Search Engine Basics

Today, search engine marketing is an integral part of many litigation firms' and vendors' marketing strategies. This post will give a basic overview to some who may be less familiar with the topic, rather than attempt to get into the many intricacies involved in managing a succesful program.

Search engine strategies can be divided into 2 simple categories:

(1) Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Simply described, SEO is leveraging the arrangement of words and links contained on your Web site, in order to achieve a higher ranking on a search engine. Over the last 10 years the SEO market has skyrocketed. When I first became involved with marketing in the legal space, back in 1998, SEO was the first marketing tactic I was responsible for managing. Back then, there were only a handful of firms specializing in this. Today there are offshore companies and a number of companies that handle this within a specific business niche. For example, most trial lawyer conference will have several vendors that specialize in SEO, or in online marketing generally.

(2) Search Engine Marketing (SEM) This is actually nothing more than paying to place text advertising on search engines when specific words are inputted into the search engine. Businesses essentially try to outbid each other to place their ads higher on search results and achieve more clickthroughs than the competition. Yes, this pretty much all there is behind the disgustingly brilliant and simple business model that is almost singlehandedly responsible for Google and Yahoo's Billions. Get the entire world to use your search engine and have every business compete for qualified traffic seeking the products and services they are offering online.
Today, there are many firms that handle SEO, SEM and other online marketing and many traditional ad agencies have developed expertise in online mediums.

I can spend days speaking on SEO and SEM, having leveraged both as part of prior business online marketing strategies and understanding the intricacies involved. While I do have to sleep at some point, I will offer one tip with respect to each. However, if you have any particular questions on the subject, I would be happy to provide answers via e-mail.

Tip 1: If SEO is a major source of lead opportunities for your business, do the ROI math and invest the appropriate capital into a firm to stay on top of this for you. Some firms will consider partial incentives based on ranking performance - I would lean toward a win-win arrangement like this.

Tip 2: Studies have shown that there is no such thing as optimal position in SEM. The optimal position is the one that gets you the most leads at the lowest investment. (In other words, traffic that clicks through when you are ad link #1, does not behave any differently that traffic clicking through ad link #5). The difference is it will cost you less to be link #5 and likely get less traffic. If it costs you 1/5 of the price and you get half the traffic, it may be prudent to consider going for link #5, unless your market share strategy dictates otherwise

Referrals: The Biggest Lost Opportunity in Business

Let's face it, there is no such thing as the perfect marketing plan. No matter who you are, what type of business you are in, there is always an opportunity to improve your marketing. With so many different business priorities, there is just not enough time in the day to focus on all the opportunities to promote your business.

Therefore, when we approach a subject as critical as referrals, I will make sure I stress that this tactic is not a "nice to have" but a "must have" in your marketing practices. That said, I would be willing to guess that 90% or more of all businesses do not have a reasonably sound strategy for leveraging client referrals.

How many plaintiff's firms follow up with their personal injury clients by sending an e-mail or letter along the following lines: "Dear Ms. Smith, it was our pleasure assisting you with your case. We wish you a speedy continued recovery.
We hope we were able to exceed your expectations while we represented you. If there is anything we could have done better, please let us know, as we are always looking for ways to improve our practice.
If you were satisfied with our service and performance, we would greatly appreciate your future referrals."

Requesting referrals is a very easy tactic that offers an astounding return on your efforts, but is often forgotten. As a defense lawyer working with a client, how about following up a positive survey response with a follow-up call? "Good afternoon Mike, I wanted to take a minute to thank you for your continued business and the time you took to provide feedback. [My pleasure] Mike I would like to ask you one more thing, do you feel based on our service level that you would feel comfortable recommending our firm to a peer? [yeah, certainly] Would you be comfortable giving me the names and contact information of 2 or 3 peers that you feel may be interested in considering our firm on their next case? [no problem] That's wonderful, thank you so much, and may I refer to the fact that we have worked with you on these particular matters [go for it] Thank you!

And that is how simple and effective referrals can be. It takes a little salesmanship, but if you give it a shot, you will be increasing your business in no time!

Tip: Think about missed referral opportunities in your ordinary course of business and try to leverage them whenever possible

Return on Client Investment

If you were to impart just one lesson from your business experiences, what would that be?

Although I certainly have a lot more learning to do, I would have to say that over the first 10 working years of my career, my personal lesson is to always strive to exceed expectations -- as it pertains to both performance and character.

I have always tried to go above and beyond what my supervisors expected. Further, I came to the fundamental realization that it was not enough to exceed the expectations of the company that employs me, but that I needed to do everything within my sphere of control to exceed the expectations of those who employ my company - our clients.

What does this have to do with marketing?

As I noted in an earlier blog, marketing touches all parts of your business and Tip: there are few things that can impact your business brand (positively, or negatively), like the level of service you provide to your clients.

Think about the last time a business truly wowed you with its level of service. Companies that I interact with that stand out in my mind are Enterprise Rental Car, Optimum Cable, Fidelity Investments and Geico. Every time I deal with these organizations they are prompt, knowledgeable, profesional and always seem to go the extra yard. Consequently, my business has stayed with these organizations even though I may conceivably have saved a few bucks by moving elsewhere.

The best organizations create a culture of customer service amongst their employees and if you are able to achieve this, you too will see remarkable improvements in your business output. Great client service reduces turnover and increases profits. I have seen top tier client service salvage Fortune 500 accounts, in spite of inferior product offerings. Yes, it is THAT important.

As a plaintiff's firm, consider the importance of giving regular feedback to your clients on the status of their cases. Yes, it is likely that you are extremely busy, but think of how professional you would look if you had your secretary or paralegal proactively e-mail a periodic status update to your client. You would reduce the number of calls and improve satisfaction and subsequent referrals.

Defense firms - same thing. Keeping adjusters and defense counsel in the loop is another great strategy to build relationships. Couple surveys with a strong process for status updates and you are already ahead of the game. If you want to truly wow your best clients, try noting their contact preferences and customizing your follow-up strategy to their unique needs.

As a vendor servicing litigation firms, take the time to understand what clients value most in your interactions with you. Is it the support that you provide when they have questions on their software? Is it how quickly you respond to a trial exhibit need? How much personal care you give in understanding what they are looking for in a Web site? Determining the types of service interactions your clients value most and going above and beyond to execute better than your competition is another clear key to success.

The Rise of the Affiliate Marketing Program

If you have ever paid someone a fee or a percentage for sending you business, you are already familiar with the core concept behind affiliate marketing, a form of online marketing that is, relatively speaking still in its infancy.
Today plaintiff's firms typically take 1/3 of 1/3 when referring a case to another firm that is better equipped to handle that particular type of case. Maybe there are minor deviations, but this is fairly standard practice in the industry today. This arrangement will likely be gone with the rise of the Internet, as will the standard 1/3 fee.

The Internet is giving considerable power to the consumer and things that we have come to expect as standards today will be obsolete tomorrow. You can call it a prophecy, lunacy, or just research enabled foresight. In any case, I will spare you the details of my Nostradamic prediction, just trust me that competition will increase, fees will be even more closely aligned with lawyer performance and the 1/3concept will be subject to added flexibility.

Speaking of alignment with performance - we have come full circle and returned to the topic of affiliate marketing - which does just that. With affiliate marketing, an organization pays a fee to one or more affiliates or partners for a customer, or for traffic generated by the affiliate's efforts. For a very comprehensive explanation of affiliate marketing you can go to the following Wikipedia listing:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affiliate_marketing

If you are currently using revenue sharing as part of your business strategy, or considering this as an alternative, it pays to conduct some additional research into the concept of online affiliate marketing, even if only for your own knowledge. Today, major online retailers, e-commerce companies, financial services companies, etc... are the major players in affiliate marketing. Interestingly enough Wiki's historical overview points to gaming and adult Web sites as being among the first movers in the world of affiliate marketing.

Affiliate programs are somewhat complex to manage and consequently may be less feasible for a smaller, non e-commerce business. However, with the Internet becoming more sophisticated, chances are strong that online affiliate marketing programs may be something your organization will want to educate itself on further - particularly if you are a vendor with a strong online lead presence, or in a larger law firm targeting online leads.

Marketing Tip: Be aware of any new trends in marketing that can help to give you a leg up on the competition.

What is Marketing?

Ask 10 different lawyers or business people what marketing is and you are likely to hear a very broad range of responses. To one, it may be television advertising, yellow pages and print ads. To another it's a well designed web page and intelligent search engine marketing. A third will say it's managing client relationships through effective service.

The textbook definition of marketing is actually the process through which an organization develops and communicates value to its prospects and customers. When you stop to think about it, this is quite a broad definition - and it should be.

Tip: Marketing touches all parts of your organization and it encompasses vastly more than most imagine.

Marketing is pricing, market research and strategy, messaging, appearance of marketing material, planning and measurement, service, sales and yes, the channels through which you reach your clients. Solid marketing can make a company with a mediocre offering successful and poor marketing can make a company with a great offering fail.

The best marketing organizations measure return on marketing investment for every tactic and do not engage in tactics that are not measurable.

How many times have law firms become so dependent one or two marketing tactics that they are eventually blindsided when these channels dry up, or become oversaturated with competitors? Marketing requires the continual monitoring and analysis of results, tracking of lead sources and regularly updating strategies to keep ahead of the curve.

As for vendors, many do not realize how precarious their competitive position is, absent consistent monitoring and adjustment of their marketing efforts. I have managed marketing plans that have enabled the companies for which I workedto take considerable market share from segment leaders, in short periods of time. We were able to do this by executing throughly researched, integrated marketing plans and rapidly adapting them to those channels where the highest return on investment was realized. We maximized the highest return tactics and eliminated, or dramatically reduced the rest.

In conclusion, the proper management of your marketing is your highest return on investment. If, you are not able to afford a full time resource to assist in the continual tracking and measurement of your investments, consider retaining an experienced marketer on a consulting basis for a full evaluation of your current marketing process.

If you have any specific marketing topics you would be interested in hearing about, or have a specific question that pertains to your firm, please e-mail me or leave a comment and I will do my best to address your inquiry.

Getting the Most Out of Face to Face Events

When the economy is jittery, everyone starts to debate the value of most marketing efforts. Very often, tradeshows and events are among the first marketing tactics to receive the scrutiny of those looking to reduce costs... and often with good reason.

I have participated in scores of conferences, in a variety of industries, as an exhibitor and in a networking / attendee capacity. It amazed me how often I would see abandoned exhibits, exhibitors chatting away with peers with their backs turned to prospective clients, showing little to no effort to interact with attendees. When the event is over, it is often these same companies that complain the loudest about how poorly organized the event was.

Tradeshows, if conducted properly, are highly effective methods of reaching target audiences and studies have shown that leads generated from conferences cost considerably less to close than those generated from field sales calls. Attendees of events generally want to be there and most come with specific agendas.

The challenge is that even when exhibitors go through the right motions at events, a majority do not set objectives and an even larger percentage have no process for measuring their objectives, quantifying event results, or following up on leads.

Goals of any organization participating in an event include one or more of the following: increasing sales, increasing share of customer, introducing new products and services and positioning the company or its brand(s). It is important to understand the specific objectives of your organization for the event and plan a strategy around the objectives.

Assuming you have thoroughly researched the event and it is the appropriate forum to reach your intended audience, set your goals and strategies in advance of the event. Use past events to determine how many prospects you must speak with to achieve your specific target objectives and plan to hit your goals.

Measure your results after the event and track ultimate client revenue back to your lead to demonstrate your return on investment. Evaluate the event and report, using metrics to back up your outcomes.

A tactic used succesfuly by some exhibitors and one that my companies have often taken advantage of includes identifying and reaching out to key prospects and clients in advance of the conference and either arranging for a discussions/demo at the booth, or meeting over meals, drinks, or in a private, sponsored event.

As a vendor looking to reach litigators it is helpful to understand your target demographic. Is your ideal client a solo practitioner, or a 20 person firm? If the latter and you can obtain a pre-show attendee list, you may want to do some advance research on your top prospects. You can find lawyer bios and photos on many firm web sites, or bar directories. Even if some of your targets do not walk by your booth, knowing who they are may allow you to introduce yourself in a networking function, or different setting.

A defense firm looking to strengthen its brand value and facilitate networking opportunities between its lawyers and clients or prospects may consider sponsorship of a private reception. Be wary though, some "private" events have a tendency of turning into conference wide affairs - so be sure you have a solid plan for getting the qualified traffic to your event while filtering out the party crashers.

Plaintiff's lawyers, I appreciate that your role is rarely, if ever that of exhibitor, so I will leave you with an attendee tip. Sure, you're in Hawaii and the last place you want to be is in the exhibit hall when you can be enjoying your tax write-off vacation by the pool. Remember though, that there is a reason why many of the nation's top trial lawyers are also the same individuals who spend the most time in the exhibit halls at conferences. They are there to learn and determine which vendors can give them the advantage needed to stay ahead of the curve. I highly recommend speaking with as many vendors as possible when you are at a conference, whether you decided to purchase their services or not - if you go early in the morning there will be plenty of time to catch some sun. Not all will wow you, but it is very likely that you will have some interesting conversations that will give you clearer insight on ways to improve your practice.

The Colossus Phenomenon and Using Market Research to Increase Profits

Two very interesting topics on the agenda today: (1) What is really going with insurance companies' evaluation systems? (2) I will explain the importace of market research and review how you can use surveys to dramatically improve your business.

OK, on to the good stuff. Many litigators know that a number of insurance companies rely on claim evaluation software to assist adjusters in determining their offer range. Over the last year, I had the opportunity to present to and interact with sr. claims executives and in-house legal counsel at over 50 major insurance carriers, TPA's and corporations. During my discussions I asked about Colossus because it was relevant to how a company would prospectively use Cybersettle. I have also met with a number of claims/litigation vendors, including Computer Sciences Corp. (CSC), the company which created Colossus. Lastly, I had conducted considerable independent research on this subject, while running Cybersettle's marketing department to make more informed marketing decisions about the best course for the business.

What is fairly common knowledge, particularly among plaintiff's lawyers, is how conservative and restrictive some of the tools are. Some auto carriers have dealt with considerable criticism and I believe even some bad faith suits related to the use of this type of product.

What is not as well known, is that while some personal auto carriers use these products, it is virtually unheard of for a commercial insurer or corporation to use a claim evaluation tool like Colossus or Claims Outcome Advisor today. So, why do auto carriers use them? The bottom line: carriers that use them are more profitable than ones that pay claims faster. My research found that years ago, a major consulting company (which I won't name), conducted a major study with a national auto insurer (which I also won't name) that found it to be in the company's financial interest to fight even meritorious claims aggressively and that allowing files to age, typically a costly activity, would be more than counterbalanced by the reduction in indemnity / payout.

I have independently confirmed this correlation, through intimate knowledge of insurer financial profitability ratios (public information in the AM Best book) and direct knowledge of which carriers use claim evaluation systems. These carriers regularly refused the adoption of early settlement intervention tools like Cybersettle, while commercial carriers, which have greater incentive to satisfy larger policy holders, were considerably more likely to "play nice" with the opposition.

How can it be cheaper for these companies to litigate than to settle? It is cheaper, because tens of thousands of plaintiff's attorneys throughout the US choose to settle for the amounts put out by these claims evaluation systems than to litigate. Many carriers have advanced systems that allow their adjusters to determine which lawyers/firms are tougher and present a greater risk and which ones are pushovers and will take the figures put out by the evaluation systems.

If more plaintiff's lawyers litigated meritorious claims against auto carriers, there would be higher outcomes for their clients, more business for plaintiff's lawyers and more business for defense counsel. Today, plaintiff's lawyers have access to financial services and litigation outsourcing support that can level the playing field, so one solution for countering a reduction in claims is to make more with the ones that exist.

So, I argue that the challenge here lies not with the insurance companies. Jurors dictate the value of settlements, not computers. The issue is that less than aggressive plaintiff's lawyers are driving settlement value down by accepting lower payout that is offered by these particular carriers. Very often, more experienced lawyers refer these smaller cases to younger peers starting their practice. These lawyers need cash flow, so they sometimes accept less than they should, because they cannot afford to wait years for a pre-trial mediation yielding a considerably larger settlement.

Interestingly enough, despite the financial success of several large carriers with the system, bad faith suits and adjuster resistance have caused many other carriers to have a very negative outlook on these evaluation systems. Many carriers will insist that they merely use evaluation systems as baselines, or starting points. Nevertheless, the ones that have seen the most bad faith suits and negative publicity, have been the most rigid with the application of these systems. Again though, the problem is that these same rigid auto carriers have also seen extremely high profit margins / financial ratios.

Recently, CSC has developed a new product called PrecendentID, which allows users to reference actual historical settlements by carriers. This seems to be an attempt to offer additional information to help adjusters in their decision making process and seems like an effort to leverage more realistic data. So far this is a new product offering and to my knowledge does not yet have the market penetration of some of the traditional evaluation tools, so it remains to be seen what impact this will have in the long term.

OK, this takes me back to marketing and the tip for today:

Tip: Master market research to give your business a huge leg up on the competition.
There are 2 things I can tell you about a business that does not conduct appropriate market research prior to launching a product or service: (1) I am not handling marketing there and (2) it has considerably reduced its chance for success.

Do you know why 86% of new businesses fail in this country? Because people launch businesses based on gut feelings. Mike thinks to himself: "I can cook well and come from Italian heritage, so let me open an Italian restaurant - I can rent Tina's vacant commercial property down the street."

In addition to the many business / financial concerns one must be prepared for when starting a business, there are numerous critical marketing questions that must be resolved. In this instance: how many other restaurants exist? How many Italian restaurants exist? What is the market demand for Italian food in the area? What do patrons of Italian restaurants in the area look for in a restaurant? Does the competition have shortcomings? What are the shortcomings? How critical are the shortcomings? Can I excel in those areas where my competition cannot?

One of the best ways to find out the answers to these types of questions and many others, as would be applicable to your business is by conducting a formal survey of your prospective clients. I have never launched, nor recommended the launch of a new product or service offering without suggesting some form of market research as a preliminary first step.

As you probably have existing clients and chances are small that you are looking to launch new products or services, I will focus on the importance of client surveys in this post.

A client survey serves a number of purposes:
1) It lets the client know that you care about their opinion of your business.
2) It gives you vital insight into ways you can improve your product and/or service
3) It enables you to elicit additional client needs that may be met through new offerings
4) It strengthens your business brand and gives you greater credibility
5) It may give you competitive information that you were not aware of

Guess what, even if you are the managing partner of your firm or CEO of your company, you get to have a performance review. The client survey IS your performance review.

As a plaintiff's lawyer, what better way to remind a claimant that you appreciate his or her referral than sending him or her a post settlement survey?

Defense counsel, this is indispensable in your line of business. Your in-house lawyer or adjuster clients will greatly appreciate regular efforts by you to stay on top of your firm's performance. I promise you that conducting this one cost-effective marketing initiative properly, will yield tremendous financial returns for your firm.

Business vendors, why do your litigation clients use your product versus your competition's? What change can you make today that would cause 20% of the clients using another company to leave and do business with you? What enhancements are your clients looking for that may allow you to develop an alternative source of revenue?

I highly recommend that when conducting a survey, you trust someone experienced to help you set this up. As I mentioned, a well crafted survey is a VERY POWERFUL marketing tool. An experienced marketer will help you draft quantifiable, appropriate questions and help you avoid major pitfalls that a novice might make such as mistakenly attempting to sell under the guise of research -AN ABSOLUTE NO-NO.

My next post will discuss events/conferences and I will explain why I think that 95% of organizations are leaving big amounts of money on the exhibiting table each time they attend.

What is going on in the insurance world?

During my time as head of Marketing for Cybersettle, I spent a lot of time analyzing data on the insurance industry, and more specifically, data on insurance bodily injury claims. I used many sources for my market analysis, including a book published by AM Best called Best's Aggregates and Averages. I believe this to be an indispensible source of information for any advanced marketer looking to keep a finger on the pulse of the insurance industry), and sometimes I also reviewed statistics on the Insurance Information Institute's (III) Web site.

The III, arguably a pro insurer Web site, offers data that shows a decline in litigation costs in 2006. This is considerable given inflation, the general trend for increasing settlement values and the III's natural tendency to position litigation data in a light most favorable to carriers. Further, the site explains that they project increases in litigation costs in 2007 & 2008 due to the subprime mortgage debacle. See the following link then come right back...

http://www.iii.org/media/facts/statsbyissue/litigiousness


This is great if your firm handles these types of disputes, but the one trend that is not touched on, is the continual drop in total annual bodily injury claims - the bread and butter for many of you, or the law firm clients you work with. In fact, based on my reviews of AM Best data, overall injury claim volume is currently decreasing by roughly 4%-5% anually. This is considerable and while not everyone will feel this immediately, it is inevitable that this will impact many firms.

Next, this trend is even more dramatic for plaintiff's counsel handling high volume, low severity cases. There are an increasing number of claimants using the Internet to get educated and handling small cases independently. Today, there is no consistent method by which a claimant can accurately evaluate his or her $20,000 or smaller claim, taking into account medicals, lost wages and pain and suffering in a given venue. With systems like Colossus and Claims Outcome Advisor offering evaluation mechanisms for carriers, you can be certain it is only a matter of time before technology will facilitate a claimants' ability to handle their own smaller claims start to finish.

Case in point: when Cybersettle started doing business back in 1998, there were only a handful of non-represened claimant setlements. In 2007, more than 10% of the cases submitted by insurance adjusters were against non-represented claimants. Assuming this trend is representative of the broader industry, as a plaintiff's lawyer handling large volumes of small cases, you are going up against a 5% annual industry claim volume decrease and an unrepresented claimant rate of over 10%+ and it is very difficult to predict how high this figure will get and how fast.

Defense counsel may not be as drastically impacted by the trend in non-represented small claims, but the overall shrinking pool, which includes larger injuries is certainly a major consideration.

Some vendors will be directly impacted, other more indirectly. Companies like Cybersettle handling large volumes of small claims will be affected by the industry reduction trend. Financial services companies marketing services to claimants through their attorneys may see a reduced opportunity for this. Overall competition will increase and profit margins for firms will shrink, and unless firms can adapt and find ways to reduce costs and become more competitive, discretionary firm spending will be impacted and many vendors will be affected by this.

In my next post, I will discuss in greater detail what I know about claim evaluation systems like Colossus and Claims Outcome Advisor, and the newer Precedent ID and how these have impacted the way personal and commercial carriers do business. This is very interesting stuff - be sure not to miss it.

Today's marketing tip: Marketing is so much more than communicating your offering to clients and prospects - marketing touches all facets of your business. A sound marketing strategy must incorporate understanding the big picture in your industry, through the accumulation of comprehensive business intelligence that gives you greater foresight and keeps you a step ahead of the competition.

More business with less insurance claims

Did you know that claim volume is shrinking considerably each year? Improved automobile safety standards, risk management practices, hospital policies, new technologies and boots with better soles mean less injuries, lower severity injuries and consequently reduced overall litigation market revenues. This industry trend, while great for society will inevitably affect the bottom lines of plaintiff's lawyers, defense lawyers and industry vendors. As a result, a number of law firms or companies that are in business today will not be in business this time next year. Even if your firm is not among the casualties, you may very well see dramatically reduced profit margins, or work longer hours to achieve the same results.

While the change will inevitably impact the industry, it doesn't have to impact your firm.

This blog will provide you with FREE marketing and business strategies for your law firm or company that will help you stay ahead of the curve and in business for a long time. I have accumulated this knowledge by spending the last 10+ years researching and marketing to litigation firms and working with litigation firm vendors and have learned how top organizations get there and stay there. I have also spent countless hours researching the Web, reading marketing and business books and newsletters on innovative marketing and operational strategies that have made Fortune 500 companies successful and applying this knowledge to gain competitive edge in a small to mid size business environment.

Sorry about the dramatic first paragraph, but it was necessary to illustrate my first marketing tip.

Tip: When communicating to clients or prospects verbally or through marketing messaging, it's not just what you say, it's how you say it.

FREE and FEAR.

In the paragraphs above, I invoked these 2 very basic, but incredibly effective marketing tools to get and keep your interest. If you look on the Internet, there are millions of examples of companies offering free services to get your interest, knowing they will benefit from their relationship with you long term by offering value today in exchange for the chance to gain your trust. Yahoo is a well-known example of this. They provide free e-mail, calendars, customizable content, games, etc... knowing that the relationship will result in later revenue from premium mail services, web hosting, advertising, etc...

As a plaintiff's lawyer taking a case on contingency, offering a FREE consultation explicitly is a must in all communications. One should not assume that the claimant knows this. It's easy to lose focus on other messaging differentiators and forget this critical element.

Most defense law firms looking to grow their business rely heavily on relationships, speaking opportunities and similar face to face tactics to generate a majority of their new business. However, in such a competitive space, where most firms are offering comparable services, sometimes at fixed prices set by insurance companies and using similar marketing tactics, why not try something different? Consider inviting clients and prospects to a free periodic webinar that highlights legal trends in your area of expertise. Most insurance company decision makers are used to interacting with vendors via the web and are likely to be open to getting valuable information from you. This is a good excuse to pick up the telephone, introduce yourself to the decision maker and offer them something you know will be valuable to them, while positioning yourself as a subject matter expert in a particular area of law. (It also shows that you are technologically progressive).

Litigation vendors, you also have numerous of opportunities to use FREE in your marketing. Free trial of a case management system, free demo CD, waiver of an application or other fee for a first financial service customer, free tie just for getting measured for a suit - you catch my drift...

Ok, now for my favorite FEAR. Good marketers know that appealing to emotion sells and arguably, no emotion sells like fear. If you can pinpoint a customer's fear and address this fear with your service, you will considerably improve your results. Think of some recent tv ads for cars that highlight special financing, or car features and contrast these to ads where a car is pummelled only for the driver to remain unscathed. Which of these do you remember most vividly today? Easy one, right? Another brilliant example is IBM's "No one ever got fired for buying IBM" campaign.

The same marketing principles apply to your business. As a plaintiff's lawyer, think of your prospective client's fears. What is even stronger than an ad for a law firm showing high verdicts and strong subject matter expertise? How about, one that addresses the fear of picking the wrong law firm and possibly losing the case, or achieving a poor outcome? Top marketers will elicit this fear, then put the prospect at ease by using testimonials and proven results to highlight why their firm is the first choice - right before offering a FREE consultation. Of course, it goes without saying that delivering a stronger communication should never cause an ad to cross the line into the realm of blurry ethical practices.

In a defense firm setting, it pays to understand your client or prospect and their unique fears. Listening to and understanding to the specific pain points of your clients and prospects is key. A barrier to working with your firm may be the fear that the in house employee will be the one making the decision to switch firms and doesn't want to risk getting burned in the event a case does not go as expected. If this is the case, maybe it pays to earn your client's trust by explicitly asking for smaller, low severity cases first, where you can demonstrate your capabilities and put the client at ease.

For litigation vendors, consider the impact on your lawyer client's referrals when using the wrong structured settlement company, a situation where the wrong recommendation of a medical expert proves disastrous, purchasing technology only to discover that the support fees are not reasonable, or the risk of using a search engine optimization company that does not have the expertise to deliver return on the client's dollars.

You may not remember much of what you read in this blog in a week, but I can bet that you will certainly recall that the claim industry is shrinking and that you can return to this blog for free marketing advice that you can apply to your litigation or litigation vendor business. Always consider how any marketing communications can be strengthened to invoke stronger emotions and think about creative ways to use a variety of "free" marketing tactics toward profitable outcomes, when you are courting a client and looking to develop trust.

I hope you found the tip interesting and relevant to your specific business and I will continue to share marketing and business insight, as it applies to the litigation industry. This post just scratches the surface and I hope to eventually start responding to specific questions and have litigation industry leaders share their business insights that can help you succeed. Please feel free to e-mail me to share feedback or suggest discussion topics.

During the next post, I plan to explain what I know about the shrinking claim industry, how I know this and share some interesting things you may not know regarding insurance companies.