law-related education
Content Marketing and Content Management
for Better Client Service and New Clients
By Dave Poston, Esq.
Poston Communications LLC
F
or both reluctant legal marketers and the most
courageous, content marketing is the most respectful
and effective law firm business development technique.
Once referred to as “knowledge marketing,” here’s the latest
Wikipedia definition:
“Content marketing is an umbrella term encompassing all
marketing formats that involve the creation and sharing of
content in order to engage current and potential consumer
bases. Content marketing subscribes to the notion that
delivering high-quality, relevant and valuable information to
prospects and customers drives profitable consumer action.
Content marketing has benefits in terms of retaining reader
attention and improving brand loyalty. The idea of sharing
content as a means of persuading decision-making has
driven content marketers to make their once-proprietary
informational assets available to selected audiences.
Alternatively, many content marketers choose to create new
information and share it via any and all media.”
Legal clients expect to be kept abreast of legal developments
as soon as, if not before, they happen. For lawyers who
aren’t sending out timely content, clients may wonder if they
are getting the best advice possible. Content management
is also essential for enabling colleagues to provide added
value beyond the practice areas and matters on which they
are advising their own clients, which equates to cross-selling.
Beyond serving as the core of best practice client service,
content marketing is the one sure-fire way of attracting new
business. All sales training courses teach executives in
corporate America to give something to a prospect before you
ask for something, i.e. their trust and new matters. Lawyers
have the perfect free giveaway – content and knowledge –
because they are already creating for their current clients!
CONTENT MANAGEMENT
With all the content that the best lawyers hold in their minds,
establishing and implementing an effective way to manage
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THE ATLANTA LAWYER
May 2012
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(write and distribute) that information to various audiences
can be the largest challenge. Consider the following steps
as a checklist.
- Start by making a list of all those subjects that clients are
asking about in your recent daily work. In effect, you already
know the content you need to manage but you need to teach
yourself how to recognize the characteristics of content that
is important to your various constituencies.
- Then, consider upcoming legal or regulatory changes,
as well as information seen in recent association or trade
periodicals. Make a list of those, as well as topics your
competition is disseminating that you want to recycle.
- Write the names of the next twelve months, like a blank
calendar, on a single sheet of paper. In the terms used by
the ACC Docket, ABA Journal or other national magazines
read by attorneys, this is to create an “editorial calendar”
which plans when various content needs to be covered or
discussed.
- Assign each topic or subject on your list to a week or month
on the calendar. This will help you organize those subjects
in a time-relevant manner. It will also reduce the stress of
wanting to send out (or knowing you need to send out)
information on all of the topics important to your constituents,
but not being confident of when you should or will be able
to do so.
- Once this foundation for management is laid, decide on a
consistent format for writing up the first piece of content you
need to manage. Keeping in mind that most readers will have
a limited amount of time, deciding that a 500-word client alert
is a good, simple tactic is recommended. The format should
be: sexy headline, one-paragraph intro that might be titled
“Executive Summary and Take-away Checklist,” three or four
body paragraphs, a closing paragraph with call to action, and
a byline that includes a short bio and contact information.
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