How to make your law blog trashy and salesy

Nothing like a blog post titled ‘Why Law Firm Blogs Fail As Legal Marketing Tools‘ to get my juices going in the morning.

Jay Fleischman, who’s a pretty good guy and who I believe has had some success in blogging as a consumer bankruptcy lawyer, writes that despite spending a lot of time blogging, many lawyers don’t experience client and practice development success.

The answer per Jay, and this is how one caller this AM described it, is to make your blog trashy and and salesy so readers will know what you do and know that they should contact you now (I guess even if they don’t have a legal problem now).

1. Put a contact form on the upper-left hand corner of your blog, right below the header. 
2. Put your contact information in the header itself – phone, address, email, etc. 
3. Add a page to your blog and title it something along the lines of, ‘Work With Me,’ or, ‘Become My Client.’ 
4. At the end of each blog post, tell the reader what you’d like them to do next.  Maybe you want more subscribers to your RSS feed, or people to sign up for your mailing list.

Maybe this is the evolution of late night TV infomercials. Until we had 600 channels on cable and satellite TV, we didn’t get deluged with people hawking wares we don’t need by repeating their 1-800 phone number every 15 seconds.

Jay suggests his aren’t the only ideas, hopefully you can discover other ways to make your law blog more effective. How about neon green flashing adds that pop up after you’re on the blog for 15 seconds that you can get two bankruptcies for the price of one (for a friend or relative) if you schedule an appointment within 15 minutes. Maybe a secret code you use to stop by the law office to pickup your free refrigerator magnet or steak knives. The possibilities are endless.

Is it just me who looks at the law as a profession, not as a five and dime business where we use the same sales tactics as used car sales people. Is there anyone else who aspired as a young lawyer to become a lawyer’s lawyer? The lawyer everyone knew and could trust. The lawyer that business people, local towns’ people, and the judges all respected. The lawyer who never was hurting for legal work because of referrals and clients calling them direct. Amazing thing is that these guys never advertised. Never.

Most of my lawyering was done before there was an Internet, so excuse me if the world has passed me by on this one. But there some things I didn’t do pre-Internet that I’m getting the feeling Jay is telling lawyers to do with their blogs today.

• Not once did I think of telling a jury at the end of my closing that this trial was brought to you by the O’Keefe Law Firm located at 123 First Avenue, just dial 800 injured if something like we discussed for the last few days happens to you or a loved one.
• Never did I ask a treating doctor of one of my clients during a meeting if they would pass out my business cards to other patients of there’s who may have been hurt as a result of someone’s negligence.
• Never when appearing on a weekly call in radio show where I fielded legal questions did the host or I tell people what my phone number was, what specific area of the law I practiced, or where I was located.
• Not once while networking with preeminent trial lawyers at my state’s trial lawyers conferences or at ATLA did I feel compelled to shout out my phone number so lawyers could call me with referrals right then.
• Never sitting on local civic boards did I pass out a sheet to fellow board members telling them what I did or to call me after the meeting.
• Never when I answered thousands of consumer’s and small business people’s questions on AOL’s message boards in 1996 through 1998 did I feel a need to call people to action by asking that they contact me.

You know what, I still got legal work. And it was through people getting to know me, what I did, and my character through the above sorts of activities. Like all lawyers I worried about whether work would keep coming in. Still do. But I had a gut feel of what was tasteful and what was not and what was right and what was not.

If we want to talk sales, let’s go to widely recognized sales coach, author, and speaker, Zig Ziglar. One of his most powerful quotes rings true for lawyers and client development through the Internet, ‘You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help other people get what they want.’

Let that be your guiding rule when it comes to blogging and networking through the Internet. Help other people. Listen to them. Give of yourself. People remember and do business with the givers in this world, not the takers.

I’ve been working with lawyers and blogging for 6 years. We now have over 2,700 lawyers on our network. Their blogs are working for practice and client development success. Some have phone numbers and contact forms on each page of their blog. Most don’t.

LexBlog client services and project management will advise clients (sometimes even argue with clients) not to do as Jay suggests. Lisa Kennelly, our Editorial Manager, even asked me if Jay was actually advising lawyers to do the four things he suggests. Lisa knows as a previous reporter that people providing information, insight, and commentary without overtly marketing themselves are the ones viewed as trusted authorities.

Don’t worry about people finding you when they need a lawyer who does what you do. They’ll Google their name. They’re Google your locale and practice area. They’ll click a tastefully done ‘About page’ or ‘Contact Page’ on your blog. Some of your readers will share your name with friends, co-empolyees, and business associates who are looking for a lawyer.

Just because you are blogging and not experiencing client development success does not mean you have not yelled ‘call me now’ loud enough. It may mean that you don’t understand that networking through the Internet, with your blog at the center of your efforts, is about listening to others, engaging in discussions with your target audience, and giving of yourself.