However 36 percent According to a survey conducted by Greentarget and Zeughauser Group, only 25% of in-house lawyers said the same thing.
We spend considerable energy and (non-billing) time preparing content for law firms. You should expect a return on investment. (Or at least not alienate your target audience.)
First, let’s see what’s going wrong, then explore some ways to fix the course.
What is a client please do not want
A Greentarget-Zeughauser survey asked in-house lawyers and C-level executives who were law firm clients how “poor” their professional services were.
The three biggest complaints on the part of in-house counsel are:
- Selling too well: 51 percent
- Not fair: 37 percent
- Poorly relevant: 36 percent
For executives:
- Poorly relevant: 51 percent
- Selling too well: 41 percent
- Not timely: 39%
Consider your content strategy and common marketing legal blunders when it comes to these turnoffs.
“Selling too well” is a top three concern for both audiences. These are sophisticated individuals who understand that the purpose of law firm content is to generate law firm engagement. Providing author contact information is useful and appropriate, but be careful not to overdo the “call to action” throughout.
Both groups, on the other hand, are offended by content that is not relevant enough. Have you ever worked to deliberately sort and segment your contact list, or are you sending every single decisive message to everyone on your list, regardless of subject? Clients don’t care about your articles on new developments in biotechnology patents. Also, by spamming your clients’ inboxes, you run the risk of showing that you don’t know them or don’t really care about them.
Not just for executives, timeliness is also important. 28% of in-house lawyers were bothered by old news. This is of particular concern to lawyers and law firms that distribute “breaking news” updates on Supreme Court rulings and other legal developments. Realize that dozens of law firms will send similar dispatches to the same contacts, possibly on the same day.if you can’t first time To inform them of this news, perhaps Law360 and other media outlets should offer something else of value anyway, from analysis to ideas to alternative perspectives.
If you’re still working on breaking news coverage, take proactive steps to streamline your editing, approval, design, and distribution processes to minimize the risk of a 12th email about the same thing. please.
what the client really wants
Greentarget-Zeughauser’s research also provides insight into why law firm clients consume content.
In terms of content characteristics, they want:
- You can use: Cited by 73% of in-house counsel and 70% of C suites.
- At the present time: Cited by 60% of in-house lawyers and 57% of executives.When
- Compelling Headline/Subject: Cited by 59% of in-house counsel and 60% of executives.
(Back to what clients don’t want for a moment. This question also deals with length. CEOs were more than twice as likely to prefer short content over long content. This suggests that short content is more It was more pronounced among in-house lawyers who preferred long content more than seven times as many. These people are busy. Mercy. Keep it short and practical.)
The study also points out key differences between lawyers and businessmen. Lawyers often think in blocks of text, while business colleagues think in charts and dashboards. This is also supported by the Greentarget-Zeughauser study. In-house lawyers vote articles as the number one content type, but executives are most familiar with interactive charts.
Again, know your audience. Not only make sure the subject of your content is relevant to the intended recipient, but also tailor your presentation. If the prospect is outside the legal department, visualize the information and remove the legal representative.
Content That Works: 4 Key Questions
Of course, the goal of content marketing isn’t just to avoid annoying people. We want to use it to build authority, build an audience, and make a book.
To do that, you need to level up. And you need to provide valuable information, perspective information, and perhaps a little bit of entertainment value.
Consider these four questions about your content program:
- Does it help? Do you provide practical, useful knowledge that empowers your readers?
- Memorable? Does it stand out in a sea of client warnings against its perspective and personality?
- Friendly? Are you using direct prose that is easy for your target audience to understand?
- is it human? Will it engage readers on a human level, or will it be robotic prose? Especially on social media, people are drawn to content that is warm and engaging. This does not mean that legal content cannot address serious issues. Even moving the content from formal third-person to a warmer second-person approach (i.e., “What to do next?”) makes a difference.
Some of our favorite legal content that fulfills these standards:
“Don’t Eat Your Weed” was written by Attorneys Will Hutson and Attorneys Chris Harris from the Texas-based firm of Hutson & Harris about the state’s marijuana possession law facts. The lawyers show off their musical talents, but this song is not about their brilliance in law firms and courtrooms. It presents valuable information to the audience, potential criminal defendants – literally, don’t eat your weed.
Corporate law may not afford the same opportunities for imprudence, but it’s not out of the question, as evidenced by Ford & Harrison’s previous That’s What She Said blog, which summarizes an episode of “The Office.” . Blog summaries discuss the personnel issues and employment law violations involved in the plot of the TV show, demonstrating the lawyer’s expertise in a relevant and actionable manner and with a predictable frequency of delivery.
Even esoteric and technical subjects can be presented in an accessible and engaging way without the hijinks of Jim and Dwight.
Consider Xakia’s Legal Resource Library. Xakia provides internal legal departments with software for case management, data analysis and reporting. To help users get the most out of their software and improve their overall legal operations, the company publishes helpful whitepapers such as best-in-class legal reporting, 10 steps to a smarter legal budget, and creating legal technology. We provide templates. 3 step roadmap. The e-book Legal Operations Health Check provides sector benchmarks based on size, industry and geography.
Xakia’s content empowers readers by simplifying common processes, providing templates, and providing ways to test performance against meaningful benchmarks. How can I do the same?
Make this the year you step out of the pack, ditch stale Supreme Court summaries, and elevate your content.
[View source.]
