How To

You have years of experience.

You have a nice office.

You have a strong track record of success.

You will fight for your client.

What makes you different?

As you market your firm, you need to communicate what makes you different from your many competitors. Keep in mind that before someone chooses to hire you, they have to choose to contact you. Your marketing should give them reasons to do that. Focus on your competitive advantages, then tell the world why you stand out.

FINDING YOUR COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE

We always remind our clients that they will never know why someone didn’t contact them. Maybe they didn’t like the website. Maybe the phone number in your radio ad was too complicated. Maybe they saw negative reviews on Avvo. Whatever the reason, the lost client has no reason to take time and explain how you lost their business.

Instead, tell them exactly why they should contact you. Here are some potential advantages you should broadcast to the world:

• Graduated with special honors from law school
• Recognition or citation from a governing/oversight body
• 5-star rating online
• Team of specialist attorneys
• Large verdict in a previous case
• Long list of satisfied client testimonials
• Decades or centuries of firm existence

Whatever makes you stand out from the competition is a necessity to communicate. Never assume people know about you. The items above are reasons to contact you. They matter for very important and material reasons because they can help win a case. Many of them also speak to having great customer service. Firms that treat clients badly aren’t around for very long. The level of service you provide will reinforce the brand you presented in your marketing.

Attorney Level of Service

Communicating your competitive advantage will lead to phone calls and emails. Now the hard work begins: meeting expectations. Your level of service is another way to stand out from your competitors. Beyond capturing new clients, it can help you retain current clients.

Analyze the client experience with your firm:

• How are clients greeted (in person and on the phone)?
• Are phone calls kept on hold for more than 10 seconds?
• Do you serve tea and coffee at your office?
• Are letters, calls, and emails responded to promptly?
• Does your collateral (letterhead, brochures, business cards, etc.) easily identify ways to contact you?
• Do you send “Thank You” cards or other tokens of appreciation to new clients?

Summary

Don’t lose business because it was taken for granted. Clients always have a choice for their next attorney. Work with your ad agency to ensure that you are communicating your competitive advantages, and finding ways to make your law firm stand out. Once you have earned a call, put the time and effort into retaining more business and earning testimonials that can be used in future marketing. Small investments now can lead to large returns in the future.

Arkside Marketing is one of the top law firm branding agencies. We are a full-service ad agency, specializing in heavily regulated industries such as law firms, car dealerships, and hospitals. If you would like a complimentary analysis of your current marketing efforts, please contact us today to schedule an appointment. We can come to your office or conduct the analysis online via Skype, Google Hangouts, or Join.me.

Business cards are still an effective and convenient method for distributing your contact information. Ignore the small chorus of nay-sayers who ponder the question, “is the business card dead?” A business card is a valuable and inexpensive investment. Here are 5 tips to make your business card effective:

1. Order Business Cards from Arkside

Its a good idea, but that’s not really number one. Here we go…

1. Make Your Business Card Easy to Read

Simple form over function. It doesn’t matter how beautiful your business card is if no one can read it. Even if you are an artist or graphic designer. Don’t let a creative flair overtake the reason you have a business card…so people can contact you! There are plenty of ways to incorporate beautiful, colorful, extravagant designs and still have easy-to-read information.

2. Use Both Sides of Your Business Card

2″ high by 3.5″ wide.
Two sides.
That gives you 14 square inches of space to work with. Don’t let it go to waste. When clients come to us for brand development, we often find a misuse of space in their business cards, letterhead, envelopes, and websites. Your business card can communicate a lot of information including:

With all of those possibilities, why would you leave the back of your card blank? Put it to good use. Don’t just copy your logo again in a larger size. Use it as an appointment reminder (many dentists and doctors do this). You could also promote a particular product line, include social media icons/addresses, share your industry recognition award, or give a useful tip that is relevant to your customers.

3. Design Business Cards With Your Customer In Mind

Your business card needs to meet and exceed the expectations of the person to whom you give it. If you own a law firm catering to high net worth clients, your business card needs to reflect that. The design should be professional and elegant. Including the colors of your favorite baseball team is not recommended.

Utilize your color palette, fonts, and other brand design elements. This information should be readily available in your branding guidelines.

4. Print Your Business Card on the Right Material

Many years ago, we came across a company that had plastic business cards. They had a custom cut shape, full color, and nearly as thick as a credit card. EACH card was about $1.00. Yes, they spent $500 on every set for employees. They were beautiful, unique, and effective.

They were not cost efficient.

The same unique beauty could have been achieved on a paper stock, even a rarely available stock, for less than $1.00 per card. Use a stock that is appropriate for your customers. A heavy-duty card stock for rough industries such as construction or landscaping. Elegant linen is appropriate for accountants or attorneys. Plastic for…well…no one.

5. Steal Ideas for Your Business Card

The layout and content options for your business card are limitless. But you aren’t going to reinvent the wheel. Someone already did what you want. Best of all, someone already did a part of what you want.

“Good artists copy, great artists steal!” –Pablo Picasso

Start collecting business cards with things you like and want on your own: a great font, a nice placement of a logo, the right size social media icons, whatever.

Now use this opportunity for marketing and networking. Compliment the person who’s card you admire and tell them what you like. They’ll appreciate your kind words and will be more receptive to your card once it is ready.

FREE TIP
6. Order your business cards from Arkside. (Just contact our office and we’ll schedule a free consultation.)

If you could change one thing about your current business card, what would it be? Leave a comment below and let’s see what others want to improve.

When the doors to the office are locked for the evening, that never means you have to stop receiving phone calls, generating website traffic, receiving emails, or educating your customers. There are many ways that your direct response advertising campaign can continue to sell after hours. Advertising is an investment and, like your money, it should always be working for you.

Let us pretend your company sells mattresses. You have three showrooms within 200 miles of each other and they are open 9am – 6pm seven days per week. Your website shows your full product catalog along with information about your company and how to contact any store.  You are currently running a radio ad campaign and 20% of your commercials are running from 8pm – 12 midnight. (Don’t worry. You got these for free as a result of our negotiating.) You also have a television campaign running from 4pm – 12 midnight, a YouTube channel, Facebook Page, Twitter feed, Google AdWords, and a long-term SEO strategy.

How do you continue to sell after 6pm?

After Hours Call Center Services

Your radio and television ads include a phone number. But after 6pm, you don’t have a live body in the office to answer it. That is no reason to stop your customer from calling after hours. There are many call center services with locations around the world (remember the time difference) that can provide professional operators to take calls for your business after hours. They speak proficient, sometimes fluent or native, English, and can be trained to follow your company protocol for greeting and working with after hours calls. This can include instruction on what to do with urgent calls and whom to reach. Messages can be taken and delivered via fax or email for convenience.

They can also direct customers to your website and/or social media networks, which we will cover in the next sections. Always remember that your staff and marketing media should be a resource to the customer.

Website Live Chat

Your direct response advertising should include a reference to your website. And your website has a live chat operator, right? If your answer was “no”, we hope there is a great reason because a live chat operator can help you move more mattresses when your brick and mortar is closed. According to a 2010 Forrester Research study on live chat, “44% of online consumers say that having questions answered by a live person while in the middle of an online purchase is one of the most important features a Web site can offer.”

In addition to answering questions just before or even during someone’s purchasing process on your site, live chat also offers specific after hours benefits. If most or all of your competitors are lacking a website live chat feature, you are in a unique position to help your customers AND sell to them while your competition waits for 8am the next morning.

Live chat is also a great means of reducing cost-per-sale.

1. Online conversations cost less than a phone call.
2. Call/chat center employees can handle multiple chat sessions at a time, but only one phone call at a time.

Customers hate waiting. By allowing your employees to multitask, you can substantially reduce the backlog on your phone system during the day (not to mention reduce call volume dramatically) and increase the overall number of customers who received support.

Finally – use it in your advertising! Promote your competitive advantage of having help available 24 hours a day, especially if that is when your advertising is running.

Social Media Conversations

It isn’t wasted time or space to include social media in your direct response advertising if you can help questions and sell mattresses via social media. In much the same way live chat can help you sell after hours, so can social media, but with more opportunities. Live chat requires initiation by the user on some level to begin the relationship. All of the social media sites give your business the opportunity to start a relationship, answer questions, promote a new mattress line, or offer advice.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

A recent study showed that Google prioritizes social media factors in its calculations for search rankings. Seven of the top 10 factors involve social media. If for no other reason, make sure your company is using social media to enhance its own rankings in search. Never make it a challenge for customers to find you, especially after hours when customers have plenty of time to search and choose between you and your competitors.

Content is also critical for SEO and customer engagement. No one wants to see a Facebook Page or Twitter feed filled with self-promotion. Talk about events in your community, share interesting and RELEVANT photos and videos, and create contests to prompt customer engagement. These are a few of the things you can do that will earn a customer’s attention while they try to learn more about you and your mattresses in the wee hours of the night.

After Hours Staffing

Ensure that your staff or an outside vendor are monitoring your social media networks after hours. They should have the ability to respond to messages, reTweet, share information, and assist customers with making purchases on your website. The goal is to be far more than an answering service taking messages for someone to handle in the morning.

Your social media team should be thoroughly familiar with your website. This is vital so they can direct customers to the right page at the right time. For example, a customer wants to know how many years a mattress will last. Your social media team should send that person to a Testimonials page about the mattress line, not a description of the features. (Of course, if your product page has testimonials on it, that is okay.)

Summary

There is no reason you need to wait for your doors to open to sell. Utilize your after hours direct response advertising to direct your potential customers to the places they can find answers. With these three techniques, you can successfully and cost-efficiently sell your product or services after hours.

If you feel as though your business could benefit from professional marketing direction, you’re not alone. Most businesses would find extreme rewards if an ad agency were part of their structure. From brand development and protection to the quality of advertising, rare is the organization that can execute a well coordinated ad campaign on it’s own.

But the inevitable question is how to acquire that professional experience and insight. Should you hire someone to work from within or hire an agency? Here are five reasons to choose an ad agency:

Ad Agency = Advertising Specialists

You do what you do best. So do they. Advertising agencies exist because their staff have made careers out of successful marketing research, creative ideas, and timely execution. They revel in the latest consumer behavior studies and watch hours of Photoshop tutorials so they can offer the best products and solutions to your marketing challenges. The combination of education and passion culminates in a team of professionals.

Beyond love for their craft, experience is also vital. You are an expert at your business but could benefit tremendously from an objective viewpoint. Listen to the feedback and ideas offered by your ad agency. It is their job to understand your audience and reach them effectively. Ad agencies offer a breadth of knowledge from a variety of industries. That collection of experience offers unique insights to address your marketing goals with important perspective.

Ad Agency = Time Savings

Whether you are a business owner or a CMO, your daily duties are demanding. Hiring an ad agency allows you to focus on your responsibilities while a team of advertising specialists creates the best marketing elements possible. Developing a brand, launching an ad campaign, or preparing in-house marketing materials are all time consuming endeavors. Agency staff can do these things efficiently and cost-effectively.

You know your business better than anyone else. You need time to run it. Choose an agency that will conveniently work with you and your goals. Your ideas should be part of the marketing process, but marketing shouldn’t be all of your day.

Ad Agency = Cost Savings

Advertising is a substantial investment for most businesses. Do you consider your business cards part of your marketing? What about your press releases? Employee name tags? Office decor? All of these things are elements of marketing because they are part of your reputation. They represent your brand. They are things a customer might remember about you. All of them can be provided at wholesale prices by an ad agency.

An ad agency is like CostCo or BJs Wholesale Club. They can offer tremendous savings because they buy in bulk. And a good agency buys in a lot of bulk. They will offer savings on media rates because they represent more than just you (one client). They should also have good relationships with the media sales teams and leverage those relationships for your benefit.

Now look beyond the cost of media. Personnel costs are only going up and it would be a massive expense for you to create your own team of experienced marketing professionals. Ad agencies are able to attract great talent and those costs are shared – not absorbed solely by you.

Why Hire an Ad Agency?

Advertising is an investment. It is money you lay out in order to receive a positive return. An ad agency should be no different. Find the team that will bring your ideas to life and plans to fruition. A team of advertising specialists should save you both time and money while rewarding you with higher revenue and a stronger brand identity.

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