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Tips for Lawyers from Legal Marketing Experts, Part 3: Increase Exposure / Ross Fishman

By Brian Harris

In my last post, I shared my Twitter stream covering the presentation by Deborah Knupp, partner of Akina Corporation, who addressed Business-Development Tactics to Increase Your Competitive Advantage at the 2010 Legal Marketing Association(#LMA10) Annual Conference in Denver. Deborah presented as part of the Just JDs: Business Development Strategies for Lawyers panel discussion, along with me (as the CEO of Furia Rubel Public Relations and Marketing), James A. Durham, chief marketing and business development officer for McGuireWoods LLP, who spoke about Establishing a Goal-Oriented Client-Development Business Plan, Alvidas A. Jasin, director of business development of Thompson Hine LLP, John Hellerman, partner and co-founder, Hellerman Baretz Communications, and Richard P. Klau, business product manager, Blogger, Google.

To continue the morning program, Ross Fishman, CEO of Fishman Marketing (and organizer of the Just JDs program) presented "Leveraging Marketing Tools to Increase Your Exposure." I have compiled my Twitter stream from his fantastic program. When reading the tweet tips, please keep in mind that the language and text are informal and stay within Twitter?s 140-character rule.

March 10, 2010 / 11:30 a.m.

• @rossfishman up next at Just JDs #LMA10 on Leveraging Marketing Tools to Increase Your Exposure.
• When Joel Flow of Skadden was asked his personal hero, he said Richard Branson who had 15+ PR folks in-house spreading the word.
• When you look at a firm's Web site, what does it say about them? Their legal skills? Their creativity? Their ability to deliver?
• Your marketing should fit your brand and your message.
• Donations / Sponsorships / Giveaways all need to fit brand and have impact but firms need to be willing to be creative to stand out.
• If we see 3,000 marketing messages per day, how will your firm's messages stand out? Food for thought.
• Law firm rainmakers can be more productive with good marketing tools and training ?marketing creates opportunity not relationship.
• @ginarubel Opinion: Why do law firms think their initials matter? Why would anyone use them in marketing?
• Marketing must be simple, clear and memorable.
• Did you know? Whenever Energizer runs the "Bunny" campaign, sales of Eveready batteries also increase.
• There is a great deal of overlap between Bus. Dev and marketing ...important for both to work together...integrate efforts.
• When you have a good name, associate it with something tangible: Helps buyers remember Consider Shell, John Deere, Apple, Target, Camel, Lincoln National.
• The best marketing reinforces your name.
• Try to assoc. your name with a tagline prospects can visualize. "It?s hard to stop a Trane."
• Turbulent economy means great opportunity ? this is the time to widen the gap between you and the competition.
• P&G CEO says, "innovate during recession."
• Clients shopping for best deals - may want to adjust pricing or offer creative fees to give value ? always justify on value.
• Just saying that you're as good as competition not enough to get the business and when you're smaller, you have more to prove.
• When you niche your services, you can reinforce your brand, dominate a smaller market and grow your business.
• Law firms need to look at their marketing and branding from the perspective of the outsider NOT from the perspective of a lawyer.
• Reminder ? always "Google" your own name and your firm name to see what's being said about you.
• Every person in business should have a Google profile ? no matter what industry ? with a professional photo.
• Ross Fishman teaching Just JDs how to use Google Alerts ? one of the most wonderful tools: Create for name, clients, competition.
• Be a big fish in a small pond ? niche ? to build your business or practice areas.
• The brand is the platform, use multiple marketing tools to execute: website, ads, brochure, newsletter, PR, blogs, etc.
• Web site is the front door to your law firm.

Many legal marketing and social media experts from across the country have shared their thoughts and insights from the LMA Conference. It was such an excellent program; weeks later, we are still buzzing about it.  Check out:

-Paramjit Mahli of SCG Legal PR Network reports on the Legal Marketing Association conference in Denver on Legal Broadcast Network News Blog

-Bruce Allen on Marketing Catalyst: Social Networking, #LMA10 and Law Firm Marketing

-Justia?sLegalBirds which highlights "Legal Professionals on Twitter"

-John M. Bryne, Director of Communications for Drinker Biddle shares his story about social media atThe Byrne Blog;

Lance Godard blogged about what he learned from two days at the Legal Marketing Association?s annual meeting (which includes various links to other experts? commentary;

-Lindsay Griffiths tells us about relationships and Social Media Strategies for the Small to Mid-sized Law Firm in her blog: Zen and the Art of Legal Network Maintenance;

-Adrian Lurssen (better known asJDTwitt) and  Aviva Cuyler from JD Supra (which if you are an attorney and not on JD Supra, check out my previous blog Social Media for Lawyers Part 7: JD Supra);

Heather Morse Milligan (The Legal Watercooler blogger) shares a great perspective from the LMA conference;

Nancy Myrland, shares a message to marketers and a video recap from the Legal Marketers Tweet-Up and even I made the photo cut;

-Wayne Navarre shares The Social Web Revolution and Law Firm Marketing Professionals on the Virtual Marketing Officer blog; and

-Rebecca Wissler, Laura Gutierrez, Gail Lamarche, Lydia Bednerik, Russell Lawson and Tim Corcoran are all people you should follow.

To learn how the use of Twitter shaped my conference experience, you can also read The PR Lawyer blog:

Confessions from a Social Networker: How Twitter Shaped My #LMA10 Experience.I will be adding more blogs on tips from many experts over the next few weeks so stay tuned to hear more tips on business development, marketing, public relations, and measuring ROI.

Gina F. Rubel, Esq.,is the owner of Furia Rubel Communications, Inc., a public relations and marketing agencywith a niche in legal communications. A former Philadelphia trial attorney and public relations expert, Gina is the author of Everyday Public Relations for Lawyers. Gina and her PR and marketing firm have won numerous awards for legal communications, public relations, media relations, strategic planning, corporate philanthropy and leadership. She maintains a blog at www.ThePRLawyer.com, is a regular contributor to The Legal Intelligencer Blog and blogs for The Huffington Post. You can find her on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/ginafuriarubelor follow her on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ginarubel.  For more information, go to www.FuriaRubel.com.

Full post as published by The Legal Intelligencer Blog on April 06, 2010 (boomark / email).