serve their legal needs), this measure can eventually tell the richest story about the effectiveness of your Content Marketing program as well as guide its evolution.
Don’t overlook it!
Repurposing And Reusing
Producing content and executing your strategy is work! It requires the investment of time, money, and resources whether it is something that you do, something that you coordinate within your firm, or activity that you outsource.
Because it comes at such a cost, finding new avenues to get value out of work you have already done should be a secondary aspect of your Content Strategy.
We accomplish this by repurposing and reusing already-published content in different forms on different platforms (often to new audiences).
Channels
When extending the life and utilization of your content through repurposing and reuse, think of what channels where you would like to target.
As you evaluate where to expand, keep in mind what similarities and differences these new channels have with your firm’s existing one(s).
Social Media
One of the first “extension” channels that your law firm (as well most other businesses) will target is Social Media (i.e. Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc).
For those firms who take the time to analyze what works on specific platforms (content type, posting frequency, audience tendencies, etc), social media can be a very effective tool as part of your overall Content Strategy.
As of the ABA’s 2020 Websites & Marketing survey, LinkedIn was the most consistent site used by respondents with upwards of 88% maintaining a personal profile used for professional purposes. Interestingly, Instagram (highly used for non-professional purposes) is reportedly used by less than 15% of legal firms of any size.
These two usage disparities (LinkedIn versus Instagram) highlight the biggest problem of social media use in the Legal profession.
Most content is telling who we are versus highlighting what value we offer! Until we tell the story of why they should care, it doesn’t matter who we are!
Here are a few hints to extend your content onto Social Media.
- Don’t just post links to your content!
- Think of how you can communicate highlights, ideas, and concepts in platform consumable ways. Pique their interest and then share your link as an opportunity to go deeper.
- Consider how your Target Audience uses a specific platform and for what reasons they would use it.
- Are they looking to be informed, entertained, etc? How can your message be adapted to match what they already doing on the platform?
- Determine if platform features could support you in organizing and grouping your Target Audience for platform-specific engagement (i.e. Facebook & Linked Groups, Instagram Hashtags, Twitter Communities, YouTube “Watch Parties”, etc).
- Are there capabilities to curate your audience in a strategic fashion in similar ways you manage your firm’s content?
Don’t overlook the opportunities that exist via your social media platforms. Just be sure that you are planning and executing in ways that are optimized to get the best results on your platform(s) of choice.
Email (and your email contact lists) were mentioned above in the Converting Audiences To Leads section. The key objective to redirecting traffic to a platform you control (like your website) is the ability to collect emails addresses and other detailed information (see Interests, Likes, Locale).
Once you have this more captive audience, they are prime targets for your repurposed and reused content!
- From a branding standpoint, these represent recurring opportunities to engage and continue value delivery to subscribers (who we eventually want to become clients).
- From a learning standpoint, it is much easier to measure this group’s responses to your content (or directly interview them about their perception of it). Insights gained can guide future content strategies and development.
Don’t miss out on the chance to keep adding value through your contacts with this group that has already raised their hand and given you permission to interact with them!
Groups
Groups are a natural target for content delivered natively in multiple formats. Whereas some delivery pathways only exist within a single realm (like email being predominately digital), audience groups can form in arenas beyond just digital.
- Social (ex. Athletic teams, Churches)
- Educational (ex. colleges)
- Collegial (ex. Bar associations, etc)
Anywhere that members of your audience gather and interact can represent a group where you can share ideas and deliver value.
In the digital environment, most platforms natively support like-minded individuals to gather and interact. Some include:
- Facebook Groups
- Instagram Hashtags
- LinkedIn Groups
- Twitter Communities (new)
Groups (whether physical or digital) are a powerful tool that should be a part of your firm’s content strategy. They can serve as a primary spot where you can meet and interact with your ideal audiences, prospects, and ultimately customers.
More On Groups
Groups often need two key things that your firm can offer.
- Topics & Ideas
- Leadership
When Groups gather, there is often the need for speakers, facilitators, and material to foster interaction and engagement among their members. As the leader of a group, content is a consistent struggle.
Remember! Content is what your firm is providing and it is the quickest introduction to their ready-made audience!
In addition to needing topics, most groups need Leadership! Administration and planning are usually volunteer tasks. Curation of material or scheduling can become real chores.
If you identify a gap where a potential group does not exist for the Audience, your firm might want to create and lead it! In this way, you are creating another more “owned” platform that you control!
Forums
An often-overlooked type of channel for firms (and single-attorney practices) are forums (like Quora, Reddit, etc). They do not get the attention as other Social Media focused platforms, but as a medium where users ask questions and consistent value-add answering elevates the perception of expertise, this could be an untapped avenue for your firm to deliver content (especially repurposed and reused material) and build an audience.
For Quora, select and follow topics relevant to your Content Strategy. As users post questions related to the topics, show your value (and include links to related supporting information that you already shared).
For Reddit, become familiar with the platform’s system of Sub-Reddits where interested audiences congregate to find information on the relevant topics. Again, become active in addressing user queries (including related links where appropriate).
Editor’s Note:
Be sure to familiarize yourself with each platform’s Terms of User (as well as their community standards of “good practice”).
First and foremost, be sure that you are bringing value to the platform and its users! You do yourself and your firm no favors by littering threads with marketing-focused posts.
Posting from a marketing objective gives the appearance that you are trying to “run ads” on a free platform and it earns quick punishment from both the platform as well as the user base!
Just don’t do it!
Advertising
The primary focus of this post is the creation and execution of your legal practice’s Content Strategy. Our intent is to use value delivered in advance for the purposes of attracting interested users, building them into an audience, and guiding them along engagement pathways to become clients for your firm.
In doing so, you are building a library of material that highlights your firm to prospects and identifies you as the legal experts in the areas where they are experiencing problems.
In a nutshell, you are leaving different arrays of breadcrumbs that guide them to you as an alternative to traditional advertising.
However, while your Content Strategy is not the same as an advertising campaign, it makes for a very effective coordinated strategy for Lead Generation overall.
There are generally three types of digital advertising that can be effectively blended with your Content Strategy.
- Intent-Based
- Interrupt-Based
- Retargeting
For more details in blending your Content Strategy and Digital Marketing campaigns, check out this link.
Intent-Based
Intent-based digital marketing usually takes the form of some kind of “search-focused” advertising. It will often take the form of Lead Generation from ads on platforms like Google Ads, Bing Ads, etc.
In paying for Leads on search platforms, the search engine is serving your ad to potential Leads in the same fashion that they serve your URLs as organic search results.
In the same way that Google includes your content as a result of user queries, it can serve your ad (at a cost) to those same queries.
In the same way that you have Landing Pages as Call-To-Action steps for your content, follow the same pattern for your Intent-Based advertising.
Note: Keep in mind that your ad is being served to a direct user query, it should answer the want/need and give them the next steps to work with you further. Users encountering these ads have their problem at the top of mind! Don’t waste your opportunity.
Interrupt-Based
Interrupt-Based advertising can take many forms (both digital and more traditional platforms – like TV, radio, and print).
You are paying to place your firm’s ad in the midst of the user engaging with some other material or content on the platform. Whether it is a television ad during the Super Bowl or a Facebook ad served as the user is viewing their timeline, you are trying to share your firm’s message while they are doing/watching something else.
As could be expected, this type of advertising is not as direct as Intent-Based, but through effective targeting of “interested” audiences, you can serve your message to users who have characteristics that would make them good clients.
In the digital arena (Facebook, LinkedIn, etc), the platforms have very effective tools for targeting users for these types of ads. Using your earlier-established metrics for content performance, identify which material and topics work best among users who share specific characteristics. Use that information to guide your targeting!
Note: Remember that users who see your Interrupt-Based ad are almost always doing something else! With good targeting, your ad can be seen by the right prospects, but your headline, copy, and promised value have to be good enough to pull their attention from the timeline to where you want to focus them.
Retargeting
The third type of digital marketing is Retargeting ads. They are really a specialized subgroup of Interrupt-Based advertising but identify prospects in a different way meriting the separate classification.
This type of advertising is available on a wide array of platforms from social media (like Facebook) to hosted ad platforms that provide placement ads on blogs and websites.
By including a “Pixel” (a piece of code on your blog/website that tracks visitors), those users are identified on the retargeting platforms and subsequently shown your ad on an Interrupt-Basis.
Unlike the earlier targeted advertising based on characteristics, you are directly targeting users who have already visited your site. Often, this type of ad manifests as more branding and reminder but is the technical tools being used to create a perception that “There’s my problem coming up again and here’s that law firm who could help me resolve it”.
Note: Since these users have already visited your website and interacted with your content before, this type of ad is very effective to highlight additional topics or areas of expertise for your practice. Your goal is to enable more interactions and greater engagement.
Editor’s Note:
Digital Advertising (Search, Social, & Retargeting) is a broad topic.
For a deeper dive into the topic, check out this link.
Additional Opportunities
There are numerous ways that you can get a headstart for your Content Marketing efforts. Two effective ones work to build attention by speaking directly to existing audiences (either for an entity or a locale).
In each case, you are working off the attention that someone else or somewhere else has already earned.
These include:
- Being A Guest
- Becoming The “Digital Mayor”
Being A Guest
As you begin executing your firm’s Content Strategy, you will likely encounter a struggle common among content creators.
It’s hard work creating content on a consistent basis!
As much as you know today what you want to say and have a backlog of ideas for ground-breaking information you are itching to share with a captive audience, “Writer’s Block” is a challenge and it happens to everyone!
When you feel “stuck” and “don’t know what to say”, Being A Guest (regardless of format – print, audio, video, etc) is one of the quickest ways to free your creativity.
- Find a related or “shoulder” audience who would have an interest in your expertise.
- Contact blogs, podcasts, and vlogs who already publish content to that audience.
- Write (Guest Post) or Speak (Be Interviewed) to their audience about how your Topics are relevant to them
Afterward, be sure to forward a link to your existing audience and have them do the same to theirs. In the end, this increases exposure for you both delivering additional value to both audiences!
Parting Thoughts
- Try to find other content creators of comparable size and scope to you. (Ensure there is equivalent value and exposure for both parties in proposed partnerships!)
- Take note of the questions you are asked by both the other creator and their audience. (These queries can serve as starting points for additional content that you could publish!)
Digital Mayor
Initially suggested by Gary Vaynerchuk for Real Estate Agents (at least as far as I can tell), the “Digital Mayor” idea is another tool for creating supportive content that can serve the dual purpose of building deeper engagement within your existing audience and increase your chances of being found by new users.
Where techniques like Guest Posting & Being A Guest focus on introducing your Topics (and your firm) to audiences of other content creators, the Digital Mayor concept is based on you becoming a go-to expert about your Area of Service!
Instead of being interviewed or sharing information about your topics, you are interviewing individuals, sharing information of local interest, etc within your Area of Service.
Instead of being another Bankruptcy Attorney (or Firm) talking about the topics, you become THE Bankruptcy Attorney (or Firm) who talks about your community!
Imagine how this could work for the following two Google searches.
- bankruptcy attorney near me
- bankruptcy attorney in [CITY-NAME]
As marketing becomes more localized and segmented, this technique is only going to get more and more powerful!
Wrap-up
Content Marketing as a Bankruptcy Attorney (or legal practice providing bankruptcy services) can be a challenging exercise. There are proven practices that produce results, but the most important (and often most difficult) trait is Consistency!
To put in place a Content Marketing program for your Bankruptcy practice, you need to be focused and persistent in following these steps.
- Identifying Your Target Audience
- Choosing Your Initial Platform and Content Type
- Listing Relevant Topics For Your Firm
- Identifying Keywords & Key Phrases (For Your Topics)
- Develop Content (Based on Topics & Keywords)
- Convert Target Audience In Prospects (And Leads)
- Measure Results And Adjust
- Repurpose And Reuse (On Additional Platforms)
By consistently following these steps, you will begin attracting attention to your legal firm. That attention will translate into interest in your services. Interest developed in your services is your gateway to a steady flow of clients rewarding you for those efforts!
