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OCT 2019 (800)-406-7229 SpotlightBranding.com
TAKING A STAND AGAINST SEO How Spotlight Branding Illuminates a Better Marketing Strategy
After reading “Building a Story Brand” by Donald Miller, I started looking at my business and its role in the world in terms of the story we are telling. In short, Story Brand is the idea that every story is propelled by threemain characters: the hero, the guide, and the villain. (Think about Luke Skywalker, Yoda, and Darth Vader in Star Wars for a better idea of the archetypes.) In our business, we call those characters the client, themarketing company, and the competitor, but the premise is the same: It’s a battle of good vs. evil. At Spotlight Branding, our lawyer clients are Luke Skywalker, changing lives for the better and bringing justice to the world. We’re Yoda, guiding them to a better way of marketing and doing our best to help them achieve their goals. And, in the marketing world, the Darth Vaders are the SEO companies — they often lead good lawyers down a path of frustration and wasted resources by making promises that search engine optimization can’t keep. From the beginning, Spotlight Branding has aimed to expose the myth that SEO is the holy grail every business should chase. SEO is overrated and often does more harm than good. Here are a few reasons. 1. SEO is a numbers game, and it’s impossible for everyone to win. If your law firm is chasing SEO just like everyone else, you’re stuck in a rat race that will inevitably see a handful reach the top and the rest continue to hemorrhage time
and money sprinting in circles on a hamster wheel. Imagine that instead of top slots on Google, SEO companies were selling spots on a billboard. Would you enter a bidding war with thousands of other lawyers, knowing only one of you will show up on the billboard? Or, would you look for a different way to advertise? 2. The best clients don’t come fromGoogle. If you do win the SEO race, what you will quickly find is that people who choose which firm to work with based on a quick Google search are often price shoppers. They’ll click through a handful of websites, reach out to a few, and ultimately pick one based on cost rather than quality. So, what’s the alternative to SEO? We like to focus on the two Rs: referrals and reputation. If you bolster your brand in those two places, you will have all the clients you need. Consider the grocery chain Whole Foods, which has built a strong reputation. I recently went there for lunch with friends. We filled up our trays at the hot bar, then carried them to the checkout, where they rang up by weight at about $14 each. If a fast food chain or even a mid-range restaurant had charged us that much for vegetables, we might have been up in arms, but we shrugged off the price. Why? Because it was Whole Foods! With careful marketing, Whole Foods has built a premium brand, and its customer base knows what its products are worth.
You can apply that same logic to your law practice by ensuring potential clients believe you’re the best in your field. All you need to do is focus your marketing on people, not search engines. By catering all of your web content to people instead of algorithms, you can make your brand more memorable and elevate your position in the minds of potential clients. That will make themmore likely to work with and recommend you. On the surface, what we do may appear similar to other marketing companies. We create websites, manage social media accounts, write blog content, send email newsletters, and shoot video. The difference is that instead of thinking about SEO when we do it, we’re thinking about people and how to create content that connects with them— and, if you choose to use our services, that’s what will separate you from the competition. “FROMTHE BEGINNING, SPOTLIGHT BRANDING HAS AIMED TO DESTROY THE MYTH THAT SEO IS THE HOLY GRAIL EVERY BUSINESS SHOULD CHASE.”
Give us a call when you’re ready to leave SEO behind.
–Marc Cerniglia
SpotlightBranding.com
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COOKING UP AN EFFECTIVE WEBSITE YOUR RECIPE FOR BUSINESS SUCCESS
If you’ve ever hosted a dinner party, then you know how important it is to pull off a well-executedmeal for your guests. A burned casserole, rubbery chicken, or fallen souffle can easily ruin the evening, prompting picked-at plates and hasty goodbyes. Worse, it can leave your friends with a bad impression andmaybe even scare themaway from future gatherings. When it comes to successful marketing, an ineffective website is as disastrous as rubbery chicken. Your website is where your firmmakes its first impression, and its design, navigability, and content can make or break your credibility. In other words, it could be the difference between clean plates and a good time, or departing quickly and unsatisfied! At Spotlight Branding, we know how to keep prospective clients from fleeing the metaphorical dinner table. People visiting a law firm website have two big questions: “Am I in the right place?” and “Are you the person I want to help me?” If you can address those concerns quickly, you’ve set yourself up for a successful dinner party. Here are the ingredients you’ll need. 1. A HEAPING SPOONFUL OF DESIGN An aesthetically pleasing, well-designed website properly represents the professionalism and quality of your firm.
Look at it this way: Caring about your website’s appearance is the same as caring about how you look in the mirror. You wouldn’t go to work in a wrinkled suit, so your website should be similarly well-kept. 2. A SCOOP OF STRATEGY You can have the most beautiful design in the business, but, if you don’t make your areas of practice clear and easily define the next steps for a potential client, you won’t get the results you want. Make sure your website is intuitive, with clear buttons for your practice areas and tabs for extra features. And don’t forget to answer those big questions on the front page. 3. A DASH OF SECRET SAUCE Once you have your design and strategy nailed down, it’s time to sprinkle in the special features. Spotlight’s secret sauce has five ingredients: a clear brand statement or tagline, testimonials, blog posts and videos, a sign-up for a digital newsletter, and a free downloadable resource related to your practice. Rounding out your site with those indicators of expertise will bolster your reputation and attract quality clients. If you want to put this recipe to the test, give Spotlight Branding a call today.
Tyler Dahl is an estate planning attorney with a special focus on helping business owners incorporate their business assets into their estate plan. Based in Sacramento, California, Tyler started the Law Offices of Tyler Q. Dahl five years ago and initially relied on directories and SEO to drive his business forward. After spending a lot of money on results that only led to frustration, Tyler turned to Spotlight Branding. We redesigned his website, began posting on social media, wrote blogs, and started sending an e-newsletter. Not long after the e-newsletter started, Tyler began receiving several requests from clients he had worked with in the past asking for additional business law services they needed but had simply put on the backburner until Tyler’s email showed up in their inbox and reminded them it needed to be done. Tyler also started receiving inquiries from other contacts asking for assistance in other areas of business law — something they didn’t know Tyler could do until he started staying top of mind with them. In addition to the business law requests, Tyler has seen an increase in people asking him to build their estate plans. In all instances, Tyler traces this increase in business directly to his work with us. Tyler is a great example of the power of referrals and staying top of mind. You don’t realize it, but it’s easy for people to forget who you are and all the ways you can help them. If you’re frustrated like Tyler was with the leads being generated by SEO and legal directories, tap into the contacts you’ve generated during your time as an attorney and get the business you’re missing out on simply because people have forgotten all the ways you can help them! TYLER DAHL: ESTATE PLANNING CLIENT SUCCESS STORY
WANT MORE REFERRALS AND BETTER CLIENTS? Visit SpotlightBranding.com/NL to schedule a call!
More Referrals. Better Clients. Higher ROI.
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THE SMART WAY TO HIRE WHY IT’S TIME TO SHAKE UP YOUR LAW FIRM’S HIRING PROCESS
Most businesses use a similar hiring process. Prospective candidates send in their resumes for the hiring manager to review. Then, based on almost nothing more than those resumes, they decide who is valuable enough for an in- person interview. Finally, after a 30–60-minute conversation, they choose the perfect employee. If that doesn’t sound crazy to you, keep reading! First, a resume isn’t an adequate yardstick to measure skills and competency. Anyone can throw words on a page, and there’s nothing qualitative in even an honest work history. Simply knowing that someone completed certain tasks isn’t an indicator of how well they did them, and, while adding an interview is a necessary improvement, it doesn’t solve the problem. The truth is, if you hire someone after only two steps, you won’t know their true skill level. Instead of evidence, you’ll need to rely on assumptions and guesses. Themissing piece of the hiring puzzle is a test of competence. At Spotlight Branding, we’ve solved that problemby sending all of our applicants a
pre-interview assessment to complete at home. You can do the same thing by giving potential employees mock work to do before their interviews; for example, send them contracts to review and give feedback on or request that they draft amock letter or email to assess how they would communicate in a specific scenario. This allows you to spend your time wisely by only interviewing the candidates with demonstrated abilities. Furthermore, we suggest providing another test that is in-person after the interview. This usually means providing the candidate with a private spot in the office for a second round of mock work.
That will give you a chance to see how they work in real time and lay to rest any concerns about whether they had assistance on the original test or struggled to complete it in a timely manner. When designing these tests, ask yourself, “What do I want to test for?” Is it their ability to craft an argument on the spot? Their writing skills? Their attention to detail? Choose a skillset, then work backward to identify tasks that can demonstrate it. Paired with a clear job description and challenging interview questions, this hiring formula is practically foolproof. And, it sure beats making decisions off of just a resume and a conversation!
FEATURED EPISODE THE VERY BEST EPISODES OF THE LAW FIRM MARKETING MINUTE PODCAST
RESOURCE OF THE MONTH
THE ULTIMATE (AND FREE) BUSINESS ORGANIZATIONAL APP
If you’re looking for more great resources to drive your business forward, take a look at these episodes from our industry-leading podcast: The Law Firm Marketing Minute.
At Spotlight Branding, we use Trello as our primary workflow management tool. However, this app is so versatile that it can practically be whatever you want it to be. This free app has been immeasurably helpful in allowing us to manage projects for our clients and keep ourselves organized with our other daily tasks. This app works like a virtual board with individual cards you can use to organize and work through projects. Each card comes with the ability to import attachments like PDFs or other documents to keep everything in one place. You can also assign due dates on a card so that nothing ever falls through the cracks. Best of all, multiple people can collaborate on a board, so it truly can be something everyone in the office uses to keep projects moving forward. While there are other specific case management softwares out there, Trello can be great for you to brainstorm ideas, organize your daily tasks, or map out other initiatives in your firm.
WHAT SHOULD A WEBSITE COST FOR MY LAW FIRM? – LFMM 276
In this episode, we explore what your law firm website should cost. It’s also important to understand what you’re getting technically and strategically. That’s going to help you compare pricing from one competitor to the next. Find out what the range for this service should be today! If you want more referrals, better clients, and higher ROI on all your marketing, call us today at 800-406-7229 to schedule a consultation!
Listen to this episode and find even more at LawFirmMarketingMinute.com and subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
SpotlightBranding.com
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800-406-7229 SpotlightBranding.com
THIS ISSUE INSIDE
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Taking a Stand Against SEO
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Cooking up an Effective Website
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Success Story
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The Smart Way to Hire
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Spotlight Branding’s Industry-Leading Podcast
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Automation Has Come to Small Business
LET THE ROBOTS DO IT Automation Has Come to Small Business
Running a small business means wearing many hats. More often than not, CEOs find themselves moonlighting as marketers, customer service specialists, human resources representatives, project managers, and just about any other job that needs doing. That’s why more and more entrepreneurs are exploring automation to free up their time and focus on growing their business rather than just keeping it afloat. AUTOMATION ON YOUR LEVEL In the past, automated systems were solely within the purview of big businesses. Applications for organization were either too expensive or too wide in scope to fit the needs of smaller companies, but those days are over. Plenty of tools have been developed to help you and your team reduce workloads and run more efficiently, no matter your company’s size. REDUCING THE CHAOS Unless your business is large enough for several project managers, chances are that every employee is responsible for their own organization. This quickly leads to miscommunication, conflicting schedules, and roadblocked projects. Thankfully, many basic functions of a project manager have been automated thanks to applications like Apptivo.
With features to track tasks and submit timesheets, this scalable tool allows everyone to stay up to date on the logistics of business and make coordination a breeze. RESPONSE TIME IS EVERYTHING Many small businesses hesitate to bring “bots” into customer-facing operations because they don’t want to lose their human touch. But humans are busy, and an unanswered request for a quote or a delayed response to a question will quickly give current and potential customers a bad impression. That’s why software like Keap exists. Keap allows you to send automated email responses at the first point of contact. This message can be as simple as an acknowledgment that their message was received and will be answered soon. The important part is that your customers are reassured that they are being heard. Far from making your business more robotic, automated tools allow your team to focus on what they do best. That means more time for thoughtful customer service emails, personalized interactions with customers, and well-executed projects. That’s something you and your clients will appreciate.
More Referrals. Better Clients. Higher ROI.
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