Five Reasons Why Your Law Firm Website Redesign Team Need Your Attention

Making the choice to invest in a new website is an important step for a law firm. Whether it is your first website or you want to update an existing one, communicating with your project redesign team is key.

Consistent and clear communication will doesn’t just help your redesign team, it helps you get a better website quicker.

Timely responses get your website live much faster

The first, and perhaps most obvious, reason is that getting clear and timely feedback will result in a quicker site launch.

(A GIF of the website launch process….kinda.)

As web designers, we bring our expertise to every project for our clients. Part of that expertise is including clients in the process for feedback. When we complete a homepage design draft, we need the approval of our clients to move to the next step of the process.

We understand that lawyers and law firm staff are often busy, but taking the time to chat with your redesign team means your new website will launch faster so the rest of your marketing efforts can reap the benefits.

Gathering logins helps with a smooth and successful launch

In order to launch your new website smoothly, our team needs certain login credentials. Most importantly, we need access to your domain registrar. While we often will not need these logins until late in the process, earlier is always better. Other logins credentials that are crucial in certain situations include DNS, hosting provider and content management system (CMS).

Other logins, while not always required, will help to make sure everything is properly in place for a new site launch. These often include credentials for social media pages and profiles, online directories, and file resources.

Being able to organize and verify these login credentials as early in the process as possible means everything will be ready for a smooth launch day.

Your opinions matter and it’s better to get those opinions early

Is there a specific color you really don’t like? Is there a certain design element you have to have? Although we speak to our clients throughout the entire website redesign process, it’s very important to know of any items having to do with design at the beginning of the process. If certain preferences are not communicated at the beginning of the process and we reach the coding phase, it will take some time and potentially delay the project overall if certain changes are made later on in the process.

Your opinions matter, and we always want our clients to love their website redesign. If there’s something you’d like to see: communicate it! We love feedback, and also love to stay on time and keep projects on track for our clients.

We want your site to be State Bar complaint

Law firms fall under the observation of various State Bar associations. The rules of these associations are usually very specific and can vary quite a bit from state to state. While web design companies who focus on law firms will often be aware of the common State Bar rules, we rely on your expertise and review to ensure the final product fits the requirements.

Does your state require certain disclaimers to be added to areas of the website? Are you required to submit advertising assets to a board for approval? Are there certain words or phrases you need to avoid? We want to make sure everything follows the requirements set by your State Board.

Also, if your firm operates in multiple states, we want to be able to accommodate the extra regulations your site may need.

Conversions matter

One thing always on our team’s minds: Conversions. We want a user-friendly website for our clients that converts well. This comes into play during all points in the process: when creating content, design and coding the website.

Although we appreciate all feedback, sometimes there are preferences that could clash with the overall performance and CRO (conversion rate optimization) involved in the website redesign. We will always be candid when this is the case, but it is important to understand that going against conversion-related design suggestions could affect the performance of your website in the future.

Everything’s better with a little teamwork

Creating and launching a new website for your law firm is a team effort. Working together with a knowledgeable project redesign team will result in a smoothly-launched website that is both effective and to your preference.

Want more advice on law firm marketing? Sign up for the Consultwebs newsletter, follow us on social media, and subscribe to the LAWsome Podcast.

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Resources to Set Up a Remote Law Firm

Because of the recent changes to social patterns & behaviors, there has rightly been a surge of interest in the legal community about running a remote law firm.

Since Consultwebs has been 100% remote from the beginning, we’ve learned a few things about running a company with a distributed workforce that we wanted to combine with our industry knowledge, to share with those suddenly questioning the pivot to remote.

Below, we’ve identified eight ‘starting points’ towards going remote, and have provided a ton of links to advice, and legal tech suggestions from legal professionals on our LAWsome podcast that you’ll find valuable.

If you would like to discuss these suggestions on remote operations in more detail, reach out to directly to us and we will do whatever we can to help.

Remote Culture

One of the main concerns with remote working is culture. Working in an office, seeing faces of staff, interacting with clients and shaking hands; it’s all a part of the culture, and is massively important to a service industry like legal.

Communication, is the key to successful remote operations.

A big barrier to overcome in remote, is figuring out the successful communication strategies with various different personality types. Since body language is a large percentage of the way humans communicate, feelings can get hurt easily in remote, text-only exchanges.

We use the DISC personality profile system internally, and it has been a fantastic tool to better interpret the most effective way to communicate with staff. Quickly, it breaks humans into four distinct personality types, (Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, Conscientiousness) and associates a set of traits and behaviors that describe the way they interpret and understand the world.

Understanding, appreciating, and adjusting to the distinct personality types & communication styles in your team, can make all the difference in a remote culture.

It’s also important to be mindful of mental health & morale in the remote setting.

We believe in daily communication at Consultwebs, we hold town halls, we have a company-wide water cooler chat that is hilarious, we hold contests, we recognize successes and wins, share advice and help projects along. Communication and community are key.

Video Conferencing Software 

Like we mention above, maintaining connection with staff & clients in a remote setting is going to be a top concern for a service industry like legal.

At our company we happily use Zoom for Business, which has great functionality able to host 50+ participants, is easy to set-up, and has many different subscription levels depending on your needs. The best part of Zoom is the instant messaging function and Team message boards, making it easy to communicate and keep track of work.

Intake Optimization 

Seeing that communication is often cited as the reason clients like or dislike lawyers, optimizing your intake process before you go remote is imperative.

In conjunction with a dedicated client management platform, we suggest law firms choose conversion-centered call tracking software, like Call Tracking Metrics, to enhance their intake process. According to this episode of LAWsome, featuring LeadDocket’s Harlan Schillinger, lawyers that focus on & optimize their intake processes, typically see a 20% increase in conversions!

Strong Case/File Management Program or Protocols

There are many document management programs, several case management programs, and plenty of litigation support software options for lawyers. Problem is, as of 2018, the adoption rates for tech like this is abysmally low.

According to a 2018 Florida Bar Opinion Survey, 64% of lawyers had no case management program, 78% had no dedicated document management program, and 92% of lawyers polled had no litigation support software.

Tech competency has been a huge barrier to lawyers embracing tech, but with WFH becoming the new normal, it’s time to get arms around this stuff. According to the numbers, the competition is unprepared, but thankfully, you won’t be!

Whether it’s Clio or Casepeer for case management, or any of the other options available across your firm’s workflow, law firm clients (remote or not) that take CRM and file management seriously, always outperform those that don’t.

Calendaring Software

Keeping track of, and having easy access to edit and add to, your calendar and schedule is extremely important in remote business settings.

Calendly, is a calendaring software we’ve been using to book guests on the podcast and it has been a life saver. You can adjust your availability and send links with multiple options for scheduling an event, rather than going back and forth and eating up billable time. You can learn about more DIY legal tech solutions, and how to create a FrankenFirm, from real legal tech experts on our LAWsome podcast.

Electronic Payments + E-Signature

Using e-signature software for intakes & disbursements, like Docusign or other solutions, can increase case sign ups and quicken case management processes.

In a profession that’s seen as lucrative, it can be shocking to learn how poor most law firms handle e-payment billing & e-signatures for their practice. According to Sarah Schaff, lawyer and founder of the legal payment software company, HeadNote, accounts receivable is the last thing lawyers think about, when it’s the first thing that impacts their bottom line. Learn more about legal payment software on this podcast.

Ability to Outsource Legal Work

Give the current state of things, the gig economy, Work From Home, and established business models, are all set to mix with one another in the coming months.

Law firms that can use tech to complete project work and manage legal issues across a distributed workforce, can begin to see opportunities that were unavailable to you in an office setting. Virtual assistance for law firms, AI legal research capabilities, and the ability to run a virtual law firm, are all current realities.

The benefit to remote operations that align with good project management practices, is that the risk of disruptions is distributed, and, you build trust across teams and outcomes.

Digital Marketing Presence

In a time of social distancing, maintaining and promoting your law firms presence in your local market is going to be more important than ever. Instead of thinking social patterns will revert to pre-COVID times, this is a critical time to recognize “the new normal” and seize the opportunities in an increasingly digital-reliant marketplace.

In a WFH world, social media has replaced the water cooler, the mobile phone has replaced the front door, and your desktop computer is the new consultation room.

Key questions to ask about your firm’s digital marketing presence include; Is your website quick-loading and mobile-friendly? Are you using social media to promote the firm, but also communicate with clients & staff? Could a branded podcast help market your firm? How does your law firm rank for popular keywords and show up on the pages potential clients are searching?

In Conclusion

With a continued presence in the marketplace, and a focus on addressing & solving the above areas with the right combination of people, processes, and tech, a remote practice can be a reality at your law firm. While technology and market dynamics can pivot quickly, it’s less easy for a business to do so. The time to make adjustments is now. We hope you find these links and resources useful and we are here to help our clients in any way we can.

If you are looking for further advice establishing remote operations for your law firm, Get In Touch. Want more advice on legal marketing? Sign up for the Consultwebs newsletter, follow us on social media, and subscribe to the LAWsome Podcast.

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Law Firm Website Design: Design for Conversion

Do you “like” your law firm’s website design? Are you “happy” with it? Or are you measuring the amount of leads your website develops, and basing your feelings off that?

After launching thousands of law firm websites, we’ve learned a few things about successful legal web design, what convinces and converts users into clients. But more importantly, we know how web design choices can confuse clients and cause them to click away, and seek other counsel. The secret lies in something called, Design for Conversion.

First, let’s talk about the subjectivity/objectivity gap in legal marketing and law firm web design and discuss the secret mindset that overcomes these biases. Then I’ll share a few examples to demonstrate the positive (and negative) results possible when you design with conversion in mind.

Design for Conversion

The success of a law firm’s web design, marketing, and advertising to the external audience is subjective: “I like it” or “I don’t like it.”

To the ones investing in marketing, the results expected are extremely objective: “How many calls/cases can we expect?” “Leads will increase by what percent?” “Spend = Return.”

Here’s the paradox – most law firms forge their marketing material within a subjective bubble, “I like it/I don’t like it,” rather than a bubble based on objectives.

So, the objective measurements the shareholders will be asking for once the ad campaigns go live, are unattached to the content from the very beginning.

After generating millions of leads and designing thousands of websites for lawyers, Consultwebs has an answer for this paradox – Design for Conversion;

“It’s not what moves us; it’s what moves the needle.”

Designing for conversion is a mindset we employ at Consultwebs that ensures the success of our legal marketing campaigns is measured by conversions, not convictions.

Objective success in legal marketing has always seemed elusive because of the subjectivity paradox in measurement and taxonomy. But once we’re agreed on how we measure conversions and marketing, then our strategy, direction, and next steps become clear.

Conversion is not just selling or getting clicks. It’s about meeting key performance indicators that drive business goals.

Define ‘for Conversion’

Most law firm marketers are only tracking direct conversions, if they are tracking marketing metrics at all.

In an informal Twitter poll, we discovered that more than 70 percent of lawyers don’t know how much it costs to produce a lead for their firm.

 

So if you’re tracking marketing numbers in anyway, like ROI (return on investment), CPL (cost per lead), and CPC (cost per case), then you’re already light-years ahead of the competition.

Most marketers are too busy marketing to see if anything converted or made an impact. Not only do they need to be paying attention, they need to be looking at the right types of conversions.

A conversion isn’t just a client signing up for representation. It can be steps leading up to and around that main goal. Things like calls, clicks, chats, emails, form fills, downloads, engagements on social, dwell times on blogs – all of these can add up and prove that your marketing is working.

Marketing can have a direct impact on business development efforts, but only when a strategy connected to measurable goals meets the Design for Conversion methodology.

Once you have measurements in place, you can begin controlling your subjectivity around marketing and get to objective measurements that prove the marketing is actually leading to results.

The truth about web design is, sometimes beautiful things don’t work, and ugly gets the phone to ring.

Looks Good – Doesn’t Convert

“Pretty websites rarely convert as well as unpretty ones.” – Seth Godin

With every marketing decision you make for the law firm, there needs to be a reason behind the choice. In the video game Super Mario Bros., every tube you went down, every mushroom and flower you ate, were all steps to get to the one goal, the Princess.

So when it comes to a website, the No. 1 reason it exists is to develop business for the law firm, which is why the Design for Conversion mindset makes a difference.

Law firm web design should be focused on value, not viewpoints.

The true value of a web design is its usability:

• “What do visitors want and/or need to know?”
• “Is everything clear and not confusing?”
• “Do the users know what to do, and what to click next?”

If these three concerns go unaddressed in your web design, then it doesn’t matter that you have a video in the header of you riding a unicorn (which, of course, is super cool, but beside the point)!

One example of something designers and clients love, but actually leads to less engagement from users, is the Carousel. This is a way to show images and flip through them by clicking on big arrows, in an attempt to get people to engage.

Studies show, the engagement numbers for carousels are insanely small. The percentage of users that clicked to the images in Positions 2-5 is well below 1 percent.

This kind of insight is only possible with a Design for Conversion mentality, plus the ability to measure and test the capabilities of your web design choices. You may want a carousel of your dog on the website, but you have to wonder if you “need” it.

Looks Bad – Converts Well

When it comes to “ugly” sites that convert (which really makes them beautiful), there are a few simple design considerations that make conversion more likely.

According to the web design site Crazy Egg, and its LIFT model of conversion, effective websites need to have a strong value proposition, high relevance, and a crystal-clear user experience.

Along with the lift of good UX, there is also a need for web design to reduce distractions and anxiety.

This is a counter-intuitive finding, but studies show, “ugly,” older-looking websites often make technologically inept users feel safer, compared to newer sites designed to look slick.

Let’s look at one of the most trusted and trafficked websites on the internet – CraigsList.

It is not easy on the eyes, but the site earns trusted traffic and links by the thousands everyday. Its secret? Clear navigation, easy usability, a simple page with clear categories.

Law Firm Web Design Isn’t About ‘Pretty’ vs. ‘Ugly’?

The main takeaway from all this is that law firm website design is not a subjective endeavor. It’s not about pretty vs. ugly. The only metric that really matters, is conversion rates.

If you’re considering an expensive redesign because you hate your site, look under the hood and see what the conversion rates are first. Maybe the website you’re sick of converts like a charm. The only way to find out for sure is to use the Design for Conversion methodology.

Question your critiques around marketing, and always seek to avoid the subjectivity/objectivity gap, not by asking, “what do I say,” but, “what do the numbers say?”

If you need a web redesign for your law firm, then get in touch with the legal marketing experts at Consultwebs and find out how our design-for-conversion methodology can help make your website more profitable.

Want more advice on law firm marketing? Sign up for the Consultwebs newsletter, follow us on social media, and subscribe to the LAWsome Podcast.

 

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Would You Buy Marketing Insurance for Your Law Firm?

According to financial forecasts, spending within the U.S. legal marketing and advertising industries is estimated to exceed $1 billion in 2020.

Not only is it an insanely expensive, zero-sum game against competing law firms, now thanks to the thousands of tactics available offline and runaway algorithms that can easily change the winds of fate online, marketing feels more and more like a gamble.

Wouldn’t it make sense for advertising lawyers to have some kind of marketing insurance policy?

Think about it: an insurance policy that keeps you afloat if the latest marketing campaign tanked.

If you’ve invested big in marketing your law firm, you would surely want insurance to protect your investments, right?

Well, what if I told you that a law firm marketing insurance policy like this already exists?

Let’s first unpack the differences between insurance and investments, then explore a few ways to ensure the success of your legal marketing investments. Finally, we’ll provide you with tools to take back to your firm and start making enhancements.

Investing in Marketing vs. Marketing Insurance

You may think you have the differences between insurance and investments sorted out.

However, I believe the two terms function very differently on the human brain, especially when that brain is approaching the funding of business development efforts, like marketing.

Let’s do a thought experiment.

Picture a desk. A lawyer sits on one side, and someone who is asking for that lawyer’s money sits on the other side.

In Scenario A, the person suggests the lawyer invest the money. 

In Scenario B, the person suggests the lawyer spend the money on insurance.

In Scenario A, the language and feelings around investing are all very aspirational. Investments are expected to grow, and with the help of a benevolent marketplace, receive many returns! An optimistic version of “what if?”

In Scenario B, the language and emotions around insurance are realistic. Insurance is there to make sure, regardless of the harsh realities of the marketplace, you don’t lose what you’ve worked for. A very grounded version of “what if?”

There is an anxiety to the investor mentality present in Scenario A that is not present with the insurance discussion in Scenario B. It’s this anxiety that I feel impacts the creation of effective marketing strategies.

When it comes to situations of fantastic growth, like in Scenario A, risk-averse humans consider costs upfront, tend to be more conservative with their investments, and put forth the minimum to get the unknown return.

When it comes to insuring yourself against the potential of very realistic loss, like in Scenario B, humans are more likely to put forth the resources required to protect themselves.

Ok – so – where am I going with this?

Marketing Strategy: Your Business Development Insurance Policy

Most legal marketers dream of creating a diverse inflow of lead sources, but they rarely do the real work of creating them. They chase long-term growth through a collection of short-term campaigns. But as we’ve seen in the marketing research of Binet & Field, short-term gains will never equate to long-term success.

As we discuss in our Legal Marketing Nutrition Guide, a healthy marketing strategy, balanced between Brand Growth and Sales Activation initiatives, solves the entire spectrum of business development issues a law firm faces, ranging from intake to disbursement, from click to conversion.

Your law firm’s business development insurance policy is a well-rounded marketing strategy.

How can you turn your marketing investments into marketing insurance?

It’s my hope that legal marketers and shareholders will start viewing their marketing investments as business development insurance policies.

Since the return on investment (ROI) is murky, shareholders seeking to protect themselves from loss in an investment mindset underfund the entire endeavor from the outset, lowering their risk while simultaneously undercutting the size of the reward. The anxiety isn’t worth it!

But in an insurance mindset, the risk of loss is calculated into the coverage, so shareholders are keen to financially ensure that the assets are protected completely. Peace of mind is always worth it.

If you were going to be insured for a house, the checklist of questions they would ask before they gave you the policy would be extensive, correct? Do you have smoke detectors, a proper roof, thickness of walls, drainage, valuation of materials inside, the whole thing!

But when the typical lawyer invests in a marketing campaign, there is no checklist, no standards. Well, what if there were?

Law Firm Marketing Risk Assessment Checklist

We created this Law Firm Marketing Risk Assessment Checklist as a tool to help lawyers looking to build their book of business, a handy way to ensure their investments don’t go to waste!

Want more advice on law firm marketing? Sign up for the Consultwebs newsletter, follow us on social media, and subscribe to the LAWsome Podcast.

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The Four Objectives of Effective Law Firm Marketing

Legal services is one of the most competitive industries in the country, so building a law firms book of business with marketing is an easy decision to make. The difficulties arrive when those funding the marketing have to prioritize the activities; what do you do first, in what order?

By focusing on objectives like Attraction, Conversion, Branding, and Delight, legal marketers can segment their activities properly and ensure their strategy covers a spectrum, not just a slice, of what’s required to be successful in marketing.

Let’s explore these legal marketing objectives below and then discover how to bring all this back to your law firm.

Attraction

Attracting new clients is really the raison d’etre for marketing. I don’t know exactly what that means, but I think I used it right, and now, I bet you want raisins. Anyway…

Marketing initiatives like digital advertising, lead gen campaigns, conversion focused legal web design, and an engaged presence on social media, are just a few ways to fulfill the objective of Attraction.

In regards to the other marketing objectives, and in relation to the marketing science supporting our Legal Marketing Nutrition Guide, tactics focused on attracting new clients to your firm and increasing market share, are essential to the law firm interested in growing their business in a reliable, and healthy, fashion.

As we discover later, a legal marketing strategy that focuses a heavier percentage of effort towards attracting new clients, not solely towards creating a loyal customer base, stands a better chance, overtime, of reliably increasing caseloads.

Conversion

While most marketers obsess about driving traffic, few have a solid plan on directing that traffic into meaningful and measurable patterns of conversion.

Intake optimization, establishing & measuring ROI, and creating nurture streams with related content are a few ways to focus marketing efforts and objectives on conversion.

Without a strong foundation on the systems and processes that convert leads, any efforts to build the book of business through sales will be exponentially less effective.

Branding

Dealing in the liminal spaces between promotion and perception, branding is an essential component to any serious legal marketing strategy. Marketing initiatives like client experience optimization, SEO, evergreen content like case studies, and swag are all great ways to achieve the Branding objective.

Your law firm’s brand is more than just unique colors and slogans. Overtime, a brand becomes associated with a level of credibility, quality, and satisfaction in the consumer’s mind. Thus brands help harried consumers in crowded and complex marketplace, by standing for certain benefits and value. 

Interested in discovering your law firm’s brand — Click Here!

Delight/Loyalty

There are a ton of perspectives on marketing initiatives that inspire delight and loyalty in clients. Special partnerships that benefit clients, a focus on client experience, solid service content, client gifts; all of these are fantastic ways to facilitate some delight in your marketing objectives.

A lot of voices in marketing say focus on building loyalty and the new business will show up, and to a certain extent in legal services this is true, lawyers build relationships with clients.

However, marketing science, like the 70+ years of research in Byron Sharp’s “How Brands Grow,” shows brand loyalty as a distinct force of profit or growth for a business is a fiction.

In regards to the other objectives of marketing, and in relation to the main goal of attracting more and more new clients, marketers should focus on Delight/Loyalty once they have a strategy and systems in place to deliver on the first three objectives.

In Conclusion

By focusing your marketing efforts around the objectives you wish to achieve, rather than the tactics you can use, the job of marketing becomes much more simplified and focused.

Rather than wondering if you need to jump on the latest bandwagon, or if you need to blog or podcast, or if you need to be on TikTok, the legal marketer that prioritizes their marketing across a spectrum of objectives, rather than slices of activity, is the one that will end up with the most pie at the end of the meal.

Want more advice on law firm marketing? Sign up for the Consultwebs newsletter, follow us on social media, and subscribe to the LAWsome Podcast.

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8 Website Tips and Tricks to Increase Your Caseload

Do you want to increase the conversion rate of your website? In this post we’ll discuss a few web design best practices that can help improve the chances that your website visitors turn into clients.

Here are a few design tips to follow:

1. Simplify Your Design

The more elements, images, copy blocks, menus and CTAs you add to a design, the more things start competing for the user’s attention. Cluttered and unnecessarily complex designs can get in the way of conversions, especially when you really just want the user to pick up the phone or fill out your contact form.

Of course you will still need content that speaks to the services you offer and your unique value proposition, but these elements should not take away from your phone number, contact buttons and contact forms. These are direct lines of contact with your users and are critical to conversions.

2. Use White Space to Focus Users’ Attention

Don’t feel the need to fill every space with a photo or block of copy. White space (also known as negative space) can help move the user through your pages and focus them on important calls to action (CTA). Also, using white space in a design is an easy way to make the design feel much more professional and trustworthy.

3. Add Your Unique Value Proposition to Your Homepage

Your unique value proposition or UVP is a statement that describes what you offer, how you solve your customer’s needs, and what sets you apart from the competition. Visitors should clearly see this at the top of your homepage. Keep it as short as possible and in plain language so everyone can understand the value your firm brings to the table.

4. Consider Adding Live Chat

Live chat functionality can be a great way to boost conversions. This will not replace your contact page or phone number, but live chat may attract people who wouldn’t usually contact you. Read our post Top 4 Benefits Live Chat Provides to Law Firms to learn more.

5. Optimize Contact Forms

It’s pretty straightforward. The fewer form fields you have, the more likely it is that users will complete them. Stick to the basics like name, phone number, email address and a brief message.

Also, think about including your contact form in the sidebar of interior pages rather than forcing users to click a “Contact” link. When a visitor decides to get in touch, no matter where they are on your site, it’s best if they don’t have to search for a contact button or contact form.

6. Add Trust Elements

Adding awards, guarantees and professional associations you belong to all help to prove that you will do what you promise and are experienced in your practice area. Also, if your firm has been featured in the news or on industry-leading websites, make sure you include their logos on your site to build authority.

You may also consider adding “No Win, No Fee” or “Money Back” guarantees. This can put visitors’ minds at ease if they’re price sensitive and hesitant to contact your firm because of cost. However, don’t make promises you can’t keep. Only advertise “No Fee” or “Money Back” guarantees if it makes 100% sense for your firm.

Learn more about designing for trust in our blog post 5 Key Factors of Trustworthiness in Web Design.

7. Include Client Testimonials

When a visitor has never heard of your law firm and visits your website for the first time, two things may come to mind: 1. “Can I trust this firm?” and 2. “Can they help me as promised?”

When visitors read client reviews, they can be reassured that you’re a reputable, trusted law firm, and that you are the right firm to work with when they need legal matters resolved. Online reviews have a great impact on your marketing efforts and have the ability to encourage would-be clients to click on particular search results as opposed to others. We have many blog posts related to the importance online reviews. In this post we offer a reviews resource bundle.

8. Simplify Your Mobile Experience

Mobile devices are now used more often to surf the web than desktop computers. You should make sure that your website works well across all platforms (e.g. mobile, tablets, desktop). If it doesn’t, you may lose a lot of clients.

Simplifying your design and keeping content short and to the point is critical on mobile websites. Make it as easy as possible for mobile users to find what they’re looking for quickly. That means phone numbers, maps, directions, office hours and tap-to-call buttons that put them in contact with your firm.

Size matters on mobile. Make sure your font size is large enough so even visitors with poor eyesight won’t have to zoom in for legibility. Also, buttons need to be large and easy to press. Apple suggests that button sizes should be at least 44px by 44px to increase conversions and maximize user experience.

Conclusion

Many of the tips listed above are about trust and how design can influence users’ first impressions. On average, visitors spend less than 15 seconds on a website. This means that getting these elements right and making a great first impression is critical.

Simplicity in web design, especially simplicity in mobile web design, will make it easier for visitors to access content that is pertinent to them. The result of this is that potential clients are much more likely to contact you.

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Can A Podcast Help Market Your Law Firm?

With everyone and their cat making one these days, podcasts can seem an attractive choice for legal marketers looking for new ways to bring awareness to their law firm. However, to launch a successful podcast for your law firm, there are a few things to consider before jumping into the studio.

Podcasts and The Marketing Flywheel

The dream of most marketing departments is to find something (ads, content, memes, Steve) that can create awareness and sustained attention for your brand. Something that isn’t the wacky wavy inflatable tube man.

Using the lexicon of our Legal Marketing Nutrition Guide, marketers dream of a Brand Building initiative that also enhances the Sales Activation side of their strategy. Something that continually generates interest and awareness. A marketing flywheel.

A branded podcast for your law firm can be that flywheel.

However, this flywheel podcast idea is not a “Get Out Of Marketing Free” card. A podcast is a worthy investment for those who can see the concept through to make a worthy show.

There are fantastic reasons to launch a branded podcast, and there are also frank realities that need to be addressed before you consider adding it to your legal marketing mix.

3 Reasons to Do a Podcast

• Content Marketing Works. Outside of your product or service, what value do you currently offer your customers? A newsletter or blog, events, sponsorships?

Assuming the media preferences of your target audience include podcasts (Edison Research, “The Podcast Consumer 2019”), a podcast from your law firm is a fantastic content marketing vehicle, creating a venue and opportunity to communicate values associated with your core business while creating a monetizable audience.

Since launching in 2018, The LAWsome Podcast has generated new clients and thousands of dollars of new business for Consultwebs. Like all good content marketing ideas, we created a show that was valuable to our target audience first, law firm owners, and then connected this concept back to our offerings and company. The goal has always been: “Be of value to the marketplace.”

• It’s Time Well Spent. Do us a favor. Go inside your website analytics, check on your blog, and see what the average Time on Page is for your most trafficked post.

On our blog, the Time on Page for the blog was around 2 minutes.

On our podcast analytics, Time on Page was 24 minutes.

Imagine creating content that had 10x the engagement of your current efforts! Only a podcast can deliver this kind of engagement.

Again, looking at Edison Research’s “The Podcast Consumer” study, 93% of respondents say that when they listen to a podcast, they listen to most, if not the entire episode.

Who gets to the end of your latest blog on tort reform? Not saying it isn’t good – but could you create something more engaging?

• Audio Content Isn’t Like Other Content. Podcasts, again among certain demographics, are increasingly becoming the go-to choice for content. Audio is the rare type of content you can truly multitask with. It travels to the gym, goes on a walk, and folds laundry with the listener.

Podcasts are an intimate form of communication. With a podcast, your law firm literally has a voice. Well-produced and entertaining audio content provides a new dimension of experience for your audience and creates a connection like no other marketing tactic.

And with the quality of audio fiction and dramatic podcast production increasing, we are entering into a podcast renaissance where there is massive opportunity and demand for high-quality audio content. Even big-name brands and stars are creating epic narrative podcasts, like Kelly Marie Tran in “Passenger List” or General Electric’s “Life After.”

Of course, if you want a podcast, but nothing fancy, let me tell you now about the potential downsides of the marketing quagmire you’re about to jump into.

3 Reasons NOT to Do a Podcast

• There Is No Appreciation for Branding. While marketing and branding are often cited as sure-fire ways to create revenue and opportunity for a law firm, they also happen to be the last thing anyone wants to pay for.

I think the reason marketing is underfunded, particularly the long-term brand growth initiatives, is that attention and brand awareness seem like an inevitable “free” resource that accompanies sales activity.

Dropping a podcast into the marketing strategy of a business that has no appreciation for the brand building function of marketing is a recipe for failure.

A branded podcast is a slow burn, its lasting impact experienced best by marketing departments that appreciate brand building initiatives and are equipped to measure their effects over long periods of time.

Looking at two full years of stats from LAWsome again, going from 200 downloads a month to 2,000 just wouldn’t be possible without engaging, consistent, audience-focused content, and a C-Suite that understands the commitment to the long-term branding capabilities of a podcast.

• The Product Doesn’t Fit the Market. While it’s true that podcasts are increasing in popularity, that increase is not broadly applied to the whole of the U.S. population.

Based again on the demographic research from Edison, the typical podcast consumer matches a certain segment of the population.

If this fits the market profile of your target audience, then a podcast might be a good idea. If it doesn’t, you may have to readjust your expectations and/or strategy.

Another consideration is the topical nature of your podcast, and if the topics covered in the show can create and sustain attention in your target market. The topic of your podcast does not have to be directly related to your service as a law firm.

Take a look at the podcast topics that generated the most interested audiences in 2019, according to Edison Research.

Notice you don’t see intellectual property law, torts, or bulldog litigation trial tactics on this list.

The challenge to creating a podcast that’s worth listening to is that it must first be distinct, and then compete with the top podcast experiences available to everyone.

I’ll say it again – your podcast will be in direct competition with the best podcasts out there.

Why would anyone choose your podcast over the latest true crime/New York Times/celebrity-driven podcast? You have to give them a reason to listen. The goal should be to create award-winning content for your law firm. Think that’s too big of an ask?

Since 2018, the Missouri-based personal injury law firm of Brown & Crouppen has been working with a local production company to make hilarious videos for their now Emmy-award-winning YouTube channel. The topics are definitely not legal, but they feature amazing talent and extremely high-quality content…about cereal!

If you can’t dedicate resources to creating a valuable, distinct, and entertaining show, then the expectations and product/market fit for your law firm’s podcast may never line up with reality.

• There’s a Lack of Consistency/Talent.

The marketing strategy for most law firms is typically a collection of random acts, funded by a haphazard budget and misaligned from specific goals. So when the latest boosted post on social media or cold outreach campaign fails to garner any interest, the takeaway is that marketing doesn’t work.

Whether it’s the latest bout of Restless Marketing Syndrome, no clear marketing strategy, a choppy client experience, or the latest failed short-term campaign, those in charge of business development for law firms have one common problem – consistency.

Consistency, in a podcast or any other meaningful marketing endeavor, matters.

Your podcast is a content experience that your audience can subscribe to, that can continually remind them of your value, that can be introduced into their lives again and again. But this will only happen with a consistent publishing schedule and a dependable production team behind your podcast. Which brings up the question of time and talent.

Talent, in a podcast or any other performing arts medium, matters.

In a musical performance, there are several individual items that come together to create the final product. There is the composer who wrote the music, the conductor who guides the performers, the performers who play the music, and then the audience that takes it all in.

If any one of these items is mishandled or botched, then the general takeaway is one of distaste. The audience won’t sit there to reason out how it could have been better with a tweak of talent here or there – they just walk away.

Although a lawyer running a firm and investing money in business development has a right to have a hand in all marketing endeavors, there needs to be some hard math that goes into the question of involvement in a podcast.

In regards to time: Scheduling, recording, and the back-and-forth that accompanies producing a podcast can take up several hours a week. Will you have time to dedicate/sacrifice toward hosting a podcast?

In regards to talent: The goal of the podcast is to get the listener to the end of the show, so ensuring that affable talent is behind the mic needs to be a top consideration before launch. Whether it’s you, an associate, or outside talent, the main goal is to develop a distinct voice for your firm through the podcast.

Your job with a podcast isn’t just to yammer and talk. The goal of a branded podcast is to create a show that leaves people saying, “You actually made that?”

In Conclusion

Taking all of the above into account, podcasts are a brand experience worth investigating for legal marketers looking to create distinct and valuable content on behalf of their firm. If there is a reliable product/market fit, an appreciation for brand building in the C-Suite, and talented, consistent magic happening behind the microphone, then a branded podcast is a worthy investment and venture.

Interested in creating your own branded podcast? The award-winning production team behind our very own LAWsome Podcast is currently accepting a handful of clients. Get in touch with us to find out how Consultwebs can help launch your law firm’s branded podcast.

Want more law firm marketing content? Who doesn’t! Sign up for the Consultwebs newsletter, follow us on social media, and subscribe to the LAWsome Podcast.

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